Work Text:
The windowsill sticks a little when he opens it, the wood expanded in the frame from yet another day of punishing heat.
Matt’s lived his entire life in this city, and he’ll give everything he has to protect it, but there is nothing he hates so much as New York in the heights of summer. He’ll take the unpredictable terrain of sidewalks iced over in the heart of winter to the smell of garbage left out in the streets for collection in July. In the far distance, under the collective hum of a hundred and more AC units whirring away their night’s watch, a storm front inches slowly on, a thunderstorm that will hopefully bring with it enough rainfall to break the worst of the humidity. Sweating inside the body armor, Matt dares to hope.
He doesn’t quite manage to avoid the loose floorboard that creaks underfoot when he allows himself into the apartment, winces a little at the groan of the board as he places his full weight on it. He closes the window behind him with a snap, runs his fingers over the latch to make sure it’s caught shut before moving further into the room. He smells caramelized onions and sharp cheddar, which means leftover arepas for breakfast, and the last remnants of this morning’s coffee too, coming from somewhere along the counter. Black, he thinks, else it hasn’t been out long enough for the milk to sour from a day of being left out in a hotbox of an apartment.
His glove tastes like gravel and concrete and leather when he edges the fingers loose with his teeth. He pulls the cowl off with heat-swollen fingers, reveals damp hair to the significantly cooler air emitted from the AC unit in the window to his left. It washes over him like a shock of cold water, makes him shiver as his skin breaks out into goosebumps. He shakes his head and feels the full extent of the night’s sweat for the first time, each drop that rolls over his forehead and down his neck. It becomes impossible to ignore all the places where the armor sticks along his back or clings to his legs. He feels a little bit like he’s been thrown in another dumpster, a sense of dirty that seems to sink all the way to the bone. He lets his gloves fall to the floor, works loose the fastening on the arm guards, thumbs the belt off and lets it follow to the growing pile at his feet. He listens to the metallic teeth of each zipper giving way, suddenly in a one man race to escape the stifling confides of leather and Kevlar.
“Dude you always forget the boots.”
Matt stops, stripped to the waist, grins in the direction of Foggy’s voice coming from the vicinity of the couch. He hadn’t listened for Foggy when he’d come in—he’s as close to white noise as Matt has, so familiar Matt doesn’t think twice when he hears him, a fixture of Matt’s world—but he hears him now. His even breathing, his slow, steady heartbeat.
“You’re not even looking.” At least he’s pretty sure, listens for the squeak of the ancient springs in Foggy’s couch that mean he’s lying flat across the cushions rather than sitting up and looking at Matt. Still, Foggy’s not wrong. He did forget the boots.
“Don’t need to man. Knowing you’ve commenced your one man striptease but left your boots on is like my superpower.” Foggy sighs. “Really makes me wish I had a better superpower.”
Matt peels the remaining sleeve off his wrist, makes his way towards the couch where sure enough Foggy’s splayed out. Foggy half-hums at the back of his throat, “On second thought, this will do.” There’s no point in telling Foggy he shouldn’t have waited up, a moot point by now, Matt chuckles instead, taps the backs of his knuckles against Foggy’s ankle until he makes room for Matt on the couch besides him. “Yes, it would be a shame to deprive the world of your particular skill set Mr. Nelson.”
Foggy shifts at the other end of the couch, sitting up and leaning forward. “Yeah, Captain America’s got nothing on me.”
Matt drops onto the vacant cushion by Foggy’s feet with a groan, lets his head fall back on to the over-stuffed cushion turned soft from who knows how many years of seating people before Foggy claimed it for himself. He lets himself smile up at the ceiling somewhat dopily, unsure of how much light Foggy actually has to see him by.
“Rough night?” Foggy asks, voice decidedly light. He tries, Matt knows he does, to act like he’s alright now, like it doesn’t bother him that Matt puts on the mask and goes out into the night to let the Devil do what they can’t accomplish in a courtroom. It means more than Matt knows how to say, so he tries in return, gives Foggy honesty and trusts him to make his own choices rather than make them for him.
“For better or worse, right buddy?” Foggy had said months ago, hands utterly steady against the sides of Matt’s face as he carefully wiped away blood and sweat and the frustration of not enough, it’s not enough that always lingered after a patrol gone south. “Mind you that’s not actually an invitation to find worse. Try to keep that in mind next time you offer your face up as a punching bag Murdock.” And his voice had shaken but his hands were sure, warm and careful and Matt had closed his aching hands over Foggy’s, stilled his work long enough run his palms over the joint of each wrist, down the length of his forearms, cup over his elbows. Months and months after the horrible morning when everything fell apart, still finding their footing as they moved forward together, Matt had placed his hands on Foggy’s face, leaned forward in the darkness and found Foggy waiting, his mouth soft with surprise. (“Oh.” Foggy had whispered, breath warm against Matt’s lips, and then, voice oddly damp and broken with laughter, “Shit Matty you have the worst timing.”)
