Chapter Two: Bungle in the Jungle

Amazon Basin, Bolivia, 1975

I: Eddie

One place Eddie couldn't stand was the fucking jungle, and this goddamn decade, the only place they ever sent you was to another goddamn jungle.

Too many ways to die in a goddamn jungle, and none of them were good.

The animals who had to live there, they never seemed to happy about it, either; most of them darted around like they hated it, too.

The birds called to each other, and monkeys screamed in the treetops, and you could hear the clicking of millions of spiders spinning their webs.

It was hot, and humid, unbelievably so, and the air was so thick you could have cut holes in it, big insulting holes through which all the noise of the jungle roared in.

But it wasn't the noise that bothered him; at least the noise kept him awake.

It was the sun, the hot, burning sun that looked and felt like it was right the fuck on top of him, that cruel bastard of a midday sun that seemed every day to hang in the sky longer before night finally came.

What he had to do was try to think.

If he could keep his mind working, he could keep his eyes open, until it was dark, and cooler, and safe to sleep.

Maybe it would rain, again, tonight.

The rain brought those fucking mosquitoes out in full force, but it had saved his life, the rainwater he'd managed to swallow, and the way it had soothed and cooled his burning skin.

His wrists and his ankles were starting to get real bad, but maybe that would work to his advantage.

Maybe one of these hungry little animals would smell the blood on the ropes and chew through them.

Or maybe they'd just stick to their original plan, and wait till he was dead, so it could be dinnertime.

If I went in with a team of my own, like with Jimmy and Steve, I would know that one of them was coming for me.

If I could stop being a whaddyacallit, what my daughter calls me, a male chauvinist pig, and I brought my partner, I'd know she was coming for me.

If I went in alone, nobody would have got the drop on me.

It was a fucking stupid idea, this bullshit training idea, and I should have known better, I did know better, what the fuck was I thinking?

Hindsight is always 20-20.

Bullshit.

More like Dick Nixon is always full of shit.

But I wuz just following orders.

Bullshit, that was what the Nazis said.

He heard a little movement in the bush, and then Machado showed up, all cowboy hat and mirrored Aviator shades.

"Not dead yet, eh, hombre? You know, nobody I ever done this too has lived so long."

"Then how about lettin' me have a last request? Even I gotta die, sometime."

Machado laughed.

"You want what?"

"How about a woman? She's have to be blind. Or have a real strong fuckin' stomach, at this point, but, maybe I'd rather come an' go than just go."

Machado laughed even harder.

"What, give you a woman? I know all about you and women, hombre. You could turn a nun into a putana. Even half dead, you'd do whatever it is you do to women, and she'd set you free. Then you'd come and kill us all."

"How am I gonna do that, now? I'm on my ass, here, only thing I think I could get up is my dick, and that's just because it's pretty sure we're on the last dance. Look, I'll be straight with youse. You got me. But, if you give me a chance, I'll give youse a chance. You cut me loose, gimme a piar of pants an' a shirt an' some shoes, I'll find my truck and drive my ass outa here, because I'm in no shape ta fight. Now, by the time I get in good shape to fight, that's maybe a coupla weeks. Plenty of time for alla youse to get the fuck outa here. Now, maybe I find youse, and maybe I don't. Maybe so many people are tryin' ta kill me right now today in New York, I ain't gotta lotta time to worry about who tried to kill me last month."

"That's not much of a chance, hombre."

"It's more than you'd be givin' me. C'mon, Machado. This is a one time offer. You walk away, the deal's off."

"Why do I need to make a deal with you?"

"Because if I get outa here in my own, I'll cut your spic head off with a piece of piano wire and shit down your fucking neck. And if I'm dead, you'll have my partner to deal with. And she's crazier than I am. She'll take you alive, bring you someplace she can kill youse nice and slow. She'll kill your mother, and your sister, and your fuckin' dog, and the first girl you ever fucked. If I was you, I'd let me go."

"Don't use up so much of your energy, hombre. You're going to need it."

Machado went down over the hill.

Eddie started thinking, again.

There had to be some way out of this shit Dick Nixon dropped his ass into.

"No, no, Eddie lad, you can't sit this all on Tricky Dick's doorstep, or even that fucking Dan Mitrione and his fucking School of the Americas."

Eddie knew that voice anywhere, smart-ass Brooklyn with a touch of Irish brogue, a deep, nasty chuckle of a voice.

It's Pop.

Eddie opened his good eye.

"Pop? It can't be you, you're dead. I killed youse, myself. I'm seein' things."

Pop laughed.

I'm seein' things.

I'm seein' Pop, in one of his five hundred dollar gangster suits, pinstripes, spats and all, with his fedora on cockeyed like George Raft and Jimmy Cagney.

"Did you now, Eddie, lad? I think you had help from your sister. As for the rest, maybe you are, Eddie, and maybe you ain't. Maybe you're seein' me come to take you to the other side for a loooooong fuckin' spell in Purgatory. Or maybe I'm just a figment of your imagination. But you better fuckin' listen to me, Eddie, lad, because you are royally fucked."

"Yeah, Pop. I know that. But look, the fucker uses Nazis, there's no such thing as ex-Nazis, to train his recruits, and then he wonders why the ops he involves them in go wrong. Oh, I don't know, gee, I fucking wonder! Maybe it's because they're Nazis!"

"No point getting angry about it now, Eddie lad, you've got to work your way out of this one. And don't say you've been in worse trouble; this is about the worst trouble you've ever been in. And it's not bastard likely to get better. Pretty soon they're going to start wondering why it's taking you so fucking long to die and just kill you. So you had fucking well better find a way out of this."

"But there is no fucking way out of this, Pop, fa Chrissakes! If there was a fucking way out of this, I would have figured it out a week ago when they first staked me out here! I was a helluva lot healthier, then. Shit, I should have brought my partner."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't like the setup. I figured it would make a lousy first mission for her, too fucking dangerous."

"Well, you was right about that, huh, Eddie lad? If you didn't like the setup, why the fuck didn't you tell Dick to shove it?

"I don't fuckin' know! Leave me alone, willya? Is it just me, or is the sun hotter today? Probably just me."

Eddie closed his eye and opened it, again.

"Pop?"

"Snap out of it, Eddie lad! If you close your eyes before that sun goes down, you won't be opening them again! Now, about your partner? She is a witch, you know."

"Yeah. So fuckin' what?"

"Don't be a fuckin' moron, boy! Try to send her a message with your mind. Witches pick up on that kind of crazy bastard shit."

"What? Bullshit!"

Fuck you…

"Eddie! EDDIE, WAKE THE FUCK UP, LAD!"

!

"Okay, I'll try it. What the fuck have I got to lose?"

"That's the way, Eddie. Fight the bastards with everything you've got!"

"Hey, Pop, ya think youse can stay here with me until the sun goes down, or do they need youse for somethin' in Hell?"

"Oh, they need me to stoke the fire under the kettles of all the sons of bitches you've sent to be in my care. But I think I can manage a few hours away."

"Thanks, Pop."

"That bastard sun is hot today, fucking hot, isn't it, Eddie lad? It's hot as this in Hell, it is. I wish I could block the bastard thing for you, boy. Because it's fucking hot."

"It sure as fuck is, Pop."

Sure as fuck is.

II: Liv

I slept a long time, I didn't wake up until the middle of the next day.

I was feeling a lot better.

After all, it wasn't like I got badly hurt, but something, something was bothering me, something I couldn't put my finger on.

Now I always had a little bit of what Charlie Xavier calls psi ability; it runs in the family.

I'm no Jean Grey, but I do have something, I mean, I am a witch, right?

Enough to know that when I get a feeling about something, or when I had some kind of premonition, that it wasn't something to just ignore.

The feeling started as, a little tickle at the edge of my crowded, brawling, fractured consciousness.

By the time it was two days after I was hurt, and I was back at the Hideaway, it had muscled its way in further, becoming the thing on my mind that was just under the whizzing current of my thoughts.

Like having a sty in the old third eye.

You know what they say.

A witch isn't like other people; she has a third eye that's open all the time, it never sleeps, and it can see the whole of the universe, the way it really lies.

That's how a witch can see fate.

They say you can't change fate but you can bend it, I say, bullshit, there is no fate but the fate you make.

I tried to ignore it; I told myself I was just jumpy after what had happened.

Was it premonition?

Was it paranoia?

I was hoping it was paranoia, I was praying to God.

So, on my first day back home, an uneasy day, I got kinda tired of bumming around the house all day long chain-smoking, with that uncertain feeling of paranoia and vague nameless dread hanging over me.

So I tried to do something to take my mind off it.

I got on the old Triumph T-Bird and rode around the city for awhile.

I ended up in this bar on the Lower East Side near Mason's where I really used to get ripped, and I had a beer or two, and knocked some guy on his ass, and then I drove uptown, and as I was going down Fifth Avenue, I looked up and I could see lights on in Tony's office in the Stark Tower.

I decided a bit of light mayhem might lighten my mood.

