daredevilkink | Prompt Post #4

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A/N: Um, yeah. This got kinda long. Sorry?
Matt is really fun to write, but he's such a drama queen, I swear. So, yeah, here'll be some mild angst.
Trigger warning for mentions of hospitals, mental and physical illnesses, and forced institutionalization.
I like this idea that AUs are actual, literal alternate universes, think of multiverse theory etc. I guess I'm kinda playing around with this concept in this?
Anyway, there'll be one more part after this, which is about the same length as the other parts.

Enjoy!

***

Matt rubs the back of his neck with the towel, trying to cover up his blush.
„Actually, the devil silhouette was my idea”, he admits.
„Good thing you’re blind then, otherwise I’d really question your taste”, Foggy quips, then adds: „Sorry, is that offensive or something? I have, like, no filter, it’s a bit of a problem actually, but I can adjust, no big deal.”
„Don’t worry about it”, Matt tells him honestly. „I hate it when people try to tiptoe around the issue. Like I’m something fragile. Or like my blindness is somehow gonna rub off on them. Yeah, most people mean well, but it’s annoying.”

Foggy laughs, his voice light and unconstrained. It’s an confident, natural sound, like wooden chimes in a sudden breeze, the laugh of someone who laughs often and easily and means it every time. It’s the best thing Matt has ever heard.

„Trust me, you don’t strike me as fragile”, Foggy assures him. „You could probably kick my ass without breaking a sweat. Both physically and otherwise. Would have been a fucking delight to see you in the courtroom. Unless we were on opposing sides, in which case I would have been scared shitless. Intrigued and maybe a little turned on, but scared shitless.”

Matt wants to playfully call him out on the ‘turned on’ part, but God, does he love listening to Foggy’s relaxed, cheerful rambling. Foggy has a ridiculously nice voice - not particularly remarkable or pretty or anything, just really damn nice. It’s like sunshine through a window, the kind of quiet warmth that seeps into your very bones. Clear as a bell and soft as a feather, not a single harsh edge to it, none of the roughness in most people’s voices that makes Matt’s ears itch involuntarily after listening to them for too long.
He could listen to Foggy for hours, and he’s scared that he might ruin that. He doesn’t want Foggy to censor himself around him. Not ever.

„You would have been an amazing lawyer”, he says instead. „I mean it.”
Foggy’s heart skips a beat. There’s a change in his posture, barely noticeable. A hint of sadness.
„Thanks”, he mutters and it’s genuine, even if it’s heavy with something that he leaves unsaid.

Matt reaches out to softly brush his fingers against Foggy’s arm. Both of their heartbeats spike a little at the touch. „Let’s go upstairs. Karen tells me the view is lovely. I think you might appreciate it.”
„Yeah, sure.” There’s a slight tremble in Foggy’s voice that pleases Matt more than it should.

He knows about the effect he has on people, but it’s been a while since he has truly enjoyed it. Once, it used to be a confidence boost for him, a thrill he kept chasing over and over, just to prove to himself that he could.

He had hoped those days were over, but old habits die hard, apparently. Foggy is nothing like any other person he’s ever been with, not the type to turn heads and make almost everyone’s heartbeats quicken when they enter a room, but something about him stirs something deep inside of Matt’s belly.

Something that feels a lot like ‘kinda want to take him on a hundred dates and hold his hand while whispering secrets to him, kinda want to have him right here against the wall and then on every available surface in this house’.

It’s a confusing feeling.

They both ascend the stairs to the upper floor quietly, with Matt still internally debating whether turning around and making out with Foggy for twenty minutes would improve or decrease his chances of a second date.

Is this even a date? It doesn’t really feel like one. It’s not just a means to an end, a necessary step to get one from A to B in a socially acceptable manner. He genuinely wants to get to know Foggy. Needs it, like knowing him is something inescapable, an inevitability. (What did Foggy call it? Fate?)

Or maybe that’s what dates are like for normal people and Matt is just really bad at dating.

It’s probably the latter.

He leads Foggy into his bedroom/workplace/training room hybrid and gives him a smile that he hopes doesn’t give away the R-rated thoughts he’s currently trying to push to the back of his mind.

„This is where the magic happens.”
Foggy chuckles. „Really?” Then, after a pause. „Wow, you weren’t kidding about the view.”
„Too bad it’s wasted on me”, Matt jokes. „Karen always says I should get myself someone who will narrate it for me. To get my creative juices flowing and everything.”
„Why haven’t you?”

Matt shrugs. „Would be rather counterproductive with regards to the whole hermit thing. Also, I like the quiet. There’s very few people whose company I can actually stand for extended periods of time. I mean, I’m not necessarily antisocial ... It’s a sensory thing.”
„A side effect of being blind?”, Foggy asks.

„Yeah. Something like that. Hey, why don’t you sit down while I make the tea?”
Matt points at the armchairs next to the big window before grabs the Japanese tea set from the coffee table between them and disappears in the kitchenette around the corner.

„Black, green or white?”, he calls over to where Foggy is nestling into the chair with a soft sigh. „I also have some herbal mixes if you’re not big on caffeine in the evening. Or in general.”
„Caffeine’s fine”, he hears Foggy shout back. „You’re the expert, surprise me. Until right now, I didn’t even know white tea existed. Wouldn’t that just be hot water?”
Matt can’t help giggling. „Wanna try?”
„I’ll try anything once”, Foggy proclaims proudly. „I’m the adventurous type, you know.”
„Is that so?”, Matt mutters, just loud enough for Foggy to catch it. He is delighted when he hears the other man’s sharp exhale.

He puts on the kettle and picks out his favorite blend of white tea by scent and makes sure it’s brewed to perfection before he returns to the main room, balancing the teapot and two cups before setting them down on the coffee table.

„Thanks, Matt.” Foggy reaches for his cup as soon as Matt has settled into the other chair. He takes a tentative sip, careful not to burn his tongue, and nods to himself. „Not bad. I can’t do the whole wine critic thing where I’ll tell you if I detect a hint of raspberry or something, but this is definitely one of the more interesting cups of tea I’ve had.”
Matt smiles. „Glad you like it.”

„So ...”, Foggy says, gesturing in the general direction of where Matt can still detect the gentle sway of the punching bag he used earlier. „You’re a boxer?”
„My father was.” Matt swallows. The memory still hurts, after all these years. Like a scab that won’t heal because he can’t help picking at it. He tries to push the feeling away. „He’d hate that I took up boxing, but hey, I’m not punching actual people. I just write about it, so it should be okay.”

If Foggy notices, he doesn’t let it on.
„I never would have thought you were into boxing”, he remarks. „You seem more like the yoga type.”
„I do that, too, but I actually find boxing more relaxing.” Matt rubs runs a hand through his hair and grins. „Don’t tell my old instructor though.”

„Oh my god! You are a nerd!”, Foggy exclaims with mock consternation. „Pretty buff for a nerd, but still.”
„What are you going to do about it?”, Matt teases, barely able to contain his laughter. „Shove me into a locker?”
„You know what, I just might. Also, stop laughing, I may not have your abs, but I do have my own athletic skills.”
„Oh yeah?”, Matt asks, genuinely interested. „What kind?”

„I’m a dancer”, Foggy tells him with pride in his voice, but also the hint of a blush on his cheeks. „Used to be, anyway. I’m a bit out of practice. But I’m thinking of starting again.”
Matt can tell that he misses it. „Why did you stop?”
„Same reason I didn’t study law - life got in the way.”

For a moment, nothing but the almost-silence that had become Matt’s chosen background noise fills the air between them. Foggy fits into it perfectly somehow, a warm presence, solid in midst of the flames that illuminate Matt’s imagination, trying to chase the endless night of his lack of sight away.
Foggy is strong, but soft, an island in the storm, his heartbeat and breathing steady and soothing, his scent a syrupy, distinct, but pleasant combination of cocoa butter, soap, laundry detergent, faint traces of animal blood and something that reminds Matt of lime tree blossoms that have been left out in the sun to dry.

