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Foggy Nelson snapped his arm-garters into position and adjusted his apron. He nodded to his assistant, Miss Wing, who bobbed a curtsy and went to unlock the door of Nelson and Co, Haberdashers of New York.
Nelson and Co was a small family-run business, just a few blocks too far west of Longacre Square to be fashionable, but this was New York, where despite all protestations to the contrary, the nearly-fashionable had always outnumbered the elite, and the little shop had a steady stream of lawyers, clerks, accountants, and other workaday men who might not be able to buy fine beaver-pelt top hats or silk underwear by the dozen but could spend a small portion of their weekly pay on a dependable leather belt or a cheerful new bowtie.
"Good morning, Mr. Nelson," a voice called out, and Foggy looked up from re-arranging a tray of brightly coloured pocket squares.
"Good morning, Constable Knight," he nodded at the tall, dark-skinned policewoman who had one arm slung affectionately around Colleen and her helmet tucked under the other. "You look well."
"I look like I've been patrolling all night," the constable yawned. "Is my order ready?"
Foggy's father had started the business as a barbershop and a purveyor of soaps and colognes, and that was where his—and Foggy's—true passion still lay. His mother and his sister, they had been the ones to expand their range to to all manner of men's hats and accessories, including men's hats and accessories—for women.
"It is indeed," Foggy handed over a package of shirts, tied up in brown paper and string. "Mother just finished them yesterday."
"Give Mrs. Anna my best," Constable Knight said, tucking the packet under her arm and tipping up her young wife's face for a kiss. "Shall I see you for supper before my next patrol, my love?"
Colleen smiled back. "Only if Mr. Nelson lets me leave early."
Foggy coughed when Misty raised her eyebrow at him. "Very well," he huffed good-naturedly. "But you're serving Mr. Stick next time he comes in."
"Mr. Stick is just old and grouchy, there's nothing he can do to you," Colleen chided, as she waved the Constable out the door with a blown kiss.
"That man has opinions about cufflinks I simply cannot abide," Foggy muttered, and returned to his pocket squares.
Foggy's days were relatively easy. When he wasn't serving customers—and most of them were locals with whom he had a good relationship—he was perched on his stool in the back room hand-hemming handkerchiefs, sharpening his shaving razors, or mixing colognes. In the fancier parts of town, these three jobs would have been done by three different experts, but here, the people made do with one jack of most trades and appreciated him for it—one shopkeeper who could turn out a man from his toe-caps to his hatband in a stylish, yet frugal manner.
Late in the day, the bell on the door rung again. Foggy poked his head out from behind the curtain.
One of the local lawyers was standing in the doorway, his cane hooked over his arm and the other one reaching up to doff his hat. He ran his gloved fingers through his rakishly unruly hair and smiled when Colleen greeted him, the light flashing off his red glasses. Matthew Murdock, esquire.
Foggy tried not to sigh.
He cleared his throat and shook himself all over before pasting on a smile and pushing through the curtain.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Murdock. A fine day, isn't it?"
"All the finer now that I'm here," the lawyer said, pulling off his gloves. Foggy gulped and tried not to stare at the pale skin and broad hands that each tug on the kidskin leather was revealing. They were much stronger than a slim, gentle, bookish man who worked in a small lawyer's office was expected to have
"How kind," Foggy said faintly. Colleen, smiling sweetly, came behind the counter and kicked him in the ankle. "Oh, uh. What can I get for you today?"
"My colleagues at work tell me it is time for a new hat," Matt said, laying his top hat and gloves on the counter. The fabric hadn't been very good to begin with, and now it was worn and dull in patches. The hatband was kept together by a row of tidy but amateurish stitches—ah, thought Foggy morosely. Matt clearly had someone to take care of him.
"I have many hats," he said, waving at the stacks atop the high shelf that ran the length of the shop, "and they all connive and plot to be the next one to perch upon such a head as yours." Colleen gave him a look that said she feared for his sanity.
