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The commute from their Deli shop office to Josies to their apartments is longer than it has any right to be. Sure, they could find a new bar to play pool in closer to Nelson, Murdock, & Page, but then also Josies . If nothing else, it held more good memories than bad ones.
This is how Matt and Foggy found themselves under a street awning in the middle of a storm. The commute was long, but also not so long that either wanted to take a taxi. They had already wasted so much time apart, a twenty-minute walk after work was nothing.
“Why did neither of us check the weather?” Foggy asks, arms wrapped around his now wet and cold button-down. For a moment Matt doesn’t respond.
“Matt?” He tries again, and this time it shakes Matt out of whatever stupor he’s in.
He cocks his head toward Foggy. “Hm?”
“Did you not hear me?” Foggy retorts, somewhat incredulous.
Matt keeps his head tilted, but Foggy knows he heard him.
Finally, he speaks. “It, uh-” Matt waves a hand around dismissively, “messes with my hearing. It’s loud.”
A beat passes where neither says anything, and Matt feels more than “sees” Foggy giving him an odd look.
“Oh,” Foggy eventually says.
Matt huffs a laugh. “Oh?”
“I dunno, I guess I never thought about rain being loud. With your super psychic sense and everything.”
Matt rolls his eyes behind his glasses. “I’m not psychic, Foggy. Rain just needs a little bit more effort to focus, that’s all. It’s like if you put headphones on.”
The rain pitters and patterns around them. Foggy shivers, and finally drops his arm.
Matt tilts his head again. “What are you doing?”
“Here. Take my arm, it’s too cold to just wait it out. I can lead you.”
Matt raises his hands defensively, though not in anger. After so many years of proving himself capable, sometimes accepting help can be difficult. “I can handle myself, it’s okay.”
Instead of backing off, Foggy comes closer. He grabs Matt’s hand and brings it to his elbow. “Obviously. But you shouldn’t have to.”
The rain from above them continues on. In the distance, a loud crack of thunder hits the city. Matt winces in response but nonetheless continues to hold onto Foggy.
He swallows thickly. “Thanks, Fogs.”
The sincerity catches him off guard. You would hope after knowing Matt Murdock for so many years you would get used to his existence, but Foggy never really did.
He clears his throat to break the tension. “I can handle you with your dampeners on.”
Matt laughs, “Dampeners? That sounds like I’m an electric speaker.”
As they enter into the rain, Matt tightens his grip on Foggy’s arm. “Maybe you are, I dunno how superpowers work.”
He leads them home.
They reach Matt’s apartment first. Matt is carefully toeing out of his shoes when he says, “You should just stay here tonight.”
The last time Foggy stayed over was when he patched Matt up and he watched their friendship fall apart. Staying over hasn’t exactly been something they do.
“I’m only a stop away on the subway, and besides, don’t you have business to do?” Foggy responds, putting air quotes around “business” and lowering his voice. Matt only sighs and glances toward Foggy with a frown.
“I think I’ve accumulated enough vacation time for it to be okay,” he puts air quotes around “vacation time” sarcastically. “Besides, it’s raining and you don’t have an umbrella.”
“You don’t have one I can borrow?”
Matt shakes his head. “I can only hold so many things, Foggy,” he says, holding up his cane. “I avoid rain like the plague.”
A pause. “Has anyone ever told you you’re ridiculous?”
“A few people, actually.”
Finally, Foggy concedes and begins to take his own shoes off. As Matt goes about hanging his suit jacket off, putting his shoes away, Foggy takes a moment to observe Matt’s apartment. The living room closet with his carefully concealed armor is closed, and Foggy wonders what Matt would say if he dug the suit out. Instead, he opens it and grabs a blanket from the top shelf. He lays it across the same couch that he patched Matt on, and something about it doesn’t sit well with him.
The couch is clean and smooth, lit only by the obnoxious billboard outside the apartment. For some reason Foggy feels the couch should show some kind of damage, some kind of physical representation of what they went through, but knows that would be ridiculous.
“What are you doing?” Matt calls from his bedroom door frame.
Foggy turns and is affronted by a Matt he hasn’t seen since college. His glasses are off and he’s in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. Logically, Foggy knows Matt can’t see him staring. He may know he’s looking in his direction, but following the movements of his eyes would be nearly impossible - even for Matt.
Matt cocks his head, as though listening. “You are not sleeping on the couch. I have heard stories about that billboard.”
Foggy blanches, even though he should be used to this by now. “How do you even know that?”
He waves his hand dismissively. “I heard you open the closet door, but also your voice is muffled just a little. The cloth absorbs some of it.”
Foggy stares at him somewhat annoyed and also impressed. Now is not the time to fight though, so he goes on. “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch. I know you don’t want to.”
