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The fifth time Matt collapses at Foggy's door, Foggy sighs, says, "Damnit, Matt!" and goes to get the first aid kit.
It sounds bad without the context, which is that the first three times Foggy flat-out panicked. There might have been some tender-yet-manly tears, especially the second time, which involved so much blood. Most of it turned out not to be Matt's, but still, it was enough to put the fear of God into Foggy. (He mentioned that part to Matt afterwards, when Matt woke up, and Matt just grinned and said "Congratulations, you're now an honorary Catholic. Next level: guilt.")
The fourth time Matt was faking it, the bastard. Well, not the falling-over part, which was entirely real because he'd managed to cut through his boots by smashing not one, not two, but apparently five fucking windows and getting glass shards basically everywhere in his feet. But the unconsciousness part was entirely Matt messing with Foggy, which Foggy didn't appreciate even a little bit.
So Foggy made Matt provide him with a comprehensive flow chart of what kinds of unconsciousness would require immediately medical attention and what kinds were probably okay.
"You're not going to need this," Matt said as Foggy drew an arrow between bubbles labeled "Blue lips and fingernails" and "Take to ER." "Claire said she was coming back into town soon, and once she's back, I can get her to stitch me up."
"That's what you've been saying for that past month," Foggy said, and put the finishing touches on the arrow. "Okay. Now, 'copiously-bleeding head wound.' ER or not?"
Matt sighed, and Foggy signed himself up the next day for a volunteer EMT training class.
But today is the fifth time, which is about a week later, and Matt has once again collapsed at Foggy's door. This time, though, he's still awake, and he has a giant fucking chunk of wood sticking out of his leg.
"Hey, Foggy," Matt says. "Got a Band-Aid?"
So Foggy sighs, says, "Dammit, Matt!" and goes to get the first aid kit.
Because apparently this is his life now.
He gets very good at stitches.
"When did Claire say she was going to be back again?" Foggy asks, carefully knotting the suture. He's working on a cut most of the way down Matt's back, just far enough up that it technically still counts as back but far enough down that if this were an ad for jeans there'd be complaints from parents. Hell, Foggy was Matt's roommate for years and Matt's beaten, scuffed, and wearing sweatpants, and Foggy almost wants to file the indecency complaint himself. Matt has noticeable dimples at the small of his back, because that's how ripped he is, even when he's draped over the armrest of his own couch (because they do sometimes get to do this as Matt's place instead of Foggy's, moreso now since Foggy pointed out that Matt would be way less bothered by bloodstains all over his apartment than Foggy). Matt drapes very nicely.
Foggy needs to stop thinking this way before Matt can feel his heartbeat raise or whatever.
"Soon," Matt says, his voice indistinct and muffled since he's basically talking into the backrest of the couch. "Getting tired of stitching me up?"
"No, this is my favorite part of the day," Foggy says.
"I'd do it for you, you know. If you never needed it."
"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'd go to the hospital, where they give you drugs and have sterile conditions and legal incentives against malpractice."
"I know what I'm doing."
"Right. You just take a sec to contemplate what you just said, and I'm going to keep picking these shards of glass out of your feet, mmkay?"
Matt's back straight-up ripples as he sighs. "Claire'll be back soon," he repeats.
"Yeah," Foggy says, snipping off the suture. "Not soon enough."
Claire does come back, and Foggy plies Matt with some bullshit about multiple lines of communication to get her number. Then he invites her out for coffee and bitching about Matt "goddamn Daredevil" Murdock.
And Claire, now that Foggy isn't doing some grade-A, unrefined shitflipping, is amazing, even though it turns out that Matt's been creatively editorializing his version of events.
"Completely unconscious in the dumpster," Claire confirms, sipping on her latte. They're at the busiest Starbucks Foggy could find, crammed in one corner between a table of NYU theater students running a scene and a group of high schoolers trying to decide on the theme for this year's prom. Basically, he managed to find the perfect place where they'd be the least dramatic and conspicuous, and he's damn proud: he staked out the table for an hour before it opened up and he swooped in.
"Of course he was," Foggy says, leaning his forehead against the rim of his giant sweetened coffee. "You know, I don't even know what that means in terms of badness."
"Well, it's not great," Claire says. "If he'd had internal bleeding it would've been a different story - "
"Jesus," Foggy says, and scrubs his face with one hand.
Claire frowns at him. "How long have you known him again?"
"Since freshman year of college," Foggy says.
"And you really had no idea that he'd be the type to do this?"
"Apparently he's much better at compartmentalizing than I realized." Foggy shakes his head. "I mean, you don't turn down a giant paycheck with a prestigious firm to practice law in Hell's Kitchen for nothing, and he's always kind of been - he just gets angry sometimes, when something's unjust or unfair, but I figured that's why he went into law, not - his other hobby." Foggy sips his coffee. "And yeah, I guess he's a better liar than I thought. Or I'm a bigger chump."
"I'm a nurse, not a therapist," Claire says, cupping her latte in her hands. "I keep telling him, I don't want to get more involved than I already am. I want to help people, and he..." She shakes her head. "He kind of seems like a timesuck, if you know what I mean. Which isn't to say that he's not doing good or whatever, but - "
"I know exactly what you mean," Foggy says. "He just kind of becomes the center of everything."
"It's hard to work a shift in the E.R. when at any moment I might have to drop everything to stitch him up," Claire agrees. "I can't do that. I want to help people, plural, and not just him."
"Yeah, that's - probably a good call," Foggy agrees, and scrubs his face with one had. "If there's an emergency, though, can I call you?"
"I'd be angry if you didn't, to be honest." Foggy's just raising his coffee to his lips when Claire says, "You know he's going to get himself killed. Doing what he does - it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."
Foggy sets his cup down, hard.