I rode the bike in through the doors and into the elevator, and used my code to take me right into his office.

It was a short trip up to the penthouse, and Tony sent my bike down in the elevator and asked the doorman to park it, and then me and him had a couple of double Scotches, and went to bed.

But, even then, I was still antsy.

I apologised to him for not staying the night, but I was feeling really weird and I figured if I went home and slept in my own bed, that might do the trick.

He was real understanding.

Tony, he's a real fucking dick, he really is, but it doesn't matter because he's a good friend, the man is good as gold, he's fuckin' golden.

But going home, it did the fucking trick, alright.

I woke up the next morning with a horrific vision of jungle hell drifting through my dreams in front of that third eye, with a certainty of thudding dread, a horrible headache that felt like Great Thor was inside my head, yanking on the tendons behind my eyes and beating on my brains with his hammer.

There was also blood streaming out of my nose, going all over the sheets.

I never had anybody talk to me in my mind, before.

Charlie Xavier has tried to poke around in there, and so has Jean, but what psi shit I got, I can use to keep other people out.

For their own good.

Parts of my mind are not a very nice place to be.

Even I keep them under lock and key.

But I woke up that morning hearing Eddie screaming in my ears as surely as if I had slept through something important and he was right there in the room with me, trying to get my ass out of bed.

"HEY, LIV! LIV! FUCK, I DUNNO IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, KID, BUT IF YOU CAN, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE, RIGHT GODDAMN NOW! YOUR OLD MAN IS IN A FUCKIN' SHITLOAD OF TROUBLE! COMIN' HOME IN A BOX KINDA TROUBLE! I MEAN GET THE DOC TO ZAP YOUSE HERE, RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW!"

Eddie.

Very bad things were happening to Eddie.

I jumped out of bed and I was awake and alert in a flash, getting suited up and packing, putting on the combat version of my costume, loading up my knapsack for jungle warfare, the whole nine yards.

First Sergeant Trivelino J. Napier, USMC, Special Forces, your country needs you.

Right fuckin' now.

I had Jon zap me to the lab, early.

You know, Dr. Manhattan is not beyond amusement.

He had a bemused look on his face when I interrupted his and Laurie's breakfast, dressed for jungle warfare and armed to the teeth.

"Are we going back to Vietnam? I thought that was long over. And shouldn't you still be taking time off?" he asked me.

"What the fuck?" Laurie wanted to know.

"I'm fire. If I ain't, I'm good enough. Jon, I need to you send me to wherever Eddie is. I take it you know. And I know things have gone bad."

"I see. Exactly, or the general vicinity."

"General vicinity. I may need the element of surprise."

Jon raised an eyebrow.

Kind of like Mr. Spock.

"And you know this because?"

"Because I woke up this morning with a terrible headache, a nosebleed, and Eddie on the emergency frequency in my brains with me, telling me to get my ass to Bolivia, pronto."

Jon nodded.

"I see. You know, now that you mention it…that's very possible. People with moderate psi ability have been known to develop low grade telepathic links with close friends. Family members. Latent links that are only manifest in times of extremes. And the nosebleed and the headache present some interesting evidence."

One thing about Jon, with his perception if time, he has no longer any concept of what it is to be IN A FUCKING HURRY.

"That's great. I'll get an EKG when I come back, and you and Charlie Xavier and I can study it, but right now, I NEED TO GO!"

"Oh. Right. Sorry. If you find yourself in over your head, get to the Comedian's vehicle, and radio for help at frequency 91.9."

"Jon, are you just going to let her go alone? It hasn't been a week since she got thrown out of a window! " Laurie sputtered.

"Does she look like somebody who's willing to wait for me to get a team together? And how much trouble could Blake really be in? He's the Comedian. Trust me, Laurie. Liv can handle a simple jungle mission." Jon explained.

Simple jungle mission.

Gee fuckin' whiz, Jon, thanks for taking a peeky-poo into the circular motion of time and seeiong what was really going on.

But that's the way everybody feels, not just Jon.

He's the Comedian, he's fucking close to invulnerable.

Anyway, I'm sure Jon explained himself fully to Laurie, probably about how in missions like this, the bigger the team you sent in, the worse the fuckup, but I wasn't there to hear it.

In a flash of blue light and a rush of wind, I was no longer in Dr. Manhattan's apartment, I was in the jungle at twilight.

It was disorientating, and I crouched for a few moments, in the brush, getting my bearings.

Now, as you know, my natural habitat is the concrete jungle, so I was a little of what you might call out of my element.

Still, in the course of the long, strange trip that's been my mask career, I'm no stranger to jungle warfare, although the last time I was in jungle Hell was with a team.

Now, I was out here on my own.

But, then again, that might be better.

It'll keep me sharp.

Before my big, jumped-up brain could start churning out ways that everything could go wrong, I switched myself over to following procedure and going on instinct, and hoped I could keep that interior Mr. Spock at bay until I had found Eddie and we were out of danger.

One thing I learned from Logan is that every animal should make use of its senses.

He taught me all about survival in the wild, about living and fighting and surviving in the woods or in the bush.

He taught me how to track, too, and let me tell you, tracking is one of the things that Tiggers do best.

It's real meticulous; it goes well with my personality.

I sniffed at the air, rolled the dirt between my fingertips, tasted and sniffed it and let my ears pick up the sounds around me.

It made me feel more familiar with my surroundings.

Then, I started looking for tracks.

That took the longest time.

It took me about three hours to find the tire tracks of Eddie's Ford M151 military truck. Worse, it was an old trail, two or three days old, that was hard to follow and took me deep into the brush.

I've done all the work on every vehicle Eddie ever drives, and I know that damn truck from tires to paint job; I'm the one who keeps it on the road.

It's a mean machine, now, but you should have seen the shape it was in before I did some mods on it.

Now, Eddie's a wheel man and he always has been.

My father taught me how to drive by the time I was seven years old, with blocks on my feet, but I only had to do it once before I started tooling around illegally, when I was 13.

Mick the Merciless, though, he was grooming his favourite son Eddie to take over the family business, and he figured he had to show the kid the ropes from a young age.

He had Eddie driving him around town from about the same age, but he was tall enough he didn't need the blocks.

Eddie grew up behind the wheel of a car.

By the time he was 11 years old, he was outrunning the cops and gangsters alike on the streets of New York in his father's V-8 Ford while Mick was leaning out the windows, shooting.

He got out of construction right after his father died and became a local truck driver, a profession he didn't give up until he'd been the Comedian for a year.

A year in which he got close to Sally Jupiter pretending he needed somebody to teach him how to drive.

Goddamn Eddie, what a sunnuvabitch.

In the war, he drove every kind of vehicle the US Army made, including the Invaders specially modified Sherman tank, which he still drives down 5th Avenue every year in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

My point is, a wheel man like Eddie doesn't abandon his personal vehicle in the brush to the elements, unless something is wrong, any more than a cavalryman would leave his horse tied to a barbed-wire fence with no food or water and a split hoof.

And something was wrong, there was an Herba Mate cigar in the ashtray, burnt down to ashes without ever having been smoked.

Wasting a good Cuban cigar is something else Eddie would never do.

Not only that, all of his gear was still in the back; he had abandoned it in a hurry.

Once I got in the driver's seat, I realised the seat was way too far up for Eddie to have been the last person to drive it.

Eddie and I get into fights when we go somewhere in my car and I want to drive; I only get to drive the M151 on rare occasions because I work on it.

He would never have let a stranger drive it.

Worse, the keys were in the ignition.

The only good news was it started right up.

I followed the trail slowly, in reverse, driving the car carefully over it's old tracks once again, just in case someone was tracking me.

The recent rain made it hard for me to follow the trail, but I found a marker along the way that turned my blood to ice water in my veins.

Slowly following the truck's original track, I saw a piece of blue-coloured steel sticking up out of the ground, and about half a white star.

I stopped the truck, and got out.

It was Eddie's whole costume, buried in a shallow hole in the ground.

Guns, boots, everything.

Buried in a shallow hole so that the rain would eventually wash the dirt away, so that somebody would find it, and infer the only reasonable thing.

The Comedian was dead.

And just because whatever message he was trying to hammer into your brain didn't come through until today, that doesn't mean today was the day he sent it.

Maybe it just came through.

Maybe you're too late.

But I couldn't think about shit like that, because I had a job to do.

After I secured Eddie's costume and obliterated my tracks, I continued to do it.

Following the tire tracks, I came to a kind of compound.

I hid the truck in the brush, and made my way closer, to the perimeter, commando-style, on my belly, and took in the layout.

When I got a load of it, I started to relax just a little and think that, if he was still alive, I might have a good shot at saving Eddie's ass.

The place was a dump, obviously not a bona fide military or paramilitary installation.

Three rusty buildings made mainly of corrugated iron, in a makeshift compound barely eked out of the Bolivian jungle bounded by chain link fence all around, with barbed wire on top.

But, appearances can be deceiving.

Somebody in this dump had got the drop on the Comedian.

