Watchmen - How to Dismantle an Ideological Bomb
Title: How to Dismantle an Ideological Bomb
Author: smirnoffmule
Pairing: Adrian Veidt/Dan Dreiberg
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Dan likes to take apart engines, while Adrian can deconstruct ideas. They both enjoy dismantling criminals. When you’ve got this much in common, who can possibly fail to make a connection?
A/N: With thanks to azarias, and to rm, whose post about bombs that leave things in the rain and the resulting discussion gave direction to some of the ideas in this fic.
This story is set early in 1971. Adrian has tried and failed to unite the Watchmen, and the Vietnam war is still raging. Imagine Eddie Blake is out there toasting kids as Dan and Adrian toast victory.
It is past midnight, and a Tuesday, one of those nights when the human traffic in the city slows to a trickle, fatigue with the week already setting in. Archie hangs above it all in the skyline, fat like a fruit, and rocking gently.
Adrian, at Dan’s direction, is rifling through a locker for paper cups. It doesn’t quite suit him, and nor do his surroundings, the colour scheme and proportions of the owlship all slightly at odds with his presence. It is like he has brought his own light source aboard, and it picks him out from the shadows. Dan guesses it’s because he’s unused to having Veidt around, and can’t help comparing him to Rorschach, who has the trick of fading savagely into any background.
It is stuffy, and Adrian has slipped off his mask, just as Dan has pulled back his hood, although he is otherwise still in costume. Relaxed, he carries it off like evening wear, the cape a coat about his shoulders, the band of gold an understated crown.
Adrian is on cup duty because Dan is calling in their night’s work to the NYPD. He can’t keep the satisfaction from his voice as he reels off the address to the operator. Eight guys in a basement, a neat little package, and the cops only have to collect. He should have planned for more than paper cups for a victory toast. Tonight is a coup for him.
He and Rorschach have turned this bunch of thugs and robbers over twice before, cracked plenty of faces, but never yet cut the heart out. The gang have been breaking into safe deposit vaults all over the city, blasting the locks with minute charges. It seems to Dan a particularly personal crime, to go fingering people’s inheritance. Like robbing graves.
One guard who tried to intervene was shot once in each leg and again in the spine as he tried to crawl away. After that, the gang shot a member of staff with every raid to prove a point, making the crime not only personal, but sticky too.
The latest raid emptied one vault of a collection of jewels, dating from the 16th century. Adrian has the black market in history cornered, his interest personal as well as professional, and Dan likes to make use of all the tools at his disposal. They seemed cold stones to him, and not worth killing for, but Adrian said they were museum pieces, as though that was a value in itself. He traced them to a fence who gave them a name in the space of an afternoon.
After that, it was only manners to invite him out for the final show, though Dan honestly expected he’d decline. Rorschach did, when he heard Veidt would be along the ride. Used to the brick walls in his partner’s personality, Dan didn’t bother to argue, and now he’s just relieved he pulled it off in front of Adrian Veidt. Ozymandias is a hero without peer, of the kind that peopled Dan’s childhood games; a flawless American hero.
Dan sees no conflict between this and the shift between Adrian’s private and public speaking voice. It is no more profound than the masks any of them wear in the field.
Call placed, he turns away from the radio phone, and can’t help grinning round the cockpit. Adrian catches his expression neatly and mirrors it back to him. He holds up the cups, and Dan laughs as he delves for the bottle of bourbon he keeps stashed in his medical kit. It’s moments like this that make the job matter, when sore ribs and bruised knuckles have a reason to be.
He is surprised Adrian has stayed, and fully expects him to have one drink then make excuses, but in the mean time, he is having fun. Fond as he is of Rorschach, it’s nice to have someone less prickly to talk shop with - someone who’s still in the game, that is. You can’t just be buddies with guys like Rorschach or the Comedian, and Jon is as distant as Bangkok as far as Dan is concerned.
He sits in his pilot's chair, and places the cups on the dashboard to pour - carefully. Adrian sits beside him, crosses his legs, and accepts the drink. They raise their cups, a toast to victory.
It’s only been twenty minutes since they wrapped up the fight and pushed Archie for the skyline. Dan’s heartbeat is still running, and he relives the highlights in flashes of green, his goggles colouring everything unreal. Masks who work together learn to move together, develop spatial awareness for each other, and Dan is gratified with how quickly he and Adrian fell into step. He puts most of it down to Veidt for being a natural dancer.
There were eight guys in the room, and one cellar in the corner. They punted them all down the stairs and locked the door, a game that moved fast and quickly got fun. The blood of the fight was tacky on the carpet, dark green on green according to Dan's goggles.
He can still feel it, back on Archie, gumming his feet to the floor. He kicks off his boots.
“How long do you think the cops will take to pick them up?” he asks. The bourbon burns a trail down his throat, and he relaxes into his seat, imagining the creak belongs to his muscles and not the leather. “I guess it's pretty dark down there, and it'll only get darker.”
Adrian sips without a grimace.
“Did you see the sign above the door? Black and yellow guides the way. That basement was a fall out shelter. It may be stocked. With torches, food. Assuming it's intended to be functional rather than a fashionable remark on cynicism.”
“Heh. Well, maybe we should have left them to stew a bit longer before we called the cops. Like a couple of days.”
Adrian nods, and laughs a little.
“Imagine,” he says. “If the bombs started flying now. They'd be all that's left to represent humanity.”
“Well, in that case. Better hope they hurry up,” Dan tries to jest. “The cops, I mean. Not the bombs.” He clears his throat.
Adrian inclines his head, as though conceding a point, for no reason Dan can see.
They talk shop for a while, and work on their drinks. Adrian asks technical questions about his goggles. Dan admires a short little punch to the sternum that Adrian does, and gets a demonstration that's surprisingly vital considering he doesn't bother to stand up first. His explanation for how it works invokes Qi and Dan ribs him gently, which he takes in good humour - a pleasant surprise, since Dan has previously suspected him of being almost entirely humourless beneath his affable exterior. Dan raises the bottle again, and Adrian holds out his cup.