"It's why nothing's going to happen between us," Claire continues, looking pensively at her own cup. "I've done the bad-relationship thing, and I'm not putting myself through that again. You've known him longer than I have - does he know it? Is he deluding himself? Or does he just not care?"
After a second, Foggy says, "I think he just can't...not." He takes a quick chug of coffee, three rapid gulps, and then adds, "Although he's definitely deluding himself. I don't think he's thinking about - about anyone else."
Claire sighs. "Well, I'm pretty sure he already knows this, but tell him that as long as he's going to put his mission or whatever first, then so am I. And I've got his back, whenever I can."
"I think he already knows, but I'll pass it along," Foggy says. The heat from the paper cup seeps through even the cardboard sleeve around it into Foggy's hands. "And if you ever need anything for any reason, you know, just let me know."
Claire cracks a small smile. "I guess all of us that are Team Matt also need to be Team Each Other, just to survive being Team Matt."
Foggy grimaces. "Hopefully not literally."
"Next time," Claire says, "we should meet at a bar."
Foggy does nothing by halves, so he follows Matt back to his apartment a few nights later. Matt walks and Foggy takes a cab, so Foggy's leaning against Matt's door by the time Matt gets there.
Matt tilts his head to one side. "Did I accidentally walk to your apartment, or did you want something?"
"I wanted something," Foggy confirms.
"And you couldn't say something at work because...it's something you don't want Karen to know about," Matt continues.
"Bingo."
Matt nods, a shallow oscillation. "Are you going to yell at me again?"
"Nope," Foggy says, and pulls the bottle of tequila out of his satchel. "You haven't been coming out to drinks with us, so the drinks are coming to you. In this case: tequila. Karen's sitting this one out, though, 'cause this one's gonna be no-holds-barred, two-guys-enter-only-one-comes-out, Mortal Kombat shit."
"Maybe that's not the best metaphor under the circumstances," Matt points out, and starts digging his keys out of his pocket.
"The point is, we're gonna get hardcore shitfaced, nothing's off the table, costume or not, and it's gonna be great."
"I can't believe you brought tequila." Matt unlocks his door, shaking his head. "You know how I feel about tequila."
"The tequila's just to set the mood. A couple shots and we can switch to beer."
"Well, that's incredibly generous of you, thank you."
"Any time, buddy." Foggy claps a hand on Matt's shoulder, careful to avoid where he thinks Matt's latest cuts and bruises are. Matt doesn't flinch, so Foggy takes it as a win.
Matt lets them into the apartment and heads straight for the dining room table, dumping his bag and coat jacket but gently leaning his cane against the nearest chair. "You know, there are less drastic ways to get me to hang out with you than ambush."
"Not these days," Foggy says, kicking the door shut behind him. "And honestly, I was expecting a little more resistance to giving up a whole night of do-gooding and crime-fighting."
Matt flashes Foggy a grin over his shoulder, loosening his tie. "I'm just planning on waiting until you pass out and then getting to the do-gooding and crime-fighting."
"Ha, ha." Foggy joins Matt at the table, putting the tequila bottle on the table with a solid thunk. "Don't even joke about that. We're still a good couple months away from joking about you going out there drunk in that costume without me having a heart attack."
Matt grins again, but briefer, almost bitter. "Am I doing that much damage to your nerves?"
Foggy pointedly picks up the tequila bottle and twists it open. "Ask me again when we're halfway through the bottle. Can you smell that?" he says. "Is there, I don't know, fermented agave in the air now?"
"Yes," Matt says, his lips twitching in what might be an aborted smile or disgust. "I can practically taste the vomit already."
"If I wanted us to spend the whole night puking, I would've brought gin," Foggy informs him.
Matt does wince at that. "I thought we were never going to talk about that night ever again."
"Is puking worse with your...you know?" Foggy says, gesturing towards Matt with looping motions of the bottle.
"Yes," Matt says flatly. "And not just mine. Everyone's. It's...pungent."
"Well, time to drink to forget. Cheers," Foggy says, and takes a swig of tequila directly from the bottle. It's terrible. It's absolutely horrible. He holds out the bottle to Matt. "Come on, man, your turn."
Matt sighs, but takes the bottle. "God help us," he says, and sips it. His face screws up immediately with displeasure, and he hands it back. "I forgot how much sugar you put in your coffee."
"You got that from my backwash? Seriously?"
"I seriously got that from your backwash," Matt confirms, and he's finally broken into a smile, a genuine, lasting smile, the kind he gets not because someone tells a funny joke or because he's trying to be polite, but just because he's happy.
"Jesus."
Matt raises his eyebrows. "You know, it's a sin to take the Lord's name in vain."
"And there's the selective Catholicism. It's been a while since I've seen it. I'd wondered where that was."
The smile goes away, and Foggy frowns. Matt says, "Just because I don't take you to see my priest doesn't mean that I don't see him."
Foggy decides an immediate change of subject is in order, or else it'll be a night of drunken melancholy instead of a night of just drunkenness. "Okay, crossing religious debate off the potential topics for tonight."
Matt inclines his head in agreement, but the weight's already settled back over him. Foggy can see it in his shoulders: he's gone from loose and at least a little relaxed to deliberate and set. It wouldn't look tense to anyone who didn't know Matt as well as Foggy does, but this is Matt's fake-relaxation-for-closing-statements posture. Sure enough, Matt turns his face down and says, "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea for tonight, Foggy."
"I hear your concerns," Foggy says, and once again gesticulates with the bottle, "but on the other hand, I'm starting a new drinking game. Each time you say that this is a bad idea, you have to drink."
"Why do I have to drink? It's your drinking game. You should have to drink."
"All right, compromise. We'll both drink. This time you get to go first." Foggy taps the mouth of the bottle against Matt's chest, and Matt sighs but snatches it out of Foggy's hand.
