Work Text:
Foggy Nelson slumped over his desk, muttering at a stack of documents. Really, it wasn’t a stack, it was an avalanche, but pretending it was a stack made him feel better. He picked up a few pages, turned them over, set them down, and groaned. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Realistically, he probably wouldn’t get anywhere with the case until that contractor called them back with information about their client’s neighbor, but he was trying, and he really hoped that counted.
He tried until he stopped trying and found himself with the old baseball in his hand. He tossed it up at the ceiling and caught it. He did it again. He did it a few more times. He lost track of time.
Matt Murdock was leaning in the doorway, doing that staring thing again. That staring thing was of course basically un-staring, but Matt was standing there with his mouth tense and his eyes vacant, either thinking about the case or the great mysteries of the universe, or trying to listen through the walls for god knows what. It was like some kind of incredibly annoying trance. Foggy glared at him.
Foggy threw the baseball at him.
Foggy realized this was a terrible thing to have done, and was halfway out of his chair saying “Oh God Matt I wasn’t thinking are you alright,” ready to do something to Matt’s probably broken nose, when recent events came rushing back to him. Matt was still in the doorway, unharmed, holding the baseball just in front of his face and now doing the un-staring directly at Foggy, eyebrows raised. Matt considered Foggy for a second, then the baseball, then threw it back.
Foggy caught it automatically and gaped at Matt, finally putting two and two together. He felt like Christmas had come early, bringing a copier that worked that didn’t seem both sentient and angry, a bottle of really good whiskey, and a few of those fancy leather clip folders.
“HAH,” barked Foggy, and threw the baseball back again. Matt caught it. Matt tossed it back, looking bemused.
“You have no idea,” Foggy told him, grinning like an idiot, “how long I have wanted to do that. All this time, you across the room, me with this baseball, always thinking ‘we could play a little catch, just to chill, dispel some of the tension caused by of our soul-crushing choice of profession’ and then realizing how stupid I was, but Matt. I can throw things at you now.”
And he threw the ball again, but this time three feet to the right, so Matt had to leap sideways to keep it from smashing into the mostly-functional, probably-not-evil copier. Matt gave an amused snort and shook his head. “Foggy, you are incorrigible.”
Foggy cackled and threw the ball over Matt’s head, giving a loud hoot as his friend was forced to jump three feet in the air. “Fancy words for a guy who’s humoring me in a game of superhuman fetch.”
“Foggy,” Matt chided, “this is not an appropriate use of my abilities.” He almost managed to sound like the believed it.
“Not on your life! If I have to deal with my best friend being a superhero, the least I’m going to get out of it,” he said, pulling a face and chucking the baseball underhand under his leg, “is entertainment.”
Matt gave in. He sighed and jumped, twisting into an entirely gratuitous backflip, and came down balancing on one hand, the baseball in the other, smirking.
At that exact moment, Karen Page walked through the door. She made a strangled squeaking noise and dropped her coffee.