Matt sighs. “I have like a king-sized bed, dude. I think we could manage. I remember you crawling into my bed several times during college.”
Matt must assume Foggy’s making a face, and he is, because he shrugs. “Suit yourself,” and heads back into his room.
All things considered, the couch is not that bad. If he faces the cushion, the intense light of the billboard is pretty muted. Distantly he can hear Matt whispering from his room, and realizes belatedly that he’s praying. He isn’t loud enough to hear who or what for.
Before long he falls asleep.
_
Matt is dying on his couch. There’s so much blood, and Foggy was never trained on how to stop it. He’s a lawyer, not a doctor, not a paramedic. The only thing he knows for certain is Matt wouldn’t want to go to a hospital.
Then he’s in a bar. It’s not Josies. He doesn’t go there anymore. Matt is dead. He’s dead and Foggy should have never brought him that suit.
Now they’re in a courtroom bathroom and he’s yelling. He is so mad, and somehow he knows that anger is a secondary emotion. That really he’s feeling devastated, betrayed, and unbelievably sick of being walked over.
“Nobody makes you lie to your friends,” Foggy is yelling. Curtly. Tiredly.
Then he’s back in the bar. Matt is bleeding and Foggy doesn’t know why.
“Did you want me to convince you?” Foggy asks, and this isn’t how this should be going. Foggy never asked that.
Then Matt levels his head, “No.”
There’s just so much blood. On Matt.
_
Matt is awake when he hears Foggy’s heart rate pick up. All things considered, heart beats don’t sound all that different from one another. Somehow though, Matt can always pick Foggy’s out of a crowd. Right now though it isn’t its usual steady hand. It’s far too fast, and if he focuses he can also hear Foggy’s breath.
Something is wrong.
Matt stumbles out of bed and into the living room. Foggy is still on the couch, but now Matt can hear him tossing and turning. He can smell sweat. For a moment Matt is stuck still and he doesn’t do anything at all. Would Foggy want him to do anything?
Sometimes in college Foggy would wake up with a start. Matt never asked what it was about, everyone has their own secrets (Matt, especially). So, if Foggy thought Matt was asleep, well, he would give him that peace. However, on the occasions that Matt was still awake, studying late into the night, they would talk. Not about anything serious, Matt honestly just thinks Foggy needed the distraction.
In return, Foggy did the same. Unlike Foggy though, there was no stopping the transparency of Matt’s dreams. Woken up by the mutterings of sight, loud noises, and the sound of tossing and turning violently, Foggy would find Matt suffering in his sleep. They didn’t talk about it, and maybe they should have. Maybe that would make now so much easier.
It’s been a long time since that though. A long time filled with a lot of blood and a lot of secrets.
Then, as if spurred on by Matt’s words, Foggy jolts up. Under different circumstances, it might have even been funny, but as is Matt can only hear the fast beating of Foggy’s heart. Can almost hear the running thoughts in his head.
For a brief second, Matt thinks Foggy hasn’t realized he’s even there. Then as his heart rate slows there’s a thump as Foggy throws himself back down.
“That fucking sucked,” he says.
Immediately Matt can see the walls Foggy raises. He’s downplaying it. Doesn’t want to trouble Matt, or even worse, doesn’t feel like he can.
Matt hears him throw an arm over his eyes, likely blocking out the billboard.
Tentatively he approaches. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Foggy only shakes his head. “Just the usual,” and then he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. "Apparently, thinking your best friend died horrifically can give you trauma, what’s up with that?”
“Oh, Fogs. I’m-”
Foggy waves the hand over his eyes dismissively. “Don’t apologize. I’m tired of hearing apologies. I’ve had enough of them for a lifetime.”
Even though Foggy isn’t a superhero vigilante, someone with impeccable hearing, he can feel the end of the couch dipping and knows Matt has come to sit by him. He places a hand on his ankle, and it’s so light Foggy wonders if it was an accident, but knows Matt is better than that.
Foggy half expects Matt to apologize anyway. Foggy loves him, yes, but it would be perfectly in character for Matt to also make this about him. And is, in some ways, but not in the way it should be. Not in the way Foggy wants it to be.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Foggy takes his arm off his eyes. Finally, he looks at Matt. Who was dead. Or, at least, who he thought was dead. His glasses are off, for starters, and something in his expression is vulnerable. Foggy can count on two hands the times he’s seen Matt without his glasses, and every time he’s taken aback. He also isn’t wearing a shirt, which Foggy remembers well from college.
Matt hears his heart rate pick up again and wonders if he did something wrong.
“Uh… no. No, I’m okay.”
