A/N: I listened to Twice by Little Dragon whilst writing this... It's a really mellow freaking song. I worry about myself sometimes heh.
It is a fascinating thing, Rorschach thinks, to watch a vigilante at work. Seeing elegance in the violence. Years of work creating something larger than life, something better than human. Basic instinct adapting to the cause. There is control and style. Something overtly strong in the symbol of their persona.
The first thing Rorschach sees as they enter the bank though, but the gagged and bound workers huddled into the centre of the room, is that Nite Hawk has no grace or élan. Whatever style she once possessed has abandoned her to bloody ruin as she tears at skin like some feral beast. Rorschach can see no control, and what's more concerning is he sees no wish to find it. She is lost in the roar of her own flowing rage, and Rorschach is too proud to admit she frightens him.
But fear is tangible as masked men brandishing firearms fall silent in surprise. He can't tell whose it is, the hostages, the holders or his own, but as a flurry of black flies past, twinned with an inscrutable growl, guns flash and he knows it doesn't matter. The idea of her flesh, bear under his fingers, the way she wanted, like a- doesn't matter.
She frightens him with her very presence, pulsating in the dark, consuming every piece of filth in their wake like some ever hungry beast. A glutton for punishment. He didn't know how to stop her, or whether she would let him if he tried. What was worse was he didn't know if he wanted to.
All he could do was follow in Nite Hawk's wake and tear apart the men she couldn't. Pull out the bones and spill their blood, surrounded by the wreckage of their own greed. A sick show of hands who now understood all the money in the world could not grant them the power of invulnerability. Could not protect them from this. And it brings a wry smile to his face when he realises no one will stop him anymore. No one will stop either of them.
The avaricious men are left. Left to cough up the money she had shoved down their throats. She had told them to eat it if they were so greedy. Told them to taste the cost. The cost of their mistakes. And it's far more poetic than Nite Owl ever was. It makes his head ache.
Rorschach had wanted to go home then. He had wanted to run. Hide in the basement. Cower from her half-crazed and sick eyes and pretend she wasn't what he had made. What he had created with absence, lies, and truths. What he had built in the dark. To do this. But he knew she wouldn't. This had only just begun. And his guilt and unwillingness to show weakness kept him by her side, his skin crawling with horror, choking in his ears.
Gangs of men have an overbearing capacity to resort to animalistic jeers and primal woops. Calling in the dark, drool dripping mouths, for tits and ass, skin and lips. They take her apart with their eyes. Ignorant of the person beneath the skin. It rips under his muscles like some foul poison. Rorschach had never been chivalrous, but this time he is in the fray first, pulling at arms and kicking out legs. His own words lost to the growl. It is livid chaos. He doesn't stop. Until he hears her scream.
No, he hears her roar. Everything stops. Everyone still standing turns. She is crowded, she is crushed. She is held on the floor by mucky hands and darkening eyes. It is so very surreal.
The man is laughing, pulling at his belt with his knees on her hands. She is still and silent, watching his lust rise in his hands. Rorschach wishes he could see her eyes when he hears the worm speak.
"Thought we'd go easy on you darlin'?"
Rorschach wanted to tear his limbs off. Rorschach wanted to separate his head from his shoulders and chop away his dick then spit in the wounds. He wanted to mash in his skull and walk on his brain. He wants to tell this man that he had no idea what 'easy' was, but he doesn't get the chance.
Her knees come up under him. Jerking him away with one buck of her feet. She would have been too big before. To do what she did. She would have been too sane to scrabble after him. Untamed claws digging into his throat and arm. It is unreal as she leans in to hiss only for him, but everyone hears it;
"No... I think you're gonna scream for me, 'darlin'."
And he does. When his fingers snap and a wrist cracks, when his elbow fractures and a shoulder comes out of its socket with a muted pop. He screams like a terrified child. It is a cacophony of messy breaks and gurgled sobs, as his eyes roll and she drops him like the trash that he is. Leaves him in a puddle of his own filth, but the world still does not fall back into focus.
People run and others drop. Rorschach see's her gouge out an eye and he can't seem to recall how it was that he could move. Ever. Before this. How he had ever functioned without seeing her monstrosity charging in the dark. Like some tempestuous wraith, leaving nothing standing, leaving nothing free. She may have no discipline, but there is a beauty. A magnificence leaving him in the shadows, envious of her raucous roar.
A month had forced in her, what had taken years to build in him. His absolute jealousy is outweighed by his own strained awe and something deep in his gut that he can't quite place. And they move on in silence, he is lost in her shadow now, and he doesn't quite mind anymore. He is consumed. He doesn't mind at all.
Rorschach knew the power of ignorance. It brought about brutal and bloody murder. It gave him his face, and it told him his purpose. The indifference and laziness of man gave him his name and his reach into the darkness. He knows it will never go away. That it will never be punished. It is a fundamental wrong in human nature. That takes hold and makes people weak. That raised something in him that can never be stopped. Sent him onto the streets to fight the things they tried to pretend weren't there.
But when Nite Hawk is faced by it. Truly confronted by the emotionless detachment of man. When she sees a woman screaming in the dark, hands pulling at skin and biting at bones, crying for help, and the stranger just pass her by, she cannot do the same.
Rorschach sees a different fury flare as he grips a shoulder and takes down a maggot with one swift blow. He sees a different being entirely scrape at a civilians scalp and force him to the ground. Nite Hawk is foul and lurid as he is dragged, kicking and screaming, to the woman he had chosen to leave to her fate. She is wrath. And he is forced to beg for help that will not come.
The fire in her eyes is enough to soften stone but Rorschach sees the terror. Bleeding out of her, into the night like a cloud of hungry spores. She shakes like a leaf. It is painted over her body as he stares silent and stunned, Daniel's fear would never go unheard, not by Rorschach.
And he realises, now, that Nite Hawk doesn't know how to stop. But Daniel wants to. Before she can't take this back. She wants to stop.
So he takes her arms and drags her home. Leaving the whimpers, and Nite Hawk's fury behind. Until all that is left if Daniel, sobbing on his shoulders, and he is holding her close because he wants to. Because he wants to comfort her. He wants her to know that he understands. That just like Walter, Daniel is still in there too.