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daredevilkink2015-06-22 07:24 pm
ddk_mod) wrote in daredevilkink2015-06-22 07:24 pm
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Prompt Post #4
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Fill: All Our Yesteryears [13/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 10:36 am (UTC)(link)***
56.
It's a bright and beautiful early summer day and Foggy has to squint in the sun. God, his suit is the least suitable thing to wear, he's going to boil alive. He lets go of Jack's hand for a moment and takes off his suit jacket; he hesitates for a moment before thinking, well fuck it, and tying it around his waist. He's not going back to the office today anyway.
He grabs Jack's hand again, and remembers something. "Shit." He uses his free hand to fumble for his pocket and fish out his phone. He gives it to Jack. "Text your mum and tell her that you're not dead and with me."
"Okay!" Jack lets go of Foggy's hand, takes the phone and stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Foggy shows him how to open a blank text message and Jack starts typing, fully concentrated and biting his tongue so hard it must hurt. Foggy waits patiently for him to be done. "Done!"
Foggy takes back the phone and Jack slips his hand into Foggy's again. Foggy squeezes; the office building might not be far from Central Park, but Foggy will be damned before he lets Jack out of his sight or treats him with less than full attention. He has Daredevil on Google alerts now, he knows all about the shit that happens in New York on a pretty much daily basis.
"So," he says, "swings?"
Jack swings their joined hands. "Swings," he replies. "And could we get ice cream later?"
"Ice cream, sure thing." Foggy smiles. "There's this guy who sells great ice cream in the park. But what about dinner? You said your parents won't pick you up until the evening."
"Grandpa was gonna take me to dinner, but I don't want to." Jack looks up at Foggy. "I want to go with you."
Foggy squeezes Jack's hand again, but this time it's more about conveying a sudden surge of deep feeling — of love, damn it — and less about making sure Jack doesn't get hit by a car. "We can grab a pizza," he says. Then remembers Matt's particular brand of hate towards most junk food, even pizza at times. Perhaps it got worse with age. Perhaps poor Jack is on a strictly fresh-and-natural diet. "Is pizza okay with your parents?"
"It is at sleepovers," Jack replies.
"We're not having a sleepover."
"If we go to your home and take a nap there, it's almost like a sleepover!" Jack grins. "And then we can have pizza!"
Foggy grins back. He cannot help it. "That's a very compelling argument, Mr. Murdock. You definitely are being raised by lawyers."
57.
"When I was younger," Foggy says as he pushes the swing on which Jack sits and giggles like a maniac, "I used to close my eyes when I was swinging. It made me feel like I could fly."
"Like Mr. Sam can fly?"
Foggy assumes he means that winged Avenger, Falcon. "A bit, yeah," he says. "It felt as if I could touch the sky. And when you can do that, everything else is possible too. Anything you want. Higher, further, faster, more."
"More," Jackie repeats quietly and closes his eyes. On the next particularly high upswing, he reaches his hand out into the brilliant blue.
58.
They get the ice cream. Foggy gets a chocolate one for himself and is surprised when Jack asks for plain vanilla. To each his own. He pays for the cones and they move to a bench under a tree, at least it provides some shadow and that's useful now, because Jack doesn't have a cap and Foggy has learnt enough about sunstrokes while living in Cali to be wary forever.
"Why not a chocolate cone?" Foggy asks eventually, because damn, it's eating at him. There were so many different flavours, some that Foggy is sure don't even exist in nature. And the kid settled for the most boring one. It's almost shameful. Foggy thinks about taking Jack out for proper ice cream tasting with at least forty flavours to choose from and then thinks, oh.
"We have chocolate at home," Jack explains. "But Daddy doesn't like vanilla. We never have that."
Well, that does sound like something that might happen to Matt. "Your dad's weird."
"Yup!" Jackie nods enthusiastically and licks the rim of his waffle. "But I like him."
Foggy smiles into his ice cream. "Me too."
59.
Jack sits on Foggy's much more comfortable sofa right next to his Iron Man backpack and looks around the bare room curiously. There are two cardboard boxes standing by the wall, and in those, most things that Foggy owns and which are not strictly necessary in everyday life so he won't need them in this next week. Two boxes. Add to that a couple of boxes with his clothes and personal effects, and he'll be moving with six altogether. That's actually kind of some, when he thinks about it. The apartment isn't his, it's the company's, but he didn't bring anything of his here. No knick-knacks, no dumb decorative things that only gather dust. Forget about any pictures. For the past seven months this place looked more like Matt's old Hell's Kitchen apartment than any other house that he's lived in before.
He wasn't sure he liked it, exactly.
"Pizza will be here in half an hour," he tells Jack and sits down next to him on the sofa. For that, the Iron Man backpack has to be moved to the floor. "If you wanna take that nap now, we could still claim this was a sleepover."
