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Claire’s getting used to these late night calls. Also the early morning calls, late morning calls, afternoon calls, and evening calls. Basically, Whenever-the-hell-Matt-Murdock-pleases calls. Although, maybe she should say Whenever-the-hell-Foggy-Nelson-pleases calls, because, to be fair, he’s the one who does most of the calling. And also Jessica Jones, Trish Walker, Luke Cage, Danny Rand. You get the point. But today it’s Foggy Nelson.
The worst part is that Foggy’s not a very good judge of what constitutes a serious injury. And he refuses to listen to Matt when Matt tells him that he’s not injured enough to constitute a call. (Although, since she’s being fair about the call thing, she should acknowledge that Matt tends to downplay what constitutes serious injury often enough that she understands why Foggy doesn’t trust him about it.) But the long and short of it is that she never knows what to expect from the law partners. Sometimes she shows up and Matt’s got nothing more than a few nasty looking scrapes, bumps, and bruises. And sometimes she shows up to what looks like a murder scene. One memorable time she found Matt barely holding his guts inside with his bare hands. Well, she’s exaggerating a little bit, but not much.
She can sometimes get a vague sense of how serious it is based on how panicked Foggy sounds. But that’s not always a reliable source of information either. He gets panicky very quickly and can be set off by the smallest of things. The sight of blood can usually get him pretty worked up, nevermind where it’s coming from or how much it is. Matt couldn’t probably trip and cut his knee and Foggy would still freak out as soon as he caught sight of the blood welling up.
This time the call comes late at night -- about 11:30 PM. Claire was just getting ready for her 12:30 shift at the hospital. If Matt’s not too injured then she just has time to swing over to Matt’s and still make her shift. Foggy sounds mildly panicked which doesn’t mean much. At least it’s Matt and not Jessica this time. Claire doesn’t think she’d be able to deal with Jessica Jones’ abrasive manner tonight.
Claire grabs her bag, throws it over her shoulder and starts off for Matt’s studio apartment. She lets herself in through the roof access door and climbs down into the great room that makes up eighty percent of Matt’s entire apartment. She hears scuffling and swearing from Matt’s bedroom and makes her way to the sliding door of the only bedroom in the apartment.
The door is half-open and inside Claire finds Foggy and Matt. Matt is sitting on the edge of his large bed, Foggy hovering at his side holding on to his elbow. The floor lamp next to Matt’s bed is switched on for the benefit of the sighted parties.
It’s a scene familiar to all three occupants of the room. As Claire watches from the doorway, Matt attempts to gingerly push himself to his feet, no doubt not for the first time. His eyebrows are drawn down comically low while his tongue is caught between his bared teeth. He reminds her of a determined puppy.
The conversation coming from the dynamic duo is also familiar, though particularly childish this time. Not for the first time Claire can’t help but compare them to an old married couple.
“Sit down, Matt! I’m serious!” Foggy demands as he gently tugs on Matt’s elbow.
“Let go!” Matt hisses in return. He braces his arm against the bed for a second (third, fourth, fifth?) attempt at rising.
Foggy throws his arms in the air in exasperation, turning away from Matt. His eyes widen in surprise as he notices Claire for the first time. He immediately turns back to Matt. “See, Matthew! Claire’s here,” he declares triumphantly. “Now stay down so she can check you over!”
Matt turns a fierce scowl on Foggy. “Foggy, I swear, if you don’t leave me be…” he trails off as he loses his balance and plops back onto the bed. His face goes pale.
Claire decides that now is as good a time as any to insert herself into the situation. She takes on her best “mom voice” as she strides to Matt’s right side. “Matthew Michael Murdock,” she starts (Foggy mock winces at the use of Matt’s full name), “are you giving dear Mr. Nelson a hard time again?”
Matt’s scowl turns in her general direction and she can practically feel the indignation radiating off of him. He doesn’t like to be pushed around and they all know it.
But Claire can see a hint of amusement creeping into his expression, so she takes her chances and reaches cautiously for Matt’s right side which he’s definitely favoring. The vigilante predictably leans slightly away from her.
