Work Text:
Foggy Nelson was an easy-going man, for the most part. He preferred to see the good in people when he could, and was not given to suspicion, especially not of his closest friends. But he wasn't stupid, and he knew Matt and Karen pretty well. And lately, he had begun to suspect that there might be unprofessional conduct taking place in the office when he wasn’t there.
He knew they were dating, of course. He knew they were having sex. Which was all well and good…as long as they weren’t doing it at work. That would be highly inappropriate, and possibly even professionally damaging—what if a client dropped by unexpectedly?
He had never seen anything untoward. Whenever he left the two of them alone, he came back to find a scene of complete innocence. They would be working blamelessly at their separate desks, or talking over a case, or eating lunch together. Never so much as holding hands—which was what had first made Foggy suspicious.
Because they were obviously crazy about each other—they both lit up like they swallowed the moon whenever they were together. Foggy had seen them kiss a few times outside of work, and they melted against each other like they were trying to fuse into a single being. So how likely was it that they would keep their hands off each other so completely, when they were left alone for an hour or two?
Unless they were trying to hide something, and overcompensating. Would they do that? Foggy had always thought that only two kinds of people had sex in the workplace—those who didn’t have anywhere else they could do it, and those who wanted to get caught. Matt and Karen both had their own apartments, with actual beds in them, and had given no signs of wanting to be caught. And yet, once raised, the suspicion proved impossible to dismiss.
He could have just asked them, but that would be embarrassing for them if they were, and embarrassing for him if they weren’t. So he said nothing, and tried not to watch them too closely like some kind of creeper, until one day he unexpectedly got a second opinion.
He met Marci for lunch at a cheap diner between his workplace and hers.
“This place is such a dive, Foggy bear,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“But the food’s good. And dives are what I can afford, Marce, you know that.”
“True. Anyone who thinks all lawyers are rich has never met Nelson and Murdock, defenders of the literally poor and defenseless. Do any of your clients actually pay you?”
“Of course they do.” It wasn’t always in money, but Marci didn’t need to know that. There was enough money coming in for him, Matt, and Karen to live on, if not much more than that. Enough for him to afford an occasional meal out, as long as it was someplace cheap.
Marci was in a good mood, full of entertaining gossip about the people she worked with, and Foggy listened more than he talked as they ate. He told her a bit about his own work, but talking about work inevitably meant talking about Matt, and he knew Marci’s interest in Matt was limited. They had never been friends, despite their mutual affection for Foggy. They could get along well enough when necessary, but that didn’t mean they liked each other.
Foggy checked his watch when the bill came. Lunch had taken less time than he expected, and he felt anxious about getting back to work too quickly. He didn’t approve of Matt and Karen hypothetically having sex in the office, but if they were, he definitely didn’t want to walk in on them. Matt had super hearing, sure, but would he notice anyone approaching if he were…distracted? Dammit, he shouldn’t have to worry about something like this. Or was he worrying for nothing?
Marci noticed his abstraction. “What’s wrong, Foggy bear? Late for a meeting?”
“No, no. If anything, I’m worried I might be early.”
“Oh? Trying to avoid someone?”
“Not exactly. Trying to avoid embarrassing the entire office, if I walk in on Matt and Karen before they’re expecting me.”
Marci’s jaw dropped. “No!” she exclaimed incredulously. “Are you telling me that Matthew Murdock, moral and true, is fucking his hot girlfriend back at the office right now?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, disturbed by her sudden interest and backtracking quickly. “I don’t know what they do when I’m not there. Neither one of them has ever said anything.”
“But you suspect.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you’ve always had good instincts, Foggy. Tell. Why do you suspect? What have you seen?”
“Absolutely nothing. Any time I leave them alone, everything is always perfectly innocuous and above-board when I get back. No improprieties of any kind.” He was hoping that voicing his suspicions out loud would somehow make them seem less probable. But Marci looked like she was taking this all too seriously.
“That’s a rookie mistake,” she said, pursing her lips disapprovingly. “If you’re fucking at the office and you don’t want anyone to suspect, you have to act exactly the way you would if you weren’t fucking at the office.”
“Is that the voice of experience?” he asked. Marci ignored him.
“They’re dating, and probably still in the honeymoon phase, so it’s not normal for them to be completely hands-off. If they aren’t snuggling up on each other at all, then either things between them aren’t going as well as you think, or they’re hiding something.”
“They snuggle up plenty outside of work.”
“Well, there you go then. Highly suspicious.”
“Maybe they’re just behaving like professionals?” he suggested weakly.