"Shh." Jack presses a finger to his lips. "No one will no we didn't nap if you don't tell."
"I won't," Foggy leans in and whispers his promise. Jack smiles brightly. "I don't have any games here," Foggy says as he straightens. "I, uh, don't usually have kids over."
"You don't have kids?"
Foggy blinks. He didn't expect that. "No," he says. Well, he doesn't. Thought about it, once upon a time. But. He left. Ella didn't want any. He and Ella split. He hasn't thought about it in years. "I have Netflix."
Jack laughs, arches himself into the sofa and giggles, tries to cover his mouth with his hands to hide the sound.
"No, seriously, I have Netflix." Foggy laughs too. To be honest, he also has his PlayStation, but most of the games he owns are not suitable for a five-year-old. "We can watch something. What's your favourite film?"
Jack jumps up on the sofa and ends up kneeling on it. "Lilo and Stitch!" Foggy doesn't know that one, which is what he tells the kid. Jack gets even more excited. "It has aliens and surfing, and it's in Hawaii and Grandpa wants to take us to Hawaii this year!"
"Hawaii and surfing, huh?" Foggy says as he searches through the Netflix database. It's--it's an animated film. Oh. Of course it's an animated film, Jack is a five-year-old.
"And aliens," Jack nods. "And Elvis."
"Well, I happen to quite like Elvis," Foggy says and puts on the film. He leans back on the sofa and Jack wriggles close to him, presses into his side, puts his head on Foggy's chest and sighs.
Instinctively, Foggy wraps an arm around him.
60.
"It's my birthday next Saturday," Jack tells him when they eat their pizza. Jack shrugged when Foggy asked about his favourite one and said that he liked trying new things. So Foggy got his favourite one. Hawaiian, with extra pineapple. It's a blessing that Jack has a far superior taste in pizzas to his father, who has always claimed that only crazy people and masochists mixed pineapple with tomato sauce and ham. Well, joke's on you, Murdock. Jack not only doesn't complain, but seems to love it.
"You'll be officially five?" Jack nods. "Five is a very good age. Cherish it before you get old, young man."
"We're having a picnic in the park," Jack tells him. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and leans in "You'll come."
Foggy frowns. It wasn't exactly a question. "I will?"
Jack nods again. "Please? I want you to come."
Foggy puts his plate down. It'll be mere three days before he's out of the company and, ergo, the company flat. That's not a lot of time. "There's still some packing I'll have to do..." he tells Jack, waving his hand at the boxes around them, and trails off when Jack's face falls. "But I wouldn't miss it for the world. Thank you for inviting me. Now I'll have to spend the next week figuring out how to out-present your parents."
Jack smiles, but it's not his usual bright and happy smile, it's more subdued. Sadder. Foggy doesn't know how to make it better.
61.
A house in the film explodes and they have to pause it. Kirsten calls, telling Foggy that someone will be at his place to pick Jack up in about fifteen minutes. Thanks him for taking care of her son for most of the day. Curses her father in very colourful words.
Not a chore, Foggy says. Love the kid.
It's not even just a phrase. He means it.
"Wanna watch the rest of the film?" Foggy asks as he plops back down next to Jack.
Jack is sitting cross-legged and is picking on the hem of his T-shirt. Uh, oh. Foggy knows that action, he knows what it means. Jack is picking on his T-shirt and is throwing glances at Foggy's boxes. "Are you leaving?"
Foggy sighs. He wasn't planning on doing this now. "Yes," he admits nevertheless.
"Why?" Jack looks at him. "We're here."
"It's--complicated." It's not something he can explain to a five-year-old. Maybe one day, when Jack is older, Matt will tell him their whole complicated story. Maybe he'll understand it then.
Jack makes an angry face. "Is Grandpa making you leave?"
"No!" Foggy assures him. Crap, the last thing he needs is to make Jack think his grandfather is the bad guy here. "No, Jack, he isn't. He doesn't want me to leave at all. It's my decision."
"I don't want you to leave either." Jack's expression turns sad again and he lowers his eyes. "Why is everyone leaving? Kate's leaving too... It's not fair."
We don't live in a world that's fair. We live in this one.
Well damn.
"I'm sorry," Foggy says quietly. "But sometimes... Sometimes it's better if people go, you know?"
"No, it's not." Jack wipes his arm across his face. Great. Foggy made him cry. As if he needed any extra asshole points. "Family isn't supposed to leave."
Foggy has nothing to say to that.
They sit in silence for a while and then the doorbell of Foggy's apartment rings. Jack wipes at his face again and moves off the sofa, puts his backpack on. Foggy goes answer the door and is only mildly surprised when he sees Matt standing at his door. Well. Kirsten didn't say she would come to pick the kid up. God damn you, Kirsten, and your meddling ways.
