Chapter Text
Prompt from Anonymous on Tumblr: Random idea: Foggy and Matt as roommates after college. Karen is one of the girls Matt invites over. (I took it in a slightly different direction!)
“It’s three bedrooms, Foggy,” Matt said irritably. “It doesn’t matter if it’s in the perfect location and it’s actually big enough to turn around in. It’s only affordable if we split the rent three ways. And there are two of us.”
“Well…”
“Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re going to foist some random weird guy on me. It’s taken me this long just to get used to living with you.”
“It’s not some random weird guy,” Foggy said firmly.
“Who, then?”
“A random hopefully-not-weird girl?”
Matt scoffed.
“Wait, hear me out. She’s a secretary downstairs in the financial department. She’s so sweet. Her name’s Karen, and she’s looking for a new place. She just moved to New York, and some guy got murdered in her building, and the thought of sharing an apartment with two strong and ruggedly handsome dudes might not be the worst thing right now.”
Matt laughed despite his annoyance.
“Just meet her. You’ll love her.”
“Sounds like you already do.”
“It’s true that I am not insensible to her charms,” Foggy said archly.
“So do you want to date her or live with her?”
“I’m extremely open to both.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun for me.”
“You won’t have to worry about it, because you’ll have your own room with your own door in a place that’s big enough that we won’t have to be up in each other’s chili all day and night.”
“Fine,” Matt said, sure he’d regret it. “I’ll meet her.”
“That’s the last one,” Karen said breathlessly, putting a box down and flopping into a chair.
“Hallelujah,” Foggy said. Matt heard their high-five from the kitchen. “We’re finally all moved in.”
“Except for all the unpacking I still have to do,” Karen said tiredly.
She wasn’t alone there — Matt had plenty of stuff that needed to be put away, too. He headed for his bedroom, moving quickly through the living room. He’d have to make an obvious maneuver to go around the box, so he pretended he didn’t know it was in his way. He “tripped” exaggeratedly but “caught” himself before falling.
“Oh, sorry,” Karen said, scrambling to move the box.
“Is it too much trouble to keep your stuff out of the middle of the floor in here?” Matt asked grumpily.
“No, not at all,” she apologized. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He continued on to his bedroom without acknowledging her.
“I think he hates me,” he heard Karen whisper to Foggy.
“He doesn’t hate you,” Foggy whispered back. “He probably just needs some time to get used to living with another person, that’s all. He’ll warm up.”
But Foggy was wrong. Matt couldn’t warm up to Karen. He couldn’t let himself like her too much — and he couldn’t let her like him, either. Because he’d noticed the way her pulse jumped around him, and the heat that rose into her skin when they talked. And she smelled too good, and her voice sounded too sweet to his ears, and goddamn it, Foggy was into her.
And that meant for Matt, she was so untouchable, she might as well be living on the moon instead of just in the next room.
There were too many sirens tonight. Too many troubling things happening throughout the Kitchen. Matt couldn’t sleep.
Usually Matt could find a way to avoid them. He could listen to Foggy’s steady heartbeat, his rhythmic breathing, his untroubled rest, until Matt managed to relax.
But a couple of weeks ago, Foggy had been assigned to help on the same case that Marci was working on, and their on-again, off-again thing seemed to be back on again. Foggy hadn’t been sleeping at home.
Karen was home, but Karen’s heart wasn’t any help to him. She had frequent nightmares and never seemed to sleep well. Focusing his attention on Karen just made him feel for her. It just made him want to go down the hall and put his arms around her.
They were friends now, at least. He’d tried to keep his prickly distance at first, but she’d wormed her way into his heart anyway. It was her unfailing kindness, even when he was being a standoffish jerk; the way she raised hell when a Landman and Zack secretary was wrongly fired, until the firm caved and rehired the woman; the way just being around her made him smile, even when it felt like everything else was going wrong.
So he ached at night in his bed, but in the daytime, he did all he could to keep his feelings in check.
When he heard Karen get up and go to the kitchen for some water, he couldn’t stop himself from following.
“Oh no,” she said. “Did I wake you?”
“No. Can’t sleep. Same for you?”
“Yeah. Ever since that guy got killed upstairs at my old place, I’ve been having trouble.” It was true, but there was still a note of falsehood to it. Her nights had probably been haunted before that. Matt knew what that was like.
She sipped her water and put the glass down on the counter. “I just feel so helpless. And I’m so damn tired of it.”
“Come with me,” he said.
“What?”
“Get your jacket. Let’s go out.”
He taped her hands for her. “It’s amazing that you can do that by feel,” she said. He smiled, and he told her to put on a pair of gloves.
And then he showed her the right way to punch. He had to pretend he wasn’t as good at it as he was. He had to reach out for the bag to “know” it was there. But it was worth it for the satisfying thwacks coming from her bag, and the focused way she pummeled it. She was into it, he could tell.
“Wow,” she said when she needed a break, stripping off her gloves. “That was great.”
“It’s been my favorite stress relief since I was young,” he said. “I guess it’s in my blood.”
She reached up and rested her hand on his arm. “Thank you. Really.”
“Of course,” he said quietly. The moment felt charged and he knew he should break away, pop the bubble that had descended around them. But he didn’t.
She moved closer. “Can I—” she breathed unevenly — “I’d really like to kiss you.”
“Karen,” he sighed, and her face inched steadily nearer to his. “We can’t.”
She pulled back in confusion. “Why?”
“Foggy.”
“Foggy?”
“He likes you.”
“Foggy our roommate?”
“Yeah.”
“Foggy our roommate who is probably having sex with somebody else as we speak?”
“Uh, yeah,” Matt said sheepishly.
She huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. “I think you’re safe there, Matt. I think you can kiss me if you want to.”
And he reached out, and he cupped her cheek. “I want to,” he murmured, and he pressed his mouth to hers.