Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Matt is not particularly fond of move in days.

There's too many people, too many things, too many emotions going on all over the place. There are more people here now than there will be at any other point in the semester and Matt hates it. He hates the idea of having to be in his room with people he doesn't know traipsing in and out of it all day. 

It doesn't help that Matt hasn't exactly had the best track record when it comes to roommates. 

There's been two different kinds; the ones that force their help onto Matt despite his many protests that he doesn't want or need it, or the ones that do their best to make Matt as miserable as possible, whether it's having people over constantly or insulting Matt to his face and to others or moving the furniture around just to be a dick. 

Regardless, Matt really isn't expecting anything good to come out of this day, and he already can't wait for it to be over. 

It's a bit of a surprise when he finally finds his room only to hear nothing but a single resting heartbeat inside, but he doesn't let himself hope.

The apology rubs him the wrong way when he hears it. A lot of people seem to have that same instinct; to apologize to him on sight. He doesn't get what they're sorry for (and if it's because of their use of sight related terminology, he doesn't quite understand why they'd apologize for that either. He's not quite literal enough to not realize that 'looking for' doesn't equate to 'seeing'.) 

The comment about Matt being a hero is worse. He doesn't usually get recognized; the entire incident had, after all, happened over ten years ago, but there are still people who remember and Matt doesn't like being called a hero. He'd pushed a man out of the way of a truck when he was a kid, it isn't something that he's made a habit of. 

(Despite the fact that he sometimes thinks he should make a habit of it)

(A real hero wouldn't ignore everything that Matt does)

But Foggy doesn't actually seem that bad. He doesn't pity, doesn't dance around the topic of Matt's blindness, but he's not mean either. He's excitable and energetic and nice, and Matt is a little swept up by it all, and it's not bad. 

And Matt is not exactly what most people would call an optimist, not by any stretch of the word. 

But he's starting to think that this year might not be that terrible. 

Chapter Text

Matt doesn't mean to run into the dresser. 

It's just that he's tired; he's been studying all afternoon and evening and he was sitting weird so one of his legs fell asleep. He was just heading to the bathroom, and now he's crouched on the floor, trying to pick up the mess of things that he'd knocked off of Foggy's dresser. 

Most of it is large stuff -books and papers- but Matt had heard some distinctly tiny things hit the floor and he's having a very hard time finding them again. 

He knows that Foggy probably won't mind when he hears that Matt had accidentally knocked over his things and hadn't been able to put them all back, but he also knows that leaving them there without trying it rude. The floor isn't that big. They have to be somewhere around here. 

His fingers brush something small, and he grabs for it hopefully. It's small and plastic and Matt closes his hand around it and tries to figure out what it is. It's rough with a lot of small sharp edges, he finds what seems to be feet and a head. It's an animal of some kind, but Matt can't quite decipher what it is exactly. 

It's not his, so he supposes that it doesn't particularly matter. He puts it back on the corner of the shelf and gets back to the floor, searching for any others. 

He finds two more, and can't find any after that. He still can't figure out what they're supposed to be, but they're all different from each other. He clicks his tongue at them hopefully, but all he can get from them is that they're lined up on the shelf; whatever they are, and that there's a few more lined up there with them. 

He's a little disappointed, but he reminds himself that they're not his, so it doesn't really matter. 

He goes back to studying. 

-

"Hey, did something happen over here?" 

Matt is practically falling asleep on his textbook, and he startles to attention when Foggy suddenly speaks, "What?"

"My shelf. There's paper all over the floor." Matt can hear paper crumpling as Foggy picks up sheets. 

He winces, "Sorry. I ran into the dresser; thought I'd picked it all up." 

"Hey, no problem. It's not a big deal," Foggy says, but his heartbeat stutters a little. Matt hears the clatter of plastic against the wood. "I see you found my dinosaurs." 

"Dinosaurs?" Matt asks, turning his chair to face Foggy's direction. The action is meaningless to him, but he's learned that people like it when you face them, even if you can't even see them. "Is that what they are?"