God, he is beautiful.

Matt could get used to this.

„May I ask-”, Matt begins hesitatingly. but Foggy interrupts him before he can finish the question.
„I promised to tell you the whole story, didn’t I?”
„You don’t have to.”
„It’s alright. I want to.”

Foggy takes a deep breath. „So, a couple of years back, I somehow let my good grades go to my head and decided that I was gonna study law. I was gonna be a kick-ass attorney and get super rich. What can I say, I was a bit of a smartass at the time - even more than now, I mean.”

He laughs. „But just when I wanted to apply for college, I got in an accident. It’s pretty stupid, really. Some kid hit me with his bike and I fell. Badly. Got injured. Nothing life-threatening or anything, but it was serious enough I had to spend a few days in the hospital.”

He pauses for a moment. His breathing changes from calm to uneasy and Matt hears him shift in his seat before he continues.
„Turns out, that kid with the bike was my savior. The hospital ran some standard tests on me, and someone must have discovered something odd about the results ... So they kept on prodding. And then, a few days later, a very nice doctor came to me and told me I had cancer.”

„I’m sorry”, Matt says, as gently as he manages. He means it. He tries his best not to sound too shocked, but it’s hard. The painful beat of Foggy’s heart is clawing at his own, making it a chore to keep his breathing steady and his hands from trembling. He’s overreacting, probably. He knows that. Just like he knows he shouldn’t make this about himself, and yet ...

Foggy shrugs. A dry laugh escapes his throat. „Well, I got lucky. They caught it early, and I could beat it before it became a real problem. If not for that accident, I probably would have gone to Columbia and never noticed it until much later.”
„Might have been a sign from above”, Matt says. „If you believe in an ‘above’.”

„I’m not sure what I believe”, Foggy muses. „But yeah, maybe? Either way, it changed my life. You know, I was born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen, but my mom grew up here in Edenhall and when her parents died, she wanted to return, take over the family business. She wanted me to come along, live with her and Dad. Back then, I had other plans, but, well ... This must sound so cheesy, but I suddenly realized what I had been taking for granted all this time. That it might all be over, just like that. It scared the hell out of me. I wanted to be with my family, so I came here after all.”

Foggy’s pulse slows a little, but his breathing is still weaker than before, a tremble in it that a normal person without Matt’s skills would have noticed.
Still, he smiles when he adds: „It’s not all bad. This place is beautiful. I met a famous author who invited me over for tea I never even knew existed. Life is good.”

„Do you ever miss Hell’s Kitchen?”, Matt asks, a pang of nostalgia tugging at his insides.
„Not really. I mean, sometimes.” Foggy pauses. „Actually, I miss it a lot. A part of me still seems to believe I belong there, for some reason. You?”
Matt sighs.

„I miss it all the time”, he confesses quietly. „If I’m being totally honest, I think I will always feel incomplete without that city. It’s a hellhole, true, but it’s got a soul. A dark, twisted, ugly, wonderful soul. It’s like the noises of those streets used to be like a second heartbeat for me, and suddenly it’s all gone, you know? Feels a little like losing my sight all over again. Or like losing a limb and still getting phantom pains. You get used to it, but something will always be missing.”

„Why don’t you go back?”
„I can’t. It’s ... complicated.” Matt briefly considers leaving it at that, but something inside of him thinks better of it. „When I left, it wasn’t really a choice. I had to. That city ... The city I love, it would have killed me otherwise.”

„Don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?”, Foggy quips, but his tense posture doesn’t match the tone of his voice. „I mean, I get that you’re an author and everything, but why would a city kill you?”

„Noises”, Matt says simply. He struggles to find the right words to explain it without revealing too much. „I ... I ... I can hear better than most people. Among other things. I mean ... I can hear even better than most blind people. Much better. And I just ... heard things ... things that filled me with rage. All the time.”

He waits for his breath to steady before he continues, covering up the silence by taking a generous sip of his tea. The hot liquid burns in his throat.
„Back in law school, I tried to ignore it the best I could, channel the rage into studying harder, but that didn’t help. My first roommate was a nice kid, but very shy. I didn’t mind back then, I just wanted to be left alone ... You know. Study. Prepare for a life of fighting the good fight. But the more I studied, the more frustrated I got.”

Foggy is silent, but alert. His heart beats heavy in his chest, but he doesn’t seem scared. Just empathetic. It’s what coaxes Matt into continuing.

„Eventually, I snapped”, he says quietly. „Smashed half of my belongings. It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t mean to scare my roommate, I really didn’t, but I didn’t even realize he was there when ... He saw me. And he panicked. He later told me he was an abuse survivor. Got triggered by what he saw. Badly. God, I felt so terrible. I tried to make it up to him, but things weren’t the same afterwards. He never reported me or anything, said I didn’t do anything wrong, but he did request to be assigned a new roommate. Looking back, that should have been a wake-up call for me, but I had this stupid martyr complex. I thought I could handle it. I was so wrong.”

„What happened?”

Now that he has gotten half the story out of his system, Matt can’t seem to stop. The words just keep tumbling out of his mouth and he doesn’t have it in him to hold them back.
„I got a new roommate. The new guy wasn’t shy at all, but he was a loner. Never seemed to pay much attention to me, and I liked it that way. I thought I was lucky.”

He shrugs. „I was wrong about him, though. After a year or so of sharing a room with him, I had a full-blown nervous breakdown right before finals. Depression, anxiety, the whole nine yards. This time, I did get reported by my roommate. I don’t blame him, he just wanted to help, but, he ... his decision got me institutionalized.”
Matt shivers at the memory. It all comes back to him so vividly, a cacophony of sounds, smells and textures that used to bombard him all day, every day, for weeks.

„I was purgatory at first. I’m not a fan of hospitals, to put it mildly. They always remind me of when I ... when I had the accident. So there was that. Plus, my pride did not take well to all these people with fancy titles poking and prodding at my psyche, trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I thought I already knew, and maybe I was scared that I was wrong, so I got really defensive. Never really liked being condescended to. And I especially hated that they wanted to take away what had taken years to build. It was a brittle facade at that point, but I held onto it with all my might. Having it taken away didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. And I felt like maybe, there was a reason God made me the way I was. The way I am. I needed to believe that.”

Foggy makes a noncommittal, but sympathetic noise. There’s a lump in his throat, Matt can tell from the way the air brushes against the other man’s vocal cords. He wonders whether Foggy would have something to say if he could. Something witty? Something wise?

Matt tries to lighten his voice as much as he can. He forces a smile. „The rest is pretty anticlimactic, I’m afraid. Eventually, I met a very competent psychologist who knew just how to talk to me. Or maybe I was just tired. Anyway, before I could do anything about it, the mask slipped. I told my psychologist everything, and it was such a relief I didn’t stop crying for a week. She suggested I take up writing, as an outlet for all the things I felt, and I did. I wrote until I felt numb. Later, after quite a bit of polishing, the things I wrote became my first novel, and I somehow managed to get it published.”

„No wonder”, Foggy deadpans. „Your life sounds a lot like a novel. A really sad novel.”
„If that had been the ending, maybe”, Matt replies. „But it wasn’t. I was still living in Hell’s Kitchen at the time. And I still heard ... things. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t drown out the noise. I had to leave. The guilt would have made me do ... bad things. Reckless things. I felt like I had the power to make a change and nothing to live for if I didn’t use it. A dangerous combination. It was either giving in to the pressure, or escaping. I was so, so tired of everything. So I ran. Decided to move somewhere peaceful. Quiet. This is where I ended up, somehow. The name drew me in. And the beautiful old church. It felt like a sign from God. At least that’s what I told myself to keep myself from feeling like a coward. I still wonder whether that’s what I am.”

