daredevilkink | Prompt Post #4

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Prompt Post #4

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It’s not a gunshot that finally snaps him, or a scream, not a backfiring car or voices. Not Foggy’s coffee cup shattering, or the papers it was balanced on fluttering down; not the overpowering smell of coffee leaching into linoleum, the subtle change in the floor’s texture that he knows will last as long as any visible stain, that he’ll be able to feel even if they cover it with a rug. It’s not the stilted drip of the loose pipe in the basement, the lingering sick-sweet taste of mildew slugging it out with the acrid burn of bleach.

It’s a text notification on Karen’s fucking phone: sudden and cheery and not even all that loud, halfway between a beep and a ding, and it jars Matt straight out of focus and straight into a doorframe. He can almost hear his thin veneer of equilibrium shatter like an eggshell, and it’s all he can do to stagger into his office and slam the door behind him. Huddles on the floor, shoulder to the wall--far to the side, where he’ll be out of sight, at least--fumbling his headphones on, turning up the music as high as he can stand--doesn’t remember the band, doesn’t matter, something with a steady beat, loud and complex to push the rest of the cacophony to the background. Buries his face in his sleeves: the familiar textures, the smell of his detergent. Shifts his weight back and forth in a subtle way he refuses to let turn into rocking. Tries to focus.

He’s not sure how long it’s been when he hears his office door open, then close again. For a moment he’s terrified that it might be Karen, but the smell and steps are Foggy’s, and it’s Foggy who crouches down next to him, puts a hand on Matt’s shoulder. Matt tenses and starts to apologize, but the hand stays, still and steady, until he starts to relax into it and Foggy pulls him into something sort of like a hug, guides Matt’s head, and Matt has the presence of mind to palm his glasses before burying his face against Foggy’s shoulder.

“Hey, buddy,” says Foggy.

“Hey,” echoes Matt. Foggy’s suit smells like wool and dry-cleaning chemicals and salt-and-vinegar potato chips and Foggy, and just a hint of Karen’s perfume. “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know what the hell is going on with me today.” He wishes he could let it sit, but he owes Foggy something, some explanation: a small penance for all the things he isn’t going to tell, and all the questions Foggy hasn’t asked. Yet.

“It’s cool,” says Foggy. His heartbeat is strong and even, and Matt can feel the edge of his vest under his jacket, hear its slick lining shift against the fibers of the shirt when Foggy breathes.

“I freaked Karen out,” says Matt. It’s not a question. He knows what it looks like--what people say it looks like--what Foggy says it looks like--and even through the door and the headphones and the bassline loud enough that he could feel it vibrating through his jaw, Matt could hear her heartbeat, hear her asking: Is he okay? He’d tried not to listen to Foggy’s answers. Not like he doesn’t know the script by now, anyway; but that doesn’t mean he wants to hear it play out.

“Little bit, buddy,” says Foggy. There’s no reproach in his voice. They’ve done this dance before, and Foggy knows Matt knows how it plays to an audience well enough that he’ll know if Foggy lies.

“It’s not her fault,” Matt says. “You told her that, right?” It’s Matt’s fault for not anticipating this, because it’s fine with Foggy, but he’s used to Foggy. He’s so used to Foggy that he’s forgotten to account for how used to Foggy he is, and now everyone’s paying for his mistake.

Karen is--Karen is fine, really. If Matt’s going to be honest, the problem isn’t Karen so much as that Karen isn’t Foggy. Karen doesn’t set her phone alerts with Matt in mind. Why should she? Karen stacks papers with an abrupt rap against her desk. Karen asks and asks if he’s okay when he jumps or retreats, and the way she closes doors isn’t conditioned from years of sharing a room with a guy with superhuman senses. Every minute she’s in the office is a laundry list of things Matt realizes he’s been taking for granted, habits and quirks Foggy has quietly adopted over the years they’ve been together; the million small ways he accommodates Matt as a matter of course. The problem isn’t Karen. The problem is Matt. The problem is always Matt.

“Yeah,” says Foggy. “I told her. She still feels bad, though.”

“I’m sorry,” says Matt, again. He’s sorry for a lot of things, and the biggest one is that he’s not sure where to even start the list. “I’m really fine,” he repeats.

“I know,” says Foggy.

Matt pulls back, leans his head against the wall: the subtle grate of his hair against the rough plaster, the chemical tang of the paint. He’s been thinking about that lately, wondering if he can learn to pick out paint colors by the chemicals in the pigments. “I should apologize to Karen.”

