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At this very moment in the city of New York, New York, young Foggy was nine years, twenty-seven weeks, six days and three minutes old. The pigeon at his feet was two years, two weeks, six days, five hours and nine minutes old. And not a minute older.
Obeying the goading of his younger sister, young Foggy reached out and touched the pigeon that they had seen so unceremoniously struck by a passing taxi. Young Candace declared that Foggy was a scaredy-cat if he did not touch the bird, which was so obviously dead. Young Foggy, determined to show that he was not a scaredy-cat, argued that pigeons carry diseases, which did nothing to appease the five-year-old despot. Reluctantly, certain he would die shortly of the Black Plague, or some similar ailment, young Foggy reached out and brushed his finger against the surprisingly soft feathers of the pigeon.
To his surprise, the pigeon squawked and flew away.
He looked at Candace. Candace looked at him.
Candace, in her five-year-old wisdom, decided that the pigeon must not have been dead, after all. But young Foggy knew it had been, and then it had not been. This was the moment he realized he wasn’t like the other children: nor was he like anyone else, save a certain pie-maker. Young Foggy could touch dead things and bring them back to life.
Fortunately for young Foggy, he was then subject to an involuntary dive-bomb from a squirrel, falling from the tree above them, just as dead as the pigeon had been. As it brushed against Foggy’s head, it sparked to life and clawed at his face, only to have the life extinguished when it made contact once more.
Candace screamed, and ran into the apartment building where Bess Mahoney was cooking dinner for them, leaving young Foggy holding the dead squirrel and the certainty that he had traded one life for another. Stunned, he did not move until Brett Mahoney, aged nine years, forty-one weeks, one day, and, seventeen minutes, emerged to ask why Candace had shrieked her way into his apartment. Foggy, still stunned by the horrifying turn of events, could only tell the truth, and to his surprise, Brett Mahoney believed him.
This touch was a gift given to Foggy, but not by anyone in particular. There was no box, no instructions, no manufacturer’s warranty. It just was. The terms of use weren’t immediately clear. So Brett Mahoney, who long ago decided there were rules for everything, set about finding out the rules for young Foggy’s gift. They experimented with insects at first, then graduated to small rodents bought at a pet store, and discovered the truth: they discovered that young Foggy could only bring the dead back to life for one minute without any consequences. Any longer, and someone else had to die. And should he touch a dead thing he had brought back to life a second time, it was dead again, forever.
The prospect of such power shook young Foggy to his core. Young Brett became the sole keeper of his secret, and Foggy resolved to avoid any further social attachments, fearing both the discovery of his abilities, and what he would do if someone he loved died.
It is now twelve years, six weeks, three days, sixteen hours and nine minutes later. Young Foggy, still young but not quite so much, was determined to take a Punjabi course as his language elective at Columbia Law School, on the reasoning that Punjabi was most likely to be unpopular and therefore sparsely attended. His online battle with Columbia University’s course selection was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Excuse me, is this Room 312?”
And Foggy fell in love.
His name was Matthew Murdock. At this moment, he was twenty-one years, ten months, nineteen days, and seventy-nine minutes old. Young Foggy did not think of him as being born or hatched or conceived in any way, Matt came ready-made as the Platonic ideal of humanity. Together, they conquered law school, and Foggy, so long terrified of touching anything, revelled in Matt’s touch as he guided him through the campus (for the perfect man was blind, due to some childhood heroism that Foggy decided was further proof of his perfection).
At the end of their second year, they were inseparable. When a rip in the sky opened above Grand Central Station, they huddled together, listening in terror to what sounded like the beginnings of the apocalypse. Dizzy with fear and long-simmering sexual tension, young Foggy and the boy named Matt shared their first and only kiss.
As the dust settled after the Battle of New York, young Foggy heard reports of people with abilities being investigated, loved ones interrogated, and slept with images of Matt being dragged away and questioned about him. He thought how easily he might have lost Matt that day. And when the delayed final examinations began, Foggy left Columbia, leaving only a message on Matt’s phone telling him to “knock ‘em dead.”
He changed his number, the day after, and his email address.
It was now seven years, four months, five days, fourteen hours and three minutes later, heretofore known as “now.” Young Foggy had become the bagel-maker, running a sandwich shop known as The Bagel Hole. The tomatoes were always ripe, the dead vegetables in his hand became ripe with everlasting flavor. As long as he only touched it once.
