The hum of the Great Web was a constant, a low thrumming that vibrated through the very marrow of existence. Here, in the heart of the Spider-Army's base, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and the unspoken anxieties of multiversal heroes. I, Rorschach, sat in my designated holding cell, the rough fabric of my trench coat a familiar anchor in this sea of strangeness.
Miles was the first to voice it, his words a nervous eddy in the quiet room. "We can't just... keep him locked up forever. But we can't let him run loose, either."
Gwen, ever the pragmatist, leaned against a humming console, her mask a stark white against the dim light. "He's a walking paradox. Too dangerous to be free, too vital to eliminate without a damn good reason. Disrupting the Web… that's not an option."
Pavitr, his enthusiasm a defiant splash of color in the monochrome of their debate, chimed in, "So, what? We find a way to… contain him?"
A beat of silence. Then, a slow grin spread across Miles' face, a spark of mischief in his usually earnest eyes. "We assign him a babysitter."
A ripple of laughter, half-nervous, half-genuine. It was a jest, a way to blow off steam, but the idea took root. Who among them could possibly endure Rorschach's unyielding gaze, his relentless honesty, for an extended period? Who could even stand him?
The consensus, surprisingly, landed on a name spoken with a mixture of genuine affection and a hint of playful mockery. "Spider-Ham," Gwen declared, a wry smile playing on her lips. "He's unflappable. What's Rorschach going to do, eat him?"
The joke hung in the air, a flimsy shield against the inherent absurdity. No one, not even Ham himself, truly believed Rorschach would tolerate such an arrangement. He was a force of nature, a brutal truth in a world of masks. And Ham? Ham was… Ham.
The heavy door to my cell hissed open, admitting a blinding shaft of light and a figure that defied all logic. Peter Porker, also known as Spider-Ham, bounced into the room with an almost alarming degree of cheerfulness. He was… a pig. A bipedal, costumed pig. He wore a bright yellow suit, red gloves, and a grin that seemed permanently plastered on his snout.
"Howdy, partner!" he boomed, extending a floppy-eared hand. "Name's Spider-Ham! And guess what? Today, you and me, we're gonna be partners!" He punctuated this with a series of exaggerated poses, nearly tripping over his own feet in his exuberance.
I merely stared. My journal, clutched in my gloved hand, felt heavy. Cartoon pig. The first entry for the day was stark, unvarnished. Ridiculous. Dangerous. Masks mock reality itself. His very existence was an affront to the grim truths I lived by. And this "partnership"… it was a mockery of the seriousness of the world.
Ham, undeterred by my silent assessment, continued his whirlwind introduction. He explained, with a series of self-deprecating jokes and pratfalls, that he was the designated "babysitter" for the day. He didn't treat me as a prisoner, or a threat, but as an equal, a fellow operative on a mission of cosmic importance. The absurdity of it washed over me, a chaotic tide against the granite of my resolve.
The "mission", as Ham termed it, involved a bewildering tour of the Spider-Army's daily operations. He dragged me, the reluctant specter in my trench coat, through the labyrinthine corridors of the base. We observed patrol rotations, where Spiders in various guises swung through the shimmering strands of the Great Web, their laughter echoing like distant chimes. We assisted in what Ham called "Web maintenance," a process so bafflingly intricate it made my head ache. And we visited the infirmary, tending to injured Totems, their fractured realities held together by the unwavering dedication of the medical staff.
Throughout it all, I observed. Their optimism, their unwavering belief in cooperation, their inherent kindness – it was a foreign language, a dialect of weakness I could barely decipher. My journal, filled with the harsh pronouncements of my worldview, struggled to keep pace. Weakness. Laughter. Blind to predators. They were a vibrant, interconnected tapestry, but I saw only the threads that could be easily snapped, the vulnerabilities that invited destruction.
