Chapter Text
It’s a bright spring day in New York, and Foggy feels full of its joys. He and Marci have walked to work down through the park, grabbed a coffee, talked about summer vacation plans. She has a complicated, high-value divorce on; he is advising a client on the purchase of a penthouse on the Upper East Side. Life at Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz is good, and both of them know it. There’s the prospect of a chunky bonus at the end of the year, perhaps promotion to junior partner.
He settles down at his desk, reads and replies to his emails, and then pulls the file on the penthouse towards him and begins going through it, meticulously, line-by-line.
The ringing of his phone startles him, and he marks where he’s got to and picks it up.
“Nelson.” It’s a voice from the past, a voice Foggy hasn’t heard for a good couple of years.
“Brett Mahoney?” he says. “How are you? Mom said you’d made sergeant.”
“My mom said you’d sold out,” Mahoney says, although there is no judgement in his voice. “I’m calling to see if that’s true.”
Foggy swings his chair around and looks out at the view of Sixth Avenue below him.
“Depends what you mean by sold out,” he says. “I’ve picked a career, that’s all. How can I help?”
“Got a client for you,” Mahoney replies.
“I don’t do criminal defence,” Foggy counters. “Not usually, anyhow.”
“Make this an exception,” Mahoney says. “He’s a Hell’s Kitchen boy. Well, he’s a man, but he was a Hell’s Kitchen boy. He needs a Hell’s Kitchen attorney. And he went to Columbia, like you.”
Foggy thinks back to school. “I don’t remember anyone else from the Kitchen at Columbia.”
“He never graduated,” Mahoney explains. “But he needs someone decent.”
“What’s he done?” Foggy asks, swinging round back to his desk and looking down at the property deeds.
Mahoney coughs. “He’s, um – well, we think he’s Daredevil.”
Foggy processes. “The vigilante? The one who’s been beating people up left right and centre?”
“Yeah.”
“And you want me to defend him?” Foggy persists. “What the hell, Brett?”
“Just come to the precinct,” Mahoney says. “The public defender is useless, and … well, you’ll see when you get here.”
Foggy sighs, and closes the property file. “If Jeri Hogarth fires me over this, I’m blaming you,” he says, and hangs up.
Brett Mahoney meets him when he arrives at the 15th Precinct. They eye each other for a moment – they’ve had a long and tumultuous relationship, beginning when Foggy pushed Mahoney off a swing aged three, and settling into something akin to friendship on the last day of high school when they had got drunk together – and then Foggy gives in, and claps Mahoney on the back.
“Good to see you, sergeant,” he says, with a grin.
“Counsellor,” returns Mahoney. “Look, thanks for coming, Fogs. I couldn’t think who else to call.”
Following him down a corridor, Foggy says, “I still don’t get why you care that the guy gets representation. He’s put cops in hospital, for Christ’s sakes. Allegedly.”
Mahoney shrugs. “And criminals in hospital too. But … just talk to him, to start with, yeah?”
“Sure.”
Mahoney unlocks the interview room door and lets Foggy go in, closing it behind him.
The room is dim, and Foggy has to blink once or twice before his eyes adjust. The man behind the metal table is half-slumped back in his seat, but he moves as Foggy enters and his handcuffs clank against the table.
“Mind if I turn on the light?” Foggy asks, and the other shrugs.
“If you want,” he says, voice low and a little husky. “Makes no difference to me.”
Foggy finds the light switch, flicks it on and turns back around, to study his potential client more closely. He sees a man in black, one sleeve of the long-sleeved top ripped and bound roughly with a bandage. He looks fit, and weary, and his eyes are unfocused and directed roughly over Foggy’s left shoulder.
“Oh,” says Foggy, stupidly, and then he recovers. “My name’s Foggy Nelson. I’m an attorney. Detective Mahoney said you might need representation.”
“Foggy?” asks the man, with a slight quirk of his lips.
“It’s what people call me,” Foggy says.
“Matt Murdock,” says his possible client.
Something in Foggy’s brain connects. “Not the kid who saved that guy from the truck, back in grade 3?” he asks. “It was all anyone talked about for a week.”
Matt Murdock grimaces. “Yeah.”
Foggy bites down the urge to say “wow”, because looking at Murdock, he’s pretty sure it won’t go down well. Instead, he pulls out the chair on the other side of the metal table and sits down, opening the file Mahoney gave him and looking at its contents.
It’s a pretty long list of charges, predominantly first-degree assault, and reading them makes Foggy’s stomach roil a little. He looks up again, at the blind gaze of the other man.
“I’m not going to lie,” he says, “this doesn’t look good. Mahoney says they think you’re Daredevil, and there’s plenty of video evidence out there showing Daredevil doing his stuff.”