"Hey," Matt says with a small, strained smile. Fuck it, he probably heard too. This is what happens when you work for someone's father-in-law. "I heard my kid's here."
"Yeah." Foggy is about to let Matt in and offer something to drink, when Jack appears behind him.
"Can we go?" he asks his father. He sounds sad.
"Sure," Matt says, sounding confused. Must have picked up on that sad tone. Can he smell tears? "What--"
"Lilo and Stitch," Foggy murmurs. Matt actually makes an understanding noise at that. "He told me that Kate's leaving?"
"School," Matt says. He takes Jack's hand. "West Coast."
"Ah." Foggy shifts his weight and Matt starts. "Matt, do you still have my stuff in storage?"
Matt frowns. "What?"
"Karen said that you cleaned out my old apartment and that you've put my stuff in storage," Foggy explains. "I was wondering if you still have it there? There are a few things I'd like to get back."
Matt lets out a small laugh. "Yeah, I do." He shakes his head. "Sorry. I should have given you the key earlier, it just--it didn't occur to me that you'd like it back. I forgot. Sorry. I'll have someone drop it by your office."
"Thanks." He looks at Jack. "The birthday picnic next Saturday...? I was invited."
"It'll be great if you come."
Jack lets go of Matt's hand and moves quickly to hug Foggy. Foggy drops to his knees to be at eye level with him and allows the kid to wrap his arms around his neck.
"I'll miss you lots and lots," Jack whispers into Foggy's ear. They both know Matt can hear it, but he tactfully pretends he doesn't.
Foggy presses a kiss to Jack's temple and squeezes him tight. He ruffles his black hair and stands up, pushes Jack back at Matt.
"I'll see you on Saturday," Matt says.
Jack waves at him. Foggy waves back. "Yeah," he says. "Saturday."
62.
He plays the rest of the film.
It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.
He turns the TV off. He sits in complete silence for good ten minutes before fumbling for his phone and brings up sent messages. He immediately recognises Jack's, it's written in all caps and sometimes spelt badly.
IM NOT DED. IN PARK WITH UNCLE FRANKLIN SWINGING. LOVE YU DADDY
Foggy blinks. Then he blinks again, and checks the recipient's phone number. Yeah, it's Matt's alright. So much for texting mum.
Foggy scrolls back to the message and stares at the 'uncle Franklin', all caps. He sighs. Stares some more. Turns off his phone, rests his head against the backrest of the sofa, and sighs again.
63.
There's a knock on his office door.
"I know, Jason, you want me to go," Foggy says, not bothering to look up from the contract he's reviewing. It's hardly the first time the janitor comes around to remind him that the office does have closing hours. "But for the next five days it's still my office, you can't throw me out."
"Is someone trying to throw you out? Bad workplace manners."
At that Foggy does look up. Matt's standing in the doorway of his office, leaning against the doorframe with a grin.
"Matt!" Foggy shakes his head. "What are you doing here?"
Matt shows him his hand. There's something dangling off his index finger. "I brought you your keys," he says. "Technically my keys, I'm paying for the storage, but it's your stuff."
Matt walks into the office and puts the keys down on Foggy's desk. He doesn't leave, though; he pushes the chair opposite Foggy back and plops down onto it. He turns his head around, assessing the space. "I've never been in this building before, can you imagine."
"It's not exactly en route to anywhere for you," Foggy points out, "so I can."
"You quit the job."
Foggy sets his documents aside. "I did. I grew to hate it. It's hardly law."
Matt hums. "I'm glad," he says. "I never really saw you as a corporate douchebag sitting behind a desk and reviewing variations of the same document over and over again."
Foggy snorts. "You see shit, buddy."
"True that." He taps his cane on the floor. "What are you going to do now?"
"A friend would now tell me that he could always use some extra help around," Foggy jokes.
Matt grimaces. "We're--not friends, Foggy," he says. "I don't know what we are, but we're hardly the same people we were."
Foggy nods. "I told your wife the same thing," he tells Matt. Stretches in his goddamn uncomfortable chair. Not long now, not long. "A former colleague of mine opened a practice in downtown San Fran. He says he'd be happy to have me."
"So you're going back to the West Coast."
"Most likely. It'll be for the best. This," Foggy gestures around the room, then between Matt and himself, "is kind of awkward. Too much bad history that we can't just ignore and get over."
"Not all of it was bad," Matt says quietly. He runs a hand over his eyes tiredly. "You don't have to disappear, you know?"
"What do you mean?"
Fill: All Our Yesteryears [14/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 10:36 am (UTC)(link)"Does he really?" Foggy asks.
A smile tugs at the corners of Matt's mouth. "So he tells me. You don't have to disappear from our lives completely. Don't be a stranger, Foggy. My father-in-law lives in San Francisco, we've been known to visit from time to time. Jack'll miss you when you leave. And I--" Matt trails off.