When the conversation lulls, their silence is companionable. Curls are sticking to Dan's forehead with the heat. Outside Archie's windows, the mist boils orange with the lights from the city below. The effect, for a moment, is like sitting on a fireball, and Dan pictures their captives, rat-trapped in the basement, scrabbling for chocolate bars with a battery torch, while the fire rolls on the floor above. Would that door keep them safe? He doesn't know. He has never articulated the thought to himself before, but he lives in New York City, and the truth is, he's never expected to survive a blast for long enough for such details to get relevant. Or to want to, if it comes to that.
He looks over at Adrian, who is watching the mist curl, his forehead dry and his expression serene. There is a question forming in Dan's mind, and even unasked, it feels dangerous, like holding a box with a rattlesnake in it. With anyone else he could just ask it and trust they might be wrong if he didn't like their answer, but Adrian has the kind of mind which opens boxes.
“Is that really how it's going to go down?” he asks. It is both unknowable and unbearable not to know.
Adrian's attention rolls back to him, his eyebrows raised.
“If the bombs drop, I mean? So little warning? Is anyone crazy enough to make it happen? Surely someone in the chain would put a stop to it before it's too late?”
For a moment, Adrian's expression is unchanging, as though he's starring into nothingness.
“The people in the chain don't see the chain,” he says. It is not a comforting start.
“But millions of people...” Dan says.
“Billions.”
Dan pours himself another shot and tries to moderate his heart rate.
“It's been done before,” Adrian says. “Not quite on the scale, but the numbers involved become meaningless. Nobody is a murderer, but everyone is a cog in a machine. Killing people with your hands is rapidly becoming the old fashioned way.”
He seems so relaxed, and Dan grasps at this for comfort. Adrian is fond of ideas; he'll take them apart just to put them back together again. This kind of back and forth is a gentleman's sport for him. They could be talking about anything.
“It's all so... bloodless, somehow,” Dan says. “Makes a good old fashioned stabbing seem like honest work.”
“It makes bringing to justice a man who murdered one person seem like turning your collar up against a tidal wave.”
“Maybe it takes people like us to remember each one of those meaningless numbers is a person.” Dan's paper cup is giving up the ghost, between the liquor and the sweat on his hands. He puts it aside and swigs from the bottle. Adrian is looking at him, his regard intense enough to be unsettling. Taking him apart, Dan thinks, to put him back together again.
“You have a good heart, Dan,” Adrian says. “You think like a hero.” He accepts the bottle Dan is inclining towards him, and pours a shot into his cup. When he hands it back, Dan reaches without looking and closes his fingers over Adrian's. There is an awkward moment where neither can let go for fear of the other dropping it.
Untangled, Dan says, “We're all just trying to do our best out here. Hell, Adrian, I've read about you. All the charities you back. All the money you channel into energy research, and the arts, and third world projects.”
“I do all that from my desk. It's very bloodless too.”
Dan frowns.
“Well, you're out here now, aren't you? Wasn't bloodless when you kicked that big guy down the stairs tonight. And that's your real job, right? We're all just trying to make a difference.”
“Don't you feel sometimes that difference is relative?”
“I think a little difference can seem huge to the person whose life it is.”
Adrian again inclines his head, letting Dan have the point. It's a dark path, as far as Dan can see. A mask who doubts his heroics is like a priest who's lost the faith. It leaves a gaping hole, and one that itches to be filled again.
“Is this about what the Comedian said to you? You shouldn't let him get to you. He was drunk.”
“And now he's out in Vietnam, doing honest work.”
Dan sucks thoughtfully on the bottle, letting the burn wash over his disquiet. His head is already starting to thicken, and Archie's walls are leaning in around him. Adrian might as well be sipping iced tea.
“We should look to what we can do,” Dan says. “Not fixate on what we can't. There are problems in the world that really can be solved by banging heads together. Those are our kinds of problems.”
“And yet,” Adrian says. “Ultimately, if we do go to war, it's all for nothing. The charred remains of heroism.”
Dan has no answer to that except to drink more.
“I'm sorry,” Adrian says, seeming to shake himself. “I must sound very morbid. Perhaps you're right. We all do what we can.”
It feels like a change of subject rather than a change of heart. Dan is not reassured.
“You shouldn't be so down on yourself,” he says.
“On myself?” Adrian seems genuinely surprised. “I don't think so. I think, Dan, that you're so invested in the mask you wear that any such doubts must seem personal to you. I'm considering it more as an abstract question, whether one person can truly make a difference.”
This is better. A gentleman's sport again, though Dan can't help wondering what that mask is to Adrian if it isn't personal.
“People do make a difference. Look at history - great leaders, orators, politicians.” He is drunk enough to be pleased to have dealt with all those syllables.
“It's true there are men who act upon history. But there are many more who have simply been acted upon. I hope you are not offended, Dan. I admire your dedication.”
“No. No, I'm not offended.”
“I'm glad.” Adrian raises his cup to him, a little salute.
A part of Dan's mind clamours at him to take Adrian's cue and drop the subject. Another part wishes only to cut a straight path through the tangle.
“Do you really think it's going to happen?” he asks. The snake is out the box.
Adrian does not answer for so long Dan feels compelled to fill the silence.
“I mean, I'm no stranger to living with death. In this line of work, either one of us could catch a bullet tomorrow, that's how it goes. But this is different.”
“Yes, it is different. People go about their days in the knowledge they won't live to be old. It's in everything we do. Our art, our plans, our conversations. It has become us, even before the bombs start flying. The last is almost an afterthought.”
“Are you saying it doesn't matter if it happens or not?”
“In a fashion, because we have already lived with it. It's in us now, the poison in the water.”
“You're talking in abstracts again.”
“Civilisation is built on abstracts. We built cities to shield ourselves from nature, which is indifferent to our fate - the rains that don't come, the crops that fail. When death comes to the cities, there's nowhere to hide. We are animals, living in plain sight.”
“You still haven't said yes or no.”
Adrian smiles, and the mood shifts like the flick of a light switch.
“I can't see the future, Dan,” he says. The bottle is passed again. Dan swigs and Adrian pours. If he is disquieted by Dan's backwash, or by anything they have said tonight, it doesn't show. When he has his cup full, he raises it again.
“Maybe I fight crime at night to stop myself thinking so much,” he says. It seems to be a joke.
“Well, I don't think it's working.” Dan echoes his gesture, raising the bottle. The world is starting to reel a little. “I feel a toast coming on. What do you say, Adrian? To indifferent nature?”