There’s a pause where neither says anything. Unlike how it usually is though, this silence sits heavily between them. So much to be said, but there never seems to be a good time to say it. The right words to phrase it.
Matt clears his throat. “Do you remember in college, that one night we pulled an all-nighter to watch Lord of The Rings?”
It catches him so off guard that Foggy chokes on his own laughter. “Yeah? What about it?”
He starts to rub small circles on where his hand rests. “I remember you described Gandalf as, quote: Dumbeldore but as if he took a sabbatical to work a Spirit Halloween.”
And now Foggy’s giggling, twisted onto his side catching his breath. “I was right! It was as if he bought a cheap wizard costume.”
“I believe you also said that half the film was just a very close shot of Elijah Wood’s face.”
Foggy catches his breath. “I was right, it really is.”
This is when Foggy realizes what Matt is doing. It’s the same thing they did in college, woken up by something in their subconscious, only to find comfort in something stupid.
“You don’t have to do this,” Foggy starts. “I’m an adult. I’ll be okay.”
The soft circles on his ankle stop, and for a moment Foggy is filled with contrary satisfaction and guilt of pushing Matt away. He goes to pull his legs up, but just as soon Matt stops him.
With a vague look, Matt blinks a couple of times, fast, as if trying to focus. “Do you want me to stop?”
Foggy stares at him. Noting the furrow in his brow, the tightness in his jaw, the intense focus of everything. For the first time since Matt asked if he wanted to be convinced, Foggy isn’t sure. What he wants is to go back. Start over. Convince the Matt from college to tell him everything, if only so Foggy could steel his heart from falling for him all over again.
He doesn’t say this.
“No, Matt. I never want you to stop. I want you to keep going, keep talking, keep staying with me, but I’m always worried you’ll leave again. Always .”
“You know I wanted to stay.”
A pause. “But you didn’t. You left, and you lied, again and again.”
“Foggy-”
He cuts him off, fully sitting up, gesticulating wildly in frustration. “No, Matt. I love you. I keep coming back and you just keep leaving. What if-”
Matt catches his wrists, effectively silencing him. “I love you, too . Tell me you know that. You have got to know that?”
Foggy swallows thickly, and a small voice in the back of his head reminds him that Matt can hear that, and he hates him for it, hates him so much. He tries to wring his hands away but finds he doesn’t have the energy. He drops them onto the blanket between them.
“Not the way I want.”
Matt tightens his grip. “You don’t mean th-”
But Foggy continues anyway. “You know that. If you won’t listen to my words, then listen to my heart. God knows you listen to it anyway. I have been in love with you for years and I have nothing to show-”
Matt kisses him.
It’s not exactly how Foggy imagined it. It’s nearing four in the morning and he wants to brush his teeth, drink some water to clear the dryness that comes from arguing. Despite this, Matt’s lips are warm and soft. It’s everything Foggy ever wanted and everything he thought he couldn’t have.
Matt changes his grip so they’re holding hands properly now, then deepens the kiss. Unwillingly, a sigh escapes from Foggy’s lips. Like a marionette that quit acting, the tension drains from his shoulders. He doesn’t know how long he’s been holding it, maybe ever since they met.
“Foggy,” Matt says as he breaks away. “Foggy.”
It sounds like a plea, like an anchor, and altogether exactly how Foggy always hears his name from Matt. Then he leans forward pushing them both down. Matt’s chest is just as warm and solid as Foggy always thought it would be.
The night could go anywhere from here, he realizes. Except its late, or early, and they’re tired. Suddenly Foggy’s never been more tired in his life, and he feels like the act of a very long play has finally finished.
Lying on top of him Matt kisses the juncture between Foggy’s neck and his shoulder. It’s softer now though, less sensual, more tender.
“Come to bed with me, Fogs.” Matt mumbles into his skin.
More than he hears it, he feels Foggy laugh below him. “Take me out to dinner first.”
He feels Matt shake his head in his shoulder and then bite his neck in a teasing manner, only to kiss it better. “Not like that. Let’s go sleep.”
Foggy stills, but a hand comes up to rest at the top of Matt’s neck. He pets the soft hair he finds. Knows that it’s been covered in blood and sweat before, knows also that he’s been the one to clean it.
Knows that if they go on he’ll be the one to clean it again.
“We have to talk about this,” he whispers.
He feels Matt nod. “I know.”
For a moment Foggy worries that that’s it. Matt won’t say anything else. They won’t ever talk about it. But then Matt raises his head out of Foggy’s shoulder and pushes himself away.
“Tomorrow, let’s call in. We can talk over coffee.”
Foggy stares at him, and then smiles. “Okay. You’re buying though.”
“Wow, already using me for my money.”
Foggy laughs, “Absolutely.”