"You what, Matt?" Foggy asks. God, he's tired. "As you said, we're not really friends. We don't know each other anymore."
"We don't. But that doesn't mean--" Matt pauses again. He licks his lips and seems to weigh his words carefully. "But I'd like to get to know you again. If you're willing to try, that is."
Foggy blinks, surprised. Matt has a carefully built neutral expression on his face and is trying very hard not to look like he cares overly about Foggy's answer. But he's sitting on the edge of the chair and the anticipation radiates off him in waves.
"You're serious," Foggy says. He doesn't have to ask if Matt's serious, the answer to that he can read in Matt's posture.
"Yes," Matt says nevertheless. "If you'd like."
"I--" Foggy takes a deep breath. "Yes, yes of course I'd like that."
"Great," Matt says with a smile. He puts his cane away and leans across Foggy's desk with his hand outstretched. "Hi. I'm Matt Murdock."
Foggy looks at Matt's hand and then at the expectant face that Matt makes. He laughs. He takes Matt's hand and Matt squeezes, and doesn't flinch at the feels of Foggy's rough skin and misshapen fingers next to his.
"Foggy Nelson," Foggy says. Matt doesn't let go. If he holds Foggy's hand for longer than necessary, or if his smile is a bit too bright, neither mentions anything. "And for the record," Foggy adds, "you're still a really, really good-looking guy."
64.
Matt leaves and Foggy stays in his office, putting away the papers he's dealt with, pushing the ones that still some work on to the front. A folded piece of paper falls out of the pile that he took care of last Friday. Foggy bends and picks it up, unfolds it. It's--it's a drawing. Jack must have left it here, and Foggy suddenly realises what was it that Jack shoved between his things when he came back to the office.
He straightens the paper. It's a drawing alright. Three brownish blobs on short legs are standing on a meadow and are holding hands, the one in between substantially smaller than the other two.
DADDY JACK UNCLE FRANKLIN
Foggy frowns. It's clear what Jack wanted to draw, but he's not exactly sure why they're portrayed as brownish pear-shaped blobs when Jack can draw--
He almost drops the picture when it hits him. Avocados. The kid drew them as avocados.
Fucking hell.
Then he realises that he never told Jack that particular story. They never told it to anyone, not even Karen. It was a private inside joke. And that means--
Fucking. Hell. Fucking hell, he loves them, those two dumb avocados, both of them. Then he realises that he does. Love them, that is. He does. Shit, he does love them. The only and closest family he's had for years.
There's a tiny thought eating at the back of his mind.
It's probably infinitely selfish.
But he wants to fight for them.
He wants to try.
Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [14/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 11:55 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [14/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)Jack, youa re a sweetheart!
Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [14/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [14/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-10 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)"Sorry, this content isn't available right now" boooo
Fill: All Our Yesteryears [15/?]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-15 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)Foggy goes to the storage locker after work. He finds the right container and opens it, and shit, Karen wasn't joking when she said that she and Matt packed all his stuff. It's all there's, the whole space is filled with dusty cardboard boxes. They're even labeled, in Karen's tidy and compressed script. Clothes, says one box. Games, another. Kitchen stuff and bedroom closet and living room shelves. Matt kept it all these years. He and Karen put it here and then he'd kept the storage space rented, kept the key, almost as if he kept hoping.
Maybe one day Foggy will even give himself time to feel properly grateful, and to go through all these things to decide what he truly wants to keep, which parts of the life that is over and is gone are worth holding on to.
But it's not today. Today he's stayed at work longer than necessary and he made a promise to his friend — and it was a promise, and Matt was his friend, and it could all work out in the end, perhaps, if he tried, if he tried and fought for it — and he was tired but happy, and there was only one thing he was looking for anyway.
One small shoebox labeled ‘Columbia 2010-2013’.
He finds it at the bottom of the big ‘bedroom closet’ box. He takes to shoebox out, lifts the lid and peeks inside. Yup, everything seems to be there, all the shit that he’s accumulated. Good. He’ll need it. He puts the lid back down and the box under his arm, shoves the key back into the keyhole and closes the door behind him.
Everything else that’s in there will just have to wait for a more convenient time. For now, he has work to do.
66.
Back at his apartment — he somehow cannot force himself to call it ‘home’, it’s not home, it’s never been home, home was not a place, it was the people you loved who constituted that and Foggy hasn’t had that for a long, long time – he starts up his laptop and opens up his Facebook, looks at his friends list and the names of people he hasn’t seen in years.
He flexes his fingers and sets them on the keyboard.
This better be fucking worth it.
67.