They drink, and then it only seems natural that they should touch, like checking for a pulse. At first, it is only a bump as they exchange the bourbon, but it grows into something more. Their hands, already gloveless, entwine, fingers moving against each other, a game without rhythm or rules. It is pleasant, like trailing a hand in warm water, and Dan sits back in his chair, becoming a fixture. Adrian is a sinuous shape on the edge of his vision, a side effect to the sensation - until he sits up abruptly, still holding Dan's hand in his, and presses it to his lips.
He meets Dan's eyes over the curl of his fist, watching him closely for a cue. Dan knows he could stop it right there, and no hard feelings. All he has to do is look away. The touch would be gone, the subject changed, the kiss dismissed as some European affectation, quite permitted among continental men. Dan hangs a moment in limbo, both options inspiring equal promise and dismay.
He has suspected that about Adrian before, without knowing how to name it. Adrian's focus has something of the snake; Dan tells himself he is hypnotised by grace, but the truth is, he is curious. If he stops this now, he knows he will not see Adrian so unmasked again. He holds his gaze, lets it draw out, feels like they are exchanging secrets.
Adrian slides off his chair to kneel beside him, still keeping Dan's hand in his. Coupled with the cape, his pose is chivalrous. His fingers have tightened, but he gives no other outward sign that anything meaningful has just passed between them, that he wasn't about to do this all along. Dan leans to him and their lips touch, a bourbon kiss, edged with sleepy fire.
When they break, Dan's breath hitches, and the urgency is catching. Adrian's hands are on his chest and moving downwards. Dan tries to reach for him, but finds him insubstantial, keeps getting handfuls of cape slipping through his fingers. His own heavy armour is a barrier; he feels pressure but no sensation. He rises on his elbows, fumbling to unzip.
Adrian assists him with firm tugs, his hands brushing against Dan's bare chest as he works his outfit down past his waist. No mercy, Dan thinks, a bubble of humour rising. Adrian's movements are as crisp and economical as his fighting style. Uncovered, Dan's cock stirs, sleepy and surprised. Adrian takes it in his hand, and it swells to fit the contours. He has a smoother touch than anyone who punches for a living has any right to.
Dan is sweating, and the air on his newly exposed skin prickles, reminding him to feel self-conscious. He sits up, and reaches again for Adrian, who dips his head and allows him to remove the band of steel from his brow. Without it, his hair falls forward, and he looks more harried, more human. Dan tugs at his cape, and he takes the hint, and stands to strip. Even kicking off his boots, he moves like an acrobat.
Naked, he is less imposing, no trick of costume or stance left to disguise his lack of bulk, but his grace is utterly exposed. His body is not without scars, but they don't detract from his beauty, just give it an edge, like it's not all for show. A reminder that he's more than just a poster boy for masks. He is not circumcised, which Dan has never seen before, but he has no time for more than a moment of interest before Adrian drops back to his knees and takes Dan's cock in his firm right hand.
Uncertain if he should try and reciprocate, sensing he is not the one driving this train, Dan settles instead for laying a hand on Adrian's shoulder and letting his fingers curl. Adrian pushes into his touch, bracing himself against the pressure until Dan has to grip just to keep his arm in place. His hand looks big on Adrian's skin. He feels like a pugilist.
He closes his eyes, tries keep the thrust of his hips to Adrian's rhythm, stop the hitching of his breath from collapsing into moans. Adrian is sliding under his gripping arm in such a way that every time Dan tightens his muscles to compensate, he ends up pulling him closer. In his mind's eye, he sees them from above, an obscene tableau, a sex act made of angles, its geometry collapsing as Adrian leans into Dan's lap.
When Adrian takes him in his mouth, he really does moan, and his hands reach to clutch at handfuls of blond hair. He twists, he cannot help it, but if it hurts, then Adrian doesn't falter, or even glance up. He has not met Dan's eye since he started working, as though this business is all between him and Dan's cock, and any other presence is incidental. Dan looks to the ceiling, breathes through his mouth, takes a moment to watch himself, see how he's taking it - if he's thinking of Adrian, thinking of a girl, edging closer to the point where thinking at all feels like a disservice.
Abruptly, Adrian breaks Dan's grasp with a twist of his head, and his mouth is gone. He boosts himself all the way onto the chair, so he is sprawled across Dan's lap, leaning right over him to rifle under the pilot's seat. Dan's erection is nudging at his torso, feeling the cold air where Adrian's mouth has been.
Dan cranes his neck to see what he is doing, and Adrian, hanging half upside down, meets his eyes. His mouth quirks, like they are sharing a joke. He licks his lips, and Dan's mouth runs dry. He wants to thrust against Adrian's weight in his lap, could happily do nothing else all night. He wonders if this is chemistry they have between them, or if it's just that Adrian only knows how to do things well.
Adrian hooks out his medical kit from under the seat, and tosses through the contents. What he finds, Dan keeps there for chapped skin, chaffed raw from sweating under heavy fabrics, but he guesses it'll serve Adrian's purpose just as well. Adrian sits up, his weight across Dan's hips, and rubs lotion between his palms before closing his hands around Dan's cock. The sensation is cold, and Dan wants to buck, but Adrian's weight pins him still as he rubs, a slippery little dance without friction.
Once again, Dan can't seem to catch Adrian's eye, and feels like a third party. He is torn between not caring, and caring about nothing else. He puts his hands over Adrian's, stilling them for a moment, and wins a flash of blue regard, a squeeze from Adrian's slippery fingers. Then Adrian turns, shows him his back, straddles him, and Dan loses all hope of even remembering what to care about.
At first, the equation seems impossible. There is pushing, but nothing seems to give. Dan feels himself pressed against Adrian's entrance, feels Adrian's fingers reach behind him and tighten around Dan's cock as though insisting. He is powerless to do anything but rest his hands on Adrian's hips and trust him to get the job done.
Adrian twists, and the angle suddenly comes right, and combination of the lotion and his own weight drives Dan in inches at the first breach. If he makes a noise at all, it is lost under Dan's own cry. No mercy, he thinks again, though the thought seems an abstract, directed at no one. He scrabbles for a purchase on Adrian's skin, but he is so lean there is nothing there to pinch.