"You drive a hard bargain, counselor," Matt says, and takes another drink.
They do indeed switch to beer once they've put a dent in the bottle, mainly because they order pizza and pizza and tequila aren't nearly as good a combination. Even after the pizza, Foggy's well beyond buzzed and so is Matt. Matt, as Foggy knows well, is as terrible at hiding a buzz as he is apparently excellent at hiding being a crimefighting vigilante, and right now he's leaning his head back over the backrest of the couch and halfway melted into it, boneless and finally, finally relaxed.
"Getting the spins?" Foggy asks from the other side of the couch. He's leaning against the armrest with his back to the window (he figures it's not taking the best seat for himself since Matt swears that his ninja senses don't extend to the billboard), his knees curled up towards his chest and his toes jammed between the couch cushions to keep them warm.
"Not quite, but getting there," Matt admits.
"Is it worse for you, because of the..." Foggy makes a vague gesture, and Matt immediately groans.
"So much worse. It's like - it's like - it's so terrible I can't even think of a comparison."
"Okay," Foggy says, and mentally prepares himself. "Okay, I gotta ask." He reaches over to the coffee table and takes the bottle of tequila, holding it to his chest like a security blanket in preparation for the answer he's anticipating. "You can hear and sense stuff like heart rate and blood flow and breathing, right?"
"Yeah," Matt says, and because his glasses lay on the coffee table, Foggy can see his frown unimpeded.
"So, before I ask, I just want to remind you that I had no idea about any of this during the time that I was your roommate," Foggy says. "And therefore I shouldn't be held accountable for any awkwardness that may occur as a result of this question."
Matt's frown turns into a baring of teeth that's about halfway between a grimace and an amused smile. "Understood."
"You think you know what I'm going to ask?"
"I'm pretty sure I do, but go on."
"Okay." Foggy takes a deep breath, and takes the cap off the tequila just in case. "So. Boners. Can you sense them?"
Matt closes his eyes in resignation and sighs. "Yes."
"Great! And now, yet more drinking to forget." Foggy manages three swallows of tequila before the burning makes him stop. He knows that beer before liquor, never sicker, and all that, but what about liquor before beer before liquor? More of a liquor-beer-liquor sandwich?
"It's not that big a deal, and it takes a lot of concentration," Matt says quickly. "I mean, obviously the...noises...if it's deliberate and not accidental - but I mean, anyone can hear that."
"You can hear it better," Foggy says.
"I try not to," Matt replies, and grimaces. "I try really, really hard not to. And remember, I grew up in an orphanage, in the all-boys wing, so don't think I didn't have it under control by the time we were roommates. Stuff like that I just tune out so that I don't even hear it unless I'm concentrating, like you and the noises from the cab stand under your apartment."
Foggy points a finger at Matt, using the hand that's still holding the bottle. "Hey, my rent is dirt-cheap because of that view."
Matt gestures in the direction of his window. "I can certainly relate."
"So is that - okay, on the scale of the most annoying thing about your ninja powers - "
"They're not ninja powers, Foggy."
"Right, whatever, on the scale of the most annoying thing about your enhanced senses which you use to basically be a ninja, where do boners rate? They've got to be at the top, right?"
Matt lets out a hmm while he thinks about it, his head still angled toward Foggy on the back of the couch. "Third," he says eventually. "After halogen lights."
"Seriously? Halogen lights?"
"They're annoying! It's something about the pitch, it just..." Matt shivers his shoulders theatrically. "Like nails on a chalkboard. Okay, I changed my mind - erections are fourth, after squeaky chalk on a chalkboard and halogen lamps. No, changing it again - dentist drills are on there, too."
Foggy frowns. "So what's number one?"
Matt blinks, and after a second says, "Not being able to see."
"Oh," Foggy says, and lets his head nod forward with the weight of it. "I guess that's pretty obvious." Then he frowns. "Although you said 'fiery impressionistic painting' - "
"That's how I think about it, but it's not - it's still not something I see."
Foggy says, "But it is still how you can tell which girls are hot?"
Matt laughs at that, and Foggy's flooded with relief at the recovery. "Yeah. I can get the general gist of it."
"So is the touching-people's-faces thing also unnecessary?" Foggy says, and is immediately proud at himself for getting out the word 'unnecessary' given that the extra tequila is kicking in.
"I still find it helpful. It's like...it's like the difference between seeing something and actually touching it."
"Yes," Foggy says. "Yes, that's exactly what's it's like. Congratulations."
Matt laughs again, full-throated. "No, I meant - like looking at sandpaper and knowing, because of how it looks, that it's probably rough, and actually touching sandpaper and feeling how rough it is. It's like that, but with a person. And sometimes my other senses can be wrong, especially with fine detail. And color, obviously, but nothing can really make up for that."
"Jesus, I never thought about that," Foggy says. "Well, just so you know, in case you weren't aware, I'm white."
"I - you know, I managed to figure that out," Matt says, barely keeping a straight face.
"You don't know that know that, though."
Matt gives into the grin, and says, "You sing Gilbert and Sullivan songs when you think nobody's around."
"Fair point," Foggy concedes.
"You know," Matt says, "you can feel my face if you want."
Foggy throws his arm - the one not currently pinned between him and the couch back - into the air. "What is with people wanting me to feel their faces? Karen tried to get me to do it, too!"
"Wait, what?" Matt says, his forehead crinkling with confusion.
"Yeah! I mean, okay, we were kind of drunk, and everything exploded right afterwards - it was the night Fisk went after the Russians, when we were - " Foggy has to take a second to take a breath, even when he's this drunk and this relaxed - "when we were at Elena Cardenas's. And she just asked me to do it, out of nowhere!"
"Well," Matt says, "when a woman asks you to make physical contact while drunk, that might be an indication of something..."