“And maybe Daredevil’s going to climb in my window tonight and fuck me on my kitchen counter, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Foggy stared at her, speechless. That was not a mental image he had ever wanted to be faced with.
Suddenly Marci grinned, her eyes lighting up, and she took Foggy’s hand and pulled him out of the diner. “Come on, Foggy bear, time’s a-wasting.”
“Come on where?”
“Back to your office, obviously. How else am I going to catch Murdock with his pants literally around his ankles? This is too good a chance to miss.” She set off at a brisk walk, Foggy hard on her heels.
“Marci, no. Do you want to embarrass Karen that way? What did she ever do to you?”
“I want to embarrass Matt. Karen is acceptable collateral damage. It’s the risk she takes, fooling around at work.”
“I don’t even know if they are.”
She shrugged. “If they aren’t, then you have nothing to worry about.”
Foggy felt a hopeless sense of impending disaster. Why did he tell Marci? He couldn’t let this happen. He had to warn them. He took out his phone, but Marci was watching him from the corner of her eye, and plucked it out of his hand.
“Nuh-uh, Mister Nelson. No calling ahead and spoiling the surprise. I’ll just hold onto this for you.” She put the phone in her purse with a smile.
“Ugh, dammit Marci!”
Foggy racked his brains as they reached the building that housed Nelson & Murdock and stepped inside. Matt would certainly hear him if he yelled. But…but. He wasn’t sure they were doing anything. Any explicit warning could lead to embarrassing questions if they weren’t. And there was no time to think. Marci was already on the stairs.
He took a deep breath, silently thanking his summers at theater camp for teaching him the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, and started to sing.
“Stay, we must not lose our senses,
Men who stick at no offenses
Will anon be heeeeeeere!”
His voice echoed satisfyingly in the stairwell. Marci turned back, outraged, and clapped a hand over his mouth. A scuffle ensued, which Foggy made as noisy as possible. “Ow, Marci, get off!” he yelled happily, and kept singing.
“Piracy their dreadful trade is,
Pray you, get you hence, young ladies,
While the coast is cleeeeeear!”
Marci abruptly gave up trying to silence him, and took off running instead. Foggy didn’t bother chasing her. He knew she was faster, even in her ridiculous four-inch heels, and she had a head start. He had done what he could, and he followed her up the stairs and down the hall at his usual speed.
As he approached the open door of the office, he heard Karen say, “Marci? Where’s Foggy? Weren’t you two having lunch together?”
“Right here,” he answered, walking in. Karen was at her desk with an open file in front of her, Matt sitting at his desk in his office. They both looked perfectly calm. Well, maybe a little flushed. It was hard to say for sure—he’d definitely never go into court on such flimsy evidence.
Marci stood speechless in the middle of the room, and Foggy realized she had no cover story prepared to explain her rushing headlong into their office. He grinned at her maliciously. She’d been so eager to catch Matt out, and instead she was the one embarrassed and groping for explanations. Not that she’d ever allow herself to show embarrassment. But the mere fact that she was at a loss for words spoke volumes.
He took a moment to enjoy her discomfort—after all, she’d brought it on herself—but it wouldn’t be smart to antagonize her too much. So he bailed her out, breaking the uncomfortable silence by beckoning her after him as he headed toward his office.
“C’mon, Marci, I’ll get you that thing,” he said, and she picked up the cue smoothly, smiling and following him as if she’d never intended to do anything else.
Once the door was closed, he broke into quiet laughter, while making a pretense of rummaging in a desk drawer in case Karen was watching through the windows.
Marci rolled her eyes. “All right, fine, the joke’s on me. But this is your fault, Nelson. If you hadn’t made so much noise coming up the stairs…” She scowled at him, but it looked suspiciously like she was fighting a smile. Her sense of fun was part of what had attracted Foggy to her in the first place, back in law school; and even now that she was a successful lawyer with an image to maintain, she hadn’t lost the ability to laugh at herself once in a while. He smiled at her, fond despite the hassle she had just caused him.
“Phone?” he asked, and she took his phone out of her purse and handed it back to him.
He opened his door, and ushered her back out into the main room.
“Thanks a bunch, Foggy bear,” she said, giving him a big smile and heading for the door. “I’ll see you later.”
“Bye, Marce. Good luck at that meeting.”
She checked her watch, swore, and zoomed out, her heels tapping rapidly away down the hallway.
Matt, now standing in his doorway, tipped his head, probably listening to Marci’s departure to make sure she was really gone.
“So,” he said a minute later, raising his eyebrows. “Are you going to tell us what that was all about?”
