Chapter Text
Rorschach had almost given up hope on the possibility that he may have changed that night… until the day he found himself surrounded by the police, facing the blaring noise of the sirens.
Making a beeline through the alleyways, bricked walls passing by him like a blur, he knocked down a door which led him into a boiler room full of piping. The split second after seeing the flight of stairs, he noticed the length of pipe. Running towards it, he jumped and swung upwards over the balustrade to land at the top of the stairs, using the momentum to ram the door open. Over Rorschach’s frantic breathing, he could hear shouting and bullets whizzing past him as he ran up the stairway of the building. His heart began to race faster…
Thum-thumpThum-thumpThum-thumpThum-thump
He spotted a door with a rectangular piece of glass in place of its top part, and above that a steel beam. He took his chance and ran to jump and grab the beam, using his body weight to swing and burst through the glass.
Thum-thump. Thum-thump. Thum-thump. Thum-thump.
Landing in a crouch, he realized me was outside on a balcony, and frantically looking around, he saw a length of steel pipe lining the crimson-brown and grey patched wall, leading to a white painted ladder at the other end. Behind him rang the sounds of guns and shouting. Without a second thought he raced over the pipe that was less wide than his own shoes!
Thum-thump… Thum-thump… Thum-thump…
There was no time to think anymore! All that was going through his mind was ‘Run! Run! Get away!’ He made it just in time to the ladder and behind him, the steel bent and gave way, followed by a big hiss of steam as it hurled to the ground!
Thum-thump…
Back at the balcony, the door was thrown off its hinges and the men in blue uniform surrounded the balustrade. Not even bothering to use the steps, Rorschach slid down the ladder, leather gloves protesting under the friction, accompanied by the noise of firearms barely missing him. He jumped off the ladder from several meters above the ground and he dived into a roll before sprinting back to his feet and darting through the grimy alley, the shriek of police sirens almost deafening his ears. Heart beat so fast from adrenaline he thought it might burst out of his chest. His mind speeding so much, the world around him went by at a snail’s pace.
Thum… thump… Thum… thump…
He made it out of the alley into the street, random pedestrians watching curiously, but then from the next bend, two white and blue police cars greeted him, wheels ominously scraping the ground, red lights ablaze! He raced and dodged down the road, lurching projectiles smashing into the poster and graffiti-ridden wall behind him, his breath whizzing through his gullet, and there! Down the sidewalk! Leaping over the manhole and landing in a roll, he grabbed its respective cover!
Thum…
The long-stringed hollers of people running away ringed in his ears. Darting past, Rorschach raised the iron slab on the encroaching bullets. Agonizingly slow blasts sounded as the shots ricochet off the slab. Seconds crawled like minutes, and at the first slack in the gunshots he threw the cover back at them!
thump...
Grabbing the streetlight beam he swiveled his body around into the next alleyway in a brisk 90 degree turn, and in that same instant, the manhole cover glided through the air like a frisbee and slammed into the bonnet of the first vehicle, slicing through and making it halt with a drawn-out but ear-piercing screech! The second vehicle swiveled around and rammed into the prior one!
Thum…
Rorschach huffed as he turned the corner, grateful to have evade- Oh no! Dead end! Before him were walls several stories high with the ground caked by mounds of trash. His head turned around to the sounds of shouting. Cornered. He looked again into the back alley. Blazing past over the accumulations he darted at a blistering pace towards the wall, the police right behind him! Using the momentum he literally stepped up the wall. One. Two. Three. Four steps before leaping off and summersaulting in the air and landing behind them!
thump…
The first policeman oozed towards him, unsheathing his gun, but Rorschach’s fist flew and knocked the weapon out of the man’s hand before grabbing his arm and whipped around, throwing him into the other officers and into the mounds of trash.
Thum…
Not wanting to find out if they’ve been knocked out cold or not, he ran out of the alley and back where he knew the cars were strewn. He raced forward and leaped up, letting out a raging holler, while all the while a few other remaining cops spotted him, but just watched as if he were some kind of apparition.
thump…
Seconds stretched on like eons as he skipped off the top of the car, the wide-eyed gazes of the dumb-struck men tardily followed, as if working with late reaction time. Running towards the alley at the other end, this one with a brick wall that wasn’t as high as the last one, he aimed for the corner, leaped up and hopped off the wall towards the one at a 90 degree angle next to it, and used that same momentum to hop back higher and repeated until he was at the top where he grabbed the edge and hauled himself over.
He landed in a roll and kept on running.
Thum… thump… Thum… thump…
Through alleyways, and only after a long and winding, twisting line through and around the buildings did he start to slow down.
Thum-thump… Thum-thump. Thum-thump. Thum-thumpThum-thumpThum-thump…
Breathing hoarsely, feeling his gullet strung with globs of mucus trying to ease his dried-up and exhausted trachea, he eased down to a brisk walk, his aching muscles protesting as if only now they decided to make their existence known. And they burned, oh how they burned! Getting his breathing under control, only pausing to gulp every now and then, he leaned his back against the wall, sliding to settle down and letting pressure off his abused legs.
Upon summarizing the event that just passed in his head, it was only then that it occurred to him that he actually managed to somehow tightrope a thin long pipe, that the sheer wall that he climbed on was several feet high, that he lifted an IRON manhole cover with barely any effort at all, and dodged blistering-fast bullets! How time seemed to just slow down…
In short, he did things which no person, even him, would have been able to do. Things he could only dream of doing during the Charlton Home years in the gymnastics area at school…
It seems he finally discovered his super-power.
“Psst.”
Rorschach jumped up with a yelp, looking around frantica- oh. Lo and behold, the orange-eyed owl perched on a fire escape. So he finally decided to show up. He had his limbs clutched on the balustrade on either side of his chin, and he raised one hand to wave back at him in an almost comical fashion.
“Hurmm… Hi.” Rorschach simply said.
“That… That was amazing! How did you do that??” Nite Owl inquired while Rorschach randomly decided to see if he could jump up to the ladder. Easily enough, he grabbed the end of it and swinged up to land and turn around, going to stand next to the cloaked figure.
Decided to show, and apparently perceptive of the goings on… “Found my power. Thought it was obvious…” And after a moment of thought “Seems it didn’t occur to you to lend some help.”
“I was about 500 yards away.”
Ah. Forgot.
They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment.
“Swim goggles?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Heh. Didn’t see the point of bringing my night-vision goggles since I can see in the dark now. Will have to redesign them one of these days. The tricky part is actually having to wear sunglasses during the day, I’m afraid. Guess I’ll have to get myself a stick and pose as a blind person from now on, you know, as a cover-up. And then I’ve got to find sunglasses that actually kind of wrap around… It’s not as if I can’t open my eyes in the daylight, of course, but it hurts my eyes after a while. But I think I’ll get used to the sunglasses part – I think it gives a certain… ‘funk’ to my image, don’t you agree?”
And so on they went, up the steps of fire escape, Rorschach being silent, but listening to the calming thrum of Nite Owl’s ramblings.
THE END