Chapter Text
Foggy wants to call Matt. Everything is … okay, surprisingly. The Garcia case went off without a hitch, they don’t have another court date for a week and a half, so it’s a really idyllic time of paper work and emails and confirmation calls in the office and actually spending quality time with everyone. Matt seems to be sleeping better, and Karen has got the hang of the new admin system, and Foggy’s fridge is stuffed with leftovers from the last Nelson get-together so an office-wide invitation to dinner and drinks is on the horizon.
All in all, everything is really … okay. Good, even. And Foggy is standing in line waiting for their coffee order before work, twiddling his thumbs, and he wants to talk to his best friend, dammit! But he’s gonna see Matt in a bit, and he has to be normal about this. A normal, average guy. Normal, average guys don’t have urges to constantly talk to their best friends. He thinks. Certainly none of the other friendships he’s made throughout his life have been like this. And so therefore he’s holding off. He’s keenly aware of his stupid phone in his stupid pocket, though, and maybe … maybe he’s gotten a new email. He should check. It’s productive—
The barista calls out another name, and then an unearthly loud, crackling strike sounds right outside, rattling the mugs and décor on the shelves and eliciting a collective shocked outcry from the customers. Foggy’s ears ring as he turns instinctively towards the front windows, takes in the dust in the air and the weird, shadowed shape of something as the people in the front of the shop dive for the floor and everything devolves into chaos within the blink of an eye.
“Shit!” he hears from somewhere above his right ear, and a tall, looming man in a grey hoodie steps forward, as if he wants to get to the panicked mass outside. He unzips his hoodie, reaches in and—
“Here,” he says, apparently aimed at Foggy, as he then shoves a ball of – yarn? – into Foggy’s chest before running out of the front door. Another strike shakes the foundations of the building, further away, and Foggy catches a glint of silver metal in the sunlight as the man shucks the hoodie and disappears from view. There is screaming, Foggy supposes, or general mayhem of some sort or other. There must be, but the sound of it is a dim buzz, barely penetrating the thick layer of cotton Foggy feels like his head is wrapped in. It’s not as loud as the rushing of his blood in his ears, or the scratchy click of his dry throat as he tries to swallow.
He looks down at the bundle in his arms. It blinks two light blue eyes back up at him. It—a cat. He’s holding a fluffy little white cat against his chest, blinking calmly up at him. The man had—the man was …
He readjusts his hold so that he can lift his hand to stroke the cat’s head. The white fluff nicely hides exactly how shaky his fingers are.
>>><<<
As it turns out, a cat is a pretty good companion to ward off a post-encounter freakout. Foggy spends the next forty minutes with the cat tucked between his ribs and his suit jacket, definitely not as comfortable a nest as the hoodie must have been, but the cat doesn’t make a peep as he rushes around, helping people up and herding them towards the emergency personnel once they show up.
The café owner, white as a sheet, apologizes that they will be closing up indefinitely for the day, and offers to refund the coffees not yet received, but Foggy shrugs it off, the crunch of the broken glass beneath his soles and the jitter still in his arms enough to make him want nothing more than to just step through the rickety door of Nelson & Murdock right now.
He does hang around a bit, just slightly, and lets anyone who asks pet the well-behaved fluffball in his side as he cracks jokes with the old man grasping the shock blanket and the young barista sitting on the sidewalk with soot on her face from somewhere. Nobody from inside was seriously injured, but some people in traffic close to the blast zone weren’t as lucky. The news doesn’t update quick enough for what Foggy’s looking for, despite his constant refreshing, and at the end he decides that it’s probably best to start his work day at long last – an hour late, and fifty minutes after he was able to get his fingers working enough to type out a quick ‘will be bit late’ to Karen.
The fluffball, it seems, will have to resign itself to being a lowly office assistant for the day, instead of … well, whatever sort of life a pet of its status might otherwise normally lead, it’s not like Foggy has any idea about these things. Yes, he did some Googling. And his suspicions are confirmed.
>>><<<
“Karen! Matt! I’m gonna go buy some scratch cards later, with the sort of luck I’m having today, we might be millionaires by the end of it!” he announces as he strolls cheerily through the door. Karen, of course, immediately descends upon him to rain down flat handed hits and verbal abuse on his person, and Foggy laughingly curls in on his side to protect the indignant squawking little bundle he’s been gifted with.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he laughs, “precious cargo over here! What if I really did bring you guys warm coffee, it’d be all over the floor by now! Hah!”
“Franklin Fucking Nelson!” Karen scolds, her cheeks stained an angry red and her perfectly-coiffed curls all mussed from swatting at him like an aggravated cat—heh. “Maybe you also had to tell me, oh, I don’t know, that you’re gonna be late because you almost got killed by aliens!”
She emphasises the most important parts of her outburst with more slaps at his back and shoulders, and Foggy has to put real effort into the sad face he tries to guilt her into stopping with.
“Karen, take pity on me! Didn’t you hear we have a guest that deserves a better welcome than this?” Said guest meows loudly to make their own opinion on this welcome known, as it finally gets sick of hiding under his arm and climbs out to peek out over his shoulder. Karen pulls back upon seeing Fluffball, and blinks at it for a minute as if not quite computing.
Matt finally, finally, peeks his head out from behind the door to his office and flashes Foggy a little smile. “Who’s our guest?” he asks.
“You have to come over here to meet ‘em,” Foggy responds, lifting up his arm as the little feline climbs fully onto his shoulder and tilts curiously towards Karen.
“A little baby,” Karen coos, completely forgetting the kind of impression she must be giving Matt, and Foggy is just about to correct her when Fluffball emits the loudest purr known to man when Karen reaches to pick it up. “Ough, you rescued this little guy? Little gal? Little … friend?” she asks, nuzzling its side. It grabs at the nearest strand of hair, mussing it up even more.