Foggy groaned, and leaned his head against the wall. “Sure, why not? Even if I could think up a good story, you’d know I was lying.” He sighed, and resigned himself to his fate. “Marci wanted to try and catch you two…in a compromising position.”
They both turned red, twin expressions of shock on their faces.
“It’s my fault,” he went on. “I never should have told her anything, I should have known she’d want to embarrass you. Or maybe just get an eyeful, who knows. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
Matt tried to frown, but the look of guilty consternation on his face was a dead giveaway. “You told her…what, exactly?”
Karen was biting her lips, trying not to laugh, and blushing even harder.
“Oh my god,” said Foggy, “I was right! You two have totally been fooling around when I’m not here.”
“How did you know?” Karen demanded. “We’ve been so careful!”
“I only suspected, I wasn’t sure. And it was because you’ve been so careful.” He told them everything, repeating his conversation with Marci and describing their walk back, and his dilemma in the stairwell.
“I couldn’t just yell ‘Put your clothes on, here comes Marci!’ when you might not be doing anything. But I couldn’t let her walk in on you, if you were.”
“So you sang for us,” said Karen, her laughter finally bubbling over.
“It was all I could think of!”
“It was perfect, Foggy, really. And in fact, we were…well. We were.” She glanced at Matt, then away. “We had just barely enough time to pull ourselves together, after we heard you. So, thank you.”
He turned to Matt. “I wasn’t sure you’d hear us if we just walked up the stairs normally," he said. "If you were, uh, distracted, and not paying attention. So I made some noise.”
They both turned red all over again, and Matt looked sheepish. “You actually did almost catch us once, before today,” he admitted. “I heard you, but not until after I…if you’d been a minute or two earlier, when I was still…” He cleared his throat, his face flaming.
“And after that, you still risked it again today?” Foggy asked incredulously. “Guys. Seriously. You’re both hot, but you can’t be that desperate for each other. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t plan it,” Karen said defensively. “It was lunchtime, so we ate our lunch together, like normal people.”
“But then after lunch, there was some kissing,” supplied Matt.
“There was some kissing,” she agreed. “Some really, really nice kissing. And that’s when we started wondering how much time we had, and what we might be able to do before you got back.”
“We should have known we didn’t really have enough time,” said Matt. “But, well…” he flashed a blinding smile in Karen’s direction. She smiled back, and blushed again.
“Oh my god, you two,” said Foggy, shaking his head. But he couldn’t help smiling a little, too. “Listen, I’m really happy for you, it’s great that you’re so into each other. And far be it from me to tell you what to do in the privacy of your own homes. But not in the office, all right?”
They both looked guilty, although they were still smiling. Karen reached out a hand to Matt, and he came and sat on the edge of her desk.
“Completely unprofessional,” he said sadly.
“Well, yeah,” said Foggy, annoyed that he felt apologetic, when he knew he was right. “We may not have many clients now, but the goal is to change that. When we’re open for business, we need to be open for business. If a prospective client comes by at any time, we have to be available.”
“Absolutely,” said Karen, sounding contrite.
“Also,” said Foggy, “If you don’t stop, then every time I leave the office I’m going to wonder what’s happening here while I’m gone. It’s not fair to me, to have to worry about what I might be coming back to, if you happen to be too distracted to hear me. I’m not gonna sing every time I come up the stairs, just to make sure I don’t walk in on you two going at it on the conference room table.”
They both looked startled, and blushed yet again.
“Oh god,” said Foggy. “Really? The conference room table?”
“It was only once,” said Karen, biting her lips again.
“And where else—“ he began, than shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“We’ll stop,” said Matt. “You’re right, we shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing at work. I’m sorry.”
Foggy looked at Karen. She sighed dramatically. “We’ll stop, of course.” She looked at Matt, and brought his hand to her face so he could feel her smile. “It was nice while it lasted,” she told him.
He smiled back, and leaned forward to kiss her unhurriedly.
“After work?” he suggested.
“Definitely,” she answered, and kissed him back.
Foggy cleared his throat loudly. “Now that that’s been decided,” he said with exaggerated cheerfulness, “Matt, do you want to go over our strategy for Mr. Kowalczyck’s hearing?”
“Ready when you are, counselor,” Matt said serenely, turning toward his office.
Foggy took a relieved breath. They had just had the awkward, embarrassing conversation he’d been hoping to avoid…and it was fine. He could almost be grateful to Marci for forcing the issue, now that the air had been cleared. He smiled at Matt, and smiled at Karen, and followed Matt into his office.