The words hang in the air for a moment and Matt can almost hear them echoing in his head. He feels strangely empty all of a sudden, like the hollow glass figurine he never wanted people to see him as. Like he could shatter under the weight of something as simple as a single wrong word.
His fingers run up and down his bare arms, soothing, and he wishes he had taken the time to put on a hoodie or something because he feels kind of naked right now.

„You’re religious, right?”, Foggy asks after a while and Matt nods.
„Catholic.”
„Well, I’m not, just a warning, but if you don’t mind taking advice from a godless heathen like me, here’s what my dad taught me growing up: No matter what anyone tells you, the only moral obligation you have is to live a good life. A decent, kind, responsible life. Do no harm and all that.”

Matt’s first instinct is to counter with something, anything, really, because what he just heard goes against everything he has ever learned.
He can’t think of a single thing.

„No one person can save the world”, Foggy continues. „It’s a community effort. You’re worth no more and no less than everyone else. Like I said, I’m not big on religion, but I think that God would want us to be kind to people. Including ourselves. This world sucks sometimes, that’s true, but even if the only person you are able to save is yourself, you have already made a difference.”

Silence. Or what passes for silence by Matt’s standards these days. His bees have retired to their hives, so their buzzing isn’t covering the world in white noise anymore. The rush of blood rings even louder than usual in his ears.

He’s desperately searching for something to break the tension.
„I never thought about it this way, to be honest”, is what he settles for.
„That’s why you are supposed to have people in your life you can talk to”, Foggy says. „Really talk to, I mean, more than smalltalk and pleasantries. To broaden your horizons. Look at things from another angle.”

Matt lifts an eyebrow. „Is that a jab at me being a social recluse?”
„No!”, Foggy lies a bit too quickly, before shaking his head. „Well. Actually, yeah, it kinda is. Like, I’m not trying to be mean or anything, you do your thing if it helps you, awesome! I just ... It’s just that ... You’re great, Matt. You really are. And I get that you have your books, and your bees, and your editor, but I’m sitting here with you, just talking, and I can’t help thinking ... ‘This guy is funny and clever and for some reason, I trust him enough to tell him my life story, it’s such a shame no one else gets to experience how fucking delightful his company is because he locks himself in his fancy house and doesn’t let anyone near him.’”

Matt is stunned for a moment. Even more so than before. He clears his throat. Twice.
When he finally gets out a quiet „Oh”, his voice is raspy anyway.

Foggy’s pulse quickens in a bout of barely subdued panic. „Oh god, Matt, I’m so sorry ... I didn’t ...”

„I like talking to you, Foggy.”
The words are quiet. Soft. The way they sound during confession. It’s a simple truth, but somehow, saying it out loud, makes Matt feel vulnerable. Exposed.

Foggy just rambles on, his voice breathless and filled with nervous laughter. „I ruined it, didn’t I? Wouldn’t be the first time, I’m really good at putting my foot in my mouth, a prodigy, really, I could probably win gold if they ever turn it into an Olympic discipline ... Wait, what?”

„You said I should find someone I can talk to - really talk to”, Matt says calmly. „I agree. And I want you to know that I really like talking to you. Why do you think I invited you over? You’re honest, and you make me laugh. I liked that about you. So don’t be sorry for it.”

„Okay”, Foggy replies, half a sigh on his lips. „You really are great, you know? Because I don’t think you do. This ... all of this ... should feel so awkward. But it doesn’t. I barely know you, but I feel at ease around you. Like I could think out loud around you and it’d be okay. I’ve never had that with anyone else.”
He sighs again, deeply this time. „See? I’m doing it again.”

Matt can hear Foggy chuckle, a low, gently vibrating sound, just loud enough for him to feel it in his own bones. It sends shivers down his spine.
‘Please never stop doing that’ is what Matt thinks, but what he says is: „I don’t mind.”

He isn’t like Foggy. Not as open. Not as brave. Sometimes he can’t even speak his mind when he wants to. Part of him feels guilty about that, but mostly, he’s just glad to have someone he could listen to for hours and maybe, eventually, open up to. Foggy has a way of tearing down his walls with such skill and conviction that Matt doesn’t have it in him to stop him. Doesn’t want him to stop.

It’s like there’s a Foggy-shaped empty space at Matt’s side that he never even noticed was there. Now, allowing the other man in feels like obeying the laws of physics. Logical. Natural. Complex numbers broken down to a simple equation.

Maybe there’s a formula out there that explains why their paths were bound to cross all along.
Perhaps science. Perhaps fate.
Math or scripture.
It all feels the same in the end.

Oh man. I only recently started reading the comics and it's so exciting to be able to get the references XD

I continue to adore this <333

This is a delightful interlude.

Or maybe that’s what dates are like for normal people and Matt is just really bad at dating.
It’s probably the latter.
Awww, Matty, no! You and Foggy are doing dating right. ♥

First time I've seen whtie tea called interesting. XD I love teas, but whites are too delicate for my palate and really just taste like hot water, lol.

The hospital ran some standard tests on me, and someone must have discovered something odd about the results ... So they kept on prodding. And then, a few days later, a very nice doctor came to me and told me I had cancer.”
Oh, no, Foggy!!

„It’s not all bad. This place is beautiful. I met a famous author who invited me over for tea I never even knew existed. Life is good.”
You're such a sweetie, Foggy. ♥

He saw me. And he panicked. He later told me he was an abuse survivor. Got triggered by what he saw. Badly.
OH, NOOOOO...

OH, DAMN. Man, poor Matt. But this is very believable as well as a way that his life could have turned out so differently!

he can literally follow the thought processes. And point out all the flaws. Every. Single. Flaw.
- Bwahahahaha. Good. Matt needs that. XD

(Yeah, no, totally cool with me! And I'm sorry for calling it BE - being lenient on what is acceptable AmE means I often don't know where the other variations in diction are actually from. XD I didn't know Aussie English used arse, too! ...no innuendo intended. XD)

OFF TO READ THE INTERLUDE! \o/

(OP HERE EEEE)

Omar loves picking people up from Avengers' Tower. Who and what he gets is always a surprise. Somehow he's also become the Avengers' official cab driver; he's the only one any of them want and Jarvis always calls his personal line for fares.
--- *cackles* That's awesome. XD

The long haired one might be a lawyer, he's so well dressed, but the one with the sunglasses looks like he just got out of bed with that hoodie on
--- Such a nice reversal of how they're more commonly compared! :D

Oh, he can see them in his rear view mirror, and every so often Glasses will smile or Long Haired will bite his lip in amusement but they've not said a word since they got into his cab. Long Haired isn't even looking at his friend but somehow they seem to be sharing one hell of a good joke.
--- *cackles*

I love how he can deal with Tony's Tonyness, and picks up bedraggled stray Steve, but it's Matt and Foggy who freak him out. xDDD Thank you for this interlude!! ♥

Wilson’s soul was a shriveled, wizened thing that still sparked with brief flashes of wild fire. Wesley kept that alive, that final spark. His pride in Fisk, his willingness to make the man’s mission his own was what sustained them both.
--- AWWWW! *weeps*

until they grew cynical and decided they had far more to fear from the devils they didn’t know than the one they did.
--- SUCH a good line!

They would clash; Wesley’s precious resources would be diverted to determining what it was that both the Devil and the priest saw in Franklin Nelson.
--- Sneaky, sneaky!

Wesley’s methods were never gentle; it would not be long before Nelson was forced back to him, presented with a choice of forging another deal or watching his loved ones pay the price.
--- OMG.

He would leave them to their stalemate and steal the prize from beneath them, content to wait until their combined machinations drove Foggy Nelson into his waiting hands.
--- THIS. IS. STILL. SO. GOOD.

since he had struck his deal everything in the city seemed to have grown more faded
--- :O Is this actually just his imagination, or an effect of striking a deal?

