Chapter Text
Art by onemagpie
Monochrome digital drawing in orange tones and highlights. Claire Temple and Karen Page are shown from the waist up, seated at a bar counter in front of three mostly-empty mugs. The women are wearing casual long sleeved tops with their hair down. They look directly at the viewer with narrowed eyes, Karen leaning one arm on the bartop and Claire resting her chin on the back of her hand, elbow also on the bartop. Claire has a slight grin and is tapping the fingers of her other hand on her knee, while Karen’s lips are pursed and her eyebrows are furrowed. A shadow falls across both women and there is a general sense they’re watching and plotting.
Welcome to the know
"Welcome to the know," Claire says, sliding a beer across the sticky table as Karen takes a seat.
"Thanks, I guess," Karen says, not quite keeping bitterness out of her voice. Claire reaches over, rapping her knuckles on Karen's shoulder briefly in solidarity but offering no excuses.
Foggy, still dressed in work clothes, approaches from the bar with a beer in hand. He smiles at the two women, but the expression is quick to fade as he takes a seat by them.
"I'm going to need to know everything," Karen says after an awkward moment of the group saying nothing and avoiding eye contact, alternately sipping their beers and fiddling with the leftover detritus of previous barflies. The crushed peanut shells form a familiar kind of grit that sticks to the bottom of their mugs.
Foggy sighs, leaning back on the stool he'd settled onto. "It's not really our place to say," he tries, even knowing such a feeble defense will only inflame Karen's doggedness.
Claire runs a fingertip along the rim of her mug. A blotch on the side of the glass shines with a smear of greasy oil, but nobody comes to Josie's for spotless serving dishes.
Karen leans in over her beer mug, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Think about it though. What it would be like to have superhuman senses like that." She smiles, eyes unfocused and expression wondering.
Foggy's and Claire's faces echo concerned frowns. Claire turns her head to avoid Karen's gaze and Foggy hurries to take a long pull of his beer.
The jukebox gets stuck again — some newbie had queued up the Sinatra disc — and one of the usual pool sharks comes grumbling from the dim corners of the bar's backroom to unplug the machine and plug it back in. When the newbie complains about their wasted quarters, the pool shark gives them a dead look over his drooping mustache and says with a shrug of his shoulder, "Take it up with management." That earns a derisive snort from Josie, who plies the complaining patron with a refill after pointing at the "feed music machine at your own risk" sign scrawled in blue marker on the faux wood paneling directly above the jukebox.
As Foggy and Claire are less than forthcoming with Daredevil insight, Karen starts grilling them on the extent of Matt's abilities. Her questions are rapid-fire and orderly and her eyes sparkle, wide with anticipation.
Foggy's hard-pressed to answer in any sort of detail. He finds himself re-treading Columbia University memories, second-guessing his past assumptions about Matt’s experiences, his reactions, his thoughts and motivations.
Claire chimes in now and again with answers she's fished out of Matt, or otherwise observed in her capacity as the unofficial Night Nurse to Daredevil. “He’s got a dulled reaction to pain,” she mentions, voice barely a murmur. They each frown: none of them want to test that particular sense any further.
“Well, that’s something,” Karen says with a weak smile.
But Claire follows up with the suspicion that, “Actually, maybe it’s not a lack of pain sense. Maybe more like he’s stubbornly ignoring all the bodily harm.”
Foggy shifts on his barstool, drumming his fingers next to his forgotten beer. Matt's almost certainly out running across rooftops right now.
Karen watches Foggy fidget for a moment and then nudges his shoulder. “Call him,” she suggests.
Foggy's eyes go wide and he quickly shakes his head no, even as one hand edges into his pocket to briefly fiddle with his cellphone.
“Just to check in,” Karen insists as Claire frowns.
Foggy withdraws his hand slowly. “I can't risk interrupting him or distracting him or— or giving his position away, not when he's off... doing what he does.” Foggy’s expression is now truly pained and growing paler with each word. He returns to fluttering his fingers on the bar table surface in a nervous staccato until Karen covers his hand with her own, giving a light squeeze.
"He can take care of himself," she says, voice full of conviction, "I've seen it."
Hand trapped, Foggy starts bouncing his knee under the table.
Claire sees Foggy inhale a shallow breath and then press his lips together, holding in a retort. Karen's faith in Matt's abilities borders on the unreal, colored by her need to see the man in the mask as her personal, unstoppable hero. Foggy and Claire have cleaned up enough fresh bloodstains to know otherwise.
Claire reaches over and sweeps a quick, warm hand up Foggy's forearm, brusque but reassuring. "You need a key?" she asks. Karen furrows her brow at that, but Foggy shakes his head.