I cut a small hole in the chain link fence with my adamantium machete, small enough for little old me to slither through, and followed the sound of voices and the smell of men, sweat, and cheap liquor to the smallest of the three buildings.

I wasn't dumb enough to look through the window; I peered through the cracks in the joints of the shoddy corrugated iron walls of the hastily and poorly erected building.

It looked like a bad Dennis Hopper movie in there.

Five guys.

Two Bolivians, three Americans, heavily armed, all in sweaty fatigue-pants and stained OD or brown undershirts, wearing bandannas, hats, shades, or all three.

I don't know their names; I never got an opportunity to learn them.

I gave them names based on what they looked like and how they acted.

The Americans were Fat Moustache, Crew-Cut Douchebag, and Nervous Norvus.

The Bolivians were Teeth and Gunbelts, and his boss, Cowboy Hat.

They were playing cards and drinking eye-watering rotgut cheap tequila that was giving me a headache just from the stink of it, and drunkenly braying at each other in a conglomeration of Spanish and English.

On the table along with a shitload of money was a mountain of Bolivian marching power, and a stack of bricks of grass.

They were smoking so much weed that I was getting a buzz on.

Besides English, I can speak Spanish and Russian; I learned Russian from Paulie and Ivan, and Spanish from the street, so I knew what they were saying.

Without quoting you the whole drunken conversation, I'll give you the important points.

The Americans had been sent in as trainees by the USMC Special Forces, to assist the Comedian in his mission, which was to blow up the compound, as the smallest building was a weapons, ammo and explosives cache and the larger building was a refining factory for coca leaves.

Definitely a bad Dennis Hopper flick.

Maybe with old Ernie Borgnine in a supporting role.

Anyway, these few proud Marines were apparently more interested in coke and cash than in their country, or at least, their orders, so they did their yes sir, no sir, bit for Eddie until they got to the site, and then alerted the Cowboy Hat and the local yokels.

He didn't go down easy.

It took thirty men to subdue him, and ten of them were resting in pieces in shallow, unmarked graves in the jungle, five of whom had been his Marine trainees.

Now, we join the important part of the conversation, already in progress.

"I can't believe the old pendejo is still alive. Tomorrow morning will make it seven days he's been staked out in jungle." Said Teeth and Glasses.

Seven days.

Seven fucking days?

Well, at least I knew he was still alive.

"I know it. He's a tough old bastard. The toughest there is. Did you see the way he took those guys out? We've buried how many in the last week? Five more? Hell, we still got 10 guys lyin' on their asses. And I'll bet a pile of them ain't gonna make it. It's a shame he wouldn't look the other fuckin' way." Says Fat Moustache.

"I know. The whole mission, all he did was bitch about how it was a pain in the ass, and they could have sent some cherry to do it, and about fat, greasy, corrupt politicians with their hands out and theie big ideas. But, he still wouldn't go with us. And he's not dead." Nervous Norvus gulped.

"He won't make it till morning." Teeth and Glasses pronounced.

"That's what you said last night. And the night before. And the night before. Look, guys, I don't know about this. I mean, we're talking about a guy who's as well known as Superman. I mean, he and Dr. Manhattan pretty much won 'Nam, an' he fought the fuckin' Nazis with Captain America. I mean, this isn't a guy we can just make disappear and nobody will notice. What are we going to do when it rains, and it washes the dirt away and they find his costume?" Nervous Norvus asked.

"Shut up. When somebody finds it, we'll all be gone. With a whole lot of fucking cash. And they'll never find him. The animals will eat him." Crew Cut Douchebag said.

"I dunno. Maybe we should have just shot him and buried him." Fat Moustache added

"We want to make it look like it was locals, dumb-ass!" Crew Cut Douchebag snaps.

"At sunset, I went to check on him. He's alive enough to call me a fucking spic and promise me he'll cut my fucking head off." Cowboy Hat said.

"That stupid old gringo! Tomorrow, I'll cut of his fucking head, if he isn't dead, already. And even if he is, I'll do it, anyway, Jefe!" Teeth and Glasses brayed.

"Shut up. We'll watch him, and let nature take it's course. That'll make it look right. Everybody fucking dies. Even that mean old son of a bitch. He has to fucking die sometime." Crew Cut Douchebag decided.

Well, if I was sitting at home munching and crunching my merry way through a bag of Doritos and a couple cans of Coke and maybe a beer, watching this movie, I'd be laughing my ass off and turning up the volume, but it's not so funny and corny when it's real.

Now, I had a strategic decision to make.

It would have been a piece of cake to just start shooting up their little shack with the chopper, and make all the fuckers dead.

But, if they got a chance to get their hands on their guns, if even one of them survived long enough to wound me, then I'd have my own dragging ass to worry about while I was trying to save Eddie's, and I was already not quite at a hundred percent from my defenestration.

See?

There's that word I taught you, again.

When you do cowboy shit like that during an operation, something can always go wrong.

Something Logan taught me.

Going berserk is your last resort, not your first, best option.

So, I decided to give those fuckers a few more days to eat, breathe, sleep, smoke weed, get drunk, jack off, and do coke, and went off to find Eddie.

Cowboy Hat said, "up the hill", so I kept looking around the perimeter, looking for an incline or footprints, some kind of trail.

It had rained, recently, and I was trying to follow a seven-days cold trail in the dark, with a flashlight, but even if Eddie made it to morning, I knew we would need the cover of the night to get away.

So why don't I use my magic powers as a witch to bend fate?

Grow up, fucko.

Neither magic or science works that way, that's why people who practise black magic always end up in deep shit.

Finally, when I was about five hundred yards from the biggest building, the coke factory, I began to see the ground slope upward, and the faint hint of drag marks in the mud.

They were old, and faint, but as I followed them, looking closer to where the thick canopy of the trees may have protected the tracks from being washed away by the recent rain that had muddied everything up, I found some better tracks.

The drag marks were punctuated with a few full footprints, some of which were made by Eddie's boots.

They have a smile face cut into the treads.

I followed the trail uphill, and lost it in some tall grass, which I slogged through, continuing to go up. Then, across some muddy, swampy ground I picked up some fresh tracks, a lot of fresh tracks, which I figured were from Cowboy Hat or Crew Cut Douchebag, who seemed to be in charge, coming up to see if Eddie was dead yet.

That led me to a rocky path where I found some cigarette butts, and I could see stubborn spatters and splashes of old, dried, brown blood on the rocks that the rain had not washed away.

I followed the clear trail of Eddie's captors to the top of a small hill, upon which sat a couple of very big trees.

They had him staked out between them.

Would you believe me if I told you it broke my heart to see what they had done to him?

Because it did.

I swear to God, it really fucking did.

It was really hard for me not to go berserk.

Eddie's arms were stretched out behind his head as far as they could go and tied together at the wrists with a rope, which was tied to the one tree, and his legs were tied together at the ankles and tied to the other.

They had stripped him down to his shorts, and suspended his body about six inches off the ground.

Now remember, he had been there like that for seven days.

Seven fucking days.

For a moment, I couldn't make myself get any closer, because if he was dead, I didn't want to know.

But I remembered the promise I made in 1968, when I woke up in a hospital bed and found out that the donor for the blood transfusion that saved my life was Eddie Blake.

You already know the oath I made to Logan.

This is the oath I made to Eddie.

Where you have been, I have been. What you have done, I have done. What you must do, I must do. And where you go, I will follow.

I said a little prayer, hoping that somebody out there would still listen to the likes of me.

I said a little prayer and thought of Ma.

Please Ma, please, don't let Eddie be dead.

He's not the love of my life, he is my life.

I wiped the tears from my eyes, took a deep breath, and squared my shoulders.

I decided that if Eddie was dead, the rulebook was going out the window, and I was going to go back down to that encampment and kill every living thing I found in it in all the special ways we Napiers do when we get very, very upset with someone.

And I was going to keep killing until everybody on God's Green Earth who had anything to do with Eddie dying was dead, dead, dead, harder than he had died.

Once I was standing in the blood of the killers, and their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and husbands and wives and friends and lovers and their dogs, their cats, their rats, every insect in their houses, standing in it up to my ankles, then I would burn everything they had and everything they knew to ashes.

Yes, and sew the ground with salt.

And then justice would be done, my oath would be satisfied.

That made me feel just a tiny bit better, and I forced myself to walk over to Eddie.

The good news was that I could see his chest rising and falling so I knew he was still alive.

That was the end of the good news.

It was pretty goddamn bad.

Let me amend that.

It was unbelievably fucking bad.

If somebody had done this to Logan, it would still have been unbelievably fucking bad.

Yeah, it was that bad.

And Eddie, he was barely conscious; he didn't even know I was there.

You wouldn't want to see a complete fucking stranger in a movie in this kind of shape, let alone your partner, your old man, a guy you've known all your life, hurt that bad.

Knowing that you and you alone were the only thing between him and rapidly approaching death.

For one thing, he had taken a serious goddamn beating before they even tied him out.