Once or twice he might have discounted, but every morning now he woke up knowing it would have to be reset. His neighbors had no such issues; he had made a point of cornering all of them to ask. The answer was plain: his was the only apartment on the fritz.
--- O____O

This room did not want to surrender its secrecy, and for all that it welcomed the ancient spirit in him, it resisted the humanity.
--- Ooooh...

Here at least the darkness was not quite his ally, always shifting away, always trying to catch an unwary eye and give warning to the office’s occupants.
--- Your writing is SO INTERESTING. And so, SO delicious.

Pity Foggy didn’t know what Karen was up to in her free hours. Matt would be sure to tell him, right after he had secured Karen’s cooperation.
--- DUN DUN DUUUN...

With each passing day, the dull embers grew less with exposure to Foggy. He had a way of keeping every soul bound to his burning, turning dross to gold.
--- ♥

(Prompter here)

“I’ve become a walking stereotype! Or a comic book protagonist. I can see the series synopsis now: Franklin “Foggy” Nelson, dashing, genius attorney at law with a troubled past becomes fed up with the New York corporate law scene and in a fit of disillusion makes a deal with a demon in pursuit of True Justice. Follow his wacky misadventures surrounded by Hell’s Kitchen’s misfits and a host of zany demon side characters.”
Setting her drink down, Marci dapped at her lips delicately with a cocktail napkin. “I refuse to sit here and be called a ‘zany’ side character by someone who is getting smashed on cocktails I’ve seen featured in Cosmo.”
I love these two, so much. I’d watch 5 seasons of this show, no joke.

“Any other relationships that I should feel invalidated in?”
“…you know Dave from accounting?”
“Noooooo, I like Dave! He always shows me pictures of his cats!”
Awwww, Dave from accounting and his cats.

“Ridiculous. He’s got this ridiculously floppy hair and dorky red spectacles of all things and a suit cut straight from a 20’s crime drama and a smile that could intimidate a loan shark. He’s a walking archetype.”
“Like you, you mean? He sounds cute.”
“Oh my god you have no idea.”
*rolls around on the floor with delight*

“It figures, yanno? He’s unattainable on so many levels and so of course I want to bang him like a screen door in a hurricane.”
*howls with laughter*

“…does this Matt have a cane that looks like something a supervillian might have?”
Oh NO. OH YES.

“You, Foggy Nelson, summoned Satan on Tuesday night. The Devil. Lucifer. My boss, or rather, The Boss.”
I hope Marci doesn’t get into trouble about that, I like her.

Matt hummed noncommittally, and almost against his will, Foggy shot him a grin. “You got time? There’s a Salvadorian place around the corner that advertises ‘devil sauce’ and I want you to vet it.”
“I actually don’t like incredibly spicy stuff,” Matt mumbled, playing with the strap on his cane.
Foggy choked on his laughter, “You’re kidding me! That’s like, hundreds of years of advertisement down the drain!”
“My PR department sucked at the time that came around. I was never able to shake that.”
Oh boys. Already bantering.

Scratching the rune for “back in 5!” on his office door, Matt followed the spell, relishing the feel of his power solidified a vessel around him as he went. Getting closer, he found that the chanting was only coming from one measly mortal and he couldn’t help but feel a little insulted. Perhaps a bit petulantly, Matt set up one of his nastier dramatic entrances for when he got to this sorry bastard.
I love how bureaucratic Hell is, and how petty Matt the Devil is.

However even after all was said and done, Matt found himself looking for excuses to show up at Foggy’s apartment again and again. And Foggy kept on offering him sacrifices like it was nothing! Sure he just saw it as an odd meal or a few beers, but it allowed Matt to stick around for a few hours and listen to whatever what was on Foggy’s mind.
I love that detail, that Foggy doesn’t even realize what he’s doing to Matt with the “sacrifices” of food.

Matt groaned and Foggy laughed uproariously, as per usual. Below them, Foggy’s neighbor knocked against her ceiling with a broom, the wrath she felt outlining her form to Matt clearly. It was sharp pinprick of a moment when Matt was reminded of how unclear Foggy was to him.
Oooooooo! Love the idea of Matt “seeing” sin with his sonar. Absolutely love that.

He decided to keep his wings in, however. The time it would take for them to rip their way out of his back just wasn’t worth the time.
Awwwwww, yes! Demonic form that like, bursts out through the human shell. WOW. Yes.

“That something put the fear of God into her.”
Matt reached for his basket of fries, silently chuckling over the irony.
I love Matt the massive troll.

“And you’re trying to distract me from the point; that’s very childish of you.”
Again, Matt said nothing, but did sit up a bit straighter and crossed his legs, seeming to listen closer to what Foggy was saying.
I love how Foggy is chewing Matt out, THE DEVIL, and Matt is letting him. I just … yes. Everything I wanted from this fill.

Matt felt that he couldn’t speak. The accusation rolled down his spine and once again, Matt found his insides tightening. Of course Foggy would have few enough survival instincts to chastise him, Matt mused as he popped a few of his fries into his mouth. It made something petty and spiteful in him want to remind the human just what he was dealing with.
However a bigger part of him wanted to lay out everything that he had done to that hitman, describe the way that he had snapped at the other demons that had gotten in his way, really sit down and walk Foggy through just what he had done to send a message to the people after Karen (he was sure that a few of them had gone straight to church after finding their underling’s body in the state that it was in).
Foggy would be furious, and rightfully so. He would yell and berate and not have the slightest concern for the fact that it was Matt he was talking to, Actual Devil and Rotten Bastard Extraordinaire.
No one had done that sort of thing for him in a long, long while. No one had ever that sort of thing and lived ever, but Matt was willing to make an exception. This wasn’t an overly-righteous religious zealot from the Dark Ages, this was Foggy. And Foggy, Matt knew, Foggy would forgive him. Eventually. Maybe.
Most likely.
But Matt didn’t want Foggy’s forgiveness; there was something a bit sharper than that he wanted. Something that would hurt a bit more.
*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
Everything I wanted.
This is PERFECTION. THIS BIT. YES. PERFECT. GOOD. *squees helplessly*

oh anon.

this is...I keep struggling to find the proper word for it. sensual? (my initial reaction was: FILTHY, OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BREATHE, IT'S NOT EVEN EXPLICITLY SEXUAL and yet i need a minute to compose myself?) but it's so physical and full of emotion and good lord, the tension!

and Matt, dangerous and crazy protective and loving foggy - oh, I could read that forever. ugh. UGH. this is SO GOOD.

What is this brilliance I love it all the feels o god!!

"Bzzzz. Bzzzz." Foggy groped at the nightstand next to his bed clumsily trying to find his phone, his eyes barely open, brain barely functioning. He finally found it and raised it to his eye level, squinting to see who it was. Not that it mattered. He didn't want to talk to anyone anyway. It was Karen. He dismissed the call and threw his phone onto the bed next to him. He didn't care. He was past that point.

For two full days, he had done nothing buy lay around his apartment, barely moving, barely eating. It was as though he had finally, at long last, taken enough suppressants to not just erase all trace of other people's emotions, but his own as well. He felt nothing. Not even relief at feeling nothing. He was just numb, broken, and done with everything.

This, he thought, must be what it was like to die and come back as a zombie. Shambling forward, with no real purpose, existing for the sake of existing. He was still wearing the suit, rumpled and smelling of sweat, that he had been wearing at Matt's. He still hadn't showered.

Finally, he rose to use the bathroom, then headed to the kitchen to see if there was any food there. There wasn't. And he was hungry.

So he shuffled out the door, intending to stop for a hot dog. But when he passed Josie's he decided that drunk and hungry was preferable to stuffed and back in his bed again.