Adrian brings his free hand up to brace against the ceiling. He takes most of his weight on his own knees as he starts to rise and fall, and when Dan lets his eyes unfocus, it's like he's barely there. Dan squeezes with his fingers, trying to will Adrian into speed, but he won't surrender. He fucks himself on Dan like a private dance, framed against the windows of the owl ship, the light burning through the mist a muted, dirty halo.
Dan is starting to pant, and his mind flies to fancy - the mist will swallow them alive, the city's gone. Adrian leans back against him and suddenly his weight is real. He is light, but he is there, his hair tickling on Dan's chest, his back wet with sweat. He lets his legs fall apart, hangs them over the edge of the seat, so Dan can fuck him. Dan has to grind his hips and fight for lift; the rhythm is his now, all jagged breath and ragged tempo. Adrian wraps one arm around the back of the chair, and with the other starts to stroke himself to the same beat.
Dan's back is aching; he wants to move but doesn't know how, only tells himself he can't flip Adrian Veidt unless he lets him, no matter where his cock is shoved. He has not forgotten who he is fucking.
He settles for shifting his weight around and they end up lying sideways, back to chest, their legs entwined. The jerk of Dan's hips is short and urgent, and Adrian's eyes are drooping closed as though he is fading away. When Dan's climax hits him, he clutches, fingers digging and sliding in Adrian's skin, groaning without censor. Adrian reaches for his hand, and presses it to his own cock, first firm, then hard, then harder, stage managing Dan's fingers, teaching him the stroke.
He comes without noise, only shudders as though he is cold. Dan feels wetness in his fist, becomes aware of Adrian's hair in his mouth. He slides his hand up to Adrian's belly, and holds him close.
The air stills around them, and Archie's gentle bobbing gives Dan the impression of coming back to earth. He feels oddly absent, even with Adrian's back still pressed against his heart beat. The sensation he recalls most vividly is weightlessness. It is like he has emptied himself into his own hand, while looking at a picture.
Knowing they are in the fading seconds of their embrace, he reaches up and brushes a finger across Adrian's cheek. It is not so much a tender gesture as scientific curiosity. He wants to know what happens when this man is touched with affection.
The answer is nothing. They lie entangled for a few seconds more, the only movement the hitch of their chests as their breathing recovers. Then Adrian frees himself from under Dan's arm like throwing off bed covers, and crosses the cockpit to pick up his discarded suit. He keeps his back to Dan as he starts to dress.
Dan understands then that they will never do this, or even speak of this, again. He feels like he's missed a bus, like he's standing in the rain watching tail lights pass him by. He wishes for a moment he had just flipped Adrian over and fucked him into the faux leather, planted wet and messy kisses between his shoulder blades, pounded him till he cried out. At least then he might feel like he has given him something.
He reaches and picks up his cape to cover his nakedness before speaking.
“Adrian,” he begins, but that's all he has. There's an argument for thank you or even for I'm sorry, but when Adrian looks over his shoulder at the sound of his name, the subject seems closed. Dan expected he might look different somehow, but he is as he always is - affable, interested, untouched. Dan smiles awkwardly, just wanting to be friends again.
Adrian nods, and smiles back, and seems to mean it - it touches his eyes, although there is something there that brings to mind a hawk, a keenness that could be focused on Dan or on something else that's miles away.
Dan, at a loss, begins to dress himself too. For a while, there is only the rustle of fabric as they put their costumes back together. When Adrian turns to face him, he is once again crowned, and trimmed with royal purple.
“I'm afraid I have kept you out late,” he says. “And encouraged you to drink rather more than is wise for a man with a ship to run. Are you able to fly home?”
Dan nods, because it would be unthinkably humiliating to have surrender Archie's controls to Adrian, who has, after all, drunk just as much as he has.
“I can drop you off,” he says.
“Thank you.” Adrian moves up to sit beside him in the co-pilots seat. Archie's hydraulic systems hiss as Dan flicks him into drive. Adrian leans to peer out at the city crawling below as they start to move.
His earlier words jangle in Dan's ears. If they cannot refer to what they've just done, he can still reach out to him.
“You know,” he says. “You can drive yourself mad, dwelling on that stuff. You can't live your life like that. That's how those people down there continue to go about their days, do their jobs, raise families. They don't think about it. Or if they do, they think someone will save them. Jon, or God, or plain old common sense.”
Adrian laughs. It sounds out of place.
“Of the three,” he says, “I have most faith in the first. But Jon is not what people imagine. He's more human than they think he is - and yet less so, too. ”
It is like their conversation has barely paused. If Dan's prick wasn't still wet, he'd think he'd dreamed it. He looks over at Adrian, wanting something from him, but Adrian is looking out the window again, his pose totally relaxed. They are simply two friends discussing current affairs. Dan persists with what seems the only available way to re-engage him.
“But he could, right? Stop the nukes? Isn't that the point?”
“That's exactly the kind of teleological thinking that leads to misplaced faith. There is no point. He has not been sent to save us.”
“But could he?” Dan insists. He lets Archie drop lower as he speaks, and thinks of all its moving parts. The question for him is what does work, not whatever mysterious force might drive it.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But even if he could stop one strike, it wouldn't solve the problem. The world's superpowers would still be at each other's throats. If it didn't happen that day, it could happen the next. Jon cannot dismantle fear, or undo hatred. He cannot reduce an ideology to its atoms.”
“I'm sure I've heard you dismantle ideas before.”
Adrian inclines his head to acknowledge the compliment. Manners are his second skin.
“I don't say it can't be done. Just not by Doctor Manhattan. Ideas are volatile, and Jon doesn't know the mechanism which moves them. I talked earlier about the animal mind - it doesn't take a genius to see that stockpiling nukes and posturing with power is a fear response. Who arms themselves if they are not afraid?”
It doesn't take a genius. From the smartest man in the world. Dan feels mired in concepts, sinking to his waist. That particular turn of phrase seems a favourite of Adrian's. If someone could pin an accent down long enough to imitate him, it could become a catchphrase.
“What does it take a genius to do, Adrian?” he asks. It is meant as a joke, but it falls flat between them. Bourbon has thickened his tongue. He experiences a rush of perspective, sees himself for a moment as he truly is. A drunk man rocking in an owlship, empty space between his feet and the city.
When they part, Adrian meets his eye and offers him his hand, and they shake like friends who have done business.
He leaves nothing on board to show he was ever there, though Dan's palm glows warm with the memory of pressure the rest of the way home.