Saturday rolls around before Foggy even has a chance to notice. Most of his cases and contracts are wrapped up and waiting to be signed or passed on to his successor, who still hasn’t been named, but Foggy is fairly sure it’ll be Alana. His office has been cleared out; he’s still coming in to work on Monday — his last day, and he did hear some hushed talks of the dumb interns throwing a little celebratory party, Christ, he’s never had anyone be happy about him leaving before — but just for a few hours, and then he’ll be finally and officially gone.
It probably shouldn’t feel liberating, but it does.
“You made it, you made it, you maaade it!”
A black-and-blue blur collides with him and Foggy lets out an oof! Before looking down at the mop of black hair somewhere at the level of his waist. The black mop is connected to a head is connected to a five-year-old body of a little boy, who currently has his hands wrapped around him and is lifting his face up to look at Foggy. Jack smiles wide and happy and looks Goddamn delighted.
“I knew you’d make it,” he tells Foggy. “Aunt Marci said you wouldn’t, and Mummy said you might be busy, but we knew you’d come.”
“We?” Foggy asks. He bends on one knee, lets jack wrap his arms around his neck. He scoops Jack into his arms and lifts him up, and Jack clings to him like an octopus, settles comfortably against his shoulder and doesn’t let go. Foggy could get used to that.
“Daddy and I,” Jack tells him. “We knew.”
Foggy is even less than deserving of the faith Matt apparently has in him, but the knowledge that it’s there warms him nonetheless.
“So that’s two beers that Marci owes me and Karen,” Kirsten tells him when he walks up to what used to be a picnic table, but is now just a giant pile of birthday presents. She grins and pecks him on the cheek. “Put it here with the rest of the things we don’t have the space for at home,” she tells him after he manages to fish out a wrapped present out of his bag without having to put Jack down.
Foggy takes note of all the other presents; most of them are giant boxes, some almost as tall as Jack himself is. Foggy’s present pales when compared with that, just a simple book-sized box wrapped in dinosaur-print paper. Nothing fancy. Nothing mind-numbingly expensive. Foggy steps in place, shifts his weight uncomfortably. Perhaps he should have gone with the toys he’d checked out at the story after all.
“Matt’s over there with the grownups,” Kirsten points at the second picnic table, not far from them. “I’m on the kid meet and greet duty today. We drew lots,” she adds and winks.
“That’s Dani,” Jack whispers in Foggy’s ear and points at a small Black girl in a yellow dress, her curly black hair in two pigtails. She’s chasing a boy perhaps a year older than Jack around the immediate area. “And that’s Nate. That’s Sarah and Lewis, and those are Katie and Jack, we go to school together.”
“Another Jack, huh?” Foggy laughs. “Which one of these wild kids is your best friend?”
“That’s Greg,” Jack tells him, ”but he’s not here. I don’t know if he was invited.” Jack makes a sad face. “I think Daddy is still angry that we blew up our last home with Greg and his dad.”
Something clicks in Foggy’s mind. He remembers Jack telling him about his friend Greg and his friend’s Greg’s crazy father. He also distinctly remembers Matt telling him something about his last apartment being blown up by kids—and about Tony Stark babysitting at the time…?
“Wait a moment.” Foggy cranes his head back and looks square at Jack. “Are you telling me that your best friend is Tony Stark’s kid?”
“Yes?” Jack blinks at him, and then whips his head to the side. “He’s here!”
Foggy puts him down and Jack immediately runs off. And true, Foggy sees a red-haired boy no older than Jack — probably his age, to be honest — accompanied by an equally red-haired and sharply dressed woman whom Foggy recognizes as Virginia Potts solely because they were introduced by Wendell once. Virginia Potts walks up to Kirsten and they start talking, while Jack and the boy — Greg, his name is Greg — fall into each other’s arms, start giggling and then run to join the other children.
Foggy shakes his head fondly and resumes his walk to the ‘grownups table’ as Kirsten put it. The spawn of Tony Stark, the same Tony Stark that Matt used to curse at least weekly for good measure. Who would have thought.
“Damn,” Marci says when she notices him. “You couldn’t have stayed home like a good repentant man that you are?”
“Hello to you too, Marci,” Foggy greets her warmly. It’s a beautiful day, the sun is out, it’s warm, he’s casually dressed and in the park, Jack was delighted to see him and apparently there’s a still a tiny part in Matt that refuses to give up believing in him. It’s a wonderful day and nothing can ruin that. “I didn’t think a kid’s birthday party was your sort of an event.”
Matt snorts. He’s sitting on the picnic table, guarding — at least it looks like he’s guarding it — a tourist fridge full of what Foggy hopes are beer bottles. Matt reaches into the fridge and takes out one bottle, yup, it’s beer, Matt’s favourite fancy Czech beer because God forbid Matt Murdock drank your usual pisswater. He offers the bottle to Foggy and Foggy takes it, grunting out his thanks.