Now Matt tips his head towards the sound of Foggy’s voice, feels his smile slouch into something warier. “Not even the criminals want to bother in this heat.” He says, tries hard not to sound too rueful. It wasn’t a completely silent night, but the city is certainly sluggish under the onslaught of summer in late July. A mugger. An escalated dispute behind a bar. A small arms deal disrupted.
Matt stayed out until he couldn’t tolerate the heat any longer (for all everyone insists he’s bullheaded Matt knows well enough not to ignore Claire’s warnings about heatstroke).
“If you can’t stand the heat…” Foggy sing-songs, toes nudging against Matt’s thigh. Matt grabs his foot for a second, mostly to hear Foggy’s indignant whine when he can’t pull free.
“Boots Matt. Boots.” Foggy yawns. Matt doesn’t know how late it is, but there must be more night behind them then ahead. Next Saturday Matt thinks he’ll take Foggy out, give them a good reason to still be awake at such small hours. He’s been trying harder to find a balance between the Devil and Matt Murdock, the memory of those final days chasing Fisk weighing heavy around his neck. Matt understands how easy it would be to burn himself nothing in the name of his mission, and more importantly, he understands how badly he doesn’t truly want that. Matt likes the life he’s worked so hard for, mask and all, he wants to be able to live it a while longer still.
Matt relinquished his hold on Foggy’s foot in order to dedicate both hands to the task of taking his boots off. He admires Melvin’s work, acknowledges it’s helped save his life on multiple occasions, but it’s moments like this that Matt misses the simplicity of his old attire. Besides him Foggy shifts, swings his legs off the couch. Matt listens to the shift of his bones when he stretches his arms overhead, the swallowed inhale of his yawn. The couch frame creaks when Foggy pushes himself off all together, his socked feet muted on the bare floorboards. He doesn’t go very far, folds himself onto the edge of the coffee table so that his knees knock into Matt’s.
“C’mere.” He mumbles sleepily, hooks his fingers behind Matt’s left knee until he lifts his leg enough that Foggy can get to the laces. “You couldn’t just slip on some sneakers? Maybe some crocs?” Foggy grouses, tugging at the knots, “God Murdock, is there a secret boy scout origin story I haven’t unlocked yet?”
Matt starts to answer but his jaw stretches around a yawn so wide he thinks he hears something crack. At least the knot holding the laces of his right boot tight gives way beneath Matt’s fingers, which earns an unimpressed snort from Foggy. “Always showing off.” Foggy tsks with a shake of his head. There’s no accompanying sound of his hair brushing his shoulders, which means he’s pulled it back with a hair tie for the night.
Matt reaches out, follows the clues given by Foggy’s breathing and the shift of his body weight on the particleboard, finds the top of Foggy’s head with his fingers and follows the curve of his scalp to the messily restrained hair at the back of Foggy’s head. “Hey, watch the do.” Foggy chides without any real heat and Matt lets his head tip forward, focuses on the movement of Foggy’s fingers, laces pinches between his fingertips until the knot of his left boot comes under Foggy’s ministrations.
“Thank you.” Matt mumbles, Foggy’s fingers light on his knee for a second before they disappear. They reappear on the crown on Matt’s head, stroke the damp hair there.
“C’mon Daredevil, time to hit the showers. You stink.”
His laughter escapes in a trickle, “You’re telling me.” Foggy pats his head and Matt reads sympathy in the touch. The coffee table protests when Foggy stands, his palm warm but touch light on Matt’s shoulder when he beckons him to stand.
Foggy’s apartment is smaller than Matt’s, the bathroom door directly off the side of the narrow strip of linoleum flooring that differentiates the kitchen from the living room. The bathroom is too small for two grown men to stand in with the door closed unless one of them is standing in the tub. Matt hears the tell-tale flick of the light switch, smells the heating glass and metal filament as it warms.
“You need anything?” Foggy asks over his shoulder where he hovers in the doorway as Matt kicks free of his boots and finally strips out of the remainder of the suit. There’s a telling silence as he straightens, too long and too loud in Matt’s ears. Foggy’s heart beat quickens slightly, but there’s no way of knowing if the sight of Matt almost naked is enough to distract him from everything else there is to see: scars and mottling bruises of nights past that Matt doesn’t know how to apologize for. Foggy worries and Matt can’t take that from him, doesn’t know how to ease Foggy’s fear when he knows he’ll put the mask on again another night. For all they fought about before—the lies and half-truths and omissions—and all they disagree about still, Foggy’s never asked Matt not to do what he does. Maybe because he knows Matt can’t stop, maybe because he knows Matt doesn’t want to. Matt promised not to lie to Foggy. He can appreciate Foggy for not putting him in a position where he might have to.
