Ozymandias/Rorschach fic Archive
Due to a special request from Niles over at /pco/, I somehow started writing a screwball comedy in which Veidt attempts to woo Rorschach. This is the worst thing in the world and no one should ever read it.
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He knew there were stigmas attached to it. He knew why people wouldn't want to be honest with themselves. But he also thought that times would change, and eventually, the world would accept certain people for who they were. You could already see it happening on small levels. By degrees. One day people wouldn’t have to hide or bend to society’s norms. Sure, you would never get everyone to agree, but for God’s sake you could get people to tolerate each other.
This is what the world’s smartest man believed, and he believed it with all his heart.
He also believed that fellow vigilante Rorschach was as gay as they come.
It wasn’t just the fact that Rorschach was clearly skilled at sewing (he and Nite Owl had caught him once, in the backroom during a Crimebusters meeting, doing some fancy handiwork on a pinstriped pantleg. Rorschach tried to hide what he was doing, but Nite Owl never let him live it down). No, but it was more than that. Adrian sensed a distinctly uneasy tension about the man that was acutely familiar to him.
It was desire with a lack of action. And Rorschach was clearly suffering because of it.
Perhaps it was unfair to label someone simply because one had a “feeling” about him. But Rorschach wasn’t really helping his own case.
This is when a brilliant idea struck Adrian.
“I can help him.”
--
Incidentally, it’s pretty intimidating to write for the world’s smartest man. Because I can’t make the same claim. So rest assured that for being the smartest man, he will not act very smart at all.
--
Adrian prided himself in knowing how people worked. He couldn’t risk showing his hand this early in the game, or Rorschach might outright reject him. Not because Adrian had made a misjudgment, oh no, but because Rorschach was probably afraid of letting anyone know the truth about him.
He would have to start small. Drop hints, and let Rorschach know he was open-minded. That it was all right with him.
Set stage at the Crimebusters’ next meeting. It was break time, and the members were settling down to socialize. Nite Owl was making a brave attempt to talk to Laurie Jupiter, who seemed more concerned with eyeing a certain blue man across the room. The Comedian was absent again, as he had been ever since his discouraging speech at the first meeting. Rorschach was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
Step one: break the ice.
Adrian walked up to him with his best confident posture, and a de-“cap”-itated (ha ha) bottle of coke in each hand. He offered one bottle to Rorschach, who took it but made no move to drink it. Instead he looked thoughtfully at it as he turned it in his hand. Perhaps a little encouragement.
“Here’s to a successful bust tonight, my friend,” Adrian said cheerfully as he held up his own bottle.
Rorschach held up his bottle as well, but paused when he brought it to his face. Nervous to lift the mask? Understandable.
Step two: break the tension. And the first rule of flirtation is contact.
Adrian leaned up against the wall, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Rorschach. He put a hand on the shoulder closest to him.
“You know, Rorschach, you can relax a bit around us. We’re all of the same mind here. That’s why we’re fighting crime as a team. Or is it the bust that has you nervous?”
Rorschach shifted with a grunt, but maybe thought it would be too impolite to move away entirely. There was nothing suspicious about Adrian’s movements yet, after all.
“Not nervous. I never have been. There’s nothing better than cleaning up scum.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s nothing better, Rorschach,” Adrian said genially, giving Rorschach’s shoulder a meaningful squeeze. Rorschach’s change in posture to fully upright indicated that he had heard it the way Adrian intended. So as not to prolong the moment to awkwardness, he choose this point to cross the room and chat up Dr. Manhattan. He was left with the double advantage of having his last words hang in the air.
Encounter One: Success.
--
The first rule of flirtation is: we do not talk about flirtation.
--
Maybe it was tacky, or hackneyed, or what have you, but Adrian had to admit he had a weakness for classic romance.
He deposited a single rose in Rorschach’s locker at the Crimebusters’ headquarters.
Roses were sweet and honest. He hoped Rorschach felt the same way about them.
The plan was this: leave a calling card first (anonymously, in case there was a chance his affections would still be rebuffed), and then gradually make clear the identity of the sender through artistic flirting. The plan left room for creativity, maneuverability, and, if it came to it, denial.
The trap was set, to use a perhaps inappropriately aggressive phrase.
Rorschach was rather startled by the contents of his locker. He picked up the rose and examined it, more in the fashion of scrutinizing evidence than handling a love note. In a fit of detective instinct, he sniffed the rose. It was perfumed. That smell...
And then an awful realization hit him.
Veidt had left the rose in the locker the night before. Today was the day it would undoubtedly be discovered. The meeting would take place in a few minutes, which he hoped would allow him to gage Rorschach’s reaction.