It looked to me like some of his ribs were cracked, and it was a good bet his right arm was dislocated at the shoulder. He had some other bruises and some minor scratches, but there was this big, deep jagged slice across his calf that was infected like a motherfucker.

On top of all that, his whole body was sunburnt fucking raw, and the mosquitoes had been after him something fierce.

And that's without talking about his face.

I mean, if you didn't know him, to look at his face you wouldn't have recognised him.

One of his eyes was black and blue and swollen shut, and the other was closed, and his face and his lips were all blistered from the sun.

I wanted to cry like a fucking baby.

Hell I had tears coming out of my eyes, because I was afraid Eddie would die before I could get him to safety, but I didn't have time to get weepy.

I started cutting him down right away.

You know, he actually tried to stand up?

He was way the fuck out of it, cursing and screaming to no one in particular; and when I cut him down he tried to get up and fight me, but he ended up falling down, again.

"It's me, Eddie. It's Liv. Quit that shit, we gotta get outa here." I told him.

He looks at me like he doesn't know who he is, let alone who I am, but then he figures it out.

Tries to smile.

Holy shit, it's Niagara Falls.

I'm cryin' so bad my eyes are clouding up and I have to wipe them.

"Holy shit! It worked."

"Yeah, it did. C'mon, we gotta get you the fuck outa here."

Eddie managed to get on his feet again, with me helping him, and he popped his right arm back into place slamming it against one of the trees, letting out a roar of pain which I hoped nobody heard.

That was pretty much all he had the energy to do, because he was on the ground again right after that.

Now, I'd say Eddie goes about six-three, maybe six-four and I'll bet he weighs about two-forty. I'm a lot stronger than you might think I would be, but half-carrying, and half-dragging 240 pounds of dead weight twice your size down an uneven slope is not easy.

Especially not four days after you've been defenestrated.

Then, when we got halfway down, Eddie ran out of jam.

He just fell right the fuck down and took me with him, and I felt a real bad pain in my leg like somebody shot me in it the way he landed on me.

Kind of matched the pain that was growing in my bad arm.

I was afraid he was dead, but he wasn't, just out cold.

I can lift about 125 in dead weight and press it, tops.

So don't ask me how I managed to heave two-forty out of the tall grass, and load it across my shoulders and make it down the hill.

I can tell you it hurt like a motherfucker, but you'd be surprised what the human body can do in situations of extreme duress.

When I got to the bottom of the hill and we were on the level, I got him under the arms and dragged Eddie along where the old drag marks were, careful not to make any new footprints or drag marks, and it wasn't hard getting him to the fence.

All those assholes were passed out in their shack by the time I was moving out with Eddie.

The only thing was, I had to make the hole in the fence bigger to get Eddie through it, and then it was a short drag to the truck.

I knew I needed to wake him up and patch him up, but we urgently needed to get the fuck out of there before the badguys woke up, so I put him in the back and got in the driver's seat and prepared to make tracks.

My right arm and my back hurt so bad they were burning like I had army ants in my clothes stinging the shit out of me, and as for my left arm, it was hanging at a funny angle and it was numb and tingly when it wasn't hurting unbelievably bad. I was limping on one leg for most of the last part of the walk, but I was so keyed up I just put it right the fuck out of my mind.

I just floored the son of a bitch and tore through the jungle until I had put a good twenty or thirty miles of zigging and zagging between us and them, then , when I got to a dirt path that had a long row of Jeep tracks on it, I stopped and went to check on Eddie.

He was in a really bad way.

The truck was still loaded with supplies, so I had rations, water, blankets and first aid supplies, plus my own kit that I had brought.

The smell of water woke him up; he was really thirsty but I wouldn't let him just guzzle the water down; I knew that would make him sick.

I cleaned and bandaged the bad, deep rope burns on his wrists and ankles, and I cleaned out the cut on his leg and put a couple stitches in it just to keep it closed.

He screamed something awful when I bound up his ribs, yelling and cursing.

I had some hydrocortisone for the bug bites, which I mixed up with one of Ma's special herbal concoctions.

Then I covered him up with one of the blankets, because he was shivering, probably from shock.

The water, and the pain brought him around a little bit, and he started talking to me a little, which probably gave me more hope than it should have.

"Fuck, that hurt. I think the sons of bitches musta caved in every rib on that side. Gimme two of those quinine tablets, kid. An' somethin' ta eat."

I looked for something that was easily digestible for somebody who hadn't eaten for a week.

I came up with a roll from the MRE that I opened up and wolfed down to give myself strength to go on. I took a little of the gravy or whatever it was the meat was in and poured it into Eddie's bowl with some water. Then I tore half the roll up in little pieces and soaked them in the meat and water broth.

He couldn't keep the spoon in his hand, so I helped him eat and take the quinine tables, and then I let him have a little more water.

"Thanks, kid." Eddie says.

Meanwhile I still have tears in my eyes.

It's nowhere near Christmas, or Easter, but when I get home, I'm goin' to church an' light a candle, I really am.

"I'm gonna get you out of this, Eddie, and when you're better, we're going to come back and show these cocksuckers how we do things in East New York." I promised him.

"Your arm's out, kid. Lemme see it."

Eddie grabs my wrist a certain way, and puts his other hand on my shoulder a ceratin way, and pops my left arm back into place.

Yeah, it hurt.

But, can you believe, the shape he was in, he could still do it.

"Thanks, Eddie."

"Yeah. C'mon, kid, get me outa here."

"Sure, boss."

Eddie was on his way off to Never-Never Land again, although, this time I think he was more falling asleep than passing out.

I put my knapsack under his head for a pillow and put the blanket over him, again.

With Eddie taken care of as best I could, I got on the road and I started in on the radio.

I was driving about a half of an hour before I got anything.

"Colonel Blake? This is Director Fury. What the hell is going on out there! Over."

"Director Fury, this is First Sergeant Napier. I was told by Dr. Manhattan to hail you at this frequency. Everything is FUBAR, and the Comedian has been seriously injured. Over."

A moment of radio silence, a muttered curse.

"I copy, First Sergeant. Please stay in radio contact while we pinpoint your location. Can he talk? Over."

"Not much. He's in and out. Mostly out, at this point, Mr. Director. Over."

"Jesus Christ! I told that goddamn School of the Americas asshole that I didn't trust those grunts as far as I could pick 'em up and fucking throw them! I want you to take the road you're on for another one hundred miles. You will see a sign that says "Roadside Inn" in Spanish. Turn off, and drive five miles through the brush. You'll come to another road, you take that until you come to a big steel gate. I will meet you personally, at that gate. Over and out."

I stopped every twenty miles or so to check on Eddie, and make sure I gave him a little more water.

When I got to the big black steel gates, they opened like the red sea, and a whole fucking medical team came running out, with Nick Fury at the head, barking orders.

They got Eddie out of the back and put him on a stretcher, and immediately made with IV's and an oxygen mask and all kinds of tubes and bullshit that I knew would have driven him crazy if he wasn't so out of it, because Eddie hates doctors.

Which is just as well, because he never gets sick.

I wanted to go with him, on the off chance he might come to, and get violent, because he'd still be out of it, but Director Fury wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Nick took me to his office on the base, and I told him what I knew, and also of my intention, to go back there with Eddie, once he was recovered, and show these cocksuckers the meaning of the word pain.

Well, I didn't say it that calmly or coherently.

I ranted, I raved, I beat the desk and foamed at the mouth.

Literally.

I believe I actually used the term "bring down some of the ol' Helter Skelter on their fucking heads."

Logan isn't the only one who gets in an action situation and goes apeshit bugfuck batshit berserk.

And I had been holding berserk in for so long, I couldn't help it.

Yeah, I completely lost my shit.

Anyway, I come down from a particularly virulent rage, and realise that my clothes are covered in dirt, and Eddie's blood, and my blood is running down my face, because at some point I have taken out my Buck knife and carved a smile face into my own fucking forehead.

I have no fucking idea as to why.

I have buried said knife about three inches into Nick Fury's desk, or, at least the desk he was sitting behind, but is now sitting much closer to the wall.

The knife is still quivering in the wood, and my heart is beating so fast I can see it, and now my lungs are burning as badly as my back and legs.

Also, my bad arm, which is now pretty much my arm that is so bad I want to pull the knife out of the desk and saw it off to get away from the pain in it.

You wanna talk about pain?

"And you know what the best part is, Nick? Only four days ago, some fucker tossed me out a window, and I'm not really over that, yet." I said.

Nick pulls his chair back to the desk, and takes a bottle out of the drawer.

Glenfidditch.

Nice.

He pours me a whole water glass of Scotch, and hands me a wad of Kleenexes.

I sit down, wipe up my forehead, and drink the Scotch, probably faster than I should have.

Just then, the last of the adrenaline leaves my system, and my sore arms and my burning back, and my aching leg, and my injuries from earlier in the week all give out on me at once and I crash down into the chair.

"Jesus, Nick, I think I need a fucking doctor, too." I say.