Foggy ducks into the bathroom quickly, brushes by Matt briefly—cool skin and the soft jersey of his sleep shirt—as he takes the discarded suit from Matt’s hands. “I’d offer to run this through the gentle cycle but I already know it’ll turn all my delicates pink.” Foggy says partly to himself, though his breath does catch when Matt hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear and pushes them down.
Alright, Matt knows what that means.
Foggy clears his throat. “Keep it in your pants Murdock. I mean, like, metaphorically obviously. You’re not getting any of this,” Matt picks up on a broad gesture as Foggy waves one of his hands, “until you smell less like the inside of a locker room.”
If they were at Matt’s apartment, if they were winding down a night together rather than seeing the end of another patrol, Matt might try to convince Foggy to join him. Foggy likes showers with Matt, likes messing with Matt’s hair and trying to figure out the limits of Matt’s perception in a space where the combination of acoustics and falling water throw him for a loop. There’s very little chance of success here, and contrary to popular belief—and admittedly, an impressive body of evidence—Matt does know how when he’s beat.
He showers quickly, feels his way through the meticulously kept shower caddy that hangs from the showerhead, turns off the water with a sharp twist. The humidity settles in almost immediately, warm and thick, a viable presence in the room alongside him, but it’s still better than before, the scent of trapped sweat washed away and replaced with the soft, clean smell of Foggy’s soap.
He wraps a towel around his waist for lack of any other option, pads out into the living room where the air conditioner has gone quiet though the room hasn’t quite warmed to match external temperatures. Foggy’s moved to the bedroom and Matt follows after him, leaves the door wide open at his back in the hope that the room won’t become a convention oven as they sleep.
“You know my mother warned me about boys like you Mr. Murdock.” Foggy says by way of greeting, tossing something at Matt’s chest that he catches easily. Clean underwear (“Matt did you know all your underwear have Disney characters on them?” “Ha ha ha, that never gets old.”). If the towel slips in the process, well, Matt’s had a long night. When Foggy throws a clean shirt at his head Matt barely manages to catch it before it hits him in the face. He’s clearly tired.
“Your mother warned you about boys who come through your window after fighting crime? Is this your way of telling me you have a type? Should I be worried?” Matt can practically hear Foggy’s eye roll.
“Let the record show counsel is lucky he’s cute.” Foggy clicks his tongue, moving around the room. There’s a snap of elastic, the whisper of hair falling free. Foggy’s never been able to sleep with it up.
“Noted.” Matt answers with a tip of his head, moving towards the bed. There’s no air conditioning unit in Foggy’s room, just a slow turning fan overhead that doesn’t do more than displace warm air from one part of the room to another. Still the night (and the day that proceeded it) are starting to gain up on him, aided by the heat and humidity, the last of the adrenaline leeched away, and Matt lays down onto the bed with a sigh, lets his muscles go loose as he sinks into the mattress. Foggy’s sheets aren’t silk, but they are soft, some blend of cotton and synthetic fibers worn soft after countless washes. Matt isn’t sure if it’s wishful thinking or fact, but when he rubs his nose into the pillow case he thinks they’re beginning to smell more and more like them instead of just Foggy.
He lets his eyes slip shut, listens to Foggy’s footsteps as he steps out of the room. Matt lets his focus slip, edges closer to sleep until he hears Foggy return. There’s the click of the bedside lamp as Foggy turns it off followed by the quiet creak of the bed springs dipping as Foggy sits down on the bed besides him. “Night Matty.” Foggy says, his words carry the faint scent of cinnamon toothpaste. It’s too hot for anything like physical contact to be comfortable, but compared to the suit, shuffling marginally closer to Foggy is nothing. “This okay?” Matt still asks. They both tend to run warm as it is. When Foggy answers his voice is impossibly soft, rounded out with fondness. “Yeah Matt, this is fine.”
Foggy moves, rolls onto his side, their combined weight bringing them closer to the middle of the mattress, bringing them closer, and Foggy’s hand touches the small of Matt’s back, already growing damp with new sweat, but Matt’s so tired now, so heavy with exhaustion he could sink straight through the mattress and never come up again. Foggy kisses his cheek, and Matt’s heart blossoms with affection inside his chest.
He wishes faintly that he were less tired, that he could meet Foggy’s lips with his own, could push Foggy on his back or pull him closer and over Matt, that they could trade slow unrushed kisses for a while yet. In the morning, he promises himself, in the morning he’ll wake Foggy with a kiss—morning breath be damned—with hours before he has to drag himself out of bed for mass. In the morning. Foggy will be here. His last registered thoughts before he gives into sleep altogether are: the reassuringly even pull of Foggy’s breathing, growing steadily deeper but not quite turned into a snore, the hum of air conditioning units filling the air. Somewhere, closer than before, thunder rolls as rain begins to fall.
-
The End