As he thought this, Rorschach was striding toward him, his inkblots immitating a human expression of concentration. Could he have already figured out who sent it? Despite Rorschach’s skills as an investigator, Adrian had to admit he hadn’t expected him to jump to that conclusion straight out.
“Veidt, call the meeting in. I know we were going to talk about Moloch’s next move first, but I’ve found something a little more urgent. Everyone needs to hear this.”
This struck Adrian square between the eyes. Could it be he planned to come out to everyone at once? That wouldn’t fit his usual M.O. at all. He always imagined Rorschach would make it a private matter, even try to convince his would-be significant other to keep it a secret. Nevertheless, let them do as they will. Adrian called the rest of the members into the meeting room.
Everyone filed in to sit at the oblong table in the center of the room. It looked like a mock-up of a corporate business meeting. While the others all sat, Rorschach stood at the head of the table, which only served to emphasize his next mysterious move.
He dropped the rose on the table in front of him.
“This could only mean one thing. The Twilight Lady knows where our headquarters is.”
The statement was met with confused glances around the table, each member trying to discern comprehension from each other, except there was none. The only members who looked more startled than confused were Adrian Veidt and Nite Owl. Nite Owl looked almost comically uncomfortable, as though he knew what was coming.
“She left me a calling card. Perfumed rose. Left Nite Owl a similar calling card--” at this Nite Owl looked even more uneasy-“weeks ago, just a day before her attempted theft at the Metropolitan. She got away then. Won’t now.”
Nite Owl looked as though he were about to say something, and then thought better of it.
Laurie put in instead. “But this is the first time I heard anything about an attempted theft at the Met. At least, a recent one. And the Twilight Lady is usually pretty high profile.” A couple of other members nodded agreement.
Rorschach looked momentarily thrown, but he plowed onward. “Nite Owl got it the night before. A note on it said ‘meet you at the Met.’ I found it after he was already on his way. She’d gotten away by the time I caught up to him.”
The story made something abundantly clear to the rest of the group that it apparently hadn’t for Rorschach. For all his suspicion and borderline paranoia, it looked like Rorschach was a pretty trusting guy.
Nite Owl stood up. “Rorschach, uh...could we, um, talk for a minute? There’s something I should probably tell you. In the other room.” Laurie stifled a giggle and Nite Owl shot her an embarrassed glance. He walked toward the door and looked over his shoulder to make sure Rorschach would follow him. Slowly, Rorschach made for the door as well. The inkblots on his mask did not look pleased.
As soon as the two of them closed the door behind them, the room erupted in laughter.
“Poor Nite Owl,” Captain Metropolis said through tears of glee. “Getting caught at his own game.”
“I’ll bet he hoped that’s what Rorschach thought was happening,” Laurie giggled. “I don’t envy him out there trying to explain his little tryst to a guy like that.”
Adrian alone seemed to lack of the mirth this had brought upon the other crime fighters. He looked contemplative.
The laughter was interrupted by a blaring “WHAT?” from directly outside the meeting room. The room became a coffin of silence for a solid moment. Before bursting into tumultuous laughter again, even louder than before.
This did not bode all too well for Veidt's plans. But he could work with it.
--
As you will see, I’m clearly using all the fanon I can grab.
--
Rorschach hadn’t spoken to his partner for days. Adrian found himself wondering if this had been a let down for Rorschach in more than one way.
All the more reason to get his mind off of things. It was time to put the next part of the plan into motion. Let Rorschach know he could reach out to him, that he would be an open set of arms whenever he needed them. In other words: Touching.
Incidental Touching.
It started innocently. After a meeting closed, Veidt would comment on the disarray of Rorschach’s scarf and then get close to fix it in place. This involved one hand near Rorschach’s neck, pulling the knot up, and one near his chest, tucking in extra fabric. He could only do this trick once, so he made sure the fingers of the hand yanking the scarf down strayed: a light tickling touch on the upper chest, right under the collar bone. Rorschach made no comment on this movement and left the meeting utterly silent. Perhaps he wasn’t ticklish.
Aside from messy scarves, Rorschach had another habit that lent itself to some manipulation, though this was a new habit.
Rorschach was almost charmingly predictable when it came to seating arrangements in the meeting room after the incident with the rose. Just like a grade schooler, he avoided sitting next to Nite Owl if at all possible. If the only seat left was next to him, he might even go so far as to stand. The only word for this infantile behavior was ‘adorable.’
There was a pattern. Rorschach always took the seat on the most opposite end. Likewise, Nite Owl had fallen into a pattern of sitting nearest the door (for escape?). By the next meeting, it was easy to assume where both men would be. Adrian situated himself right next to the seat he knew Rorschach would take, and was not disappointed.