Brett Mahoney was now a police sergeant. He and the bagel-maker had come to an arrangement: murders are much easier to solve when you can ask the victim who killed them. The bagel-maker agreed.
“A hot girl is involved,” Brett said.
“Why would I care if a hot girl is involved?” Foggy said.
“If I said it was a hot guy, would you care more?”
“Logically, no, since I don’t deal with the suspects in any…extensive capacity.”
“Exactly. So do me a solid, and pretend to care about this hot girl who is going to be taken out of the dating pool if she gets sent to jail for the rest of her life.”
“What if she’s guilty? I mean, what if we bring this guy back and he says ‘yeah, it was definitely her’?”
“Then I’ll sleep soundly knowing justice has been done.”
It was hard to argue with Brett Mahoney and the weight of his justice.
The facts were these: Daniel Fisher, thirty-seven years, forty-two weeks, five days, three hours, and twenty-six minutes old, was found dead in the apartment of his co-worker, Karen Page, age twenty-eight years, ten weeks, two days, seventeen hours, and forty-one minutes. Karen was adamantly protesting her innocence, despite the overwhelming evidence and the advice of her court-appointed lawyer. She was also, as Brett Mahoney observed, hot.
Brett wasted no time in bringing Foggy to the morgue. The autopsy had not yet been performed (a preference of Brett’s), and the overnight morgue attendant was known throughout the New York Police Department as…lax in his supervision. Certainly, there were rumours that he allowed in persons of…dubious accreditation and questionable desires.
All of which suited Brett Mahoney’s needs. A few bills later, he and Foggy were standing over the body of one Daniel Fisher. Foggy pulled back the sheet. Brett flinched.
“If Hot Girl did that to him, then I’m hoping they send her to a nice padded cell. Maybe with a straightjacket,” he said.
“Strictly speaking, it just looks like a few lacerations with a knife,” Foggy said dispassionately. “The one on his throat is the only one that looks lethal, the others are superficial. Debatable whether this is an experienced killer or not.”
“You ever think of a career in the medical examiner’s office? ‘Cause I can think of a few -“
“You need medical training for that, and I can’t afford another couple of years of education,” said Foggy, thinking of his still-massive student debt from both undergrad at ESU and the two years he spent at Columbia Law. And Columbia Law made him think of Matt, and -
“Hey, Earth to Foggy, you gonna touch this guy?” Brett interrupted.
“Sorry.”
Foggy took off the glove he wore habitually, and extended his finger. He pressed it against Daniel Fisher’s shoulder.
“Hello,” Daniel said.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr Fisher,” Foggy said, “Or do you prefer Daniel? Or -“
“Dan!” said the formerly dead Daniel Fisher.
“Dan! Uh, your current condition…”
Daniel rubbed at the wound in his throat.
“Do I have something right here?” he said.
“Yeah. Sure,” Foggy said.
“Asshole,” Daniel said.
“You mean Karen?” Brett jumped in.
“Karen?” Daniel said. “No, Karen’s a sweetheart. No, this was that guy who was watching us at the bar.”
“The bar?” Brett said.
“Karen asked me out -“
“Were you doing the nasty with Karen?”
“No! I’m married! Karen just wanted me to go over these files she’d found that looked like someone had been embezzling from the pension fund.”
“Uh-huh. And this guy who was watching you?”
“He was watching us all while Karen was telling me about the file. And then he squeezed up against us trying to get the bartender to notice him. Then it all gets a little fuzzy, but I remember waking up, and he was sitting next to me with a knife -“
Foggy glanced at his watch, and the second hand was just passing eleven. He reached out and touched Daniel Fisher again.
“We could have gotten a description!” Brett said.
“In five seconds?”
Brett paused. “OK, fair enough.” He clapped Foggy on the back.
Foggy didn’t know how, but Brett got Karen Page’s charges dropped. Brett brought her to the Bagel Hole a day later.
“She doesn’t really have a job anymore…” Brett said.
“So you brought her here?”
“You could use some help, you’ve been saying that for months!”
“I haven’t been saying that!”
“It was implied.”
Foggy capitulated to Brett. He could use the help, anyway, and sandwiches don’t make themselves.
And then came the event that changed everything.
