Dan's POV
Streetlights rocking by, illuminating the smooth edges of Rorschach's face under his hat. Daniel watches the form fade in and out; it's like a dream, as she is carried in a bruised parody of a month ago.
Only now her feet drip through the half-hashed bandages that shoes have abandoned. Now she is conscious and clutching his shoulders. Now she is alive.
Neither says a word. There really is nothing to say. No, there's everything to say, but nowhere to start. The silence seems to thread its way through the streets, keeping them safe, in a bubble of rarely seen peace. Daniel doesn't want to say anything anyway. None of it seems enough. Wasted words on things that don't matter, that are just trivial.
xxx
Rorschach thumbs her shredded lip and tells her it's going to scar. She can't seem to make herself care about that. After all, what's one more mark on this mutated body? She tells him that all these bruises, aching bones and bleeding feet are perfect as they are.
He touches her torn soles with something like reverence in reply. A light broken noise slipping from his nose as he pulls off he bandages to assess the full extent of the damage. He sees the glass, and even she wouldn't miss the way his fingers shake as he pulls the pieces out.
But still he says nothing. Lost in the map of agony this madness has left on her skin. He can't question the motive. He knows stubbornness as unruly as this. Lives by it. Gets up to run with knife wounds and bullet holes. So Daniel just watches, barely flinching at the pain.
xxx
The Owl's Nest welcomes them with more of this silence. Archie's eyes following them in the dark, as Daniel tries to imagine those big glass domes filled with relief. Welling up and tearing over with happiness for having them back. It's a sad, but funny image, and her watery smile presses into Rorschach's shoulder as he hitches her up on his hips to turn on the lights.
He lowers her onto a workbench and pulls off the mask. He does look at her, she can tell, but it's only for a moment before he leaves her in the dark. Muttering something about clean clothes. Ramming his fists in his pockets. It makes Daniel cringe because his gloves are still torn over bloodied knuckles, and God knows how filthy that coat is.
xxx
"I missed you."
It's all she can think to say that isn't too inane or insignificant. She thinks it's important. Important that he knows that, because she hopes like hell he missed her too.
The way he shivers at the sound of her voice, however, makes her heart fall, makes her want to swallow her words. Until his fingers tighten around her ankles and she knows he didn't mean to do it. That it was just strange to hear Daniel in a woman's voice. She understood; the sound of it made her own skin crawl.
She doesn't speak again for some time, just continues to watch as he binds her feet and absently strokes her toes, like he's making sure she's there. Like he's making sure she's real. And she doesn't want to force this, she doesn't want to scare him away, she needs him here, but all she does want is to press into hunched shoulders and pretend that everything is okay.
"Missed you too." He breathes over her skin, and if it weren't so silent, she would have missed it.
xxx
Daniel's eyes take in the dull metal and dust. Disturbed only by Rorschach's feet. She hadn't been down here once; she couldn't face it knowing Nite Owl was mounded on the floor somewhere, covered in blood, dying slowly. Even now her eyes kept her from finding it, finding his suit, but she could smell it. Over the engine oil and sweaty must, she could smell the rotting carcass of her old self. She wonders if the rest of the house smells this bad.
Her stomach turns upon realising Rorschach will see blood slopped floors, where her feet left prints, where her body left its mark. The house looked like the place of a brutal massacre.
She hobbles to her feet, wincing, but hands take her and sit her back down without a word. She wonders when he got back; she had been staring at the door, but couldn't remember seeing him.
He's arched like a man carrying the world on his shoulders when he hands her a button-up shirt and boxers.
"I'm sorry Daniel." He mutters, trying to make it seem like he is apologising for having no idea what she could wear.
She doesn't complain, neither does she. He pulls off her coat then stands in a corner facing the wall. It is an uncomfortable gesture of gentility or politeness, or maybe an attempt to hide disgust.
She changes clumsily. Feeling as small as a mouse when the shirt almost brushes her knees. She remembered when this shirt fit.
"So very sorry." And she knows that it's not about the clothes, but she tries not to think about that as Rorschach turns back around.
xxx
She asks to see his hands, fully expecting a dismissive grunt. But he seems too feeble and guilty, so small and tired. So she's not at all surprised when he offers his bloody knuckles up to her, hissing at the contact of her fingers.
She almost tells him that it's okay, but they both know nothing is anymore. Probably won't be for a long time. Instead she pulls him by that raw and mangled hand. Pulls him close, feeling the fluid motion of his fingers tracing her ankle to her knees, and up to her thigh.
Shivering like she used to when he did that to her. It makes him choke, and she's pretty sure he's crying behind the mask as she rubs his cheeks through the latex with her thumb. It's the only touching she's going to risk. The only closeness she will push on him as he quakes inside her personal space.
Holding him breath-close and steady she just looks at him. She wishes she could see his eyes, but knows better than to ask for Walter now. Walter was who had to run away. Rorschach was the one to stay. Walter was writhing inside the face and she didn't need to see it.
"You're not betraying me, you know?" She whispers, her voice closer to what it used to be in this low, intimately private form, "It's still me. I didn't go anywhere."
And Rorschach nods, pulling away.
xxx
"Did you find the doctor?" She asks, knowing the answer, he wouldn't have spent 4 weeks doing nothing like she did.
"Yes." He replies simply, full of anger and sadness.
"Can he hel-"
"No." This is almost spat as he tosses his fedora down on the bench next to her and crouches to look in her eyes.
"What did you do?" She breathes as he bites off his gloves and checks her hands; they're falling back into that safe place, where wounds are checked and the cost is totalled.
They're a train wreck of a pair and she can't quite seem to be bothered by that. The mess that they are curled over in a basement. Tending to each other's wounds like a million times before. Something natural sweeping over them as the adrenalin bleeds away.
"Threw him out of a window." He pulls her shirt over the shoulder and squeezes the bruises blossoming on her collar bone.
She hisses, and at first she is horrified, but she sees the way his shoulders roll as he crouches to take her feet. All the words in the world couldn't hide the way he was overflowing with guilt. She could tell just by the way he breathed he blamed himself for not being able to save her. Words were so trivial. But he needed to know.
Reaching out to touch his mask, he needed to know;
"Good." She whispers, in the end.