He laid his hand inconspicuously on the edge of the seat next to him a moment before Rorschach sat down. Palm up. An incidental gesture, of course.
Only a second after sitting down, Rorschach stood bolt upright again with an uncharacteristic yelp. He was the center of attention for a brief instant before Veidt spoke up.
“Sorry about that, forget where I place myself sometimes.” He raised the offending hand up into a friendly wave. Rorschach, frozen in place, sat down again with deliberate slowness. In keeping with his usual behavior, he made no comment.
Veidt took it a step further. Once the meeting was in full swing, he placed his hand on Rorschach’s leg. He continued to talk without pause, and as he did so he felt Rorschach glance in his direction. He talked about Moloch’s devious plans involving attack squids, which the Crimebusters had just learned about in an unfortunate episode during their last bust. All the while as the meeting progressed, Adrian’s hand made a similar progression up Rorschach’s thigh. From his peripheral vision, Adrian could see Rorschach squirm with each slide of his hand.
Was Rorschach enjoying it? It was too risky to look around at the vigilante’s face, not that it would do much good anyway. But he wasn’t doing or saying anything to stop him, and Veidt could swear he felt the man trembling a bit at his touch. To test the waters, amidst debate of the endangered species status of nine-foot tall squids, Adrian gave Rorschach’s thigh a suggestive squeeze.
Rorschach jolted violently and slammed open palms on the table. There was a pregnant pause.
“I don’t care if they’re an endangered species!” Rorschach shouted, a little over-emphatically.
Nite Owl looked around and then slammed his fist on the table as well. “I’m with Rorschach! They’re still attacking us, and I swear to God if I have to deal with one more giant tentacle grabbing for my goods I’m done with the hero business.” He then glanced over at Rorschach, obviously trying to see how he took his support. It was cute that Nite Owl was still making an effort to make up with his partner.
The meeting ended with heartfelt grumbles about errant tentacles and “gonna get that Moloch if it’s the last thing...” Rorschach rushed out of the room without a word to anyone. This left Adrian to consider his next move.
--
Alternate title: "in which Ozymandias totally cops a feel."
And the next segment: In which everything takes a turn for the horrible. Also known as: the author feels like the worst person in the world.
--
Rorschach needed anything to get his mind off the recent chain of events at Crimebusters headquarters. If Ozymandias wanted to be a homosexual, he wasn’t going to stop him, but he certainly wasn’t going to let him get his mitts on him anymore. No more chances.
He decided to lead a bust, and insisted that he and Nite Owl take it alone. Veidt tried to offer his assistance, but Rorschach flat out refused. His residual irritation at Nite Owl was overridden by his need to be away from Veidt. Accomplishing something in the criminal underworld would make him feel much, much better.
Little did he know.
He and Nite Owl had made it through the worst of the sewer. Now it was only a matter of time before the attack squids appeared. This time, they were prepared. Moloch no longer had the element of surprise.
Nite Owl sniffed the air. A pinkish vapor had settled over them, making the air thick and heavy. The gas bore down on their lungs like hot steam, and they found themselves feeling...unusual.
Moloch stepped out of the shadows of the sewer, wearing a gas mask.
Nite Owl, seized with sudden panic, patted around his utility belt for the gas mask he knew it was too late to put on. Just ahead of him, he could see Rorschach frozen solid in disbelief. They were really going to die.
“Don’t be so overdramatic. I haven’t poisoned you,” Moloch said, voice muffled by his mask.
Nite Owl looked up from his search in surprise. “You...you haven’t?”
“You heroes misunderstand me. I don’t want murder on my resume. I just want to never have to deal with you again. It’s an aphrodisiac.”
Nite Owl and Rorschach simultaneously blanched in horror.
“Go, my squids!” Moloch cried. “Make them grievously uncomfortable.”
It wasn’t until tentacles grabbed at them from all sides that they realized just how strange they were feeling. Weak and upside down and knees splashed to the ground in the sewer and
tentacles crept up Rorschach’s leg and Veidt’s hand was on his thigh he was shuddering and Nite Owl was moaning in the background and oh god
The news the following morning was interesting to say the least. Police had found Nite Owl and Rorschach, and had done their best not to snicker at the crime scene. Needless to say this made headlines immediately.
Two grown men had been molested by giant squids. If the masked heroes were already something of a joke before, no one would ever take them seriously again after this.
What made it even better was that the Comedian was present at the next meeting.
--
First a sitcom and now it’s a high school drama! Complete with sad piano music that plays every time someone brings up the tentacle rape, and close-ups of Daniel and Rorschach with moist eyes.
I need to give up the internet forever.
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Aaaaand, there'll be more eventually.