Work Text:
Over the years, Nelson & Murdock, Attorneys at Law, shifts and changes. It collapses, its partners fall out (several times), are disbarred (more than once), and yet, it never dies. Looking back, Matt wonders if it’s the one thing in his life that’s unkillable.
Sometimes, over drinks, he and Foggy reminisce about those first days, the year when they were young, and idealistic, and Karen’s presence between their offices felt as natural as breathing. Through the haze of the years, Foggy remembers the first battle with Fisk fondly, time sanding the raw emotions down into something sweeter. He laughs, now, at the idea that he never noticed Matt’s abilities. He’s still exasperated about finding Matt bleeding out in his apartment, but it’s more about Matt’s stupidity at thinking he could take on Fisk and Nobu while wearing his black pyjamas.
Whenever they talk about that first battle, Elena and Ben’s names will come up, and they’ll sit in silence for a moment. They’ve lost too many people, in the years since then, but those first deaths still hurt.
Karen still occasionally jokes about the fact that both Matt and Foggy tried to date her. She tries not to do it in front of Matt and Foggy’s girlfriends.
After several rounds of making up and breaking up, the subject of the Frank Castle case and Round Two of The Elektra Saga (Foggy’s name for it) doesn’t hurt so much. They seem so young, in those memories, so naive, making stupid mistakes and hurting each other because they didn’t know any better. Matt will point out that they just make new stupid mistakes these days. Foggy will point out that Matt’s usually the one making them.
Re-opening Nelson & Murdock without Karen had felt wrong at first, but she told them that they needed each other more than they needed her. She was the one who found Becky, who whipped them into shape with barely-concealed glee. Those had been good years, weathering storms from Fisk and the Hand, saving Karen from Bullseye. They’d gotten big enough to need an in-house PI, and Jessica had taken the job for a little while, before she’d handed it over to Dakota.
Matt learned a long time ago that good times don’t last. Becky had left for law school, and Karen was travelling a lot for work, and without them, Matt and Foggy’s relationship fell apart again. Foggy ran for DA, and Matt started dating Natasha, and it wasn’t a falling out, the way they had during Round Two of The Elektra Saga, just a drifting away that left both of them feeling bereft without knowing how it had happened. That’s actually the period they don’t talk about, because it still hurts to think they could have thought they didn’t need each other.
Then Foggy lost his re-election bid, and Natasha decided to move to San Francisco, and asked Matt to go with her. And instead, Matt went to Foggy and told him that they’d always be partners.
He still means it. He’ll always mean it.
Drift away. Fall apart. Find each other. Rebuild. It’s a cycle they can’t seem to shake. It doesn’t make it less painful, but nowadays, deep down, both of them know that the wheel will turn again, and none of this is forever. Not the villains or the plots against them. Not the girlfriends (or the ex-wives), not the offices, not the junior partners or the office managers or the PIs or the clients. Not the good times or the bad. And one day, they’ll look back on whatever crisis they’re surviving, and marvel at how young and naive they were.
And they’ll be standing next to each other when they do. Nelson & Murdock, Avocados at Law.