And that's where Karen found him.

"You're a dick," she said.

"The hell did I do?" he asked, but he knew. Of course he did.

She was still high-strung and determined to take down Fisk. Foggy remembered what that felt like, both his feelings and hers. It was all gone now. There was just emptiness in its place.

"It won't be enough," he told her.

"You sound like Matt," Karen said, and didn't that just sting. Foggy was surprised to feel the hurt. He hadn't thought it was possible.

Karen wanted to know what happened to Matt. It wasn't Foggy's responsibility to be the one to tell her. No way was he doing that. She'd shoot the messenger, and Foggy had no interest in being Matt's delivery boy. She wanted to know why he wasn't at the office. He didn't know what to tell her, so he told her that Nelson and Murdock had hit a rough patch. Understatement of the century.

She tried a new tactic. She told him that Elena's building was being torn down. And that... something in him woke up at that. What, he didn't know. But he felt it, like a punch in the gut.

Because she was right. At the end of the day, she was right and he knew it. His entire life he had always taken the path of least resistance. He'd always been cautious and played it safe. Been terrified of inviting the pain he'd experienced as a child back into his life. And look where it had gotten him.

But Karen had never backed down. Even when it nearly killed her, she always stood up and fought. And Matt had spent his entire life fighting everyone and everything, never even considering the alternative, the safer path. It was who he was. And Foggy loved them both for that.

He sat there with his head almost laid down on the bar and thought about who he wanted to be. He remembered Matt quoting Marshall again. "We must dissent from the apathy," Matt had always reminded him. "We must dissent from the fear." The words rang in Foggy's head, burned themselves into the very core of his being as he sat there. How many times had Matt said them for Foggy to be just finally truly understanding their meaning?

Indifference. Apathy. Fear. Once again, Foggy was struck by the irony of the fact that he had spent his entire adult life trying to distance himself from his emotions, and was only now realizing how much his life was ruled by them, but the wrong ones. It had happened so slowly that it snuck up on him, and now it was hitting him like a freight train.

Foggy realized that someone did have to fight for Hell's Kitchen. Someone had to make what happened to Mrs. Cardenas matter. And that maybe it should be him. But most importantly, maybe he
needed to fight for himself. He needed to get the hell up and stop being so afraid of the pain, learn to face it head on instead.

And he resolved that he was going to talk to Matt, and that after dealing with everything with Fisk somehow, the next step would have to be to face his ultimate fear, stop taking those damned suppressants, and see what he was really capable of.

After Fisk, after everything had settled back into something that resembled normalcy (but which Foggy knew wasn't, could never be again), Foggy booked a doctor's appointment. He didn't tell Matt or Karen, didn't want them to know. Telling them would mean reminding Matt what he was, confessing how bad things had actually gotten with his dosages and his drinking. Telling Karen would mean he would have to admit to being a mutant, and he didn't know how she'd react to that. So he kept it to himself.

After that night in the bar, the night Karen called him a dick, Foggy had quit drinking. And he had lowered himself back to the dosage he was supposed to be taking of his suppressants, which sobered him up considerably. Some strong emotions were again effecting him, but he could handle it. It wasn't so bad. It got him through.

He'd had a brief relapse when Ben Urich had died. He had a vague memory that he hoped never fully returned of Josie cutting him off once he started sobbing onto a very unamused biker's shoulder. He'd even slept through the funeral the next day, which had actually been a relief because between the hangover and his emotional state he knew he would have had difficulty holding himself together and appearing normal.

But he'd picked himself up, dusted himself off, and he was doing better. And now he knew that he was running out of excuses not to fulfill his promise to himself to stop taking the suppressants entirely.

Besides, how could he justify continuing to take them and turn his back on the things happening around him when Matt was willing to sacrifice so much of himself for others? It made him feel like a coward. It made him feel selfish. And he wondered if there was a possibilities that his abilities could help Matt. That he could find a way to be a hero too and keep his friend safe.

The doctor, as he had anticipated, told him not to. She discouraged him from continuing to take the dosage he was taking, but recommended lowering it slowly, and staying on them. She warned him that going off of them would be difficult and that, because every mutant's manifested powers were different, she couldn't predict what the side effects might be. And even if it were possible, he was so young when he began taking them that his powers hadn't even had the proper time to fully evolve and develop.

But Foggy was certain. He needed to do this. For Matt and Karen. For Hell's Kitchen and his clients. But, most importantly, for himself.

The first week he lowered his dosage to the same one he had initially taken as a teenager, as the doctor told him to do.

He felt better than he expected. The raw feeling was there. He was on edge, and more sensitive than usual, but he felt like he was handling it. It was different, that was all. And not necessarily in a bad way.

Sure, it meant that he could less easily block out the fact that something was bothering Karen, and the paranoia and guilt that it caused were consuming her. But it also meant that when he made her laugh, when he saw her smile in a way that made her eyes crinkle, or made her blush and push her hair back behind her ears, he felt that too. Really felt it, in a way that made something warm and content settle in his stomach.

He'd forgotten what it felt like to feel others' happiness, others' kindness and sense of humour. He realized that he had missed it, all these years, like an ache that was always there but he'd never recognized as anything other than normal. It shocked him.

And Matt... he was surprised by the intensity of the things Matt felt. He didn't think that was possible, since he'd known Matt was different from the moment he'd met him. It was why Matt's emotions tended to break through the suppressants' effects more than they should have. But now, Foggy could really understand it. The passion. The fierceness. The intelligence and perceptiveness hidden behind the masks he wore, both literally and figuratively. It made Foggy realize that finally, after everything that had happened between them, he knew Matt. He really knew him in a deep and meaningful way that nobody else got to experience. It felt like a privilege that he didn't deserve.

Those first few days, Foggy was content to sit in his office, or on his couch at home, and just let himself feel whatever came to him. He would slowly stretch his empathic sense out as best he could, like a muscle that he had let atrophy, and attempt to determine it's strength and agility. He learned that his landlord was in the middle of a contentious divorce. The woman who lived across the hall from him had kids, and Foggy enjoyed letting the warmth, creativity and exuberance that they felt into his heart. At their office, he learned that the real estate agent who had leased their office to them frequently gave tours of other available offices, and that she really did have a problem with blind people, and black people, and gay people apparently. She was awful.

None of it bothered him the way he had expected it to. Because he was in control. He could reach out and feel things, but he never felt overwhelmed or like he was drowning the way he frequently had as a child. He realized that he didn't know what he had been so afraid of. He was fine.

The second week, he halved the dosage. Things became more difficult, but not unmanageable. He had to focus harder to maintain control, and he could feel the range of people's emotions flooding in become larger, more varied. But he was proud of himself for moving forward, for confronting his fear and coming out on top. Or so he thought.

On the fifth day of that second week, Matt came into his office, anxiety and concern emanating from him in a steamroller of emotion that felt so visceral to Foggy that he worried he might topple over. This irritated Foggy, since of the two of them Matt was the one whose side and leg had been aching all day. Foggy could tell, even though Matt didn't know that. It frustrated him.

"Foggy," Matt said, and just the way he said it broke Foggy's heart. One word, but Foggy could feel all of the hurt, love and guilt in it. "Are we..." Matt asked, and suddenly Foggy had the sensation of being small and terrified, like a child watching his parents leave him alone at school for the first time.

"Are we okay?" Matt asked. "Please don't leave me", is what Matt's heart told him.

"Of course," Foggy said. "Why wouldn't we be?" He could hear his voice choke up as he asked the question, and hoped Matt didn't notice.

"You know why," Matt said, "I just... I thought we were doing better. After everything..."

"We are," Foggy said, trying to inject the certainty he felt into his voice and reassure Matt. He meant it.