“I’m not going to stay long,” Marci says, “but I couldn’t not come. It’s the whelp’s birthday party, not just any kid’s. God help me, but I love him. The one and only kid in existence that makes me want to aww.”
“He is very loveable,” Foggy agrees.
“Which means you cannot, in good conscience, judge me for any of this, Foggy-Bear.” Matt laughs at that and Marci punches him in the arm. “And you shut your face, Murdock, it’s all your fault anyway that your whelp is so cute and tiny.”
“Cute and tiny,” Matt wheezes out through the peals of laughter. He takes his glasses off and rubs at his eyes, wiping the tears away. “’Cute and tiny’, you’re never living this one down, Marci.”
“And this is my cue to leave.” She puts her hands on the table’s surface as if preparing to push herself off, but stops mid-motion. “But not before I see this one.”
Foggy turns around to see what caught Marci’s attention. Virginia Potts is walking towards their table, one hand on Greg Stark’s shoulder. Greg’s keeping his head down as if ashamed, and Jack is trailing a few paces behind them, looking worried.
“Hello, Matt,” Virginia Potts greets him when they stop in front of their table.
Matt smiles. “Hi, Pepper,” he says. “And Greg.”
Virginia Potts squeezes her son’s shoulder. “Gregory has something to say,” she announces. She pushes the boy towards Matt a little. “Greg?”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Greg Stark says to the tips of his sneakers, “Mr. Murdock.”
“And?” Virginia Potts prompts.
Greg swallows. “And I’m sorry for blowing up your apartment last year,” he says very quietly. “Dad is sorry too, but he won’t say, so I’m saying it. Sorry. Can I play with Jack now?”
Jack peeks out from behind Virginia. “Please, Daddy?” he adds.
Matt makes a half-miserable, half-teary face as if someone just punched him in all his most vulnerable feels. He runs a hand over his eyes. “Yes, of course you can go and play,” he tells Greg, who finally looks up from his shoes and smiles faintly at him. “And… Don’t worry about the apartment. It’s—It’s nothing. We were going to move anyway.”
“Thank you, Mr. Murdock!”
Greg Stark grabs Jack’s hand and they run towards a nearby playground. Foggy notices Dani and Nate breaking off from the bigger group and chasing after the two boys. Kids. Meanwhile, Virginia Potts exchanges her thanks and goodbyes with Matt and Marci, and then leaves them, heels somehow not getting stuck in the grass and ground. Foggy’s not surprised. Between making sure not one but two Starks didn’t blow up half of New York and running a company, she was a busy woman.
Marci’s snickering brings him back to reality. “You’re so soft, Murdock,” she says and shakes her head. “So soft. ‘Don’t worry, we were going to move’, seriously? He blew up your old place and yet you still invited him to the party? Who does that?”
Matt shrugs. “He’s Jack’s best friend, what was I supposed to do?” he asks. “It’s not like I can say anything about Jack’s strange tastes when it comes to best friends.”
Marci shakes her head again. “That you can’t,” she says and it sounds less like a well-meaning mockery and much more serious. “You are so fucking soft, Matt.”
“And this is your cue to leave.” Matt grins at her. “Thanks for the ship, it’s amazing, Jack loves it.”
“He better.” Marci kisses Matt’s cheek and gets off the table. She pats Foggy’s shoulder as she passes him by. “I’ll text you if I ever find myself in San Fran, we could go grab a drink or two or six, and then I could drag your drunk ass onto a boat and set it afloat in the ocean.”
“Charming as ever, I see.”
She smiles and actually leans in to kiss his cheek too. Foggy counts that perhaps not as a victory, but as a small indication that she could still forgive him one day. After she leaves, Matt pats the empty space on the table next to him, inviting Foggy to sit down. Which Foggy does. Matt clinks his beer bottle against Foggy’s.
“One hell of a birthday picnic,” Foggy says. Mentions his hand around. “Lots of people. All your friends? Or are some just the parents of Jack’s guests?”
“Some are both,” Matt clarifies. He starts pointing at people. “that’s Luke Cage, Dani’s father. Good guy, we sometimes team up, even though he’s insufferable when in the company of his best friend, Danny.”
“The ‘last year’s mysterious Halloween disaster’ Danny?” Foggy asks, remembering a piece of conversation he heard at Matt’s house.
Matt laughs. “Yeah. They—That’s a long story.” Foggy hums. Matt takes a sip of his beer and points at another person, “that’s Peter. He’s actually here only because he’s a great photographer and Karen’s too busy running around with a video camera. She’s obsessed with making videos, you should see the one she took of the wedding.”
“I’d love to see the video of your wedding,” Foggy says quietly.
