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Foggy takes the subway to see Great-Aunt Angie after Marci leaves for work. He doesn't visit her often. It's out of his way, for one thing, and depressing, for another, though he doesn't admit that second part out loud.
Angie does, though, the second he comes into her room at the assisted living home and kisses her on the cheek. “Kid, what are you doing on a gorgeous sunny day in the saddest place in New York City? If you're skipping work you should be having fun.”
“You're fun,” he says. “I'll sweet-talk the nurses and take you out for lunch.”
“And I'm sure you can afford it, with this new firm.”
“Okay, you can take me out to lunch, my favorite famous aunt.” He sits down on her bed when she gestures him there, since she's claimed the chair next to the window. “Still have those Broadway connections? I could use some moonlighting money.”
“Broadway gave up on you when you decided on law school, kid, sorry to say it.” She folds her hands in her lap. “You going to tell me what's wrong? Or do I have to guess?”
“I read ...” Foggy swallows and looks down at his hands so he doesn't have to look at her. Angie has always been able to get information out of him, and he wants advice, but he doesn't want to spill Matt's secrets. “You remember last year in DC, all those files came out? SHIELD and Hydra, and everything?”
“Boy, do I. Everyone here who fought in that war remembers it.”
“I read a bunch of the files. And they said English—Peggy—she worked for SHIELD for a long time. Your name was in a couple files, even.”
“She did. I knew, if that's what you're asking.”
Foggy doesn't look at her. “Did you always know?”
“Not at first. Found out pretty quickly, though.” She sounds proud of that, and she should be. It didn't take her more than half a decade to develop even a suspicion.
“Were you mad? That she was lying to you?”
“Oh, honey.” He looks up, and she's frowning at him, backlit in the window. “For a while. Before I figured it out. It wasn't long, but I knew she wasn't trusting me and I didn't like it. That was a long time ago.”
“Right.” Of course it was. He knows it's not the same, not anywhere close to the same, because Aunt Peggy worked for the government, if under the radar, and Matt is breaking the law, and Matt doesn't have anyone to back him up except an exasperated overworked nurse and a partner and a secretary he's been lying to. “You knew she was a good person. That she was still the person you knew.”
Angie crosses her arms, and Foggy winces. He overplays his hand with her every time, and he really can't this time, can't let her drag it out of him like breaking Peggy's vase from the Norwegian ambassador and his first girlfriend and his first boyfriend and wanting to go to law school instead of anything anyone else wanted him to do. “So what did Matt do? He's always seemed like an altar boy. Fudged some evidence for a case, maybe. I could see him doing that, if he thought it was right.”
“Something like that.” She knows it's not that, but she's giving him an out. He'll take it. Actors and lawyers. They could probably switch jobs with no trouble at all. “It's pretty bad. And he's ...” He's pretty bad. Foggy can't force himself to say that, but he keeps on thinking it. He's not sure it's true, but it's stuck in his head on repeat. “Saying he's not who I thought he was sounds pretty dramatic, but it's also kind of true.”
“I'm not gonna have the answer you want. You know that, right?”
“Right.”
She sighs. “God, I wish Peg was here. It's better that she's around her family, and it's not like we could talk for real, but I think she'd be better at this. She would probably tell you all sorts of reasons people have for lying and then she would offer to rough Matt up for you. I can't even give you vodka, the nurses always figure out when I get contraband.”
“They know it's pretty safe to search you after I've been around.” He takes the mini bottle of gin out of his pocket and shakes it a little before he tucks it under her pillow. “Drink it fast, they're suspicious of me now. And thanks. I wish I could talk to her about this too.”
Angie grins at him, but it doesn't last long. “Are you done with him? That's the big question, and it sounds like the one you're asking yourself.”
Matt said once that they might as well be married, and it's true. Not just paperwork, either, for the business, but every way else too. Foggy's family would miss Matt almost as much as Foggy would, and Foggy is never going to let Jack Murdock's birthday pass without worrying about Matt and saying a little silent prayer to let Jack know that his son is okay. “Probably not.”
“Then you fix it.”
“It's not that easy.”
“You're done with him or you fix it. Those are the options.”
Foggy groans and tips back on the bed like he's thirteen again. Her bed still smells like her perfume, even though the rest of the building smells stale. “How?”
A pillow hits him, not hard, but the fact that she bothered with the energy to throw something at him at all proves that he's probably being kind of an asshole. “You think I'm going to use my dwindling hours to figure that out for you? Talk to him.”
He's not ready, but he knows he's going to have to, sometime. He sits up. She's frowning at him, and he wants to thank her for not saying that they're going to be fine, of course, or that she and Peggy were always okay after they argued. “Yeah. Thanks, Aunt Angie.”
“You're welcome, kid. Now come on. You were going to take an old woman out for lunch, right? Bring that bottle, no use letting the orderlies find it while I'm out.”
“You're my favorite relative,” says Foggy, grabbing it and stowing away again before offering her an arm to get her over to her walker. “I'll bring Matt over sometime. He's really good luck at bingo.” Plus, now that he knows Matt can smell like a bloodhound, there's a certain vindictive pleasure in imagining what his senses tell him at the assisted living home.
“Glad to hear it,” says Angie. “Now let's go. You can tell me about Nelson and Murdock, I haven't seen you since you got your name on a door and I may as well hear about it before you decide you're not doing it anymore.”
Foggy is going to keep doing it, probably. He just has to figure out how, first. Even if he can't call Peggy and ask how she felt about lying to Angie, he can take it into account. Build a case. Figure things out. “Well, let me tell you, it's nothing but excitement all the time.” Maybe more than he wants, but it makes her laugh, and it's true in good ways too. He can start there.