“In the news,” the TV said, “the body of an alleged vigilante has been found in Hell’s Kitchen. The victim’s identity is being withheld.”
The bagel-maker listened intently to the news, unaware that he had stopped breathing. He was haunted by the name of this man who met his end fighting for justice. But he didn’t know why.
"Been watching the news lately?" said Brett Mahoney as he sat down at the counter of the Bagel Hole.
"It doesn't seem like much going on in the world besides a dead vigilante," the bagel-maker said.
"A lot going on with that dead vigilante."
"That so?"
"Organized Crime think he was whacked by the Russians. Been all up in their business for the past few weeks."
Foggy pulled on his gloves and selected a cheese bagel from the rack. He started to slice it. Brett always had the roast beef with horseradish sandwich on cheese.
"Nice nurse who pulled the body out of the dumpster said there was somebody sniffing around for him that night," Brett continued. "Be real nice if we could find out who that somebody was." Foggy put the sandwich in front of Brett, and Brett took a bite. "You interested in a conversation?"
"I could be persuaded.”
“Well, you better be persuaded quick, because the ME wants to do an autopsy, and you know how I feel about those.”
Foggy did, indeed, know how Brett felt about interrogating people who had already undergone an autopsy.
“This guy got a name?” Foggy said.
"Matthew Murdock."
For a moment, the bagel-maker was lost in a forest of memories.
"Matt," Foggy said.
"You know this guy?" Brett said.
"I know of him."
"Know him in the biblical sense?"
"I haven't thought of him since I was twenty-four."
"You think of him a lot when you were twenty-four?"
"I don't remember."
The bagel-maker remembered everything.
The facts were these: Matthew Michael Murdock, thirty years, three weeks, two days, eleven hours and fifty-one minutes old, was found in a dumpster in Hell's Kitchen, moments after expiring there. Who caused his expiration seemed to be a question only Matthew Murdock could answer.
The morgue attendant was more than happy to grant the deceased an audience, due to the historical context.
"Um, I just want to, can I do this alone?" Foggy said. "On account of the whole historical context?"
"You got something personal you need to say?" Brett said.
"No," Foggy lied. Brett scowled. "OK, maybe, but I have nothing to gain but a small amount of closure."
"What you got open that needs closing?"
"I just want to tell him something - one of those stupid things that happens in law school I never got to tell him about."
"OK, well, you ask him who killed him first."
"OK."
"You only got a minute."
"I know."
"Sixty seconds."
"I know. Go grab a coffee, or something."
Brett shut the door to the morgue. The bagel-maker took a deep breath, and pulled back the sheet. Only a certain Pie-Maker could know how he felt upon looking at Matt. Great thought was taken as to where to touch him. The lips? Too forward. The cheek...the cheek. He pressed his finger against the cold skin. He watched Matt gasp, blind eyes opening wide, before a sheet was unceremoniously wrapped around his neck and Foggy was forced to his knees.
"Matt... wait..." he croaked.
"Foggy?" The sheet dropped away. "Why am I naked?"
"Long story, buddy. Might want to put that sheet to use." Foggy felt the sheet being pulled away. "Is it safe?"
"Nothing you haven't seen before."
The bagel-maker thought that there was a great deal he hasn't seen before, which he felt were the most important parts of Matt.
"So what's up? How are you? Haven't heard from you since…I mean, since you left,” Matt said as Foggy turned around. He had the sheet twisted around his waist, showing off a chest that Foggy was positive had not been that chiseled in law school.
"Good! I mean - do you know what's happening right now?"
Matt shrugged.
"I had the weirdest dream," he said, "I'd been stabbed, and I was in a dumpster, and -"
"You were stabbed. And found in a dumpster. It's probably an odd thing to hear, I wasn't sure how to sugarcoat it."
"What?" Matt pressed a hand to his side. "Why can I hear my ribs moving?" He pushed harder, and Foggy saw a sickening bump form under his skin. "That doesn't hurt, why doesn't it - OH!" Foggy watched realization cross Matt's face.
"You only have a minute. Less," he said bitterly.
"What could I tell you in less than a minute?"
"You could tell me who killed you so, you know, justice can be served."
Matt smiled, and Foggy hadn't forgotten how his brain would do cartwheels whenever Matt smiled.