Matt blinks. “Well,” he clears his throat, “you can ask Karen for it. She has the original unedited seven-hour-long video. Kirsten says it’s mad. Anyway,” he continues, “Kate Bishop you know. She brought Nate Barton to the party, because Clint’s busy. The Avengers got into another disaster somewhere in Australia.”
“She’s moving to the West Coast.”
“Yeah,” Matt nods. “Stanford, she got accepted there. Seems like everyone’s leaving for California lately.” Foggy opens his mouth to say something, tell Matt everything, but Kirsten walks up to the table and he shuts it without uttering a word.
She seats herself on the table next to Matt and puts her head on his shoulder. “This is officially everyone,” she tells Matt. “We’ll start opening presents any moment now, because I don’t know how much longer Karen will be able to keep that little abomination from running up to the kids.”
“Abomination?” Foggy asks.
Kirsten grins. “We got Jack a puppy,” she says. “It’s the most adorable and lively labradoodle I’ve ever seen and Matt hates it.”
“I don’t hate it,” Matt shoots immediately back. “It’s just--everywhere, I’ve already tripped over it twice at the office. It’s still better than the alternative, though.”
“Do I want to know what the alternative present was?”
“Jack wanted a puppy or a sister,” Kirsten tells Foggy. “We’ve decided that a puppy was less high-maintenance than a baby, so a puppy it is. I hope he likes it.”
Matt shrugs. “If he doesn’t like it, we can always rely on Kate.”
Foggy frowns. “Kate Bishop? How does she factor into this?”
“Kate Bishop has a tendency to steal other people’s dogs,” Matt explains.
And Kirsten throws in, “she did that with Clint’s Pizza Dog too.” She intertwines her hand with Matt’s. “There’s one present that magically appeared out of thin air and is smoking. I thought it might be from Stephen, but I think Skye could have brought it too.”
“It’s definitely from Stephen,” Matt says. “I just hope it isn’t a dragon or a hell-portal to another dimension, Jack is way too young for that.” He squeezes Kirsten’s hand. “Is Skye still here?”
“Yes. She’s making rock slides for the kids. Said it was her day off and SHIELD and the Avengers could survive without her.”
“That’s very nice of her,” Matt comments with a wry smile. “I don’t think your father’s here, however. Did he forget again?”
“He’s not and he didn’t. I just told him the party was next weekend.”
Foggy, who was just taking a sip of his beer, chokes and sputters on it. Matt’s face betrays a similar emotional reaction. “You did what?” Matt asks.
“Told him that it was next week,” Kirsten repeats calmly. “That we were busy this weekend and we pushed the date. It’s payback for ignoring Jack on their day out. I swear, he sees his only grandchild once every six months and then can’t leave his office long enough to actually take him to the park. His grandfather privileges have been revoked.”
Matt makes a pained face. “Please don’t antagonize your father, honey,” he says. “He’s taking you to Hawaii in two weeks, don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not making it weird.” Kirsten lets go of Matt’s hand and reaches for a beer. “We’re not going to Hawaii with him.”
“Kirsten...”
Fill: All Our Yesteryears [16/16]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-15 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)“It’s not,” Foggy says.
“Damn.” Kirsten gulps down her beer and puts away the bottle. “I think Luke’s wrestling with the present from the Avengers, I better go and see if he needs help. Did you know that Thor threw in those amazing Asgardian mead cookies?”
“Did he?” Matt asks, a smile creeping back onto his face. “Perhaps we should send him a ‘thank you’ note?”
“Oooh, those cookies are definitely worth that.”
Foggy watches Kirsten walk away from them, white dress billowing on the slight wind, high ponytail bouncing from side to side. Then he looks at Matt, who can’t actually see his wife, but still wears the most love-struck and dumb expression possible. It’s beautiful, how much he loves her and how obvious he is with his affection.
Foggy laughs. “Where did you get that woman?” he asks. “It’s amazing how well you fit together, like you were tailor-made for each other.”
“She almost killed my case in court,” Matt tells him, still smiling. “One of the best things that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t have met her if you—if you were here, so I suppose there’s one good thing in all that.”
“Phh, nonsense,” Foggy says, “why wouldn’t you have met—“
He trails off. Remembers what Karen told him. I mean... He was in love with you. He swallows his words back. Matt wouldn’t have met Kirsten if Foggy were there, if he hadn’t left. He wouldn’t have met her and he wouldn’t have fallen in love with her, or married her, or had the most amazing kid with her, or been ridiculously happy with her. He wouldn’t have done that, because he was in love with Foggy and would have held out hoping that one day Foggy would notice. That one day Foggy would perhaps return those feelings and would love him back.
“Matt, I—“
“Daddy, Daddy, you have to see this!” Jack runs up to them, and Foggy once more gets interrupted. If this is the universe’s way of saying that he shouldn’t tell Matt anything, the universe can fuck off. “Daddy, look!”