Author: smirnoffmule
Pairing: Adrian Veidt/Dan Dreiberg
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Dan likes to take apart engines, while Adrian can deconstruct ideas. They both enjoy dismantling criminals. When you’ve got this much in common, who can possibly fail to make a connection?
A/N: With thanks to azarias, and to rm, whose post about bombs that leave things in the rain and the resulting discussion gave direction to some of the ideas in this fic.
This story is set early in 1971. Adrian has tried and failed to unite the Watchmen, and the Vietnam war is still raging. Imagine Eddie Blake is out there toasting kids as Dan and Adrian toast victory.
It is past midnight, and a Tuesday, one of those nights when the human traffic in the city slows to a trickle, fatigue with the week already setting in. Archie hangs above it all in the skyline, fat like a fruit, and rocking gently.
Adrian, at Dan’s direction, is rifling through a locker for paper cups. It doesn’t quite suit him, and nor do his surroundings, the colour scheme and proportions of the owlship all slightly at odds with his presence. It is like he has brought his own light source aboard, and it picks him out from the shadows. Dan guesses it’s because he’s unused to having Veidt around, and can’t help comparing him to Rorschach, who has the trick of fading savagely into any background.
It is stuffy, and Adrian has slipped off his mask, just as Dan has pulled back his hood, although he is otherwise still in costume. Relaxed, he carries it off like evening wear, the cape a coat about his shoulders, the band of gold an understated crown.
Adrian is on cup duty because Dan is calling in their night’s work to the NYPD. He can’t keep the satisfaction from his voice as he reels off the address to the operator. Eight guys in a basement, a neat little package, and the cops only have to collect. He should have planned for more than paper cups for a victory toast. Tonight is a coup for him.
He and Rorschach have turned this bunch of thugs and robbers over twice before, cracked plenty of faces, but never yet cut the heart out. The gang have been breaking into safe deposit vaults all over the city, blasting the locks with minute charges. It seems to Dan a particularly personal crime, to go fingering people’s inheritance. Like robbing graves.
One guard who tried to intervene was shot once in each leg and again in the spine as he tried to crawl away. After that, the gang shot a member of staff with every raid to prove a point, making the crime not only personal, but sticky too.
The latest raid emptied one vault of a collection of jewels, dating from the 16th century. Adrian has the black market in history cornered, his interest personal as well as professional, and Dan likes to make use of all the tools at his disposal. They seemed cold stones to him, and not worth killing for, but Adrian said they were museum pieces, as though that was a value in itself. He traced them to a fence who gave them a name in the space of an afternoon.
After that, it was only manners to invite him out for the final show, though Dan honestly expected he’d decline. Rorschach did, when he heard Veidt would be along the ride. Used to the brick walls in his partner’s personality, Dan didn’t bother to argue, and now he’s just relieved he pulled it off in front of Adrian Veidt. Ozymandias is a hero without peer, of the kind that peopled Dan’s childhood games; a flawless American hero.
Dan sees no conflict between this and the shift between Adrian’s private and public speaking voice. It is no more profound than the masks any of them wear in the field.
Call placed, he turns away from the radio phone, and can’t help grinning round the cockpit. Adrian catches his expression neatly and mirrors it back to him. He holds up the cups, and Dan laughs as he delves for the bottle of bourbon he keeps stashed in his medical kit. It’s moments like this that make the job matter, when sore ribs and bruised knuckles have a reason to be.
He is surprised Adrian has stayed, and fully expects him to have one drink then make excuses, but in the mean time, he is having fun. Fond as he is of Rorschach, it’s nice to have someone less prickly to talk shop with - someone who’s still in the game, that is. You can’t just be buddies with guys like Rorschach or the Comedian, and Jon is as distant as Bangkok as far as Dan is concerned.
He sits in his pilot's chair, and places the cups on the dashboard to pour - carefully. Adrian sits beside him, crosses his legs, and accepts the drink. They raise their cups, a toast to victory.
It’s only been twenty minutes since they wrapped up the fight and pushed Archie for the skyline. Dan’s heartbeat is still running, and he relives the highlights in flashes of green, his goggles colouring everything unreal. Masks who work together learn to move together, develop spatial awareness for each other, and Dan is gratified with how quickly he and Adrian fell into step. He puts most of it down to Veidt for being a natural dancer.
There were eight guys in the room, and one cellar in the corner. They punted them all down the stairs and locked the door, a game that moved fast and quickly got fun. The blood of the fight was tacky on the carpet, dark green on green according to Dan's goggles.
He can still feel it, back on Archie, gumming his feet to the floor. He kicks off his boots.
“How long do you think the cops will take to pick them up?” he asks. The bourbon burns a trail down his throat, and he relaxes into his seat, imagining the creak belongs to his muscles and not the leather. “I guess it's pretty dark down there, and it'll only get darker.”
Adrian sips without a grimace.
“Did you see the sign above the door? Black and yellow guides the way. That basement was a fall out shelter. It may be stocked. With torches, food. Assuming it's intended to be functional rather than a fashionable remark on cynicism.”
“Heh. Well, maybe we should have left them to stew a bit longer before we called the cops. Like a couple of days.”
Adrian nods, and laughs a little.
“Imagine,” he says. “If the bombs started flying now. They'd be all that's left to represent humanity.”
“Well, in that case. Better hope they hurry up,” Dan tries to jest. “The cops, I mean. Not the bombs.” He clears his throat.
Adrian inclines his head, as though conceding a point, for no reason Dan can see.
They talk shop for a while, and work on their drinks. Adrian asks technical questions about his goggles. Dan admires a short little punch to the sternum that Adrian does, and gets a demonstration that's surprisingly vital considering he doesn't bother to stand up first. His explanation for how it works invokes Qi and Dan ribs him gently, which he takes in good humour - a pleasant surprise, since Dan has previously suspected him of being almost entirely humourless beneath his affable exterior. Dan raises the bottle again, and Adrian holds out his cup.
When the conversation lulls, their silence is companionable. Curls are sticking to Dan's forehead with the heat. Outside Archie's windows, the mist boils orange with the lights from the city below. The effect, for a moment, is like sitting on a fireball, and Dan pictures their captives, rat-trapped in the basement, scrabbling for chocolate bars with a battery torch, while the fire rolls on the floor above. Would that door keep them safe? He doesn't know. He has never articulated the thought to himself before, but he lives in New York City, and the truth is, he's never expected to survive a blast for long enough for such details to get relevant. Or to want to, if it comes to that.