"We'll get you one. Well done, soldier."

"Can I be in the same room as Eddie?"

"Of course."

Washington, DC, 1975. Dr. Manhattan's Apartment

II: Laurie

Laurie was asleep when the telephone rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Finally, she got out of bed and answered it.

"You know what, fucko? I work nights. This had better be good." She snarled.

"It sure is, cupcake. This is your mother. The fuckin' sonsabitches! They got the drop on Eddie. In Bolivia. Liv's been hurt, too. "

Laurie's back hit the wall, and she slid all the way down it until her ass hit the floor.

She couldn't figure out why the hell she was so upset.

Except, she knew exactly why she was so upset.

Laurie's feelings about Eddie Blake were even more complicated than her mother's.

Larry never gave a shit about her; and Hooded Justice, he never showed his face.

Sally had a whole bunch of boyfriends after she divorced Larry, probably before she divorced Larry, but there was only one who was around with anything like regularity.

Eddie.

In that moment, she thought not about the trophy room, and President Kennedy, and the Vietnamese woman, but about how Eddie gave her a car and taught her to drive.

How he taught her to cook.

Took her to the drive-in once a week.

And way back to when she was little, before he got back together with her Ma, when she complained to him and Edie that Larry never took her anywhere, he started taking her to Prospect Park, and the zoo, and all of that.

She thought about when she was 16, and she told her mother she was going to quit school and move in with Jon.

An idea Jon was as horrified by as her mother was, but the same day she made that announcement, Sally brought Eddie into it, and they both told her she wasn't doing it.

She'd mouthed off to both of them, and asked Eddie what business it was of his, anyway, what she did.

Laurie often remembered what he'd said.

You wanna know what gives me the right? Listen, kid, you and me, we both know goddamn well what gives me the motherfuckin' right! You looked in a mirror, lately? You see anybody who looks like Rolf Mueller, all blond and blue-eyed and German and shit like that, do ya? We both know why you're so fuckin' mad at me, and it doesn't have shit to do with somethin' that happened with me an' your Ma a long time ago!

Laurie looked in the mirror every day, and she never saw anybody who looked like Rolf Mueller.

"Jesus, Ma, what do you mean, the drop? What fucking drop? They can't…he can't…"

She couldn't say it.

"Die, Laurie? Shit, everybody dies."

"Well, is Eddie going to?"

"They don't know yet, honey. The doctors think he's going to be alright, but he's in a real bad way. They beat him up, a whole bunch of them, maybe twenty guys attacked him at once, and tied him between two trees in the middle of the fucking jungle, a foot off the ground, and they left him there to die. He was there seven days, and Liv rescued him. She got banged up a little, doing it, but she'll be fine. The upshot is, Edie and I are both in New York, and we want to be where Eddie is. You get Jon, and tell him that."

"Okay Ma. Wait a little bit."

Laurie got off the phone, and went down to the lab, to talk to Jon.

"Are you going, too?" he asked.

"Me? Why should I?" Laurie immediately snapped.

"Laurie, can I point something out to you, and will you listen to me, before you get angry?"

"Go ahead."

"You cook like the Comedian, because when you were a little girl, he taught you how to cook. You like Westerns, war movies, horror movies and action movies, because when you were a little girl and the Comedian took you to the drive-in, with his nephews, one of whom is one of your two best friends in the world, that's what he took you to see. And he's the only person besides you I have ever met who answers the phone by barking "what?" down the line. Larry Shexnayder left you without a second thought, and the only steady male influence in your life after that, probably even before it, considering your mother used to leave you at his house where his family was living, was the closet thing your mother had to a boyfriend. The Comedian. He's practically your stepfather."

"Don't you think that's a little fucking bit strong?"

"No. He taught you to cook, he took you to the drive-in every week with Liv and his nephews and niece, when you were 15 he bought you a car and taught you to drive."

"Okay, so Eddie was Mom's boyfriend, and since he was around a lot and I didn't have a father, he played Daddy a little. Probably just to ease his guilty conscience, the sunnuvabitch! Thinks my mother and I are a coupla dumb broads, we'd forgive anything. Maybe she does, but not me. I'm not that dumb, fucko." Laurie snapped.

"Laurie, there's a little bit of Eddie Blake in everything you do, even in the way you talk. People your age don't call women "broads" and people "fucko", and nobody says "go take a powder" anymore. Your mother doesn't hate him. She still talks to him, and she still sees him. And Liv, your best friend, who's known the man all her life, too, she became his apprentice, and then his partner, and fell in love with him. He's never given you a reason to hate him, and yet you do. You hate him, but when you curse him, it's his words you use. And now, I can tell that you're upset and you're concerned, but when I ask you if you want to go with your mother and Edie Blake, you act like I'm crazy. It doesn't make sense to me."

"How do you think I feel? My mother sends me to this guy's sister's house, and he's always around, treats me better than either of the guys who are supposed to be my father do, then she brings this asshole around, and acts like he's OK, lets him play Daddy with me, on the occasions he's around. Then, years down the road, she tells me what he's really like? She's a real piece of work. And don't tell me that's what Eddie always says! Piece of work! I fucking know!"

"Laurie, do you remember the first time we ever made love?"

"Of course I do. It was my first time. What does that have to do with this?"

"Is it a good memory?" Dr. Manhattan persisted.

"Of course it was! You were kind, and gentle, and romantic. You did everything you could to make sure that my first time would be something special, and meaningful. You didn't hurt me at all, and I still remember how good I felt, lying in your arms, afterwards, thinking about how much I loved you. It's one of the best memories I have."

"And you've never been with any other men but me?"

"Of course not!"

"So that means that you've never had a cheap, drunken screw sitting on top of a trash can, with your shoulders against the cold, wet wall of some waterfront bar. It means you've never gone to some stranger's apartment, looking for release with a strange man in a strange bed. You've never thrown your shoes at a scarred, tattooed old degenerate old enough to be your father whose name you can't remember to stop him from rifling the drawers of your flop room over a bar. Cursing and threatening him in a drunken rage before you toss him out on his ass, lock the door, and fall back into the bed, to drink until unconsciousness overtakes you. You've never been used and thrown aside like a dirty Kleenex, like a human spittoon. You never learned that a little kindness and a little tenderness were things out of your reach. You didn't have to imagine them, reading dirty books about men you knew and trusted, but never approached, because you were sure that you were nothing but a drunken, brawling, murdering, whore, only a short stagger out of the gutter you were sure you were going to die in, any day now." Jon said.

Laurie realised he was talking about Liv.

She had never thought about it quite in those terms, before.

"You told me that you had your first drink when you were 13. With Liv. You had half a can of beer, and she had three beers and a few shots of whiskey, in-between. And that while you were having it, she told you about losing her virginity. Do you remember the story?"

Laurie nodded.

"Would you mind telling me? I won't say anything."

Laurie had always thought it was a funny story, but the way Jon had just recast Liv's drunken, swaggering, devil-may-care promiscuity as abuse and degradation, it didn't seem like it.

"Liv used to buy her beer from a man named Oliver MacTavish He ran a crooked pawn shop, in East New York, about a block from where the McClatcheys used to live. On the side, he sold booze to teenagers, around the back of his shop. He was one of these barrel-chested ginger Scottish guys, with big, bulgy Popeye arms. He even had a tattoo of an anchor on one arm, and everybody called him Popeye. He was bald as an egg, but he had a red beard; he was a funny-looking little tough guy. Short, but built like a fireplug. I have to tell you about Popeye, because that's what makes the story so, well, I thought it was funny at the time. He'd even been in the Navy for about a million years. Anyway, every Friday night, Liv drove there, illegally. She was driving at 13, in her own car that she rebuilt from a wreck. So, one Friday, she told Popeye she was out of money for beer. Well, you know Liv. She was lying. She had the money. She just liked this guy, even though he was kind of old and sort of ugly, and she wanted to get him to do something for her. Well, since she was driving, I guess he thought she was 16 or 17, so they got in the back of the car, and well, Liv got her beer. The next time, he said he'd give her the beer if she'd let him go down on her, but she had to blow him, too. The next week, Liv got her beer, too. The week after that, Popeye, he wanted to fuck her, and she said that was alright if he had a rubber, so she got her beer. The very next night, she went back, and Popeye asked her if she drank all that beer, already, and she pulled out all the rubbers in this box of Trojans, and they unfolded like an accordion, and she told him it was whiskey she wanted, and so she came prepared. After that, she paid him in cash for all the rest of the beer and the whiskey apologised for misleading him. It went on for a month or two, and then he found out she was only 13 and gave her the shoe."

Laurie always used to laugh at that, but, right now, it didn't seem too funny, a 13 year old girl coming back to the 40 year old crooked pawnbroker who traded her booze for sex and was too much of a louse, himself, to realise how young she was. And Liv, she didn't give a shit, because even then, as long as she had a shot and a beer and popped her hood a few times, that was all that she wanted and more than she expected.

"You're not laughing, Jon."