"Are you sure?" Matt asked, "because the last few days you've been quieter than I've ever seen you. Withdrawn. It's not a word I would normally use to describe you Foggy, and I'm just worried. You seem different. Off. And you've been avoiding me. And I can't..." Matt tried to articulate how he was feeling but Foggy had reached a breaking point. Things had been awkward with Matt for too long and he was tired of it. He needed his friend to be the calm at the center of the storm, not a tidal wave.

"Don't do that!" he snapped. "You can't, Matt, it's too much! Don't come in here hating yourself and projecting all of your guilt, and exhaustion, and fear of abandonment, and love onto me like it's something I'm supposed to fix, okay? You're too loud, you're suffocating me!" Foggy suddenly realized that there were tears streaming down his face and he had his hands clamped to his head and was rocking forward in his chair.

"What?" Matt asked. "I don't understand." Foggy added panic to the list of things churning in his stomach, vibrating throughout his body.

"LEAVE!" he yelled, and Matt did. In fact, he couldn't leave fast enough, tripping over himself to get out the door. In fact, Foggy heard him stumble into Karen as she came back from a coffee run, apologizing hurriedly as he left the office altogether.

Karen was confused, and so she came and knocked on his slightly open door to find out what had happened. Foggy felt her surprise and worry as she took in what she saw. "Foggy," she asked, "what happened?"

Foggy had no answer. Only an ashamed, hysterical, wild sobbing that shook his whole body as Karen ran over to hold him without needing to know why. And eventually, he sensed her begin to sob too, like he had broken through a dam of emotion that she had been holding back.

This was what he'd been afraid of. He was most definitely not fine. None of them were.

"I killed Fisk's lackey, Mr. Wesley," Karen confessed to him from the floor of his office, with her head in his lap and him stroking her hair. "The one from Global Consolidated." It was dark since the lights were off and evening had darkened the sky. Matt hadn't returned. They had both held each other until they had collapsed from exhaustion. Karen sounded numb, like she was too tired to feel anything anymore. Foggy missed that feeling. It tempted him to pull his suppressants or the bottle of scotch out of his desk drawer to reach that point, but he resisted. He wanted to be sober for this. He needed to know the truth.

"How? Why?" Foggy asked.

"He kidnapped me when he found out about the fact that Ben and I had visited Fisk's mother," Karen replied. "Threatened me. You. Matt. Everyone I loved. Made the mistake of leaving his loaded gun on the table in front of me. So I shot him. And then I ran."

"It wasn't the first time, though, was it?" Foggy asked. He knew. The guilt that overwhelmed her wasn't just about Wesley, and he could sense the churning anxiety that she had that someday he and Matt would know her, really know her, and reject her. So much had happened to her before they had even met her, he was sure of it.

"No," she said. "It wasn't. I..." she choked on the sentence, and Foggy continued to stroke her hair, wordlessly reached out with his empathic sense and, without even realizing he could, encouraged her to continue.

"I grew up in Nebraska. Middle of nowhere. I had a rough time. My mother was an addict, in and out of jail, and my dad left to go start a new family, a family he loved and wanted. I was in and out of foster homes. Didn't even finish high school. When I was 18, I got my GED and enrolled in community college. Started waiting tables to pay for it. Waiting tables turned into dancing. Dancing turned into... something else."

Foggy listened and was overwhelmed by her experiences as she spoke, feeling the anger, bitterness, but also the hopefulness and ultimately helplessness. He let it blanket him, accepted it for what it was, and tried to overlay it with his love of this woman, with affection and strength. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, he was certain it was helping her.

"I made a lot of money. More than enough to finish school. But I ended up dropping out. Mixed up in drugs, and the wrong people. One day, God it wasn't even that long ago, there was this guy... he... well he wanted something from me that I wasn't willing to give. Which is really saying something, because I gave so much..." Her voice trembled and Foggy wiped her tears away with his thumbs as she looked up at him. It was intimate, but Foggy was surprised by how strangely comfortable it felt.

"You killed him," he said.

"I did," Karen said. "I shot him with his own gun too. And I ran. Figured I could get lost in New York City, start over. And then when everything happened with Daniel..."

"Oh wow," Foggy said. "Matt and I had no idea." And suddenly Foggy was angry. Angry at himself for being on the suppressants and missing what was right in front of him. And angry at Matt, for being able to sense that Karen was telling the truth but not how much more to the story there was than what they had thought.

He felt Karen tense underneath him. "You're angry," she said, but she sounded surprised instead of upset.

"Yeah," he said, being honest. "But at myself. Not at you, Karen."

"I know," she said, sitting up and looking at him intently, "I could feel it."

"Wait, what?" Foggy asked, confused.

"Yeah," Karen said. "It was like... like it came over me and I knew what it was. I knew it was you. I don't understand."

It took Foggy completely by surprise. It wasn't something he had ever considered before. He knew that he could pick up emotions from other people. They had flooded him, assaulted him, for as long as he could remember. But he had never projected his own emotions onto someone else before.

"I'm sorry," Foggy said. "I didn't tell you, because I didn't think it mattered. I'm a mutant."

"You're a mutant?" Karen asked. "That's... oh wow... seriously?"

Foggy nodded. "I was on suppressants. I went off of them a few days ago. That's why all this happened. Why I blew up at Matt and he left. I can sense people's emotions, what they're feeling. And, apparently, project my own, which is news to me. Jesus..."

"That's amazing," Karen said. "You are amazing. Why would you suppress that?"

Foggy smiled. Of course Karen would say that. "Because I couldn't keep feeling other people's pain all the time. It was just too hard. I wanted to be happy. And normal."

"But what you can do is so much better than normal!" Karen said.

"Is it?" Foggy asked. He gestured to the two of them sprawled out on the floor by his desk, their shirts wet with tears, in the dark. "You understand what normal means, right? And better than? Not sure how you could apply those terms to this."

"Foggy," Karen said, palming both his cheeks with her hands so that he was looking her in the eye. "I felt the anger, yes, but you also made me feel so much better, just now. Made me feel loved. Made me feel how strong and brave you think I am. That's a beautiful gift."

"You think?" he asked, tentatively.

She nodded, and leaned in to kiss his forehead gently. He could feel, really feel, how much she meant it. And how much she loved him. And he knew he'd made the right choice.

After walking Karen home, Foggy decided that he needed to talk to Matt. He had tried calling his cell phone, but he knew better than to think that Matt would pick up. He was certain that Matt had decided to go out, that somewhere a rapist or mugger was paying for what Foggy had said to his friend.

So Foggy wandered along a couple of the busier Hell's Kitchen streets, hoping to run into Daredevil.

He stopped for a slice of pizza, and sat in the restaurant staring out the window, stretching his gift out again, with a newfound respect for exactly how powerful it might actually be. He let the adoration and warm fuzzies of a newly engaged couple wash over him, and it tickled him and made him grin. He observed a woman alone waiting for a bus, sensed the anxiety and paranoia that sat in her chest as she waited. Reflected on how many things women had to feel that men didn't even think about. He sensed two men in a barfight nearby, could feel the challenge and desire to prove worth that emanated from it. Reflected again on gendered emotions, whole ranges of them and wondered if anyone really understood the differences the way he did.

He was older now. He understood things that he hadn't as a barely pubescent kid. He couldn't believe that he spent so many years being so afraid of what he might be, of the strength of other people's emotions. Maybe he had even underestimated the power of his own.

And then he felt a sudden flash of fury, the same boiled over intensity that he had only felt one place before. It was Matt's fury, as he had told Foggy calmly about letting the devil out, told him in a matter of fact way that he never intended to stop.

He chucked his pizza crust and plate in the garbage and followed the feeling, letting it lead him around the corner and towards a darkened alley between a pool hall and a closed bookstore. He knew better than to approach the alley and interrupt the fight, knew that Daredevil had the situation well in hand. So he stayed out of sight, and waited. A woman had just been attacked. Foggy could sense the adrenaline and fear. There were two attackers. One was already unconscious. The other was the one Daredevil was engaged with. He was overconfident, and arrogant. In the face of the devil's judgment, Foggy knew that he didn't stand a chance.