“So I’ve heard,” says Murdock.
“But, you’re …” Foggy waves a hand, and instantly realises this is a gesture lost on Murdock, “blind.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Digging a pen out of his suit pocket, Foggy prepares to back up. “Yet you’re not sitting here protesting your innocence, Mr Murdock. Most people in your situation would.”
Murdock sighs. “To be honest, Mr Nelson, I don’t know if I have the energy.” And he does look tired, with rings around his eyes and a bruise on his cheek.
Foggy makes a decision. “Mr Murdock, I will take your case, if you’ll have me as your lawyer. Whether or not you plead guilty, everyone deserves representation.”
“Why do you want to take it?” Murdock asks. “Why take me on?”
“Us Hell’s Kitchen kids should stick together,” Foggy says, “and if I’m honest, I’m bored of defending Wall Street bankers against speeding fines.”
“I can’t pay you much,” Murdock says.
Thinking of the savings in his own accounts, Foggy shrugs, and says, “that’s okay. Let’s discuss what you can afford later. The bankers pay well.” He uncaps the pen and opens his notepad to a clean page. “Right, now that you’re my client, everything you say is covered by confidentiality. You’ll be arraigned tomorrow. How do you want to plead?”
“Not guilty,” Murdock says.
“Okay,” says Foggy. “Fine. “So you get arraigned, and detained, because they’re not going to let you out on bail, though we can try pleading disability. We go to trial, you still plead not guilty.”
“I was defending others,” Murdock says.
Foggy writes this down, and pushes his hair off his face.
“Defending others?” he asks.
“I can’t deny being at the scenes,” Murdock explains, “or that I am Daredevil. There’s too much evidence. By now they’ll have DNA collected, and there’s those videos you mentioned. But I’m there because I have to be there. I’m there because it’s the only thing shutting everything out.” His blank eyes seem to bore into Foggy’s as he lifts his head. “I’m there because the Kitchen needs me.”
“I feel like we need to wind this back,” Foggy says. “How do you know people need your help, when you go and help them? If beating up criminals counts as helping them.”
“If you’re going to represent me,” says Murdock, coldly, “you need to take me seriously, Mr Nelson.”
“I’m taking you very seriously,” Foggy hastens to confirm. “I’ve seen the rap sheet. I just … well, I don’t get what you mean.”
Murdock shifts in his seat, the handcuffs clanking. His knuckles are bruised and scraped and look pretty sore.
“The chemicals, from the truck, that blinded me,” he says after a moment, “they did something else to me. They heightened my senses.”
“When you say heightened …?” Foggy puts in.
“I mean I can hear your heartbeat,” says Murdock, flatly. “I can tell you what cologne Sergeant Mahoney’s wearing. I can taste every chemical in my food. There’s more to senses than sight, Mr Nelson.”
Foggy nods, and then says, “I nodded. But can you tell that?”
“Roughly,” Murdock says. “It’s a bit like echolocation, or so I understand.” He shrugs. “In any case, whatever we call it, however it happened, every time someone calls for help, or screams, or is abused, in a three-block radius, I hear it. Can you imagine living with that and not doing anything?”
“No,” says Foggy, honestly, because it sounds horrific. He looks down at the list of charges. “These go back a few months. How long have you been doing this? Can we expect more charges to be dragged up?”
Murdock twists his hands. “Um,” he says.
“A year?” Foggy suggests. “Two? More?”
“Seven,” says Murdock. “Well. It’s got … I’ve been going out more, in the last year or so. Since the Incident. Things seem to have got worse out there. Or maybe I’m just getting worse at blocking it all out.”
“Some of these cases may come out of the woodwork,” Foggy warns. “Most people will remember getting beat up by a ninja.”
“I’m not a ninja,” Murdock objects.
“I’ve seen the videos,” Foggy says, “you’re not just a guy whaling on folk. You know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah,” admits Murdock. “Um, it started at college.”
“Right.” Foggy remembers what Brett had said. “Detective Mahoney says you were at Columbia. So was I. But I don’t remember you, and I feel I should.”
Murdock’s mouth twitches. “I didn’t stay long. Started law school in, what, ’05?”
“That was my year,” Foggy. “Class of ’08.”
“Right.” Murdock nods. “There was some mix-up with my room, to start with. The guy I was put with really didn’t like having a blind roommate. And I couldn’t handle him. He snored, he smelled, he came in late, he left his shit all over the floor. We lasted about three weeks and then they moved me into a single room.”
Foggy thinks of the fun he and his roommate had had. “Sucks, man,” he says, sympathetically.
“I spent most of the time since the accident alone anyway,” Murdock says, as though this doesn’t matter. “Took me a while when I was a kid to get used to the noise, and I acted out because of it. So yeah, after that I kind of kept myself to myself. And then I met a girl.”