"It's not funny. Do you know what men from the Comedian's and my generation were taught to think of women who acted like Liv did? They were considered lower than whores, at least prostitutes did it for a living. Do you know what it must mean to Liv, to have found a man who treats her with dignity, and respect, like a human being? A man who, whether you like it or not, loves her?"

"I don't see what you're getting at, Jon."

"Laurie, Eddie Blake is the man who attempted a brutal rape on your mother, who killed his own father and hundreds, maybe even thousands of criminals like him. He's the same man who did black ops for the Invaders during World War II, and then in Vietnam, and I have personally seen him commit horrendous atrocities in the line of duty. In all likelihood, he was the second gunman who shot President Kennedy from behind the grassy knoll, and I saw him kill a pregnant woman, who was pregnant, probably with his child, in a wild fit of blind rage because she cut open his face. But I know But, he's also the man who took you and Paulie to the drive-in, who taught you how to cook, a man your mother loved even though she had every reason to hate him. He's the same man who pulled Liv out of the gutter, kicking and screaming, and made sure she started treading the upward path. The same man who put aside everything he was ever taught about the kind of woman who drank, and got tattooed, and had cheap sex with strange men and got into bar fights, because he wanted to give her the thing she needed most. Love. Eddie Blake loves your best friend. He still loves your mother. And his family. He raised his whole family, and he's their beloved patriarch. He killed his own father, who was a monster beyond anything that you could imagine, to protect them. His father murdered five of his siblings, and he terrorised and beat and tortured the rest for years. When the Comedian was old enough, and strong enough, he killed the man to protect the survivors, four of whom he raised like they were his own children. He's a very strange man, a very bad man, and a man of great contradictions. But, he loves you, too. He thinks of you like you're one of his family, because you're the daughter of a woman he's loved since he was 17 years old. Carries your picture, right next to your mother's. You and him and Sally in front of the Ford Mustang, all in your costumes. I know that's strange, and terrible, and confusing, but it's the truth. You can't just hate him, Laurie. Whether you like it or not, he's a man, not an ogre, and he's part of you. You might as well hate yourself." Jon finished.

He had skated right up to the brink of The Awful Truth, without really saying it.

"I guess I should go. I mean, you and I, we both know that Eddie he's…he's the closest thing I ever had to a father. I hafta go. If he's gonna die, I don't want him to die thinkin…thinkin' I completely hate him. And Liv, somebody has to watch her while he's out. Right?"

"That's right, Laurie. You should pack for a week or two."

"In here. In here, Lar. Here, the can't right this way."

Liv was on crutches and she had her arm in a sling, but she looked alright, Laurie thought, as she quickly ducked into the room Liv was standing in the doorway of, in the wake of the whoosh of light and wind, with her hand over her mouth.

She yanked open the bathroom door, and bent over the toilet.

When she came back into the hospital room, her mother and Edie were already there, trying to get Liv to at least sit in a chair.

Laurie went over to the other bed.

"Wait, Sal. Give her a minute." Edie was saying.

It was a helluva shock, seeing him there, so quiet and still, with his wrists and his ankles and his leg, bandaged, and the white medical patch over his left eye.

All the skin on his face and his chest was peeling from a bad sunburn, and it looked like someone had just gathered up every mosquito in Bolivia and dumped them all over him.

It had never occurred to her that he was anything like mortal, before. He never got sick, and if he got hurt, he could shake it right off.

It was like someone had peeled the top off the world, to see the strongest man you knew, somebody who you used to think was the strongest man there was, lying quiet and still in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines and IV's.

Mortal as anybody else.

Mortal as you were.

"Jesus, Eddie, you look like shit. Goddamn sonsabitches. I'll get 'em. I'll get 'em all. Motherfuckers. Jesus, why the fuck am I getting all weepy? This is so fucked up." Laurie sniffed.

His good eye opened, a little.

"Is that offer only good if I'm dead?" he said.

His voice was weaker than usual, but she figured, if he was coherent enough to be a fucking wiseass, he was probably going to live.

She didn't know what to say, so she just went ahead and said something.

"Hey, we're supposed to be a team, right? The goddamn Watchmen. I mean, shit, Eddie, you ain't my favorite person, but, I don't think you ever did anything to deserve to die like that. I mean, we should all stick together, shouldn't we? Besides, you old bastard, you were like, the closest thing to a father I ever had. Maybe I owe you something. Before either of us die. In this mask business, who the fuck knows. Right?"

Eddie smirked a little.

Laurie was praying he wasn't going to say what she thought he was going to say.

"You said it, kid. Do me a favor, while I'm in and out of it. Keep Liv in her fuckin' bed. She's gotta be ready to go when I'm better, an' if she keeps leapin' around an' tellin' all the doctors what she's gonna do, she ain't gonna be."

Laurie breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, that's the other reason I came down. To look after Liv."

Meanwhile, Liv was telling Edie about how the goddamn doctor couldn't make her do shit.

"Yeah, maybe he can't. But Sal and I can." Edie told her.

"That's right. If Merrie was here, she'd tell you to sit your happy ass down, and listen to the doctor." Sally agreed.

"But she wouldn't have smacked you one if you didn't. I will." Edie told Liv.

"I will, too."

Liv actually got back into bed and sat down.

Eddie closed his eye, again, and Laurie went over to sit with Liv, while Edie and Sal went to sit with Eddie.

"Laurie, what the fuck are you doin' here?" Liv asked.

"I thought you guys could use some help, when you go back in." she said.

Liv looked at her as if to say they both knew she was full of shit, but didn't say a word.

II: Eddie

The Comedian came to full consciousness amid the antiseptic smell of a military hospital, to the quiet sounds of doctors and nurses' voices talking somewhere outside the room he was in.

He waited for the pain to roll over him, and it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.

Eddie opened his eyes.

He looked out the window and saw he was in the S.H.I.E.L.D Field Compound near La Paz.

He was hooked up to an IV, but no other wires or hoses or machines.

As he was carefully removing the IV from his arm, he recalled that his last lucid memory was of the burning sun of midday, and telling Sgt. Stapleton that he was a walking dead man, and that there would be very few men who ever lived on the Earth that would die as hard as he would.

The little punk bastard laughed.

Think, Eddie.

How did you go from being staked out between two trees to die, slowly, of hunger, thirst, exposure and fucking bugs to being in a military hospital, safe and sound?

First Sergeant Trivelino J "Napalm" Napier, USMC Special Forces, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Harlequin.

But how was that possible?

Nobody knew he was in trouble?

Real simple, Eddie.

You called her and she came.

It's like she says.

If you want justice, call the Harlequin.

She always gets the job done.

He thought some more as he carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed.

There were some fading bruises on them, and a few healed scratches, and a bandage around his calf that he could feel the itch of stitches under.

His legs were covered in tiny scabs, like from healing insect bites, and there were bandages around his ankles.

His skin was also peeling, like from a bad sunburn, and his arms looked about the same.

His ribs were taped, and they felt a little tender, but he could breathe without a lot of pain.

Eddie had a vague memory of her coming out of the night, cutting him down, and carrying him to his Jeep, and an vague flashes of a long ride through the darkness, huddled under a blanket, with Liv bandaging his wrists and ankles, taping his ribs, bandaging his leg, and bringing him water and food.

Little sips of water, holding the canteen to his lips, little bits of bread in a watery soup, spoon-feeding him like he was a helpless baby.

It embarrassed the shit out of him that she saw him like that, but, then again, he had seen her in bad shape many times.

She actually had to pick him up and carry him on her back, the kid, only five foot one and 145, just like he picked her up and carried her.

He started to wonder if she got hurt.

Eddie noticed that there was a bottle of Pepsi with a straw sticking out of it, and a paperback book sitting on the table in front of one of the chairs for visitors to sit in.

He had fuzzy memories of having visitors, but since Laurie, who fucking hated him, was included, and she was standing over him and crying, he assumed they were dreams or hallucinations or some shit.

But, the bottle of Pepsi and the red lipsticked straw and the book were real, and somebody was going to be coming back for them.

Eddie stood up, and had to sit back down, but then, he stood up again.

Walked around the room a little.

It was Sal's shade of lipstick, and one of the kid's mask fuckbooks.

They had one of those stupid gowns on him, so he took that off, found the can, took a piss and drank a glass of water.

Looking around the room, he couldn't find anything but his dirty ragged shorts that he had been brought in with.

He wasn't about to put them on.

He had figured that was Sal's lipstick, he recognised it, and wasn't too surprised when she came in.

"Jesus, Eddie, Laurie's right behind me!" Sally exclaimed.

She pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around his waist just as Laurie came into the room.

"I'm not going to ask. Jesus, Ma, I know you're glad he's alright, but give the man a couple hours, huh?" She said.

She sat down with the Pepsi and the book.

Wears the same lipstick as her mother.

"Okay, now, as it stands, good old Iron Man has given it to every broad in town, every which way, except the cleaning lady. But, he's in his office working late, so who knows?"