Foggy snorted. "Yeah? Then what does it mean when a guy does it? Huh?" Foggy motions between him and Matt, and adds, "I'm pointing between us, just so you know. Although I guess you do know. You can tell, right?"
"I could tell," Matt confirms.
"And to think I spent all those years grabbing your elbow and telling you about steps and when people were nodding..."
"I like that! Don't stop doing that just because I can tell. It's..." Matt struggles to find the words. "It's thoughtful," he says. "And generous. It means a lot to me, actually."
"That makes the least sense of anything tonight, and I'm including boners being the fifth most uncomfortable thing about your superpowers."
"No, it's - people forget, or pretend like they don't notice because they think it'd be rude, or think they have to because I'm incapable of doing it myself, and it just - that, more than anything, is a constant reminder. But when you do that, when you acknowledge it, it's like...like it's just reality and it's okay. It's nice. It's...comfortable."
"Not as comfortable as the silk sheets on your bed," Foggy says, and bumps an uncoordinated hand against his face in an attempt to rub his eyes. "God, here's the sleepy-drunk porpoise of the evening."
Matt honest-to-God cackles. "I think you mean 'purpose,'" he says, and then frowns. "No. 'Portion.'"
"Ugh, leave the lawyering for when we're sober," Foggy says. "Just tell me you're not going to try to go out and hit a bunch of Russians in the face like this."
Matt sighs, the pad of his thumb rubbing against his index and middle fingers like he's playing a tiny violin on the hand draped over the armrest. "I think," he says, "you may have defeated me. Congratulations, Foggy. You've succeeded where so many others have failed: You've beaten Daredevil."
Foggy immediately groans. "The horns, Matt. I can't believe you put fucking horns on your costume."
Grinning again, Matt shrugs. "What else was I going to do? Write 'I am not Matthew Murdock' across it in big letters? Besides, I wanted something with a nice, intimidating silhouette." He's slurring enough that it comes out as sill-wet, and Foggy can't help but grin: that, more than anything else, makes Foggy believe that Matt's well and truly in for the night. He enunciates words like that like a motherfucker when he's sober. "The irony is," Matt continues, "I don't even know what the outline looks like."
"Dumb," Foggy says immediately. "It looks dumb."
Matt leans his head in Foggy's general direction. "You wanna call it a night?"
"Probably should." Foggy sighs, throwing an arm across his eyes. "Is it weird that I kind of miss sleeping in the same room as you?"
"I grew up in an orphanage and then had you for a roommate," Matt says. "It took me three weeks to figure out how to fall asleep without snoring in the background."
"I do snore," Foggy admits ruefully.
"C'mon," Matt says, levering himself off the couch. "Help me with the cushions. You can camp out on my floor, how about that?"
Foggy stands up and teeters over to the couch. "Fuck that, I want the bed. You sleep on the floor."
"I - superpowers," Matt says, gathering half the cushions. "I can't because of superpowers. Even cotton sheets feel like sandpaper, sleeping on the floor would be - "
"Yeah, but sandpaper like when you look at it and you know it's rough, or - "
Foggy stops, interrupted by a cushion to the face and the sound of Matt's laugh. He ends up taking the floor, but Matt gives up his pillow and they're both so hungover the next morning that it doesn't really make a difference. Turns out the saying should really be "liquor before beer before liquor, oh god why, this was a horrible mistake and I regret everything."
Matt manages to get hit by an actual fucking car one time. Not even in costume, just on a random day when he's not paying enough attention crossing the street because he thinks he hears Lassie barking that Jimmy got stuck down a well or whatthefuckever. So Matt turns clear around and takes a step right when a hatchback is making an illegal right turn, which is how Foggy finds out that he's listed with the police as Matt's next-of-kin for notification purposes. It's also how Foggy finds out that he can get from Nelson & Murdock to Roosevelt Hospital in thirteen minutes when he really hauls ass.
"I'm fine, you guys," Matt says, or, more accurately, slurs. One of the upsides of actually being in a hospital: painkillers. It turns out that Matt on a codeine drip is about half Matt-after-a-Jaeger-bomb and half Matt-after-four-flutes-of-champagne: he can't talk worth shit, tries anyway, and gets giggly for no reason.
Karen, on the other hand, is fretting, the worry lines on her forehead even deeper than when any of the Fisk stuff was going down, and she's chewing on her thumb so much that Foggy's a little worried she's going to gnaw it off, "127 Hours"-style. "You need to be more careful," she says. "What were you thinking? What was the driver thinking?"
"Should we sue? Because we can sue," Foggy says. "We can go to the press if you want. You can cry, that'd add at least another zero onto the end of your settlement."
Matt shakes his head, a big, sweeping side-to-side motion that practically taps his nose against both sides of his hospital bed's pillow. "It was my fault. I wasn't paying enough attention to where I was crossing."
Karen frowns slightly and looks at Foggy. "You were on a crosswalk, Matt," she says.
Matt frowns. "Was I?"
Foggy glances at Karen. She taps the side of her own head, looking concerned, and Foggy points to the inside of his arm about where Matt's drip is and then mimes drinking out of a bottle and points to Matt, trying to convey he's drunk out of his mind on pain meds. Karen nods, her eyes widening in enlightenment, and sinks back on her heels looking much more at ease.
"What? What was that?" Matt says, turning his head from Karen to Foggy.
"Definitely not a game of silent charades becoming an awkward silence for the blind guy, that's for sure," Foggy says, and Karen glares at him.
But Matt cracks up, going from huffy ha's to flat-out giggles in about two seconds flat. "Remember - remember that time we tried to play charades," he says, and cackles for another second or two before stopping abruptly and putting his IV-free hand on his ribs. "Ow."