He looks over at Adrian, who is watching the mist curl, his forehead dry and his expression serene. There is a question forming in Dan's mind, and even unasked, it feels dangerous, like holding a box with a rattlesnake in it. With anyone else he could just ask it and trust they might be wrong if he didn't like their answer, but Adrian has the kind of mind which opens boxes.
“Is that really how it's going to go down?” he asks. It is both unknowable and unbearable not to know.
Adrian's attention rolls back to him, his eyebrows raised.
“If the bombs drop, I mean? So little warning? Is anyone crazy enough to make it happen? Surely someone in the chain would put a stop to it before it's too late?”
For a moment, Adrian's expression is unchanging, as though he's starring into nothingness.
“The people in the chain don't see the chain,” he says. It is not a comforting start.
“But millions of people...” Dan says.
“Billions.”
Dan pours himself another shot and tries to moderate his heart rate.
“It's been done before,” Adrian says. “Not quite on the scale, but the numbers involved become meaningless. Nobody is a murderer, but everyone is a cog in a machine. Killing people with your hands is rapidly becoming the old fashioned way.”
He seems so relaxed, and Dan grasps at this for comfort. Adrian is fond of ideas; he'll take them apart just to put them back together again. This kind of back and forth is a gentleman's sport for him. They could be talking about anything.
“It's all so... bloodless, somehow,” Dan says. “Makes a good old fashioned stabbing seem like honest work.”
“It makes bringing to justice a man who murdered one person seem like turning your collar up against a tidal wave.”
“Maybe it takes people like us to remember each one of those meaningless numbers is a person.” Dan's paper cup is giving up the ghost, between the liquor and the sweat on his hands. He puts it aside and swigs from the bottle. Adrian is looking at him, his regard intense enough to be unsettling. Taking him apart, Dan thinks, to put him back together again.
“You have a good heart, Dan,” Adrian says. “You think like a hero.” He accepts the bottle Dan is inclining towards him, and pours a shot into his cup. When he hands it back, Dan reaches without looking and closes his fingers over Adrian's. There is an awkward moment where neither can let go for fear of the other dropping it.
Untangled, Dan says, “We're all just trying to do our best out here. Hell, Adrian, I've read about you. All the charities you back. All the money you channel into energy research, and the arts, and third world projects.”
“I do all that from my desk. It's very bloodless too.”
Dan frowns.
“Well, you're out here now, aren't you? Wasn't bloodless when you kicked that big guy down the stairs tonight. And that's your real job, right? We're all just trying to make a difference.”
“Don't you feel sometimes that difference is relative?”
“I think a little difference can seem huge to the person whose life it is.”
Adrian again inclines his head, letting Dan have the point. It's a dark path, as far as Dan can see. A mask who doubts his heroics is like a priest who's lost the faith. It leaves a gaping hole, and one that itches to be filled again.
“Is this about what the Comedian said to you? You shouldn't let him get to you. He was drunk.”
“And now he's out in Vietnam, doing honest work.”
Dan sucks thoughtfully on the bottle, letting the burn wash over his disquiet. His head is already starting to thicken, and Archie's walls are leaning in around him. Adrian might as well be sipping iced tea.
“We should look to what we can do,” Dan says. “Not fixate on what we can't. There are problems in the world that really can be solved by banging heads together. Those are our kinds of problems.”
“And yet,” Adrian says. “Ultimately, if we do go to war, it's all for nothing. The charred remains of heroism.”
Dan has no answer to that except to drink more.
“I'm sorry,” Adrian says, seeming to shake himself. “I must sound very morbid. Perhaps you're right. We all do what we can.”
It feels like a change of subject rather than a change of heart. Dan is not reassured.
“You shouldn't be so down on yourself,” he says.
“On myself?” Adrian seems genuinely surprised. “I don't think so. I think, Dan, that you're so invested in the mask you wear that any such doubts must seem personal to you. I'm considering it more as an abstract question, whether one person can truly make a difference.”
This is better. A gentleman's sport again, though Dan can't help wondering what that mask is to Adrian if it isn't personal.
“People do make a difference. Look at history - great leaders, orators, politicians.” He is drunk enough to be pleased to have dealt with all those syllables.
“It's true there are men who act upon history. But there are many more who have simply been acted upon. I hope you are not offended, Dan. I admire your dedication.”
“No. No, I'm not offended.”
“I'm glad.” Adrian raises his cup to him, a little salute.
A part of Dan's mind clamours at him to take Adrian's cue and drop the subject. Another part wishes only to cut a straight path through the tangle.
“Do you really think it's going to happen?” he asks. The snake is out the box.
Adrian does not answer for so long Dan feels compelled to fill the silence.
“I mean, I'm no stranger to living with death. In this line of work, either one of us could catch a bullet tomorrow, that's how it goes. But this is different.”
“Yes, it is different. People go about their days in the knowledge they won't live to be old. It's in everything we do. Our art, our plans, our conversations. It has become us, even before the bombs start flying. The last is almost an afterthought.”
“Are you saying it doesn't matter if it happens or not?”
“In a fashion, because we have already lived with it. It's in us now, the poison in the water.”
“You're talking in abstracts again.”
“Civilisation is built on abstracts. We built cities to shield ourselves from nature, which is indifferent to our fate - the rains that don't come, the crops that fail. When death comes to the cities, there's nowhere to hide. We are animals, living in plain sight.”
“You still haven't said yes or no.”
Adrian smiles, and the mood shifts like the flick of a light switch.
“I can't see the future, Dan,” he says. The bottle is passed again. Dan swigs and Adrian pours. If he is disquieted by Dan's backwash, or by anything they have said tonight, it doesn't show. When he has his cup full, he raises it again.
“Maybe I fight crime at night to stop myself thinking so much,” he says. It seems to be a joke.
“Well, I don't think it's working.” Dan echoes his gesture, raising the bottle. The world is starting to reel a little. “I feel a toast coming on. What do you say, Adrian? To indifferent nature?”
