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“Why is there a teenager in our office?”
Foggy stood in the threshold of the office, mouth slightly agape, most likely wondering if he’d walked into the wrong building. The kid waved at him, smile huge under a blooming black eye and spilt lip.
“Foggy,” Matt said, far too calm for someone who was in the presence of a beaten, bloodied, teenage stranger. “This is Peter.”
“S’up,” Peter greeted. Blood dribbled down his chin, and he nonchalantly reached up and wiped it away with the back of his sleeve.
Foggy gaped at him. Slowly, without looking away from Peter, he reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Peter started horribly, eyes going huge under his glasses. He shifted as though to rush forward and grab Foggy around the shoulders, but he winced at the movement, clutching at his side.
“Please don’t,” Peter managed around clenched teeth, face scrunched in pain.
“No ambulances,” Matt told him.
Foggy stared at the teenager, then shifted his stare to Matt, who was ruffling around in his draws for his over-equipped First Aid kit. Matt was never one to panic, and Foggy had accepted that his best friend would have to deal with some confronting stuff as Daredevil, but, seriously. Beaten teenager. Dripping blood on their hardwood office. Come on, Matt couldn’t be this desensitised, could he?
Foggy’s voice was high and panicked. “Can I call Child Protection Services, then? Or maybe some parents?”
“No,” Matt said again.
Foggy threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know what you want from me, Matt. Why the hell is there a teenager in our office? You know I’m terrible with kids.”
“Hey, man,” Peter said, offended. “I’m 18 soon.”
“No you’re not,” Matt corrected.
“16 is—”
“Pretty far off from 18.”
Peter frowned, his bloodied lower lip jutting out slightly. A pout. There was a pouting teenager in their law firm.
“Matt,” Foggy said, voice relatively calm and low, “what the hell?”
Matt finally emerged from the draw, pulling out his huge First Aid kit and placing it down on his desk, pushing it toward Peter. They both ignored Foggy in favour of opening the kit. Peter peered in, inspecting it.
“Dude,” Peter said, awed, eyes going wide, “woah. That’s the biggest First Aid kit ever.”
“I’m prepared for anything.”
“Aw, I wish I had something like that, but I’m so, so broke, and medical supplies are so expensive, and it would be way too suspicious if my Aunt found it. Still, something like that would make trying not to bleed out a whole lot easier.”
Peter’s tone was light, casual and easy, and Matt simply offered a small, friendly smile in return. “Well, you’re welcomed to stop by and use this anytime you want.”
“Thanks. I will, I think.”
“Matt!” Foggy repeated, loud, drawing the attention of the two strange, strange people discussing bleeding out as though it was a weekly occurrence. Foggy bodily gestured at Peter. “What the hell?”
“I got caught in the crossfire of a violent gang attack,” Peter explained airily.
“The police,” Foggy said. “You—we should call the police.”
Peter shook his head. “Nah.”
“‘Nah?’”
Foggy turned to stare incredulously at Matt, who—like the unhelpful shit that he was—also shrugged. “Nah,” Matt agreed.
Foggy squinted at them. “Okayyyyyy then…”
“It happens all the time,” Peter continued.
Foggy studied the teenager, from his mussed, fluffy mop of hair, to the huge glasses and the doe eyes, the raggedy clothes denouncing poor economical standing, the raggedy sneakers, the huge smears of blood covering him.
What. What the—?
Then, idly, Peter said, “I’m Spider-Man.”
Matt winced as Foggy made a choked sound in his throat, the sounds of a dying man, and leapt forward, slamming both hands on Matt’s desk. The sound made a resounding thud.
“You’re what? You’re WHO?” Foggy whirled on Matt. “HUH?”
“Y’know,” Peter said, “dude in red and blue tights, the one Jameson’s always banging on about?” He raised his hands wrist up, pinkie and pointer fingers aimed at Foggy, as though to shoot webs at his face. “Pew pew?”
“It’s more of a thwip sound,” Matt commented.
“Spider-Man,” Foggy repeated. “Spider-Man.”