"Busted ribs, buddy," Foggy says, and he remembers the game of charades in question vividly. They played a hell of a game of charades, but Foggy's sound effects (since Matt couldn't - or at least he thought at the time that Matt couldn't - actually see Foggy acting anything out) were legendary. "Karen's right, you gotta be more careful."
"Your mom's gotta be more careful," Matt says, and adds a "hey-oh!" and holds his fist out for a bump.
Karen still has her hand up to her face, but now she's pressing her fingers against her lips as though she's going to explode with laughter any moment.
Foggy jerks a thumb towards Matt. "He got so sleep-deprived before finals freshman year, this was him for, like, three weeks."
"I was nervous!"
Foggy pffts at him. "You're never nervous."
Matt goes quiet, all frowny and introspective. It's a fucking weird look on him. "I was nervous," he repeats, softly, and Foggy feels like the world's most giant dick.
Karen looks between him and Foggy. "How about," she says slowly. "How about I go get some coffee?"
"Black would be great," Matt says.
"None for him," Foggy says, louder. "Matt will once again get a vote in all things related to Matt when he's no longer on painkillers."
"I can make coffee decisions by myself," Matt protests.
"Not while under the influence of narcotics, you can't," Foggy says. "You're the one who made me your next-of-kin and technically right now you're incompetent to act in your own best interests."
Matt blows a raspberry, and Karen laughs out loud.
"Yes, Karen, welcome to Fun Matt. Fun Matt is delightful for about ten minutes, and then he becomes insufferable," Foggy says. "Maybe if you get that coffee you can go a full twenty minutes without wanting to smack him."
Karen bites her lip, still smiling, and says, "Right. Foggy, you want any?"
Foggy's pretty sure he was having heart palpitations on the way over here, so caffeine's probably not the world's best idea. "No, thanks."
As soon as Karen's gone, he turns on Matt. "Please tell me you're not as loopy as you're acting."
"Mild to moderate loopiness, but the nurses get suspicious if the meds don't seem to be doing what they expect them to," Matt says immediately. "Besides, did you hear that? I got her to laugh."
"And god bless you for it," Foggy returns. "Seriously, man, are you okay? Did it reopen anything that shouldn't have been reopened? Oh, god, what did the nurses say about all the scars and shit?"
Matt grins widely. "I told them I was in a fight club."
Foggy folds his lips together into a thin line as he considers this. "Not...entirely inaccurate, actually."
"At first they thought someone was abusing me - you know, because of the high rates of domestic abuse among people with disabilities - "
"Yes, I was there that week in Discrimination, thank you, Matt. But you redirected them by saying Fight Club and somehow it worked?"
Matt wrinkles his nose in resignation. "I think they might've gotten distracted by my abs after that."
Foggy sighs deeply. "Of course they did."
"Hey - do you know when they're going to let me out of here?" Matt asks, shifting in the bed.
"They've got some x-rays they're waiting to get developed, since they can't test your pupils to see if you have a concussion, but if you're clear they might let you go tonight as long as someone's willing to take responsibility for you. It'll be just like college all over again, except with less drinking and more violence."
"Thank you, Foggy," Matt says, again in that strangely earnest tone.
"Hey, man, it's not that big a deal. I figure after everything, hanging on your couch for a night after a doctor's already had a look at you will be a piece of cake."
"You should take the bed this time - you know what my living room's like, and it doesn't bother me at all. And I mean it. I appreciate it." Matt squirms again, and admits, "It's...loud here."
"Oh," Foggy says. "Oh, Jesus. And the smells, probably. I'll go try to find the doctor and see if he can speed up the x-rays, how about that?"
Matt's mouth sets into an uncomfortable line for a moment, but eventually he says, "Could you?"
"On it!"
He badgers a doctor into letting Matt be released into his care, and sets up shop on Matt's couch for three days with no regrets.
The three-in-the-morning interruptions, the ones that actually drag Foggy out of bed, are the worst. They've almost disappeared since Claire came back, since of the two of them she has more experience doing sutures on little to no sleep, but in this case "almost" is the operative word.
He hears the noise, climbs out of bed, and finds Matt in his living room. It takes Foggy a second to figure out what's off, other than the obvious: Matt's moving in a staggering crawl, his movements jerky and inconsistent as he makes his way towards the couch, his cowl pulled back to show his face, and he's blinking rapidly, his eyes going back and forth like he's looking for something but -
"Foggy?" Matt says, turning his head to look towards Foggy. "Is that you?"
"It's not someone else in my apartment at three in the morning, that's for sure," Foggy says, and comes over to Matt. "Did you get hit? Are you shot? What's - "
"I - " Matt whips his head around to look behind him, but Matt doesn't do that. Sometimes he'll turn his head to help hone in on a sound, but he's leading with his eyes and that's it. That's what's off about all this.
"Matt," Foggy says, "can you see?"
"No," Matt says, but his head snaps back around towards Foggy. "Or - not really. Can you - can you help me up?"
Foggy does so, wrapping an arm under Matt's armpit and levering him onto the couch. "What does 'not really' mean under the circumstances?"
Matt squeezes his eyes shut and brings up a hand to rub them, but Foggy sees a thin powder coating the glove grabs his wrist.
"Whoa! What the hell is that?"
Matt blinks again. "It's on the suit?"
"What the hell is that?" Foggy repeats, in case Matt didn't hear him the first time.
Matt doesn't answer, but immediately starts stripping off his suit, which was definitely not what Foggy was asking for. "Shower," Matt says, his voice a croak, "I need - "
"Okay," Foggy says, shifting into Nothing Makes Sense But Let's Assume It's Not Anthrax mode. "Is it gonna hurt me if I get it on me?"
"No," Matt says. "Probably not."
Foggy sets his mouth with resignation. "Right. C'mon."
He grabs Matt again and hauls him towards the bathroom. Matt's feet half-drag against the floor and half-lift off it; the best Foggy can guess right now is that his equilibrium is entirely off, or his senses are so messed up that he keeps thinking there are stairs where there aren't. Maybe both.