They drink, and then it only seems natural that they should touch, like checking for a pulse. At first, it is only a bump as they exchange the bourbon, but it grows into something more. Their hands, already gloveless, entwine, fingers moving against each other, a game without rhythm or rules. It is pleasant, like trailing a hand in warm water, and Dan sits back in his chair, becoming a fixture. Adrian is a sinuous shape on the edge of his vision, a side effect to the sensation - until he sits up abruptly, still holding Dan's hand in his, and presses it to his lips.
He meets Dan's eyes over the curl of his fist, watching him closely for a cue. Dan knows he could stop it right there, and no hard feelings. All he has to do is look away. The touch would be gone, the subject changed, the kiss dismissed as some European affectation, quite permitted among continental men. Dan hangs a moment in limbo, both options inspiring equal promise and dismay.
He has suspected that about Adrian before, without knowing how to name it. Adrian's focus has something of the snake; Dan tells himself he is hypnotised by grace, but the truth is, he is curious. If he stops this now, he knows he will not see Adrian so unmasked again. He holds his gaze, lets it draw out, feels like they are exchanging secrets.
Adrian slides off his chair to kneel beside him, still keeping Dan's hand in his. Coupled with the cape, his pose is chivalrous. His fingers have tightened, but he gives no other outward sign that anything meaningful has just passed between them, that he wasn't about to do this all along. Dan leans to him and their lips touch, a bourbon kiss, edged with sleepy fire.
When they break, Dan's breath hitches, and the urgency is catching. Adrian's hands are on his chest and moving downwards. Dan tries to reach for him, but finds him insubstantial, keeps getting handfuls of cape slipping through his fingers. His own heavy armour is a barrier; he feels pressure but no sensation. He rises on his elbows, fumbling to unzip.
Adrian assists him with firm tugs, his hands brushing against Dan's bare chest as he works his outfit down past his waist. No mercy, Dan thinks, a bubble of humour rising. Adrian's movements are as crisp and economical as his fighting style. Uncovered, Dan's cock stirs, sleepy and surprised. Adrian takes it in his hand, and it swells to fit the contours. He has a smoother touch than anyone who punches for a living has any right to.
Dan is sweating, and the air on his newly exposed skin prickles, reminding him to feel self-conscious. He sits up, and reaches again for Adrian, who dips his head and allows him to remove the band of steel from his brow. Without it, his hair falls forward, and he looks more harried, more human. Dan tugs at his cape, and he takes the hint, and stands to strip. Even kicking off his boots, he moves like an acrobat.
Naked, he is less imposing, no trick of costume or stance left to disguise his lack of bulk, but his grace is utterly exposed. His body is not without scars, but they don't detract from his beauty, just give it an edge, like it's not all for show. A reminder that he's more than just a poster boy for masks. He is not circumcised, which Dan has never seen before, but he has no time for more than a moment of interest before Adrian drops back to his knees and takes Dan's cock in his firm right hand.
Uncertain if he should try and reciprocate, sensing he is not the one driving this train, Dan settles instead for laying a hand on Adrian's shoulder and letting his fingers curl. Adrian pushes into his touch, bracing himself against the pressure until Dan has to grip just to keep his arm in place. His hand looks big on Adrian's skin. He feels like a pugilist.
He closes his eyes, tries keep the thrust of his hips to Adrian's rhythm, stop the hitching of his breath from collapsing into moans. Adrian is sliding under his gripping arm in such a way that every time Dan tightens his muscles to compensate, he ends up pulling him closer. In his mind's eye, he sees them from above, an obscene tableau, a sex act made of angles, its geometry collapsing as Adrian leans into Dan's lap.
When Adrian takes him in his mouth, he really does moan, and his hands reach to clutch at handfuls of blond hair. He twists, he cannot help it, but if it hurts, then Adrian doesn't falter, or even glance up. He has not met Dan's eye since he started working, as though this business is all between him and Dan's cock, and any other presence is incidental. Dan looks to the ceiling, breathes through his mouth, takes a moment to watch himself, see how he's taking it - if he's thinking of Adrian, thinking of a girl, edging closer to the point where thinking at all feels like a disservice.
Abruptly, Adrian breaks Dan's grasp with a twist of his head, and his mouth is gone. He boosts himself all the way onto the chair, so he is sprawled across Dan's lap, leaning right over him to rifle under the pilot's seat. Dan's erection is nudging at his torso, feeling the cold air where Adrian's mouth has been.
Dan cranes his neck to see what he is doing, and Adrian, hanging half upside down, meets his eyes. His mouth quirks, like they are sharing a joke. He licks his lips, and Dan's mouth runs dry. He wants to thrust against Adrian's weight in his lap, could happily do nothing else all night. He wonders if this is chemistry they have between them, or if it's just that Adrian only knows how to do things well.
Adrian hooks out his medical kit from under the seat, and tosses through the contents. What he finds, Dan keeps there for chapped skin, chaffed raw from sweating under heavy fabrics, but he guesses it'll serve Adrian's purpose just as well. Adrian sits up, his weight across Dan's hips, and rubs lotion between his palms before closing his hands around Dan's cock. The sensation is cold, and Dan wants to buck, but Adrian's weight pins him still as he rubs, a slippery little dance without friction.
Once again, Dan can't seem to catch Adrian's eye, and feels like a third party. He is torn between not caring, and caring about nothing else. He puts his hands over Adrian's, stilling them for a moment, and wins a flash of blue regard, a squeeze from Adrian's slippery fingers. Then Adrian turns, shows him his back, straddles him, and Dan loses all hope of even remembering what to care about.
At first, the equation seems impossible. There is pushing, but nothing seems to give. Dan feels himself pressed against Adrian's entrance, feels Adrian's fingers reach behind him and tighten around Dan's cock as though insisting. He is powerless to do anything but rest his hands on Adrian's hips and trust him to get the job done.
Adrian twists, and the angle suddenly comes right, and combination of the lotion and his own weight drives Dan in inches at the first breach. If he makes a noise at all, it is lost under Dan's own cry. No mercy, he thinks again, though the thought seems an abstract, directed at no one. He scrabbles for a purchase on Adrian's skin, but he is so lean there is nothing there to pinch.