“You always said you hated weirdos in masks,” Matt said, “but I’m pretty sure Spider-Man was the exception, right? Yeah…” Matt squinted, looking up at the ceiling, pretending to reminisce about Foggy’s past fanboy tendencies.
That little blind shit, Foggy thought.
“I remember,” Matt continued, “you said Spider-Man was ‘really cool’, right? You even bought that graphic t-shirt from that vendor—”
Peter seemed to perk up at this, smiling a little brighter, looking at Foggy with approval. Foggy ignored him. He thought that if he thought too hard about it this—this teenager, dressed in ratty sneakers and his own blood, he might have an aneurism.
Foggy’s focus remained on his best friend. “You know SPIDER-MAN?”
Matt was unflinching, smiling just a little; Foggy suspected his best friend was enjoying this way too much.
“Yes,” Matt said.
“You’ve been spending time with goddamn Spider-Man?”
“Yes.”
“And you NEVER TOLD ME? Friendship OVER, MURDOCK.”
“Um,” Peter said, raising his hand tentatively, in a ‘I have a question, sir’ gesture. Like a typical high schooler, god. “Should I go?”
“You’re bleeding,” Matt said, at the same time Foggy said, “You’re Spider-Man.”
“Um,” Peter said again.
Matt stood up from where he was leaning against his desk, and gestured for Peter to come forward. “I’ll help you get stitched up, come here.”
Peter come forward, and Matt reached for the hem of his t-shirt when he was in reach, lifting it up to expose the teenager’s wound to the room.
Foggy made a repulsed sound in the back of his throat at the sight of that much blood. A huge cut decorating Peter’s torso, looking deep, bleeding sluggishly. Matt poked at it carefully, causing Peter to flinch minutely.
“You might want to go outside for this part,” Matt said to his friend. Foggy gagged. “Go, Foggy.”
Foggy stabbed a finger at Matt. “This is not over, Murdock. Not. Over. Words will be had upon my return!”
With that dramatic declaration, Foggy spun on his heel and marched out of the room. Peter’s advanced hearing could make out the sounds of the older man stomping down the stairwell, angrily muttering to himself about super-humans as he went. Foggy slammed the building’s back door open, and stepped out into an abandoned back alley.
Peter and Matt could hear Foggy as he drew in a deep, solidifying breath, appreciating the calming, familiar air of outside New York, before throwing his hands up and shouting, “WHAT THE FUCK, MURDOCK?”
“Um,” Peter said inside the office. “Sorry about freaking your friend out?”
Matt shook his head as he worked on Peter’s wound, dabbing away blood. “I can’t believe you told him.”
“Well. You told me your secret identity.”
“Yeah, and you told me your identity. We were squared, Peter. I never asked you to reveal that to Foggy.”
Peter went quiet, gaze focussed on the far wall so he wouldn’t have to look down and watch Matt dig around in his open cut. The empty office filled with a meaningful, heavy kind of silence, interspersed with the sounds of Peter’s hitched, pained breathing, the background sounds of New York, and Foggy continuing to curse out Matt Murdock in the alley below.
“You let me come here,” Peter said finally. “You knew your best friend would be here, but you still offered this place to me. You… Dude, you showed me his identity.”
Peter spluttered over the words, but Matt understood; giving out your family’s identity to other super-humans was always, always risky. It was the worst thing one could do, if super-villains were involved. Foggy was Matt’s family. Matt had given Peter the power to destroy him.
“I trust you,” Matt said.
Peter swallowed. He felt heavy, but it was nice, grounding. He felt less likely to float away. “Thanks. I, uh. I trust you, too.”
They worked in heavy silence. Peter’s wound was quickly being stitched up. Matt had begun to loop the end stitch when Foggy finally decided he’d had enough of raving at the empty, afternoon sky, and entered the building, racing back up the stairs. Foggy burst back into the office with crazed eyes, breathing heavy.
“Matt,” Foggy said loudly, “if you—if you also secretly know Captain America, I will beat your scrawny ass, I swear to god—!”