"Are you gonna tell me," Foggy huffs, because Matt may be small but he's entirely made of muscle and possibly bricks, "what happened?"
"Some - some kind of street drug," Matt mumbles, leaning heavily on Foggy. "Causes hallucinations, and everything's just amped up to five thousand - "
"Oh," Foggy says. "Can you get - "
"Yes," Matt says through gritted teeth.
"Oh, shit," Foggy says, and begins dragging Matt in earnest, trying not to pay attention to how Matt's eyes keep flickering to things that aren't there.
Once they're in the bathroom, he deposits Matt on the toilet seat and starts peeling him out of his suit. Matt only makes small motions to help, lifting an arm rather than trying to get it out of the sleeve himself, but Foggy can feel how hard he's shaking and whether it's the drug or adrenalin or just plain freaking out, this is probably going faster without his help anyway.
Matt wears plain tighty-whiteys under the suit, which is probably understandable. Foggy leaves them on and turns the cold water knob of his shower as far as it'll go.
Matt turns his head. "Not hot water," he says. "Hot will - "
"Open up your pores and make you absorb more of it," Foggy finishes. "My grandmother's house had poison ivy all around it and I figure this is kind of close to maybe being similar, a little. I can drag out the dish soap - "
"No!" Matt says, pushing himself upright. "No soap - no smells, or scents, or scented anything - there's too much already, I can't - " He breaks off with a noise that sounds like an unhappy puppy.
"All right, no soap," Foggy says, and puts a hand on Matt's arm to direct him towards the shower. "Oh, shit, hang on - " He turns on the hot water and tinkers with the balance until it's cool but not freezing. "Okay, come on."
Foggy absolutely draws the line at getting in the shower with Matt, but with the shower curtain back and Matt missing his own body every time he tries to wash himself, he ends up getting soaked anyway. He guides Matt under the spray, carefully runs his hands across Matt's skin to remove any traces of the powder, places gentle fingers under Matt's wrists to get him to lift his arms and puts another hand on his back to get him to move further into the spray.
Foggy has had shower sex before, and frankly, he finds this way more intimate and way less erotic - more like giving a baby a bath. Not sexy. Probably because of the dazed, distracted look on Matt's face, or the moments that his expression changes even though his pupils still aren't responding at all. Or maybe because it's three o'clock in the morning, they have a deposition scheduled for eight-thirty, and his favorite Columbia t-shirt and Yankees-print pajama pants are completely soaked through.
When Foggy can't find another inch of Matt's body to scrub - at least, that wouldn't feel seriously gross under the circumstances and also possibly lead to a lawsuit - he turns off the water and wraps Matt in the fluffiest towel he's got. Matt's skin has gone pale because of the cold, making the scars stand out dramatically, and it really hits Foggy how many there are.
"C'mon, let's get you somewhere more comfortable," Foggy says, and leads Matt back out to the couch. As they're walking, Matt leans even more heavily on Foggy than he did on the way into the bathroom, but he talks, which is probably a good thing, even if it seems like babbling.
"There's this thing that sometimes happens to people who become blind - not the ones who are born blind, but those of us who lost our sight after having had it for a while - where you just start seeing things. They think it's because of - of neurological cross-talk or something. It's called - "
"Charles Bonnet Syndrome," Foggy says, and oh-so-softly hipchecks Matt. "You know, I've got a best friend who's blind. I did some research."
"You did?"
"Well, yeah. If there was a chance my roommate was going to start hallucinating cartoon characters, I wanted to know about it. Maybe eat some shrooms or something in solidarity."
Matt lets out a sharp breath, and Foggy realizes it's a laugh. Foggy can't really blame him - Foggy is basically a booze guy, and you don't get through college, law school, and a law internship with someone without figuring out their coping mechanisms.
Well. Most of the time. Apparently Foggy somehow missed the giant neon sign that said "VIGILANTE CRIMEFIGHTER" hanging over Matt.
They finally make it to the couch, and Matt half-collapses onto Foggy and the couch at the same time.
"Better?" Foggy asks.
"No," Matt says flatly. Now his eyes are shut, but his eyelids keep twitching as he half-winces. "But I just - just need to get it out of my system. Wait it out."
"That sounds like a terrible idea."
"Do you have a better one?" Matt opens his eyes again, staring at nothing in particular except Foggy's general direction.
"Well, I don't know! When you were a kid and your blind mentor was teaching you the ways of asskicking or whatever, how'd he do it?"
"Concentration," Matt says, and leans further into the couch. "But I can't - I can't even pick out one thing, let alone concentrate on it, when everything's just there, it's too much - "
"Okay," Foggy says, and takes a breath. "Okay, what about, like, my heartbeat? Would that work?"
Matt leans his head against the cushions, boneless with exhaustion. Even through the towel, Foggy can see his shivers. "I don't know."
"Can we at least try it? 'Cause dude, you look wiped, and if you don't get some rest you're going to have a seriously shitty night ahead of you, and if cuddling you is what it takes, then by God, I will cuddle you for great justice."
After a second, Matt says, "Fine."
So Foggy snakes an arm around him and pulls him close, resting Matt's head against his sternum so that his ear is right up against Foggy's chest, and the only place he can think to put his arms is around Matt's upper body, like he's cradling a newborn. This has the advantage of putting the inside of Foggy's upper arm against Matt's other ear, and Matt's face is entirely surrounded by the plush of Foggy's stomach.
Foggy concentrates on keeping his breathing steady and calm. He figures it's kind of like when he held his niece, Eleanor, when she was a baby, except without the constant rocking. Foggy's sister had talked at him for ten minutes straight before so much as letting him look at Eleanor, about breathing cues and hearing the heartbeat in the womb and all of that.