"Yeah, I've still got a few of them left from when I was a kid. My mom brought them with her and insisted I keep them." Foggy's heartbeat stutters as he speaks, but Matt doesn't speculate on the lie. He hears Foggy pick the figures up and walk over to where Matt sits. Foggy holds one out, "I'm holding one out for you." Matt opens his hand, palm up, and waits for Foggy to put it down. 

He runs his fingers over its shape. He doesn't particularly remember what dinosaurs look like- they hadn't exactly lined up with his interests as a child- but it seems interesting. Solid body, long neck, the texture is smooth, with minuscule ridges in the plastic; some kind of pattern or skin. 

"That one's a Brachiosaurus," Foggy tells him. Matt nods like that means something to him. He likes the feel of the dinosaur in his hand, the shape and texture of it. Foggy goes through the rest of them, handing them to Matt one at a time and rattling off the names. They all feel interesting, shapes, textures, edges. They're neat. 

He tells Foggy as much, and Foggy nods enthusiastically. "Aren't they?" He sounds happy that Matt likes them, and he lines them back up on his dresser, goes on to talk about something that happened during one of his classes, and that's the end of it. 

Sometimes when Matt is feeling particularly shitty, he'll take one out just to feel. 

He doesn't ever tell Foggy, but he gets the feeling that his roommate knows anyway. 

Chapter Text

Foggy has had a lot of different roommates in his time. 

Matt has to be one of the more different ones that he's had so far. 

It's not a bad thing. He's blind, which takes a little while to get used to, but Foggy's flexible and good at adjusting to things, so it's not a big deal. But there are other things that Foggy doesn't think have to do with the fact that Matt's blind. 

It's a lot of small things that Foggy notices over time. Like the way Matt raises himself up on his toes when he walks sometimes. The way he hops when he gets excited. The way he sways in his seat when he's focusing. 

There's a lot of things that Foggy notices. 

And he's not oblivious. He can remember and a couple of friends that he'd had in high school. It'd be rude, he thinks, to try and pin labels on Matt without consulting the guy, but that doesn't mean that Foggy doesn't notice the similarities between Matt and the autistic people that he's known throughout his life. 

He'd ask, but it's not really any of his business, and it's not on the level of 'need to know' information, so it matters even less. 

But he wonders, and he does his best to try and help out where he can without being too obvious. He cuts down on the noise that he makes, stops wearing cologne, makes sure to give Matt a heads up before he invites people over. 

It's hard to tell with Matt, but Foggy's pretty sure that it helps, so he keeps it up. 

He likes that the more time that passes, the more comfortable Matt seems to be around Foggy, and the more of Matt Foggy gets to see. 

Matt rubbing the fabric of his sweatshirts between his fingers, running his hands over the texture of the walls, humming to himself quietly, flapping his hands on occasion. 

It's nice to know that Matt trusts him enough to do that kind of stuff around him. 

Chapter Text

Matt is starting to consider the ramifications of dropping this class. 

He knows that he can't actually drop the class, because he needs the credit hours and it counts towards his degree, but he does not like this teacher at all and it's starting to become an issue. It also doesn't help that the classroom is right beside a particularly busy street and has an annoying, possibly broken, air conditioner. 

The man has a bad voice- this is the first thing that Matt notices about him. He also stinks of cigarettes. Matt knows that it would be rude to hold those sorts of things against the man, and so he makes a conscious effort not to, but his efforts start to diminish when the man begins to speak. 

"I put all of the lecture PowerPoints and notes onto the website," he says, and this is a good thing because it means that Matt won't have to go talk to him in order to explain his situation and go through all of the hassle it takes to get those accommodations. 

But then the man continues, "With all this... ADA stuff, I have to make it available to disabled students." Matt's head twitches because he can already tell that he doesn't like the way this is going, and sure enough, "But I don't like having to do that." Matt tightens his grip on his cane, "After a certain extent, it really starts to give those kids an advantage over the normal ones." 