He keeps talking. Although he’d started out taciturn, somehow something has changed and Foggy listens, makes notes, puts in the occasional question, and boggles at the tale he’s being told.
“I could have killed him,” Murdock is saying. “I nearly did. I beat him to a pulp and I walked out of there. Elektra was mad I stopped short, but she came back the next night.” He looks thoughtful. “I guess it was a couple of weeks later I quit school.”
“What happened?” asks Foggy, fascinated and horrified in equal measure.
“Elektra took me travelling, for a while,” Murdock says. “I hated it. I was lost. So I left her too, came back to Hell’s Kitchen.” His eyes flick down at the table, unseeing. “It’s the only place I’ve ever felt safe, really.”
“What do you do for money?” Foggy queries, hurrying to add, “not for my bills.”
“Bit of tutoring,” Murdock replies. “Spanish, mostly. My dad left me some savings, and there’s still a little left. I had scholarships for school and Elektra paid for the travelling, so I didn’t need to dip in much.”
Foggy isn’t sure how well tutoring, presumably to rich kids, is going to go down with a jury, but he notes it down and refrains from commenting.
“How about people who could testify to your character?” he asks instead. “Friends? Relatives? Maybe parents of the kids you tutor?”
Murdock frowns. “My priest, maybe?”
“Does he know about what you do? Although, hang on, isn’t that stuff protected by the confessional?” Foggy asks, and then realises he’s asking a client for a legal opinion. Murdock evidently realises too, because he raises his eyebrows and almost meets Foggy’s eyes.
“You tell me, counsellor. You’re the one with the bar admission.”
“Anyone else?” Foggy says, forging on regardless.
“Johnny Fogwell,” Murdock says, after a moment. “Owns the gym my dad used to box in. He’s known me since I was a kid. He doesn’t know about Daredevil, not officially, but I think he’s guessed. He lets me use the gym after hours.”
Foggy writes this down. “Did he teach you to fight?”
“No,” Murdock says, and there’s something in his expression which quashes Foggy’s next question (“so who did?”) completely.
Looking at his notes, Foggy feels his heart sink. It’s not much to build a defence on, not against the no-doubt damning physical and video evidence the DA will bring. He closes his notepad anyway, and stands up, gathering it and the folder of the charges together.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll get to work on this, see if I can come up with something. Do you need anything else?”
Murdock thinks for a moment, and nods. “Yeah.” He gestures, as best he can with the handcuffs, at his eyes. “I normally wear glasses. Shades. And my cane … I don’t need it, but it helps if I don’t have to focus all the time.”
For a moment, Foggy thinks of the piles of files and the mountain of emails back at the office, but then he takes a proper look at the hunched figure in front of him and he gives in.
“Sure.”
Murdock gives him an address, and tells him to go in by the roof because the door will be open. “I might not be able to see you when I come back,” Foggy warns him, “but I’ll give the stuff to Sergeant Mahoney. He’s a decent guy. He’ll make sure it’s passed on.”
Outside the interview room Foggy stands for a moment and takes a deep breath. “Fuck,” he says, under his breath, wondering whether his client can hear him, and also what the hell he’s got himself into. Then he goes to see Mahoney, to do what he can to make Murdock more comfortable before he comes back with his things.
On the way to Murdock’s apartment he calls Marci, to tell her he’s going to miss their date for tacos at lunch, and his secretary, to tell her to cancel client meetings for the afternoon. He’ll weather that storm later.
The apartment is on the top floor of an old tenement block in Hell’s Kitchen, and Foggy isn’t expecting much from it. But when he pushes open the steel door on the roof and descends, he stands amazed in a spacious, airy loft space with minimal furniture and little decoration. From the curtainless windows there is the changing neon light of a huge billboard opposite, casting weird shadows on the floor.
The sofa has a throw on it that is amazingly soft to Foggy’s touch; the fridge is mostly empty; and when he peeks into the closet he finds a row of hangers labelled in Braille and a bunch of t-shirts and hoodies in neutral tones. There is one, cheap suit there too, which, Foggy thinks morosely, will doubtless be useful when the case ends up in court.
He finds the shades and cane in the hallway – the glasses red and round and unusual, the cane folded up and on a small table. Foggy grabs a hoodie from the closet too, because he knows cells can get cold.
Before leaving, he stands and looks around the apartment one last time, trying to get a sense of his client from it. All he really gets is a sense of isolation. This is not a place one would bring friends, or a lover, or even a place he thinks Murdock spends much time in.
He goes back to the precinct and drops the things off at the desk, and then on to his office.