“Yeah, probably,” says Foggy. He runs a hand through his hair. “You know what you’re apologizing for?”

“Freaking out,” says Matt. He can tell from Foggy’s sigh that it’s the wrong answer. “Freaking her out?”

“Warmer,” says Foggy, and Matt’s heart sinks.

“Please don’t make me do this.”

“You could always fire her,” says Foggy. Matt knows he doesn’t mean it, that this is an object lesson, and he bristles; but the fact that Foggy’s being a sanctimonious goddamn preschool teacher about it doesn’t make him wrong.

“I’ll--talk to her,” says Matt. “I’ll apologize.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” says Foggy. “Talk to her. Tell her what to fix.” Foggy wraps his arm back around Matt’s shoulders, and Matt leans in without thinking. “You’re not the most intuitive crayon in the box, buddy.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Matt snaps. He knows he’s deflecting, but right now, that’s all he’s got. “What am I supposed to tell her?”

“To change her text alert?” Foggy suggests. “To take out the trash after lunch and stop doing that thing with the click pen?”

Matt grimaces. “Am I that obvious?” Sometimes, alone in his apartment, Matt practices smiles and frowns, tracing his hands across his mouth, his forehead, his eyes, and trying to match the muscles with what he can remember from the mirror. He’s felt his face grow longer, more angular; felt lines etch themselves in over time; and it bothers him that he doesn’t know how much each expression still matches what he imagines it to be.

“Yeah, buddy,” says Foggy, and Matt can hear the sad smile. “You’re that obvious.”

“I wish I knew what your face looked like,” Matt tells Foggy. “I wish I knew what my face looked like.” Foggy isn’t even a faded-photograph memory, just a collection of smells and sounds. His face is a contour map of something beyond sight, the memory of skin and flesh under Matt’s fingertips. Foggy’s smile is a change in the timbre of his voice, the pitch of his breath.

He’s expecting Foggy to make the Harrison Ford crack, like he does every time. Instead, Foggy’s arm tightens around Matt’s shoulders, and he says, “I know,” and Matt can feel his chest rise and fall, hear the vest lining swish with a million microscopic snags that scrape like velcro as he sighs.

The sounds and smells are starting to make sense again, falling into place and blending into their usual ambient blur. It’s an exhausted high, like coming out the other end of a migraine, everything a little too crisp and brittle. Matt reorients gingerly, disengages. Slips his glasses back on, and feels Foggy shift back to give him room to stand.

“You okay, buddy?” Foggy asks, again.

Matt runs a knuckle over the head of his cane, feels the vibrations, the carpet under his shoes, the currents in the air. Desk, two steps to the left; door, left and three steps back; and beyond, Karen, trying to focus on paperwork, heartbeat a little too fast, breath catching a little in her throat.

“Yeah,” he tells Foggy. “I’m good.”

Awwwwww! Poor Matt, so brittle! Man, I was so pleased to see this prompt, and I'm so happy with this fill. You wrote Matt reaching the end of his rope beautifully. I love how Foggy was able to calm him down and recenter him!

This was wonderful, anon. I loved it.

Oh man, this is perfect in every way. And Foggy just takes it in stride because he's probably seen this happen to Matt a million times at this point. <3

Oooh, this was really, really goood~ <3

Do I detect elements of autistic!Matt...?

(author!anon)

You do, indeed.

da. I am VERY pleased that autistic!Matt is becoming more common in this fandom, yay!

Oh my gosh, I love this so much. Foggy is so great.

Aw yes. Beautiful. Autistic Matty hints. LOVELY FOGGY.

(And I'm not just saying I love this because I'm exactly the same. I literally jump when noises happen. I've nearly fallen out of chairs. My senses aren't quite superhuman, but they're up there.)

Will you put this up on Ao3 too? :>

(auth!anon)

Probably not. It's a little more, um, personally allegorical than I usually prefer to go anywhere I'm not totally anonymous.

I'm probably too paranoid about that, but.

You could post it under the anonymousdaredevils account on AO3? I think the password is secretidentity, and it was created for that very reason, so that people can post stuff on AO3 without having to de-anon.

(auth!anon)

I'd still rather not. Sorry!

Oh, my god, as someone with sensory issues who has done this EXACT THING over really objectively minor shit, this is just amazing.

I also love Foggy and Matt's banter, the way Foggy is gentle with him but doesn't let him get away with shit. Amazing.

Ooooh I would love to read that conversation!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Prompt Post #4

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