The old Claire would say that it serves Matt right for getting himself injured in the first place, but she’s since come to accept and respect what her four super friends do. At the end of the month she’s reducing her hospital hours to the bare minimum that she can survive on so that she can work almost exclusively at The Clinic.
It’s going to be a lot of work, she knows. But it will be worth it to help out. Like she’s attempting to help Matt out now. He flinches away as she rests her hands lightly on his side. She realized early on that he has sensory issues, and tries to let him know where and when she’s going to be touching him when she’s checking him over. Of course some of it has to do with his enhanced sense, but she honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he had been diagnosed with some of sort of sensory processing disorder even before his senses were turned up to eleven.
He’s got a sweat-soaked, skin-tight, black undershirt on. At least it just sweat and nothing that should be on the other side of his skin. The nurse carefully lifts the shirt, rolling it up to rest beneath Matt’s arms. Foggy hover awkwardly at her side, peering over her shoulder at Matt.
“Some bruising, but at least there’s no blood,” Claire reports for Foggy’s benefit. She gently eases her hands down onto Matt’s exposed side, pressing down ever so slightly to check for breaks. And… yep, the bones under her hands give way ever so slightly. “Feels like at least two cracked and one broken rib. Matt?”
Matt swallows hard. “Yeah,” he croaks out. “Nothing’s punctured though. Just a few cracks.”
“And one broken,” Foggy reminds him sternly. Foggy takes Matt’s injuries much more seriously than Matt does.
Claire nods absentmindedly. “Not much I can do for you. Just take it easy. Preferably for a month of even two.” Matt’s mouth opens to argue, but Claire puts her hand over it. “I know, I know. You can’t take that much time off. But try to give it as much time as possible, okay?” Matt still looks like he’s going to debate it with her, so Claire turns to Foggy.
“He’ll wait at least a month before he does any Daredevil-ing,” Foggy assures her confidently.
Matt looks mutinous. Claire’s just glad that Foggy gets to be in charge of keeping Matt off the streets so that she doesn’t have to deal with him.
“How’d you do this, anyway?” Claire asks as she moves to Matt’s closet to get him a clean t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
Matt doesn’t respond, so Claire turns to look at expectantly. (She knows that it doesn’t matter to him, but it’s a habit she’s picked up dealing with their other special friends.)
Foggy has a similar look on his face. “Yeah, Matt. How did you do this?” he asks, sounding interested now.
Matt finally caves as Claire returns with his clean clothes. “I fell off a water tower onto a roof,” he admits, sounding embarrassed.
“Are you serious?!” Foggy exclaims loudly. “You’ve been on those things a thousand times! I’ve seen you! How could you possibly fall off of one?” he asks incredulously.
Matt’s face is coloring now, the blush creeping up the back of his pale, Irish neck. This is going to be good, Claire can tell.
He’s silent for a long moment as the other two wait for his explanation. “I thought I could do a hook kick on top of the tower…”
Claire doesn’t know exactly what a hook kick is, but she has a pretty good idea. Judging by the look on Foggy’s face, he knows exactly what Matt was attempting.
“Are you shitting me?! Matthew! Do you have any sense at all?!” Foggy is nearly shrieking now. Claire expects that they’re making some great friends with Matt’s neighbors tonight. Hopefully his walls are thick. “You show a concerning lack of good judgment, Matt!”
Matt’s half-heartedly trying to hide his red face in the shirt he’s attempting to drag over his head.
Foggy sounds like he’s going to be on Matt’s case for a while even as he steps in to help Matt wrangle his shirt off with the minimal amount of pain, so Claire quickly cuts in. “Foggy, make sure Matt puts ice on his ribs. Matt, seriously, take it easy. You don’t want to mess around with those ribs. I’ve got to get to work now. I’ll call tomorrow. Okay?”
After a quick nod from Foggy that confirms that he was actually listening to what she said, she slips out of Matt’s room and then his apartment as Foggy starts in on him again.
In just a few short days Matt will probably be begging her to rescue him from Foggy’s mother bear routine. Serves him right. Stupid idiot.