Matt ducked his head and smiled, and his forelock fell over his brow. It made Foggy think of great art, of ladies in diaphanous gowns that fell just so off their shoulders. He strangled a desperate sound
"Something plain, I think."
"Of course." He climbed the ladder and selected a plain felt top hat in Matt's size. The fabric was glossless and sturdy, but the frame, in Foggy's opinion, lacked the heft for true sartorial elegance.
Matt put it on. "How does it look?"
Foggy pursed his lips, trying to find the right word.
"It looks plain." Colleen said, in her agreeable-but-immovable voice.
Matt whisked it off and smoothed his hair down again. Foggy curled his hands into balls behind his back to keep from helping.
"Try this one," Foggy picked another. It was serviceable, but just because it was serviceable didn't mean it deserved to be on Matt's head.
After a few more tries, Colleen cleared her throat. "Mr. Nelson, do you think perhaps…?" She cut her eyes to the side.
Foggy's eyes darted to the object Colleen couldn't bring herself to name. It gleamed slickly from its high shelf. "A bold suggestion, Miss Wing,"
"What?"
"Silk, Mr. Murdock. French silk." Colleen said, and she made it sound like sin and salvation combined.
"Your young lady will like this, I promise," Foggy said, climbing the ladder. "Especially should you take her to the Follies wearing it."
"What young lady?"
"You don't have a sweetheart?"
Matt smile was amused. "What made you think I did?"
"The mending on your hatband."
"I did that."
"But you're blind!" Foggy said, and then wanted to swallow his tongue.
"You sew without looking most of the time," Colleen reminded him.
"Ah, indeed. My apologies. There is no end to your talents, truly."
Foggy thrust the top hat into Matt's hands, who ran his fingers over the slick, plush fabric and gave a delighted hum. Then, bizarrely, he gave it back. "Why don't you show me how?" Matt suggested, and squared up to be dressed.
Foggy stared at the hat in his hands, thinking he should probably remind Matt that he already knew how to place a hat on his own head, but instead, he reached out and smoothed down the thick, dark hair and settled the hat. After a moment, he tipped the angle to something a degree more insouciant and swept an errant lock behind Matt's ear.
"How do I look?" Matt asked, but this time his voice was different, softer and more intimate.
Foggy cleared his throat and brushed a speck of nothing off the shoulder of Matt's cutaway coat. "Perfect, Mr. Murdock. Simply perfect."
***
After Matt had left, and Foggy sat around fanning himself for a while, he retired to his work room and let Colleen tidy up and depart for dinner with Constable Knight. When she called out her farewell and he heard the bell on the door chime, Foggy put away his sewing and pulled out his other work. It wasn't delicate silk, but sturdy fabric with buckles and brads that were more at home on a horse's saddle, and panels of hardened resin sheets that could turn away all but the heaviest of bullets. He worked long into the night, till after the lamplighters had slung their ladders and the city was soaked in a briny yellow glow.
Nearing midnight, Foggy levered himself up from his work table and stretched his back. The sounds his bones made were like a bag of gravel smashed under a carriage wheel.
"That sounds in need of a doctor," a quiet voice said. Foggy whirled around. Silhouetted against the streetlight was a man, leaning casually on the inside of Foggy's back door. Foggy hadn't heard it open. "Snuff the lights."
Silently, Foggy reached out and twisted the knob on the gas lamp. It made a quiet hiss as the storeroom was plunged into utter darkness.
"My thanks."
Foggy pressed back into the table and gripped the edge. He could hear the man's footsteps, sure and steady in the blackness, coming nearer. "Is this truly necessary?" Foggy groused, "you know I can't see your face anyway."
"Yes," the man said. "For your safety."