“I’m not sure exactly what it is, and I respect it too much to check. We’ve developed a sort of entente cordiale, and I’d hate to break that trust.”
Matt huffs out a laugh, his eye crinkles peeking out behind the frames of his glasses just enough for Foggy to spot and appreciate them. He reaches out a hand, somewhat awkwardly, and Karen sways into his range so he can pet their little guest, too.
“Also, no. I’m but a humble babysitter today, it would seem.” Foggy takes a little mental picture of the scene in front of him, Karen and Matt curled over the cutest little fluffball in the world, happily curving up its back to meet their hands in all the spots they’re petting. Oh, yeah. He’s really lucky today.
“You okay?” Matt asks quietly, tilting his head a fraction so Foggy knows he’s not asking the cat.
“Yeah,” Foggy replies, still smiling. “’m good.”
He remembers, suddenly.
“Oh, hey, guys, meet Alpine. Also, I’m in love. I met a superhero today!”
>>><<<
Alpine seems to fully settle into the idea of spending the day locked in a humble three-room office and immediately starts exploring all its nooks and crannies after Karen insists on opening a can of tuna for it. Because of the trauma. Foggy keeps from blurting out that some sustenance would probably also help for his trauma, thank you, but he sticks to the comedic retelling that he planned on the way here.
Karen is appreciative.
“Tall? Like, do you think he’s taller than Thor?” she asks, leaned forward, eyes dancing with interest.
“Eh, I’m not sure, but he’s definitely more handsome than Thor.”
“No way,” she breathes.
“Yes way!” he counters, grinning. “I mean, Thor has, like, whatever going for him. I’ll give him that. But the Winter Soldier? There’s just something so effortlessly commanding about him. The moment I walked in there, my eyes were on him, you know? I just couldn’t look away. He has these shoulders, and this back, and … yeah. Also, his hair smelled really good. I can’t believe I got close enough to smell his hair, actually.” Foggy swirls around the last few dregs of his coffee with relish.
“Wow,” Karen breathes, her gaze far-off as if she’s imagining sniffing the Winter Soldier’s hair. “And he had Alpine in his arms?”
“Right, yeah. Totally. In his hoodie. It was so cute!”
“Did everyone push in all around him? He must have been swarmed!” She blinks in alarm at this, and turns to where Alpine is chewing at an empty manila folder on the floor, its tail flicking in concentration.
“Oh, no, he was very low-key, really. I think I’m the only one who really … recognized him. It felt like a special moment. And—and he has this really hot, deep voice too. He was talking to Fluffball when I went to stand next to him. It was like … the kids call it a meet-cute. And now I get why.” Foggy informs her, sighing contentedly.
Matt harrumphs.
The jury is still out on Matt’s feelings on the story.
“And his arm,” Foggy remembers to add, “it was unreal to see. The artistry that had to go into it, y’know? He looked like he could strangle me and the little plates wouldn’t even make a sound while he did it.” Foggy’s heart skips a beat as the image of that suddenly pops up in his mind. He hadn’t meant to say that.
“Bullshit,” Matt calls, “you said he was wearing a hoodie.”
“Well, yeah, but he took it off,” Foggy responds matter-of-factly, “when he went to go deal with the aliens.”
The corner of Matt’s mouth twitches downward, and his fingers still on the strap of his cane. “So, he just gave you his cat.”
“Yup! He was all, you take care of her now, er, him—I can’t remember exactly. As you may recall the world was shaking at the time, and I had very real worries about imminent death. But I’m just a man; what mere mortal could say no when someone so, so—so important in our history asks you something so simple? Of course I would happily protect his little Fluffball with everything in me!”
Matt mumbles something.
“Hm?” Foggy asks, finishing his coffee. Karen got them, in the end, to apologize for hitting Alpine and Foggy. Probably mostly Alpine.
“He killed JFK,” Matt says, barely louder.
Foggy pouts at him. “Matty, did you not listen to anything Captain America said when we watched that TV special? The man is a national hero, I’d like to see you break seventy years of brainwashing and still decide to help the Avengers after everything!”
Matt’s fingers fiddle with his strap again. He doesn’t seem to have a response ready, and Foggy grins over at Karen. She has somehow managed to get Fluffball into her lap and has her fingers buried in its fur in the time Foggy was focused on Matt.
“Anyway, I’m glad you understand, Karen. Meeting a superhero, and he had this adorable cat and he saved my life, too? Who wouldn’t swoon over that?” Foggy leans back so far in his chair that it creaks in protest.
He’s done it. He even mentioned his life being in danger and it didn’t register in Karen’s mind. He’s out of the danger zone, he’s alive, he has a cool story and an adorable little cat for the day, and he even got to rile Matt up a bit, for whatever reason all of that was going on.
He’s successfully managed not to turn this morning into A Whole Thing. He’s not thinking about the way the impact of the strike felt traveling up his legs, or the woman with the crying baby and the broken arm as she got loaded onto the gurney, or the spooked young barista laughing at his joke while the medic cleaned up the scratches on her elbow from the broken glass. He’s not thinking about any of it.
He's definitely, definitely lucky today.
>>><<<
The very next day, late the evening when Foggy’s just about ready to close his laptop and call it a night, one of his news alerts pings and he opens up a link to an amateur news site, boasting a blurry photo caught just minutes ago of the local mysterious vigilante, Daredevil, caught mid-run, half-turned into the shadows of an alley but just visible enough under the yellow streetlights to illuminate the three kittens cradled in his arms.