After dealing with a bunch of other client matters, Foggy gets down to work. He types up his notes first, and then fires up Google and gets on to some serious research in the hunt for articles which might mitigate against the charges Murdock is facing.
‘Hell’s Kitchen Hero Kid Blinded’ is the first thing he reads, an article from the Daily Bulletin from the day after Murdock’s accident. There is a quote from the old man Murdock pushed out of the way, and more from bystanders.
The next article he pulls up is from a couple of years later. ‘Hero Boy’s Boxer Dad Shot Dead’ is the headline on this one, and Foggy reads about how Jack Murdock, newly victorious against a bitter rival, was found murdered in an alley and how the police had to comfort his young son, who had somehow found his way to his father’s body. There’s a quote in this one from Johnny Fogwell, expressing regret over Jack Murdock’s death.
That’s pretty much it when it comes to articles mentioning Matthew Murdock, so Foggy changes his search term and starts in on ‘Daredevil’. Now he’s faced with pages of results – articles, and videos, and blogs, and endless speculative Reddit threads. He watches a few of the videos, which are mostly pretty bad quality. Daredevil tends to fight in dark corners at night, and even today’s smartphones can’t deal well with the combination of shadows and fast movement. Foggy can’t recognise much of his client in the lithe dark figure spinning and kicking on his computer screen.
He bookmarks a few pieces from the Bulletin involving interviews with people saved by Daredevil, and notes down their names to follow up.
Next on the list of things to search for are the contact details of Father Paul Lantom, at Clinton Church, and Johnny Fogwell. Father Lantom is easy to find, as there’s a picture of him on the church’s website and a list of service and confessional hours. Fogwell is harder, but after a couple of calls to the firm’s business development team Foggy has an address for him.
He’s leaning back in his chair wondering where to start with talking to people when there’s a knock on the door and Marci appears.
“Foggy Bear,” she says, “it’s almost seven. Coming home?”
Foggy blinks at her, and then at his watch. He hadn’t realised how the time had flown by. He gathers up the Murdock files and notes and shoves them into his satchel. “Sure,” he says, shutting down his computer.
They don’t talk much on the subway, and it’s only when they’re halfway through plates of pasta at home that Marci puts down her fork and meets Foggy in the eye.
“Okay, spill,” she says. “What’s this new case of yours and why are you so hooked on it all of a sudden?”
Foggy swallows a mouthful of wine. “Remember Brett Mahoney?”
“Came to your birthday once,” Marci says. “Um, he’s a cop, right?”
“Yeah. Sergeant, now,” Foggy says. “He’s done well.” He explains Mahoney’s call and describes his first impressions of Matt Murdock. “I mean he’s beat up, and his knuckles are all scraped, but at the same time he’s definitely blind.” He twirls spaghetti on his fork. “And get this, he was at Columbia with us. Or he started with us, and then he quit.”
“Law school?”
“Uh huh,” Foggy agrees, his mouth full of pasta.
Marci thinks for a moment. “Wait, is he like a little taller than you? Reddish highlights in his hair? Cute smile?”
“Yes to the hair,” says Foggy, “couldn’t say as to the others. He didn’t smile much today, and he was sitting down. I mean objectively I’d say he’s reasonable-looking.”
“I think I remember him,” Marci says. “There was a sweepstake as to who would fuck him first, and whether it would be a pity fuck or not. God, we were such bitches.”
Foggy can’t argue with that, but wisely says nothing.
“But nobody won the sweepstake,” Marci continues, swirling her wine in its glass. “He just vanished, not that long after we came back from Christmas vacation.”
“How do you remember him and I don’t?” Foggy asks, annoyed with himself.
Marci shrugs. “Like I said, he was cute, and the blind thing made him interesting, and the fact he kept himself to himself made him a challenge. You were having way too much fun being Foggy Nelson, the life of everyone’s party.” She puts her hand over his. “Don’t feel bad. I hadn’t thought of him until tonight. And he claims he’s Daredevil? Shouldn’t he be trying to deny it?”
“That would make defending him a hell of a lot easier,” agrees Foggy. “He’s … he seems tired. And I don’t think he’s really talked to many people recently.”
She leans across the table. “Why are you taking this on, Foggy Bear?”
He meets her eyes, and twines his fingers in hers. “Because I don’t think he deserves to be in jail. I think he needs help. And it’s like Brett said – he’s a Hell’s Kitchen kid, and so am I, and we should stick together.”
Marci kisses him, tasting of tomato sauce and red wine.
“You’re a big softy, Foggy. Hope you’ve thought of a way to argue this past Jeri.”
“I’ve hit my billing targets for the month,” Foggy says, “and if this does go to trial, the publicity will be worth next month’s targets. I hope.”
“Ever the optimist.” She kisses him again, and then returns to her plate of pasta.