Matt can hear a couple of heads turn towards him, and then the rustling of people shuffling uncomfortably in their seats. The professor seems largely unconcerned about this, and Matt doesn't quite know where to begin. The declaration that somehow being accommodated for a disability gives someone an edge over non-disabled students (as if being able to actually see the PowerPoint doesn't give a sighted student an edge over Matt), or the fact that the man had used the term 'normal', with the obvious implication that disabled people are abnormal.

A large part of him wants to speak up and say something. That wasn't okay. That was rude and ableist and generally kind of gross, and those things have always pissed Matt off. It's a large part of the reason why he decided to become a lawyer. And Matt should speak up, offhand ableist comments like that could easily become the reason a different disabled student becomes too embarrassed to ask for accommodations that they need to keep up in their classes. Matt is able to speak up about it; it should be his responsibility to do so. 

But the man has already moved on to speaking about the tests, and Matt knows that if he speaks up now it will only reflect badly on him. He disrupted the class, he was off-topic, he was challenging the professor. This is, unfortunately, not the first incident of this kind that Matt has encountered. 

By the end of the class, he's prepared an entire lecture in his head, waiting there to be unleashed onto the people that need to, that deserve to hear it. He stands there for a moment, listening to the other students zipping up their backpacks and filing out of the classroom, and he can hear the amount of them that are staying behind to introduce themselves like it's recommended that they do. Matt knows that, at the very least, he should introduce himself in case a future issue arises. 

He thinks the teacher's earlier words over in his head once more, and leaves without saying a word. 

Chapter Text

Matt wouldn’t have thought that a person with senses like his could get under-stimulated, but somehow he manages it.

He’s been inside all day, it’s Saturday and he’s been doing homework and hadn’t gotten a chance to go anywhere. Usually it wouldn’t bother him, but his skin is itching with a need for something, but he doesn’t know what.

This doesn’t happen to him often. Most of the time he is horribly overstimulated, things are too loud too much too there.

But right now everything is varying degrees of not enough and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

He’s still sitting at his desk, and he leans forward to press his arm and hip against the corner of it, searching for pressure. It helps but not enough. He slams his wrist against the top. It helps but it’s not enough not enough not enough.

His hand skitters over the tabletop, finding his books and shutting them, tucking them away at the back of his desk just for something to do. He slams a couple of them shut a few times, relishing in the noise. It hurts a little; apparently that’s not what he needs.

He hums out a moan, pressing a hand to his face and rubbing it up to his temple and digging the heel of palm there. The other hand comes up to his mouth, and he bites into the side of it. He stops quickly because he knows that it’s bad (and visible. People don’t like it when you hurt yourself.), but he files away the fact that it helped in case he can’t get rid of it any other way.

He stands, reaching out and fumbling for his cane, and uses it to hit his furniture as he paces by it. He whacks his bed, hears the noise, feels the reverberation of the force travel up the cane and into his hand. Focuses on the feel of it and the carpet beneath his feet, the way his muscles move and how his foot thuds as it hits the floor. His cane hits the dresser. The soundwaves bounce off of the rest of the room, and Matt organizes the input into the familiar layout. He groans.

He keeps it up for a while. Hitting and stomping and groaning, and every noise and vibration that he makes helps to ease the fire pressure on his chest until his muscles finally relax and he can think clearly again. Part of him wants to go back to his books, because he knows that that’s the responsible thing to do, but he also knows that doing so is going to send him straight back to where he had been and he doesn’t want a repeat performance.

 So instead he checks his watch to make sure that he has time before Foggy gets back, and then he goes back to what he was doing, able to enjoy the humming and tapping and hopping now that the desperate need is gone. It helps to balance him out further, makes sure that good.

When Foggy shows up twenty minutes later, Matt is already sitting down at his desk, fingers tapping a light rhythm on his glasses, quietly grateful that his room is on the ground floor.