Adrian brings his free hand up to brace against the ceiling. He takes most of his weight on his own knees as he starts to rise and fall, and when Dan lets his eyes unfocus, it's like he's barely there. Dan squeezes with his fingers, trying to will Adrian into speed, but he won't surrender. He fucks himself on Dan like a private dance, framed against the windows of the owl ship, the light burning through the mist a muted, dirty halo.
Dan is starting to pant, and his mind flies to fancy - the mist will swallow them alive, the city's gone. Adrian leans back against him and suddenly his weight is real. He is light, but he is there, his hair tickling on Dan's chest, his back wet with sweat. He lets his legs fall apart, hangs them over the edge of the seat, so Dan can fuck him. Dan has to grind his hips and fight for lift; the rhythm is his now, all jagged breath and ragged tempo. Adrian wraps one arm around the back of the chair, and with the other starts to stroke himself to the same beat.
Dan's back is aching; he wants to move but doesn't know how, only tells himself he can't flip Adrian Veidt unless he lets him, no matter where his cock is shoved. He has not forgotten who he is fucking.
He settles for shifting his weight around and they end up lying sideways, back to chest, their legs entwined. The jerk of Dan's hips is short and urgent, and Adrian's eyes are drooping closed as though he is fading away. When Dan's climax hits him, he clutches, fingers digging and sliding in Adrian's skin, groaning without censor. Adrian reaches for his hand, and presses it to his own cock, first firm, then hard, then harder, stage managing Dan's fingers, teaching him the stroke.
He comes without noise, only shudders as though he is cold. Dan feels wetness in his fist, becomes aware of Adrian's hair in his mouth. He slides his hand up to Adrian's belly, and holds him close.
The air stills around them, and Archie's gentle bobbing gives Dan the impression of coming back to earth. He feels oddly absent, even with Adrian's back still pressed against his heart beat. The sensation he recalls most vividly is weightlessness. It is like he has emptied himself into his own hand, while looking at a picture.
Knowing they are in the fading seconds of their embrace, he reaches up and brushes a finger across Adrian's cheek. It is not so much a tender gesture as scientific curiosity. He wants to know what happens when this man is touched with affection.
The answer is nothing. They lie entangled for a few seconds more, the only movement the hitch of their chests as their breathing recovers. Then Adrian frees himself from under Dan's arm like throwing off bed covers, and crosses the cockpit to pick up his discarded suit. He keeps his back to Dan as he starts to dress.
Dan understands then that they will never do this, or even speak of this, again. He feels like he's missed a bus, like he's standing in the rain watching tail lights pass him by. He wishes for a moment he had just flipped Adrian over and fucked him into the faux leather, planted wet and messy kisses between his shoulder blades, pounded him till he cried out. At least then he might feel like he has given him something.
He reaches and picks up his cape to cover his nakedness before speaking.
“Adrian,” he begins, but that's all he has. There's an argument for thank you or even for I'm sorry, but when Adrian looks over his shoulder at the sound of his name, the subject seems closed. Dan expected he might look different somehow, but he is as he always is - affable, interested, untouched. Dan smiles awkwardly, just wanting to be friends again.
Adrian nods, and smiles back, and seems to mean it - it touches his eyes, although there is something there that brings to mind a hawk, a keenness that could be focused on Dan or on something else that's miles away.
Dan, at a loss, begins to dress himself too. For a while, there is only the rustle of fabric as they put their costumes back together. When Adrian turns to face him, he is once again crowned, and trimmed with royal purple.
“I'm afraid I have kept you out late,” he says. “And encouraged you to drink rather more than is wise for a man with a ship to run. Are you able to fly home?”
Dan nods, because it would be unthinkably humiliating to have surrender Archie's controls to Adrian, who has, after all, drunk just as much as he has.
“I can drop you off,” he says.
“Thank you.” Adrian moves up to sit beside him in the co-pilots seat. Archie's hydraulic systems hiss as Dan flicks him into drive. Adrian leans to peer out at the city crawling below as they start to move.
His earlier words jangle in Dan's ears. If they cannot refer to what they've just done, he can still reach out to him.
“You know,” he says. “You can drive yourself mad, dwelling on that stuff. You can't live your life like that. That's how those people down there continue to go about their days, do their jobs, raise families. They don't think about it. Or if they do, they think someone will save them. Jon, or God, or plain old common sense.”
Adrian laughs. It sounds out of place.
“Of the three,” he says, “I have most faith in the first. But Jon is not what people imagine. He's more human than they think he is - and yet less so, too. ”
It is like their conversation has barely paused. If Dan's prick wasn't still wet, he'd think he'd dreamed it. He looks over at Adrian, wanting something from him, but Adrian is looking out the window again, his pose totally relaxed. They are simply two friends discussing current affairs. Dan persists with what seems the only available way to re-engage him.
“But he could, right? Stop the nukes? Isn't that the point?”
“That's exactly the kind of teleological thinking that leads to misplaced faith. There is no point. He has not been sent to save us.”
“But could he?” Dan insists. He lets Archie drop lower as he speaks, and thinks of all its moving parts. The question for him is what does work, not whatever mysterious force might drive it.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But even if he could stop one strike, it wouldn't solve the problem. The world's superpowers would still be at each other's throats. If it didn't happen that day, it could happen the next. Jon cannot dismantle fear, or undo hatred. He cannot reduce an ideology to its atoms.”
“I'm sure I've heard you dismantle ideas before.”
Adrian inclines his head to acknowledge the compliment. Manners are his second skin.
“I don't say it can't be done. Just not by Doctor Manhattan. Ideas are volatile, and Jon doesn't know the mechanism which moves them. I talked earlier about the animal mind - it doesn't take a genius to see that stockpiling nukes and posturing with power is a fear response. Who arms themselves if they are not afraid?”
It doesn't take a genius. From the smartest man in the world. Dan feels mired in concepts, sinking to his waist. That particular turn of phrase seems a favourite of Adrian's. If someone could pin an accent down long enough to imitate him, it could become a catchphrase.
“What does it take a genius to do, Adrian?” he asks. It is meant as a joke, but it falls flat between them. Bourbon has thickened his tongue. He experiences a rush of perspective, sees himself for a moment as he truly is. A drunk man rocking in an owlship, empty space between his feet and the city.
When they part, Adrian meets his eye and offers him his hand, and they shake like friends who have done business.
He leaves nothing on board to show he was ever there, though Dan's palm glows warm with the memory of pressure the rest of the way home.