"That's really sweet," Matt said. "It was the Russians. The Ranskahovs. Not them personally, one of their thugs got a good one in..." He stopped, and pulled the sheet down on his side, exposing a raw wound that didn't seem interested in bleeding. He poked at it experimentally. "Huh."
"Why were you even fighting them? And how…”
"They had a boy -" Matt's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "Shit, they still have the kid! I have to go -"
"No, no, no, no, no!" Foggy positioned himself between Matt and the door, his arms wide so as not to touch Matt.
"Foggy, they've got a kid, they're human traffickers, I have to find him -" Matt reached out, and Foggy flinched back out of long habit, and regretted it instantly. For two glorious years, he'd relished every touch Matt had given him, basked in being able to be so close to someone without fear of his power coming into play. And now...
"Foggy?" Matt said, looking like he'd been burned. "Please, I need your help."
Matt's minute of life was nearly over. Foggy should have reached out his hand. He looked at his watch, and watched the second hand cross the eleven.
"What if you didn't have to be dead?" Foggy said.
"That would be preferable," Matt said.
Foggy watched the second hand cross the twelve. Somewhere, close by, someone was dead.
“OK, nobody can know,” Foggy said. He looked around, and saw a body bag, next to a plastic bag filled with clothes with Matt’s name on it. He pulled over the body bag, unzipping it and laying it on a gurney. He held out the plastic bag.
“Plastic bag has your clothes in it. I’m holding it at your one o’clock,” he said.
Matt reached out and took the bag without even trying.
“Turn around, Foggy,” he said.
Foggy turned around. He waited for an excruciating minute, certain that the morgue attendant was about to walk through the double doors.
“OK,” Matt said.
Foggy turned around. Matt was dressed in all black. Black shirt, black pants, black boots, black gloves. He was holding a piece of black fabric between his hands. And the black shirt was clinging to every muscle he had, and Foggy might need to lie down after this.
“There’s a gurney, right here,” Foggy said with enormous effort. “I mean, your two o’clock, about a yard away.”
“Thanks, I know where it is,” Matt said, stepping forward and putting his hand out to touch the gurney. He seemed so much more…self-assured…than he had been in law school.
“I need you to get on the gurney,” Foggy said. “I think I’ve got a way to get you out of here.”
Matt nodded, and leaped elegantly onto the gurney. Foggy pulled the upper parts of the body bag out from under him and zipped it up until all he could see was Matt’s face.
“Just lie really still,” he said.
Matt nodded.
Foggy zipped up the bag and started rolling the gurney out. He thought of the security cameras, thought of the visitor logs, thought of all the ways the NYPD try to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening. He rolled the gurney into the loading dock and down the sidewalk, until he saw a convenient alley. He pulled the gurney in behind a dumpster, and unzipped it.
“OK, you can come out now,” he said.
Matt climbed out, smiling.
“Hell of a first date, Foggy,” he said.
By the time they were back at the Bagel Hole, Brett called Foggy.
“Where’d you go?” he said.
“Home. Or, the Bagel Hole.”
“You didn’t wait for me.”
“Got overwhelmed. Lots of emotion. Going to take a nap. Bye.”
Foggy guiltily looked at Matt, sitting at the counter.
“There are a few rules,” Foggy said.
He’d only just finished outlining them when Brett stormed through the door.
“Knew it!” Brett said.
“Hi, Brett,” Foggy said weakly.
“Who’s that?” Brett said, pointing at Matt.
“Matt Murdock,” Matt said, offering his hand.
“I know that,” Brett said icily. “What I meant was, ‘why is he here, instead of on a slab at the morgue?’”
“Matt’s feeling a lot better now,” Foggy said.
“I need to talk to you,” Brett said, dragging Foggy into the kitchen. Foggy was shoved against a wall. “It’s just so shockingly stupid, I have a hard time believing you did it. Are you in love with him? ‘Cause it’s that level of stupid.”
“I’ll admit to being confused,” Foggy said. “It’s a very confusing time, lots of emotions, it’s all coming up.” He pauses. “Who died instead?”
“You don’t know?” Brett said.
“It’s a random proximity thing.”
“Bitch, I was in proximity!”
“I wasn’t thinking. Who was it?”
“The morgue attendant.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly a good man? I mean, he was letting all sorts of people into the morgue, and we know that there was some freaky stuff -“
“Oh, that’s nice. The fact that he was a bad man makes you feel better about what you did?”