And somehow, somehow, Matt's shivers recede. His breathing slows, grows deeper and steadier, and his grip on his towel slowly loosens. It's a fitful sleep, twitchy and occasionally whimpery, but Foggy doesn't dare move other than to pull the afghan off the back of his couch - come to think of it, he has no idea where he even got the afghan or how it got on his couch, it just seemed to always have been there - and drape it across the both of them. Even that motion makes Matt let out a small noise and turn his face further into Foggy's chest, and god damn if it doesn't take more self-control than Foggy thought he had to keep his heartbeat even after that.
Foggy really regrets asking about the boners now. Although the silver lining is maybe he doesn't have to apologize for this awkward boner any more than he did for all of the many, many ones he had as Matt's actual roommate.
Eventually he falls asleep, too. Matt's gone by the time he wakes up, but the afghan is tucked tightly around him, which is a thoughtful touch.
Foggy stays distracted for a couple days after that, and it takes him a while to figure out why. It's not even the tender memory of Matt's face against Foggy's torso, or the rarity of realizing that Daredevil - not just Matt, but Daredevil - might not be invulnerable, because Foggy, despite what some might say, is actually quite introspective and thinks a lot about these things.
No, what's distracting him is that Matt isn't acting awkward at all.
Foggy can see the edge of it, the moment when Matt might steel himself or posture, and he just watches Matt let it pass. Foggy's elephant in the room is that, for Matt, there's no elephant in the room, and that's. That's fucking weird.
Because Matt, okay, Matt's got some issues that go well beyond the Daredevil thing and the Catholicism. Foggy got that figured out basically from day three - specifically, day three of Intro to Criminal Law, which was in possibly the least ADA-compliant classroom on campus (and oh, the irony escaped neither of them), with uneven, sloping steps and arcing aisles of seats in the lecture hall. Matt handled it just fine days one and two, but on day three class was interrupted by the start-of-semester fire drill, and damn if that wasn't the most shrill, soul-piercing noise that Foggy had ever heard. Matt half-stumbled and half-fell down the steps until Foggy finally elbowed him and said, "My arm's here if you want it, dude," and Matt took it. Matt set his jaw every time Foggy spoke for two days, and they had their first roommate tiff about it.
"I can take care of myself."
"I know you can take care of yourself, but this is just common sense! I mean, if I broke both my legs and got a wheelchair, I'd be making you reach the tall shelves - it's just basic distribution of labor, but if you don't want me to offer anymore, fine, I won't offer."
"You don't need to offer because I don't need it. I get around just fine by myself."
"Sure, but if you ever want it, it's there."
"Well, I don't."
"Got it."
And Foggy dropped it, because he didn't want to be a dick about it, and about a month later Matt put a hand on his elbow in the school cafeteria as a herd of prospective students nearly separated them, and then they basically never talked about it and it just happened.
Because Matt's got some control issues. And Foggy can respect that, especially given Matt's, well, everything, so he does his best to educate himself and try not to cross any lines until Matt indicates that it's okay. Foggy is well aware - painfully aware, as he realized in college while looking from Matt's talking alarm clock to his coverless watch - that he basically knows nothing about what Matt's actual experience of his life is, so Matt should be the authority.
But there's still been a pattern with how these things tend to go, which is a careful period of boundary maintenance where they really awkwardly negotiate whether something is okay or not. Like the dog jokes, which were temporarily banned after Foggy admittedly overdid them and Matt drew his shoulders down with irritation and said "Enough with the dog jokes already." Three months later, after frantic office hours with a TA who had smuggled his chihuahua into his office on-campus, Matt said to Foggy, "Thank God chihuahuas aren't seeing-eye dogs. That thing sounded like it couldn't knock over a blade of grass, let alone direct an actual human being."
Foggy replied, "Oh, are dog jokes okay again, or is this the kind of thing where you can make dog jokes but I can't?"
"You can make all the dog jokes you want, but I'm still not getting one."
Because Matt, Foggy has come to realize, likes certain things to be on his terms, and, again, Foggy can't really blame him for that. He can see how there'd be a difference between Matt holding out his arm to a real estate agent and asking for a guided tour compared to someone offering their arm to him.
But recently it feels like Matt's just blowing past all kinds of barriers with abandon. Instead of the usual negotiation, it's, "Sure, Foggy, sew up my face," or, "Yes, Foggy, I would love to tenderly rest my head against your breast and listen to your heartbeat all night."
It's like all of a sudden Matt doesn't really have any - pride's not precisely the right word, especially since it's got all those connotations of, like, Scar from the Lion King, but the fact of the matter is, Foggy is used to a Matt Murdock who's got pride falling out of his ass and all of a sudden there's none of that.
Of course, most of this stuff is Daredevil-related, and for now Foggy's going along with Matt's policy of keeping anyone who doesn't have to be involved in the dark. In this case, it means Karen, and for all that Foggy missed Ben Urich's funeral, he's not forgetting what happened to him in a hurry - or Elena Cardenas, for that matter. Claire's the smart one for staying a few pointed steps away from all this, and as long as it keeps Karen safe, Foggy figures that outweighs how much it's going to suck when they do tell her. (Because as far as Foggy's concerned, the second Karen gets even a little bit involved in something Daredevil-related, Foggy's telling her, no matter what Matt wants.)
But that means no confronting Matt at work, and whenever Matt shows up sliced all to hell or bruised from head to toe, well, that doesn't seem like a good time to bring it up, either. It's also just a weird kind of thing to say. How do you start a conversation that basically goes, "Hey, I've noticed that you're not as borderline-unhealthily insistent on your own independence these days, what's up with that?"
So Foggy doesn't, and Foggy waits.