Laurie took a sip of Pepsi and her eyes widened.

"Holy shit!" she exclaimed.

"Don't read that shit, Lar, it'll give youse bad ideas. Sal, enough with the sheet, I got this covered. So, how long have I been out?" he asked.

"About a week." Sally told him.

She was smiling from ear to ear, and boy, did she look good.

But the kid was stashed somewhere.

Jesus, if things come out the way I think they might, this old man is gonna need a hospital.

"You've all been here a week?"

Eddie was looking at Laurie when he said it.

Her eyes kept getting wider behind one of the kid's mask fuckbooks.

"This shit is unbelievable! I can't believe Liv reads this crap. I mean, that's not even possible, unless you're on the Olympics gymnastics team!"

"Yeah, we've been here a week. Eddie, what are you doing?" Sal asked.

"I'm lookin' for my pants."

A nurse came in to check on him.

She was young, and pretty, and he winked at her.

"Hey, doll, you know where my pants got to?"

"Colonel Blake, the doctor says…"

"Doctors say a lot of things. Do I look like a sick man to you? Where's the kid? The woman who came in with me?"

"She was released three days ago. Director Fury put her in a room in the command building."

"Yeah? What room?"

He looked in the cupboard with the red cross on it.

There were medicines on the top shelves, but his duffel was crammed into the bottom.

He took it out and heaved it onto the bed, rather effortlessly.

"I'm not sure. I'm going to go get the doctor."

"Okay, doll. But if he ain't here by the time I'm dressed, I'm just gonna leave. Hey, Lar? Go in the bathroom, I gotta put my pants on."

Laurie went, leaving the book behind and shaking her head.

By the time the doctor got there, Eddie was dressed in his boots, a pair of fatigue pants and an undershirt, and he had gathered up the bottle with the penicillin and the one with the ibuprofen and was putting them in his bag.

He was interrupting a discussion between the Comedian and the two Silk Spectres.

"…thing I don't know is whether or not Machado's got more guys, now. He probably thinks I'm dead, but I know that Stapleton's smart enough to be nervous that there was no body."

"So somebody hasta go spy on them. Me and Liv can do it." Laurie was saying.

"What do you know about the jungle?" Sally asked.

"Ma, I work in Washington DC. The jungle will be a refreshing break. Besides, Liv's been there, before."

The doctor cleared his throat.

"I see that you're feeling much better, Colonel Blake."

"You look surprised, Doc."

"You've surprised me the whole time, Colonel. You're a very good healer."

"Yeah, well, in my house, you hadda be. I had four brothers and a sister who never made it to ten. They weren't as good at gettin' better as me."

"I can see there's no way I'm going to be able to keep you here. But I would recommend you stay at the compound for a week. And it would be nice if you'd come in and let me examine you a few times during that week."

"I'll think about it. What about my partner?"

"Well, she sprained her back and pulled a hamstring rescuing you. The worst injuries she had were pre-existing ones. Cracked ribs. Signs of a recent concussion. She had just dislocated her shoulder, so, in the rescue, she did it again. I'd say she needed a week of rest before she came here and didn't get it."

"She'll get it, now, Doc. I'll make sure of that."

The doctor took his leave.

"What the fuck happened to my girl?" he asked Laurie.

Laurie rolled her eyes.

"The usual shit. More A-number-1 fuckin' crack shot Watchmen team-work. Dan had bad intelligence on this deal at the docks. The way he understood it, some fugitive he was pursuing, nobody special, just some small time punk who jumped bail on a county beef was holed up in this abandoned warehouse about two blocks from Liv's new place. It's her night off, but Dan's on the other side of town. He asks her to take care of it. She gets there and everything is fucked up. There's three guys, and they've got Rorschach, they knocked him out and they're getting ready to take his mask and parts of his face off. So Liv goes up there and gets the situation under control. Except this one guy was hiding, and he comes outta nowhere and shoves her out the window. It's two stories down. Right out the fuckin' plate glass window. Anyway, she shoots at him on the way out, and she gets real lucky and falls into this industrial size Dumpster. They been renovating the place, and the Dumpster was full of carpet padding and old foam installation and the usual rotten food and shit. It broke her fall. She's just starting to get better when she comes into our apartment, loaded for bear, and she says she's gotta go to Bolivia. Jon sends her. Then, later on that night, I get a call from Ma, telling me how bad things are. Shit, if I knew it was this fucked up, I woulda gone with her. I guess Jon knew, but you know how his mind works. You know what I think? I think it's a fuckin' disgrace. She gets hurt, Batman shows up, Iron Man shows up, they have to tell Dan to fly his ass there, his partner's hurt and so's the Harlequin. This Watchmen thing, it's a joke. So, I'm here now. I mean, Jesus, I'm getting ready to start having Jon zap me home to New York some nights, to work with Liv. Somebody hasta be on this fucking team, yunno?" Laurie told him.

She got mad just talking about it.

Mad?

Eddie wasn't mad, he was furious.

Sally could tell how angry he was getting

"Eddie, you've just been real sick…"

"I know that, Sal! Next meeting, next fucking meeting, I'm gonna kill somebody!" Eddie fumed.

"That would liven it up, some." Laurie quipped.

"I'm gonna go see the kid. Give her the good news."

"Just tell her it gives you a week to plan. That'll soften the blow." Sally suggested.


It wasn't hard to find the kid.

She knew him well enough to know that as soon as he could get up and go, he wasn't staying in the hospital; he let himself into the unlocked door of the room that had a purple and yellow mask hanging from the doorknob.

She was in bed, sound asleep, even though it was the middle of the morning.

There was a shower in the can, so Eddie took a shower, and then he re-dressed and bandaged his wrists, leg and ankles, and had a shot from the bottle the kid had left on the sink.

She had all his other gear in the room, and after he checked his costume and his weapons, he lit himself a cigar, smoked it, and then got into bed beside her.

She was still asleep.

He remembered thinking she might be hurt, and moved over closer to her, running his hands over her back, and her legs and her arms, looking for swelling.

She had one arm in a sling, and Eddie felt along it, gently.

No sign of a break; she probably just popped her shoulder out pretty good.

He had popped it back in for her, but that was only temporary.

Her ribs were bound, just like his.

He could feel the swelling under his hand.

But it wasn't too bad; they were getting better.

He supposed he could have, should have left well enough alone, then, but he didn't.

Eddie still had his hands on her, and they weren't looking for marks of injury, they were just looking for her, all of her, lying there next to him, warm and naked.

Soft in places, hard in others, his fingers and his palms finding the familiar curves of her body and the old familiar scars as well.

In his mind, he thought about all her tattoos, about what they were and what they meant as he ran his hands over the places where they were than he couldn't see, in the dark of her room, with all the blinds pulled down.

All the little spots she liked to be touched, he lingered.

"Eddie." She finally said, quietly, more a sigh than a word.

Hold on there, old horse.

She might be a little too banged up, yet for fun and games.

"Time to wake up, kid."

"What time is it?"

"Time for youse to tell me all about what's been goin' on while I was gone?"

The Comedian blew a couple of smoke rings into the air.

He wanted to see how she told it.

"Not much. Did an inspection on one of my cars at Mason's. Went to the movies with Laurie. Took Logan to Trivelino Mac's. Drove the T-Bird into the elevator at Stark Tower and got some motor oil on Tony's carpets in the penthouse. Got thrown out a second story window on the docks. Landed in a dumpster full of rotten food, old insulation an' carpet padding. Cracked a few ribs. Dislocated my shoulder. Good thing that dumpster was there, huh?"

"Yeah. And how the fuck did that happen?" he demanded.

"I had bad information. It was supposed to be one guy, and he was only a coupla blocks away from my place. So, I suited up, I went over and, it's six guys. They've got Rorschach hanging out a window and they're about to rip his mask off. He's unconscious and bleeding. I went up the fire escape, and went in there. Turns out, yunno what? There were seven guys. The one I didn't see threw me out the window."

"Kid, you don't get bad information. And you got no reason to cover over the Boy Scout's stupid fuckin' mistakes. I got this story from Laurie. Youse did a favour for that fucking Boy Scout, and he was so busy flyin' around in his tin can, he almost got you and his partner killed. That fuckin' asshole!"

"Jesus, Eddie, don't get sore."

"I'm gonna kick his sanctimonious ass!"

He went and sat at the end of the bed, and she came and sat beside him.

"It's alright, Eddie. I made it. An' you made it, too. C'mon, we better try and get some shut eye. Big day, tomorrow."

"Jesus, why the fuck did you come in alone if you was already fucked up?"

"Yunno. These kinds of missions, the bigger the team, the bigger the fuckup. Besides, I had the feeling that if you found a way to blast yourself into my head with me, you didn't have time to wait for a Watchmen team consensus."

"Team, my ass."

"Yeah, tell me abut it. So, when do we move out of here?"

"Doctor says you need another week of rest, an' I could use one too."

"Yeah. I'm pretty tired, Eddie."