“Yes. Immensely. I would’ve felt horrible if it was - you, for example.” Brett smacked him on the side of the head. “I’m not proud!”
“You know what? I’m glad you did it. Makes the worst thing I did seem insignificant.”
“Listen to you, all judgy-judge.”
“‘Judgy-judge’?”
“What do you mean about someone dying instead?” came Matt’s voice. Foggy glanced over, and Matt was standing in the door to the kitchen.
“Matt -“ Foggy said.
“Foggy, what did you do?” Matt said.
“I didn’t -“
“You didn’t,” Brett said. “That’s why somebody died.”
“Will you stop talking?”
“You didn’t what?” Matt said.
“Looky here,” Brett said. “You need a ticket to ride this ride, and if your ticket gets punched, you gotta take somebody else’s ticket.”
“Why are you still talking?” Foggy hissed.
“I’m ripping off the band-aid!”
“I’m not a ripper! I pull up a corner a little at a time, then I run it under warm water, and then I pull it up a little more. It’s a process!”
“Let it rip!”
“I didn’t actively kill. I’m not an active killer. I’m not a killer!”
Matt had his arms folded across his chest.
“You killed someone for me?” he said.
“It wasn’t my fault, it’s a random proximity thing. There was no choice, or decision-making whatsoever, it just happened.”
“But you knew it would happen.”
“I was incapacitated with not being able to think. I had one thought in my head and it was of you, and it clogged me up so no other thought could get through, including the one telling me to touch you again.”
“So every minute I’ve been alive hasn’t really been mine to live.”
“If it’s any consolation, it’s only been about an hour,” Foggy tried. Matt scowled. “That was the wrong thing to say, I’m sorry, it was insensitive.”
“I need some air,” Matt said, and he left.
“Matt, wait!”
But Matt was gone.
“Great,” Brett said. “Now the missing corpse is wandering around Hell’s Kitchen. That’s gonna go over real well.”
“I’ll go after him,” Foggy said.
But when he got outside, Matt was nowhere to be seen. The shadows were thick, and Foggy wandered for hours, but to no avail. He got Brett to give him Matt’s address, but there was no answer when he pounded on the door.
Brett called him three hours later, as he circled Avengers Tower for the second time.
“Did you find him?” Foggy said.
“No, but I think I know what he’s been up to,” Brett said. “Missing kid just wandered into the precinct, says a man in black saved him from Russian mobsters. Uniforms are on the way to the location he mentioned.”
It both made sense and did not make sense.
“How would Matt even - he’s blind!” Foggy said.
“Don’t ask me, I’m not the one in love with him.”
“I’m not -“
“Mm-hmm.”
Foggy should have gone home. Or should have checked the Bagel Hole. Instead, as if some higher power drew him there, he walked to Matt’s apartment. This time, when he knocked on the door, Matt opened it.
“I figured I better grab some stuff before my landlord found out I was dead,” Matt said. There was a small bag sitting on the bed. “Or undead, or -“
“It’s not undead,” Foggy said, “I mean, nobody wants to be un- anything. Why begin a statement with a negative?”
“Foggy. I’m not who you think I am.”
“Who do I think you are?”
“The blind lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen? Well, that is who I am, but there’s something else I never told you.”
So Matt told Foggy about a world on fire. And about a man named Stick, and a girl whose father abused her, and a blind man who decided to take justice into his own, surprisingly skilled hands.
“And tonight, I thought, if this life isn’t mine, then I have to do something worthwhile with it. I can’t make this right with…him… but I can at least…try to make this city a better place.”
Foggy nodded.
“I would do it again,” he said. “I made a choice and I would do it again. I let someone die and if I was faced with that choice right now, I would to make that same choice. You could put me in a loop and I would make the same choice every time, that’s how confident I am that it was the right choice for me to make. I’m sorry if that makes me a bad person. But I’m not sorry that you’re alive.” Matt didn’t move. “I’ll go now.”
“Foggy…” Matt said, and Foggy turned around. Matt was smiling, just a little. “Is it bad that part of me is glad you made that choice?”
“No. No, it’s not.”
Matt zipped the bag shut and put on a pair of round, red glasses. He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder.
“So where do I go from here?” he said.
Foggy reached out his gloved hand.
“Start something new,” he said.
Matt took his hand, and let Foggy take him home.