The voice in the darkness was nearly upon him, and Foggy reached out and encountered a touch of silk. Foggy's guest wore a red shirt with a red ascot, black trousers with hidden pockets all along the thigh and straps that held various cudgels and blackjacks. His waistcoat was the colour of pitch and so was the mask he wore, which covered all of his face but a plush pink mouth.
Foggy only knew this because he'd made all those items of clothing, had seen them draped over his work table by lamplight. He had yet to see them filled out by their wearer. He trailed his fingers down an arm, encountered a rolled-up shirtsleeve and warm skin, and then a hand that was bound wrist-to-knuckle in pugilists' wraps. He squeezed his guest's hand, and his fingers came away wet. When he raised them to his lips, he tasted blood.
"Are you hurt?"
"Not especially," Foggy's guest said. He had not moved and seemed contented to stay stock still as Foggy felt his outline.
To New York, he was a rumour, a story—the Demon of Hell's Kitchen. The Daredevil. To Foggy, he was a mystery, a secret client, a tom-cat who slunk around Foggy's iron fence, wheedling with the arch in his tail that there should be milk for him on the stoop. But he was also a protector, a defender. And in lightless, breathless moments together such as this, he was something more.
"I have your armoured waistcoat, nearly done," Foggy said, after a beat of silence.
"I'm confident it will be perfect," Daredevil said, unwinding the bandages from his hands and pocketing the strips. He flexed his fingers. "I have your payment."
Foggy blushed in the darkness. "Pray don't refer to it as that."
A smile should make no sound, and yet Foggy heard one. "Why not?" Daredevil's hands landed on the table on either side of Foggy. "What should I call it?"
Foggy wrapped his hands around Daredevil's throat and kissed him roughly. "My folly," he grunted, as Daredevil tore at his ascot and Foggy ripped at the waistcoat buttons. "My shame."
That shocked Daredevil into stillness. He captured Foggy's hands and kissed them. "My blessing," he corrected. Everything grew soft then: hands stroked instead of shoved, arms cradled instead of captured.
"Will you come to the store?" Foggy panted, as his shirt slid off his shoulders. "I want to see you. Even if I won't know your face."
"Is it so important to you?" Daredevil asked, nipping at Foggy's collarbone.
"No, you're free to refuse me if it frightens you," Foggy said.
Daredevil reared back, and as Foggy stared up at him, the barest moonlight glanced off his skin. "You're taunting me, and I won't fall for it," he said sternly, before bending for another kiss. "I can't, Foggy, but, perhaps…"
"Yes?"
Daredevil chewed a hesitant sound, then a hand descended over Foggy's eyes.
"What—the room is already pitch dark! This is ridiculous—umph." This time, when they kissed, something was different. Foggy touched Daredevil's face, traced his fingers up a sharp jawline and encountered not stiff fabric, but high cheekbones, long lashes, and thick tousled hair. "You're real." He touched his lips to Daredevil's unarmoured face. "You're a man."
Daredevil paused. "How could you doubt that?"
"You're a shadow. A voice in the dark. You touch me—" Daredevil squeezed Foggy illustratively and he moaned a little, "and come morning I wonder if I've imagined it all."
Daredevil inhaled hard through his nose and pressed Foggy onto his work table. "Then I'll have to work harder to leave an impression."
They made love like that, Foggy's thighs slung around Daredevil's hips and his hands behind him taking his weight, skidding along the table and knocking over canisters of buttons and coloured silks as Daredevil thrust against him.
"Foggy," Daredevil gasped, as Foggy's cries started to climb to a desperate pitch. "Bite me, sweetheart. Bite my neck."
As lights began bursting behind his eyes, Foggy gripped Daredevil by the hair, turned his face into Daredevil's skin, and obliged.
***
The next day, Foggy minded the store alone. It was a quiet Friday, not really a day for for shopping, so Foggy hemmed his handkerchiefs and dusted the bottles of cologne and straightened the displays of sock garters and soon the sun was dipping low and streaming orange light into the shop.