From across the bustling mess hall, I caught Gwen's gaze, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. She never joined the hushed conversations, the whispered jokes about my presence amongst them. She simply watched, a silent sentinel of my unease. I understood her skepticism. I was an anomaly, a stain on their brightly colored existence.
Later that day, during a brief patrol along a less-trafficked sector of the Great Web, the inherent difference in our philosophies finally surfaced. The wind, a whisper of cosmic energy, tugged at my coat.
"Why smile?" I demanded, the question raw and unbidden. "Why joke? These masks… they aren't funny. The world is sick, Pig. Rotting."
Ham stopped, his cheerful demeanor momentarily subdued. He looked out at the swirling nebulae that marked the outer reaches of this dimension, his expression uncharacteristically thoughtful. "The world's already cruel, Rorschach," he said, his voice softer than I expected. "If I don't laugh, I'll drown in it."
I blinked behind my mask. This wasn't the simplistic naivete I'd attributed to him. There was a depth there, a hard-won resilience masked by his outward joviality. He wasn't a predator, certainly not prey. He was… something else. Something I couldn't categorize, couldn't dissect with my usual brutal logic. It was unsettling.
The inevitable moment of ridicule arrived a few cycles later. A group of younger Spider-Totems, their youthful energy brimming over, pointed and snickered as Ham and I passed. "Look," one of them whispered, loud enough to be heard, "it's the psycho in the trench coat and the cartoon pig."
Ham, to my astonishment, didn't flinch. He didn't unleash a torrent of righteous anger. Instead, he laughed. It was a booming, unrestrained sound that seemed to absorb their taunts, rendering them harmless. He clapped me on the shoulder, a surprisingly firm pressure. "Come on, partner," he said, pulling me along, "let's go save the universe before lunchtime."
But later, when the younger Spiders were out of earshot, Ham's tone shifted. "Hey," he called after them, his voice carrying a new edge, "just so we're clear? He's my partner. You laugh at him, you laugh at me. Got it?"
The younger Totems mumbled apologies, their bravado deflated. I watched them scatter, my mind reeling. Doesn't make sense, I scrawled in my journal, the pen scratching furiously against the page. Loyalty wasted on nothing. Ham's strange code of ethics, his unwavering defense of me – it was a concept that defied my understanding of self-preservation, of rational self-interest.
Our "test run" came on a scouting mission along a less-frequented artery of the Great Web. Ham, with surprising acuity, pointed out subtle distortions in the luminous strands, minute imperfections that, he explained, could be precursors to Inheritor incursions. He demonstrated a technique, a way of "feeling" the vibrations of the Web, something I'd previously dismissed as whimsical nonsense.
And then, I saw it. A faint ripple, almost imperceptible, along a particularly dense strand. It was a distortion so minute, so fleeting, that even Ham, with his enhanced senses, had almost missed it. I pointed it out, my voice a low growl.
Ham's eyes widened, then he let out a whoop of delight. "Attaboy, Rorschach!" he bellowed, slapping me on the back with genuine enthusiasm. "See? You're not so bad once you stop growling!"
The praise, unearned and delivered with such unvarnished sincerity, was like a splash of cold water. Internally, I was a churning mess of confusion. Cartoon treats me like equal. Doesn't laugh. Doesn't mock. Unnerving. His consistent, unyielding acceptance chipped away at the foundations of my fortress of cynicism.
That night, the hum of the Great Web seemed to lull me into an uneasy state of introspection. I sat alone in my cell, the ink drying on the latest entry in my journal. I reread Ham's words from earlier: "If I don't laugh, I'll drown in it."
I picked up my pen, intending to add another scathing observation about the inherent weakness of optimism. But as my hand hovered over the page, I hesitated. The word "weakness" felt… wrong. It felt incomplete. I smudged the ink, blurring its sharp edges.
Finally, I wrote, my hand trembling almost imperceptibly.
Cartoon doesn't belong. Yet more real than most masks. Don't understand.
The Great Web continued its silent song, and for the first time since my arrival, the darkness within me felt… less absolute.