The other shoe finally drops after about a week of one-sided awkwardness on Foggy's part. They've just wrapped up a case that, frankly, Karen cracked by first shaking down a bodega for its receipts and then meticulously cross-referencing lottery ticket numbers to show that the supposed witness had, in fact, bought their daily lottery ticket on the wrong side of town to have witnessed the crime that their client was accused of committing. As a coup de grace, she also found that the arresting officer's cousin and the witness in question appeared together frequently in their high school yearbook, thus upending a case where Matt and Foggy were spending their time filing motion after motion to just try to get a copy of their client's supposed confession.
So Karen got a day off to catch up on her sleep and Matt and Foggy got to write up a countersuit against the City of New York for framing their client for a crime that he didn't commit, which meant a likely settlement, which itself meant - at long last - a client that they could charge a reasonable fee instead of working basically pro bono.
It also meant that Foggy and Matt are alone in the office, just like their good old days in the broom closet except slightly bigger and much, much crappier.
And that meant an opportunity.
"Can I ask you something kind of weird?" Foggy says towards the end of their break from countersuit-writing for lunch. He crumples up the paper of what was his meatball sub as he talks, rolling it into a neat ball from which, God willing, no marinara will escape onto their papers. Well - Foggy's papers, obviously.
Matt frowns at him, his brows disappearing beneath the rims of his glasses. "Given how many weird questions you've asked me without first asking permission - and sometimes while heavily self-medicating with alcohol - I'm going to say yes if only out of curiosity."
Foggy takes a moment to be deeply, deeply angry with Matt for being able to just fucking come up with sentences like that. Some people need to take the time to translate, but no, Matt Murdock is fluent in Closing Argument Diction.
"Well then," Foggy says, and leans onto his elbows on the table, "I gotta ask - is everything okay with you?"
Matt tilts his head slightly. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"You're just...being less awkward about some stuff recently than I would've expected," Foggy says. "I mean, I did think that maybe vigilantism is actually good for you in terms of, like, self-actualization or whatever, but - have you been seeing a therapist or something? Good talks with your priest?"
Matt pulls his head back in surprise. "You're worried about me...because you think I'm doing well?"
Foggy holds up his hands. "I'm just saying I'm starting to get concerned that you might have literally joined a fight club, not as a euphemism, because you kind of don't always have great coping strategies when it comes to stuff - "
"I have coping strategies," Matt protests.
"Uh-huh. What's the name of the guy who custom-made your red leather crimefighting demon body armor outfit again?"
Matt tilts his head forward, ceding the point. "All right. Point taken."
"But like - the whole getting hit by a car thing, and all of the getting stitched up, and getting me to stitch you up, and that - you know - that thing with the hallucinations..." Foggy motions vaguely in Matt's direction. "You're just being weirdly unweird, is all I'm saying. About things like, you know, accepting help from other people."
Matt's hand starts doing the thing, his fingers rubbing together in the way that means that he's really thinking. "It's not other people, Foggy," he says, his voice quiet. "It's you."
That's...not less weird. "And Claire," Foggy adds.
"And Claire," Matt agrees. "You and Claire. I think - I think I've finally realized that I can't do this alone. That I don't want to."
It takes Foggy a second to find his voice, because he has no idea what the fuck to do with any of this. "If you think I'm going to pull on some Spandex and go out there with you, that's where I draw the line."
"That's not what I mean." Matt resettles himself in his chair, his hand still going. "I just mean that - I thought I would be doing this, trying to clean up this city, by myself. But I don't want that. I don't want to be the - the lone vigilante. I've never wanted that. I just want to do what I can for the city that I love. I want to help people. But I can't do that without getting some help myself. I think...I think if I tried to go it alone, I'd end up getting myself killed." Matt takes a breath, and Foggy realizes that it's a shaky one. "I don't want to make the same mistakes my father did."
Foggy's mouth opens on autopilot. "Yeah, why do that when there are so many new and exciting mistakes you can make for yourself?"
Matt, miraculously, laughs, and Foggy pretends not to notice how wet it sounds. "Exactly," he says, and though he goes a bit more serious, the curve of the smile lingers on his mouth. "I can't tell you how much it means to me to know that I can just rely on someone, Foggy. How much it means to me to have your support, and your friendship. You - " He breaks off, and for a second Foggy thinks he's not going to finish. Then he says, "You mean a lot to me."
Foggy smiles, although it's really more folding his lips together and kind of curving them. "Aw, shucks, Matt, you mean a lot to me, too," he says, but even he can hear how fake it sounds.
So he just keeps talking.
"Oh, fuck it, you've been able to tell when I'm lying from day one anyway. You more than mean a lot to me. I kind of love you, and not like a brother, unless we're talking Game of Thrones style, and you're my best friend and basically you're stuck with me. I'm not going anywhere, even if you don't always like what I'm saying or when I'm telling you to maybe not get yourself killed so much. So...there it is." Foggy takes his crumpled-up sub wrapper and lobs it at the trash can. He misses horrendously, and the silence is immediately too much, so he breaks it. "If you can listen to heartbeats and hear boners and everything, you have to have known, right? This isn't some kind of - of revelation - "
"Feeling isn't the same as choosing," Matt says softly.
Foggy holds his arms out in a wide shrug. "Fine. I choose you, dumbass. You don't have to choose me back - "
"Foggy," Matt says, the syllables dripping with exasperation, and then he stands up, reaches his hand over the table, and puts it against Foggy's cheek. Foggy opens his mouth to say something -probably along the lines of what and then some improvisation - but Matt follows his hand with his entire head and then his mouth is against Foggy's and they go from zero to full-on making out in about two seconds flat. It's not the most romantic or dignified of kisses - it's handsy, it's noisy, it's unrefined, but Foggy could do it forever and decides that he's going to be seriously pissed if he doesn't get to now.
Foggy's papers get ruined, and Foggy really doesn't care.