At four in the afternoon, the bell on the door chimed.
"Be right with you," Foggy called from the store room, halfway up a ladder with a parcel of wool socks balanced on his shoulder. He dropped it on a bench and pushed aside the curtain that divided the shop from the back.
He saw the hat first, gleaming slickly under the arm of Matt Murdock.
"Mr. Nelson," Matt said, tipping his head.
"Mr. Murdock," Foggy said warmly in return.
"Mr. Nelson." Matt bowed a little again.
How odd, Matt looked nervous. "…Mr. Murdock?"
Matt cleared his throat. "Mr. Nelson—" He stopped and his face went a shade flushed. "Mr. Nelson."
Foggy tutted. They could be here all night. "Is the hat to your liking, Mr. Murdock?"
"Oh, yes, very much. Mr. Nelson, would you do me the honour of letting me walk you home?" he blurted.
It took Foggy a moment to understand what Matt was asking. Serving as an escort on a walk home from church or from a relative's house was what upstanding young men offered to proper young ladies of their circle. It was a prelude to courtship.
But Foggy wasn't a young lady, and he certainly wasn't proper. When he leaned his hip on the counter, he could still feel the soreness of Daredevil's fingers digging bruises into his flesh. Matt Murdock was fine and upstanding and brought light to his day, and Foggy Nelson made a regular habit of bedding unknown men in the dark.
"I," he swallowed, "would enjoy that. But I can't."
Matt's mouth dropped open. "Ah."
"My heart is…not my own at the moment." Matt's eyebrows shot up. "I'm sure nothing will come of it," Foggy continued and gave a self-deprecating little laugh. "But some of us have the misfortune to love a shadow."
"A shadow," Matt repeated.
"Well," Foggy said. He probably sounded mad, or like a character in a novel. "Of sorts. I'm sorry."
"Then I'd like to buy a shirt-collar."
Foggy blinked at the abrupt change in topic. "Oh. Of course. One moment, I'll bring the tray."
Matt held up a hand when Foggy started to talk him through fabric types and point styles. "Will you pick one for me?"
"Very well." Foggy picked a medium wing point with silk twist at the buttonhole for a touch of luxury. Matt had shrugged off his coat and tugged open his tie and was lifting his chin to give Foggy room to work.
Wordlessly, Foggy loosened the stud at the front and then reached around to undo the stud at the back of the neck. As the collar slid away, Foggy noticed some tell-tale redness on the side of Matt's neck.
"My goodness, Mr. Murdock, I thought you said you didn't have a—" Foggy clucked, and tipped Matt's head further, and the full glory of the lovebite rose above his neckband, "—a sweetheart."
Foggy stared at the reddened oval on Matt's pale skin, speckled with darker red where the teeth had wounded deeper.
"Mr. Murdock," Foggy said weakly, and Matt raised his chin even higher, obstinate and challenging.
He tucked his face into the space between Matt's shoulder and neck, not touching, but feeling the warmth radiate from his skin and breathing in the scent of his hair. He ran his fingers over Matt's cheek and the crinkles at the corner of his eye. Finally, he grasped Matt's hair in a clenched fist and pulled.
"Foggy," gasped Matt. Gasped Daredevil.
"Oh my god," Foggy said, releasing him.
"I'm real," Matt said, and if his voice were any less steady, he'd be pleading. "I'm a man."
"Yes," Foggy said, and kissed him.
They fetched up against the glass counter with an alarming crash, and stayed there, learning each other's bodies in the light, until the edge of the case started to hurt. Foggy pressed an apologetic kiss to the bite on the side of Matt's neck.
"So," Matt said, straightening up and hauling Foggy after. His hair was puffy and wild from Foggy's tugging fingers, and his mouth was wet and chafed red. "May I walk you home?"
Foggy plucked up the points of Matt's plain black bowtie—he'd have the man in French silk if it killed him—and used them to pull him close. "You may. Later."