Foggy watched with a strange detachment as the woman fled the alley in the direction of the police station, her feet almost moving of their own accord following Daredevil's command to run. "What are you doing here?" he finally heard, directed at him and not in the gruff tone that most people heard were used to hearing come from under the horns.

Foggy moved into the alley so that nobody could see them talk, finally saw Daredevil in the flesh, red suit gleaming under the motion sensor light beaming from a nearby building. He was bent over the forms of the two attackers, tying them up to ensure that they didn't escape before the police arrived.

"I wanted to apologize," said Foggy. "For earlier. I didn't mean it."

"Really?" said Matt, "Because it kind of sounded like you did. And I don't blame you. I deserve it."

"No. You don't," Foggy said firmly. "Think about it... what you saw? Did that seem like normal behavior to you? You were the one who said that I haven't exactly been acting like myself lately."

"So what was it then?" Matt asked. "What's been going on with you, Foggy?"

"I went off my suppressants," Foggy replied.

"Oh." Matt said, sounding surprised. "Is that... I don't... why?"

Foggy could hear the sound of police sirens coming closer, and he was reminded of how surreal the entire situation they found themselves in was. "Why don't I meet you at your place?" he asked. "We can talk about it there. Getting into it here, with you dressed like that and two unconscious assholes at our feet, probably isn't the best idea."

Foggy left the alley, and shook his head in amusement as he heard a clang and thump that he suspected was Daredevil leaping up a fire escape. He got to Matt's door, opened it with his key, and wasn't surprised at all to find Matt already inside and drying off from the shower dressed only in sweatpants.

"Hey," Matt said. He was nervous. Until this week, Foggy would never have believed how nervous Matt was all the time, how timid and scared. Man without fear indeed. It made him remember all the times he had envied the man's confidence and self-assurance in college.

"Hey, buddy," Foggy said. "How are you feeling?"

"Can you tell me?" Matt asked. "Now that you're... you know?"

"A mutant?" Foggy asked. "I always was, you know. Technically."

"I guess so," Matt replied. "It's strange to think about, I have to admit. I never really thought about you that way before, even after you told me."

"At least I gave you the choice to factor it in," Foggy said, only a small amount of bitterness finding its way into his voice.

"Yeah, you did," said Matt sadly. "Why go off the suppressants now? Is it because of me?"

"Partly, yeah," Foggy said, "Although I tried to go off them when all the stuff with Fisk was going on, after Elena died. Bad timing."

"Oh. That means... that means you were off of them when..." Matt asked, his voice trembling and quiet.

"Yeah," said Foggy. "It didn't exactly help the situation. I just got tired of them. I kept having to increase my dosage so that they would keep working, which I think means I was getting more and more powerful, which is making things now pretty confusing. And I just wanted to feel something real again, without the suppressants getting in the way, even if it was pain. To see what it was I was so scared of, you know?"

"I think so," Matt said. "I'm not really sure I understand though. You've never really talked about it with me before."

"I know," said Foggy, "and I'm really sorry for that, truthfully. I keep thinking about the fact that if I had, maybe you wouldn't have felt the need to keep so much from me. It just... it sucked, man. It wasn't just that I could feel people's feelings. It was that I could feel all people's feelings, all of the time. Happy, sad, angry, afraid. All of them. It was making me crazy. And it was making the people who had to put up with me even crazier. So taking the suppressants just seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"And it doesn't anymore?" Matt asked.

"No," said Foggy.

"Are you doing this because you want to... to get back at me for the things I'm able to know about you? Or because I make you feel like you need it?" Matt asked. "I don't want you to do something that causes you pain because of me."

"No!" said Foggy. "I'd like to be able to understand you better. That part I'll admit to. And it is kind of nice to know when you're lying to me. It levels the playing field a bit. It was just time. I couldn't keep living my life running away from it."

"I never meant to hurt you," Matt said.

"You didn't," said Foggy. "Today was intense, Matt. You are intense. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just something I have to get used to. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"I don't think that's going to go away, Foggy," Matt said. "And I don't like the idea of you walking around feeling... feeling like I do all the time."

"Cut yourself some slack, Matt," Foggy said. "You forget that I can feel the good stuff too."

"Good stuff?" Matt said, and he shook his head like he thought what Foggy said was nonsensical.

"Your love for me, for instance," Foggy said. "That's technically great stuff. Joyful. Certain. Honest. It sings, Matt, in high, clear tones like a hymn in church. It makes me feel lucky just to have felt it for a moment. And now that I've felt it, I don't think I could go back, even if I wanted to. Which I don't. And I love you too, man. I can only hope as much."

Matt smiled. It made Foggy sad, because it was a soft, shy smile. It wasn't enough. So he tried something. He reached down within himself, and he found the love he had for Matt. And he reached out with his empathic sense and tried to help Matt understand.

Slowly, the smile widened, and there was even a sniffle and a tear. Foggy knew he'd achieved his goal.

"Oh my god," Matt said, and it sounded like a prayer. "Are you doing that?"

Foggy nodded. Matt surged forward and hugged him tightly. And Foggy knew that they were okay. Better than okay. Because he had a gift.

At the beginning of the third week, the first day after going off of his suppressants entirely, Foggy woke up screaming, and everything fell apart.

(Author here) :DDD Thank you!

(Author here) Oh, gosh! I'm so, SO beyond pleased that you felt that way! Thank you so much! :D

Dangerous and crazy protective and loving Foggy... yup, describes Matt to a tee. ;)

That was cute. Just one tiny little thing, Thor would call Foggy "Son-of-Nel". Same way he calls Coulson "Son-of-Coul".

I've filled this over on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4335002

(I'm expecting maybe 2-3 more updates?)

“Foggy, this is Daredevil. Daredevil, Foggy,” Natasha says on Friday night, and Foggy wonders how he didn't see this coming.

Matt looks just as frozen, which isn't fair, because he probably knew they were heading for Foggy's building five minutes ago. He's carrying a picnic basket, which would be hilarious at literally any other time. “It's a pleasure,” Matt says after too long a pause.

“I told him you were charming.” Natasha sounds a little more fond than Foggy was expecting, for someone who only knows Daredevil from fights on the street. “You could at least try.”

“Don't worry about it, he's no doubt just bowled over by my stunning good looks.” Foggy sets the blanket down on the roof, because he's not going to bail on this date. He and Matt clearly need to have a discussion about things. “Are you going to chaperone this date like he's a Victorian maiden, or are we okay?”

“It's fine, Natasha,” says Matt. He hesitates over the name. Probably he usually calls her Black Widow or Ms. Romanoff or something, because that's Matt all over. “Foggy and I will be fine, and I'll try very hard to be charming.”

“By 'from my neighborhood' you meant 'beats up criminals in my neighborhood,' didn't you?” Foggy says, when Natasha looks over at him. “I'm sure you think you're very funny, and if you say anything about potatoes or potahtoes I am never speaking to you again.”

Natasha gives him a disappointed look, because of course she knows that's a lie, and of course so does Matt because he's awful. “I doubt he would take on crime in this neighborhood if he weren't from it. Are you comfortable on your own with him? I know you are with the rest of us, but he doesn't come to movie nights.”

“I'm good. I'll call you if things get weird and you can call everyone over and we can have movie night instead.”

Natasha shoves Matt a little, and he takes a step forward. “We'll be fine. He's a friend of yours.” Matt sounds choked enough that Foggy has very little hope that she doesn't already know three quarters of the story. “Thank you for the introduction, Natasha.”