Foggy waves a hand vaguely. "Nah; I still have mine.” He heaves another sigh. “And it’s not like the recent home invasion by ninjas was enough to convince him to change the damn lock."
"Go on, then," Claire urges. That's all the permission Foggy needs before he slips his hand out from under Karen's to push away his unfinished beer (his first) and excuse himself. The women watch him bustle to the door, pausing to wave away Josie’s grunt with a familiar plea to "put it on my tab" as passes the bar.
“I don’t do tabs,” Josie barks, but Foggy only sings back a quick, “Love you too, Josie!” and disappears out onto the dark sidewalk.
Josie glances a question at Karen, who nods, and then rolls her eyes. So long as one of them pays before the night's through, Josie doesn't care which of the three of them actually foots the bill. It helps that Foggy usually remembers to pay in cash rather than with a credit card.
Claire meanwhile watches the door shut behind Foggy and then shakes her head ruefully. "For all his super senses, I wish Matt understood the way Foggy cares for him."
Karen raises an inquisitive eyebrow at her.
Claire shrugs a shoulder. “Foggy calls me sometimes, on nights when he hasn’t yet heard an ‘all clear’ from our neighborhood hornhead.”
Nodding in understanding, Karen says, “It’s pitiful, isn’t it?” She waves her hand through the air in front of her face. “When they’re both at the office, the pining is so thick in the air you can slice it with a knife.”
“Don’t get me started on Matt’s forlorn sighs when I ask him about his day job to distract from stitching him up.” Replies Claire, exasperated.
Karen snorts. "Their love-sense perception is on par with that of bricks."
"Only when it comes to each other's obvious pining,” Claire corrects.
“Yeah,” Karen concedes. “Like, Foggy does have emotional intelligence. And Matt can be smooth, when he's not bumbling through hiding his blushing from Foggy. Failing to hide his blushing from Foggy." Karen scoops up Foggy's beer and drains it. She needs more alcohol to deal with this. Claire makes no comment on how Karen is now three drinks deeper than her.
"Bricks made of something really dense,” Karen insists. “Like lead bricks. But, like, oblivious lead bricks."
"Maybe we should just tell them." Claire muses.
"Nah. They'll each be like 'but how can you be sure, maybe he's just my friend' and then Foggy will demand evidence, and then while you're trying to gather your wits and sources he'll crack some stupid, distracting joke and by then Matt will be quoting some famous judge or whoever—"
"—or he'll be out the window and halfway across the city—"
Karen blinks, then nods. Right, Matt can do that. "Or that!"
"Just wait until he starts showing up on your windowsill at 3AM."
Karen shakes her keys, a small can of pepper spray rattling and clicking against the metal. "For the sake of his nose and throat, let's hope he calls first."
Claire frowns. "I can't imagine chemical burns with those senses."
"I can't imagine a lot of things with those senses,” Karen retorts. “That's what I've been trying to grapple with this whole time, I think. I've tried asking Matt directly but he shuts me down, most of the time."
Privately, Claire muses that perhaps Karen needs to learn more about setting aside her reporter instincts for the sake of bonding with a vulnerable friend. Instead, she says, "He hasn't told me all that much either, but if you catch him in the right mood he'll talk. Try to explain with metaphors."
“Paintings? And, like, smoke?” Karen asks. Claire nods and Karen begins to chew her lip. “Yeah that’s about as much as I’ve gotten out of him too...” She trails off, fishing a pencil and small notebook out of her purse, flipping to a blank page. "Maybe... maybe he doesn't have to tell us. Maybe he can show us."
Claire’s not sure she likes the shrewd look twinkling above Karen’s red cheeks.
“What if,” Karen begins, leaning forward now with a conspiratorial whisper. “What if we did a little testing?”
“Of Matt’s abilities?”
“For science.”
“Don’t journalists have some kind of code of ethics or—”
Karen switches course with a quick wave of her hand. “Fine. For love, then. Maybe clear the air a bit, help Foggy learn about some of Matt’s abilities, and hopefully it’ll be enough for them to finally talk to each other.”
It’s Claire’s turn to stall, sipping her beer with a noncommittal hum while Karen waits. Eventually she swallows and offers Karen a small nod. “I don’t want to try anything while he’s hurt. And you’ve got more regular access to him. To both of them.”
With a sly look across the table at her, Karen tips her glass in acknowledgement and drains the last of the beer. “You can count on me.”
Monochrome digital drawing in orange tones and highlights. An adult hand holding a mechanical pencil at the edge of a clipboard. The clipped paper shows the title, author, artist, and event associated with this fanfic: Testing. Author - brittlestars. Illustrations - onemagpie. MattFog Bang 2021. Art by onemagpie