"Go ahead, kid. Go back to sleep. I'm gonna go and talk to Nicky. I gotta get to the bottom of this shit."

Truth to be told, that little adventure kicked both of their asses pretty hard, and they spent a lot of time in the air conditioning, lying in bed, watching the TV.

The kid, she was real hot on getting reacquainted, but she was banged up as hell, and Eddie wasn't taking any chances with her health.

They both had to be in fighting shape to finish the mission.

He wanted to spend some time with Sal. She had come all the way from L.A. to see him, and she'd got herself all bent out of shape, thinking he was going to cash in his chips, so he figured he had to do something to get her calmed down.

But, then again, getting beat up by thirty guys and tied out in the jungle for a week takes a lot out of you.

The room was cool, the bed was soft, goddamn Nick had the TV's hooked up to cable, and the comfort of the kid's warm little body was pretty hard to leave.

And considering she was beat up too, he didn't have to be embarrassed that all they got up to was some dumb teenage shit.

He got up to visit with Sal, and she didn't press her luck.

Good old Sal; he knew he'd be back to his old self soon, then he'd fly out to LA and make it up to her.

As for Laurie, she didn't waste any time.

Under her own steam, and accompanied by a field agent Nick Fury sent with her, she did a little reconnaissance on Machado's camp.

She was all set to go in her costume, but since it wasn't really jungle-worthy, Nick set her up with some S.H.I.E.L.D. fatigues, some of which she integrated with her costume, but she refused to "go in dressed like a goddamn civilian grunt."

At the end of the week, the three masks had a meeting in the room at the barracks.

Sally didn't attend; she knew she wasn't up to any jungle missions.

Edie wasn't so easy to dissuade; she wanted to go in with them and get the sons of bitches.

Nick Fury asked what her qualifications were, and she told him.

"I killed Mickey Blake, and I'm from Brooklyn, and I'm Eddie's sister. I'm every bit as tough as he is." She said.

Eddie had to wonder if Laurie was every bit as tough as her aunt was.

But him and the kid would be there, DC wasn't a playground, and it was about time she did a serious mission where she had to carry a gun.

"Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, Machado and his men think you're dead, and so do two of the rogue Marines. The bad news is that Stapleton asshole is real nervous without a body, and he's got goons all around the perimeter, and on the coke refinery. They're all local guys, and it doesn't look like any of them are Bolivian military, but they're armed to the teeth and they look like they know what they're doing."

"You ever kill anybody, Laurie?" Eddie asked.

"Some."

"How?"

Laurie shrugged.

"Fighting hand to hand. A couple with their own weapons. The usual. I mean I don't have a body count like you and the Red Death here, but I've had my share of kills." She said.

Eddie chuckled at calling Liv the Red Death.

"There's your next tattoo, kid. How are you with a gun, Lar?"

"I got no experience with the heavy shit, but I'm good with a handgun." Laurie admitted.

"Alright. You're in. But this ain't the drive-in, it's a mission. No mouthing off and no insubordination. That'll get you killed out there."

"What's the plan, Eddie?" Liv chirped.

The Comedian looked over both his shoulders.

"Walls got ears, girls. I'll tell youse when we're on the road."

In the morning, on the seventh day after Eddie rose from his hospital bed, he got the kids out of bed bright and early, and they suited up, geared up, and packed the M151 with the smile faces on the doors, and the Comedian had the Harlequin and Silk Spectre II wait a minute in the truck while he went to tell Nick he was moving out.

Nick didn't try to make him listen to the doctors, but he tried to give him some take a team in with you shit.

Eddie wasn't having it.

Two weeks after being brought in on a stretcher at death's door, he was back to his usual robust good health, smoking like a chimney and roaring like an angry lion.

"Hey, it's because I hadda take a team in that I almost died out in that fuckin' jungle in the first place! That Mitrione cocksucker, he's lucky I don't stake his ass out for seven fuckin' days! No team! I'm takin' my partner and my kid, that's all the fuckin' team I need."

"I guess I'd be wasting my goddamned breath asking you to bring Machado back alive."

"After what he did to me? Yunno, I've come close to cashin' in my chips quite a few times since 1938. This was the closest call I ever had, and of all the deaths I could had, tit was about the worst. You want proof it's him? I'll bring youse his head and his hands."

"Well, maybe Harlequin is enough. Do you know that in the course of saving you, she ruptured a disc in her back, dislocated her left shoulder, again, and pulled a hamstring? She was up and around in two days. They had to practically tie her to that bed, so she'd get better. That girl is tough, Eddie. You know, I still have John Stryker's pickled head in my office on the Helicarrier, under a black cloth."

"I know she's tough, Nick."

"Did you know she was this tough?"

"Yeah. I did. You forget, I know just how tough she is."

"That's right. You do. And I guess you also know that while you were tried out between two trees, some clowns in New York were throwin' her out a window. Tell me why you never take First Sergeant Napier on missions with you? We both know she's got the jam for it, and we both know why." "You a readin' man, Nick?"

"More than you, I bet."

"You ever read a book called Heart of Darkness? Jimmy gave it to me, a long time ago."

"I see your point, Mr. Director. What about Silk Spectre, Part Two? Is she tough enough?"

"She's my kid. And Sal's."

"I know that, Eddie. But is she tough enough for this kind of mission?"

"Sure. She's no lightweight, and she needs some real fuckin' experience. That shit with Mr. Blue Velvet ain't gonna last forever. Laurie's gonna hafta go out there and swim with the sharks, someday. Better she gets her toes in the water with two sharks watchin' her back. Besides, she's a Blake. You fuck with her friends and her family, you fuck with her. She'll go out there whether I say she can or not."

"You sound proud of her, Pops."

"Fuckin' right I am. I got in there and raised her right, anyway, didn't I? So, I'll be seein' youse in a coupla days, Mr. Director."

"I'll have transportation to New York waiting for all of you. Good luck."

The Comedian left his office, and Nick Fury was satisfied that the mission would be finished.

As for Eddie, he found that the rest of his team were ready and raring to go.

Liv was waiting outside the office, and Laurie was laying on the horn, outside the building.

"Ya ready ta go kick some ass, kid?" Eddie asked his partner

"You know me, Eddie. I was born ready."

He smiled fondly at his girl.

"I'll bet you was. An' then, I'm fuckin' ready to get outa this Third World toilet. When we get back from this little adventure, doll, we're gonna take a fuckin' supersonic jet back ta civilisation, an' then we're goin' back to my place. An' I'm gonna lock my door, pull down my blinds, shoot my phone, and screw the ass offa youse on every soiface in my whole fuckin' apartment. Shit, I may even grab a brick of reefer from the joint before we blow it up, an' we'll crack open the good Scotch, get a case of Guinness, have a fuckin' party." Eddie promised.

"For what?"

"Because we both dodged a big fuckin' bullet. You know why you almost died in the street, an' I almost died in the sun?"

"Bad luck? Random universe? Dastardly plot?"

"No. Because we both went in without our partner. Somethin' that ain't gonna happen, again, kid. Now, let's blow this joint, before them fuckin' doctors try and get us both all filled with goofballs an' back in bed, again. "

They went out to the M151, and Eddie got in the driver's seat.

"Liv, get in the back, and get on the machine gun, just in case. Lar, youse get in the front with me. And keep that pistol out."

Laurie looked in the back as Liv opened the back flap.

"Holy shit, you got a .30 calibre machine gun mounted to the back of your truck? Is that standard Marine shit?" she asked.

"No, that was Liv's idea. She did a lot of work on this baby. Real James Bond shit. There's a rocket launcher in the back, too, in the ammo box built under the seats. Might use it to blow up parts of the compound. You wanna fire it?"

"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? Now, this is what I call serious mask work! Wait till word gets out on the street I was in on this! I'll be fuckin' huge! Jon never lets me do this kind of shit!" Laurie enthused.

"That's cos this is the deep end where he don't swim. Alright, troops. Bulletproof vests on. Helmets on. Sidearms ready. We're movin' out."

"Hey Lar?"

"Yeah, Liv?"

"Yunno how you're always tellin' Eddie what an asshole he is?"

"That hasn't changed. What's your point?"

The kid laughed one of her Crazy Jack laughs.

"You're about to see up close and personal just what kind of asshole he really is." She said.

That was a pretty good one.

Eddie laughed with her as he put his foot in the tank and headed on down the road to mayhem, revenge, and a little of the old ultraviolence.

Author's Note: So, I guess the old joke is right on. The family that slays together, stays together. Back home in the States, I'll bet Jon's not going to be very happy when he finds out the Harlequin and the Comedian took Silk Spectre II off on one of their Kill 'Em All & Let God Sort 'Em Out missions. But, then again, I don't think Laurie or Eddie are too happy about the way the biggest joke in New York is that the Watchmen are a real team. They think someone should have had the Comedian's back. And Harlequin's. And Liv? She's been quiet about it. Maybe a little too quiet. Don't miss the next Watchmen meeting. Because if you think there's going to be hell to pay in Machado's camp, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.