She frowns at Matt and then at Foggy, and then she nods. “Text me if something goes wrong,” she says, to either or both of them, and takes off at a jog.

Foggy sits down and then waits until Matt's shoulders relax, presumably when she hits the edge of normal human hearing range, and then waits an extra thirty seconds, because he really does not like assuming that Natasha's anything is normal. “Well, this brings a whole new meaning to the words 'blind date.' Are you going to sit down?”

Matt looks really ridiculous finding his way to Foggy's voice and sitting down on the blanket, all in his costume. He settles the basket between them. Foggy will bet any money that Natasha packed it for him. “Movie night,” he finally says, like that's the weirdest thing about this situation. “Everyone.”

“I would like to point out before we begin this conversation that you have zero legs to stand on, because you have been fighting with them for kind of a while now and never even teased me about getting me Steve's autograph.”

Matt takes his gloves off, lays them on the blanket next to him. “You don't like knowing what I do. You accept me, and I'm grateful for that, I can never tell you how much, but whenever it gets specific, you're unhappy.”

“Did you think that maybe telling me you have some backup now might help?”

“No.” Matt's frowning, and Foggy's almost relieved that he's wearing the mask. It's a lot more pathetic when he can see Matt's whole face. “You still haven't told me how you know them. Movie night … were you lying about your friend Sam?”

“You would know if I was,” Foggy points out. Sometimes he's a little petty, sue him. “I just might have kind of left out the thing where my friend Sam is Sam Wilson, and he introduced me to some of his co-workers.”

Matt is fiddling with his gloves. “He talked about a friend—they all did. They didn't use your name, though. I didn't connect the dots. I should have. You could have … why didn't you tell me?” Foggy takes a breath, and Matt shakes his head. “I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong, I just want to know.”

“A lot of reasons, I don't know. It was all kind of weird and surreal and you weren't telling me so I wasn't telling you, which I realize is immature, but there it is.” Foggy starts going through the basket, just for something to do with his hands. Wine they definitely can't afford, sandwiches, brownies. A small box of condoms tucked discreetly in the bottom, but he isn't going to tell Matt that. “Plus, just so I don't sound like a complete asshole, they don't know who you are. If you didn't want to tell them I didn't want to make it easier to put the pieces together.”

“If I'd known they were people you could trust, I might have told them.” Matt must smell the sandwiches, because he reaches forward and feels around a little bit until he gets one out.

“You were protecting me.”

“You don't want to be involved.”

“You didn't exactly give me a chance to be after I found out.” Matt winces, and Foggy waits to see if he's going to recover from that, fight back. Matt's good in a debate, but he isn't trying very hard. Maybe because they've got no idea what they're debating. “Do I want to know about every punch you throw? Jeez, no. But things like allies, general outlines … yeah. Daredevil is kind of a huge part of your life, buddy. We're going to run out of things to talk about if you don't share.”

Matt makes no moves to eat his sandwich, just stares at his lap. The mask is weird. It makes Foggy forget that Matt can't actually see the sandwich, just kind of smell its shape and components. “I'm sorry.”

“We've both kind of been assholes about it,” Foggy says, because he's willing to be the bigger man. “But that's what blind dates are for, right? Getting to know people? Maybe we could stand a little of that.”

“A date.” Matt finally smiles a little. “How did you get talked into this, anyway?”

“Me? How about you? She must have been working on you for weeks, you're the most stubborn asshole in the city.” Matt doesn't answer, and Foggy shrugs. Apparently he's taking the lead on this whole conversation. “She thought I might be lonely, once the Avengers don't have to be in New York anymore, and said a boyfriend might help.” And she wants him to stop pining over Matt, and that would be really funny if it didn't make him want to beat his head against a wall.

“She said I was lonely too, and then said she knew someone who was funny and smart and … well, I wasn't expecting you.”

There is more to that sentence that Matt isn't saying, but Foggy isn't going to push him right now. “Believe me, I wasn't expecting you either. Though in retrospect I really should have been. So let's eat sandwiches and drink wine and talk about your vigilante activities, and if it gets really awkward I'll go downstairs and get the terrible cheap stuff that will actually get us drunk.”

Matt's mouth goes kind of lopsided, trying to smile and not quite getting there. “Like a date?”

“Unless you want to tell Natasha who you are tonight, yeah.” Matt's stiffening up again, and Foggy sighs. “You've been on dates. They are hanging out with kissing at the end if they go well, and we don't have to go that far.”

Matt relaxes, but it takes a second. “Okay. We can do that. As long as you don't mind.”

“Why would I mind? Tell me all about how you got into vigilante justice, Daredevil, since we've clearly never met before.”

Matt smiles, and Foggy breathes out. It's going to be an awkward night, and he has no idea what they're going to tell Natasha tomorrow, but they can do this. They've done worse.

*

“So how was the date?” Sam asks the next day over lunch, a rare one with just the two of them. “Natasha was feeling pretty smug. She says there's chemistry.” Sam wiggles his eyebrows. “Maybe Daredevil rescued you one time and you're feeling grateful?”

“Gross, I am not a silent movie heroine. And it went ...” Foggy's had worse dates, that's the surprising thing. It was he and Matt hanging out like normal but talking about the things they haven't really had the chance to discuss since Foggy found out Matt was the Devil. He asked at the end of the night what they were going to tell Natasha, and Matt said they could say they were going to have another date, until they figure out how to explain everything to the Avengers. Matt was even smiling when he said it. “Well. It went well.”

Sam grins and shakes his head. “Don't tell her that, man, she'll never stop and I'm pretty sure I'm next on the list, since she and Steve have reached some kind of truce.”

Foggy shrugs. “I'm not promising anything. But I've had way worse dates.”

“And you're feeling better about Matt?” That's careful, because Sam's less of an asshole when pried away from his teammates.

“Yeah. Surprisingly, a lot better.”

*

Well, here's a fill for you. I hope you enjoy!

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4331211

Still giggling madly about everything about this.

I was going to pull out my favourite lines and squeal over them, but it wound up being a third of the update, soooo... let me just say YAY and inform you that I am (very quietly, because I am at work) SQUEALING.

He really does. =)

(No, it's cool! BE is a thousand times more common - there's like 10 of us Aussies on the meme - so how were you to know? And it might not be? I'd argue for it spelt that way but I've also been hanging out in British fandoms for years so that's probably influenced my word choice. Figuring out what is me and what is my language is a bit hard.)

Thanks! Actual part up in the next few days, hopefully.

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Page 183 of 209

Prompt Post #4

[Fill] A Sudden Burst Of Sunlight (& Me With My Umbrella) , 3a/4

Re: [Fill] A Sudden Burst Of Sunlight (& Me With My Umbrella) , 3b/4

Re: what about them? i'm all about them (4/?)

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication [Interlude]

Re: [Fill] A Sudden Burst Of Sunlight (& Me With My Umbrella) , 3a/4

Re: [Fill] A Sudden Burst Of Sunlight (& Me With My Umbrella) , 3b/4

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 3/?

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication [Interlude]

Re: The Devil's Due Part 1.4

Re: The Devil's Due Part 2.1

Re: Applied Contract Law, 4/?

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

Re: [Fill] A Sudden Burst Of Sunlight (& Me With My Umbrella) , 3b/4

FILL: A World of Emotions (4a/?)

FILL: A World of Emotions (4b/?)

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

Re: [FILL] Requiem Æternam [Part 2.2]

Re: Fill: Matt and Thor (or Matt/Thor)

FILL: Matt/Karen: "Looks Like You've Got Some Anger Issues"

[FILL] Any Possible Similarity (5/?)

Re: Daredevil/Sentinel crossover

Re: [FILL] Any Possible Similarity (5/?)

Re: [FILL] Any Possible Similarity (5/?)

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication 3/?

Re: Fill: Clear and Honest Communication [Interlude]