“That might be somewhat difficult,” Matt jokes when Jack gets to him, Kate Bishop hot on his trail. Jack’s not wearing his blue T-shirt anymore, but a purple one, and has a small child-sized bow slung across his shoulder. He pushes what appears to be a book into Matt’s hands and Matt takes it, opens it and runs his fingers across the first page, and oh. Shit. That’s his present, that’s the present Foggy got Jack.
“What is this?” Matt asks, frowning. His fingers dance on that first page, between the rough texture of the paper and the smooth rectangle in the middle.
“It’s you,” Jack says, excited, “it’s you and Uncle Franklin, and there’s you and Aunt Marci,” Jack flips a few pages and puts Matt’s fingers on another photograph, “and there’s you with a really weird hat, and you sleeping on a pile of books, and you—“
“It’s a photo album,” Kate cuts in. “Of you in law school.” She cocks her head. “At least Kirsten says it’s from law school, it’s super cool, she almost didn’t want to let go of this, she and Luke almost fell down laughing over that one pool party pic with a giant inflatable di—“
“Thank you, Kate,” Matt interrupts her, before she has the chance to fully describe that amazing photo. “Where did you get this?”
“It was one of my presents!”
“I made it,” Foggy says quietly and three heads turn towards him. “I—Jack liked listening to our law school stories, and Kirsten said you didn’t have any pictures, so I threw this together for him. For posterity. He should know what a giant dork his father was when young.”
He almost adds ‘and beautiful’ as a joke. Almost. Doesn’t, in the end.
Jack presses the album close to his chest. “I love it,” he states. “It’s the best present, even Mummy says so.”
“I agree,” Kate adds, “and I’m the one who bought the bow and arrow.”
“You got my son bow and arrow?”
“Clint’s idea.” She pushes Jack a bit away, towards the rest of the party, and the kid takes the hint and leaves. “can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure,” Matt answers.
Kate reaches into the pocket of her skirt and takes out a folded piece of paper. She unfolds it and hands it to Matt. “I know you can’t read it,” she says, “but it’s a letter, from Columbia. I got in.”
“You got—“ Matt drops his hands. “Kate, congratulations. But what about Stanford and the West Coast?”
Kate puts a lock of her brown hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to go to the West Coast,” she says. “I don’t want to leave New York. All my friends are here. My job’s here. Clint’s mostly here, these days. Clint’s kids are here. You are here, you and Kirsten and Jack. I don’t want to leave all that.”
“Your dad’s here,” Matt adds with a wicked grin.
Kate rolls her eyes. “My father is actually a point for moving all the way to Cali.” She sighs. “I didn’t think leaving would be this difficult and I’ve realized I don’t want to do it.”
Matt folds the acceptance letter and hands it back to Kate. “You and Clint patched things up?”
“It’s a work in progress, but we’re getting there,” she says as she pockets her letter. “But you have to admit, co-parenting the dog from the West Coast would be impossible.”
“Very true.”
Kate sways on her heels. “So, on the off chance that you haven’t hired a new babysitter yet, you don’t have to. I’m staying in New York.”
“I’m glad you’re staying,” Matt says, takes out two new beer bottles and offers one to Kate, “if that’s what you want. Don’t compromise your future for an archer Avenger and a five-year-old with a crush on you.”
Kate smiles and takes the offered bottle. Foggy could bet that she’s not actually old enough to drink yet, but he’s not going to comment. It’s an important private moment between these two. “But that is my future,” Kate teases. “Columbia is a good university, which you can attest to. And I’m staying in New York because it’s my home.”
“Jack will be happy to hear that. And no, we haven’t found a new babysitter yet. You should go and tell him that he won’t have to say goodbye to you.”
Kate turns on her heel and goes to do exactly that.
“So,” Foggy says, after the silence stretches for too long and edges close to the ‘uncomfortable’ territory, “it seems not everyone is going to Cali after all.”
“No, it doesn’t seem like that anymore.” Matt turns his head to the side in a gesture that Foggy knows means he’s focusing all his senses on a person. On Foggy, now. “When are you moving?”
“Wednesday,” Foggy tells him. Matt hums, opens the bottle and drinks the beer. “Yesterday I closed the deal on my new apartment.”
“That’s nice.” Matt turns the bottle in his hands. “Kirsten was joking about those holiday plans, but call us when you’re settled. We’d love to come and visit. It’d be nice to check out your new place, to see if you’ve upgraded from the last place you were renting.”
“Har har, very funny,” Foggy says. He takes a deep breath as Matt takes another sip of his beer. Now or never. “You know, if you want to see my new apartment that bad, you can just come and toast it with me on Wednesday. After all, I’m just moving to Brooklyn.”
Matt chokes on his beer so hard Foggy has to hit him on the back. “What?” he manages to force out through the coughs.
“My new place is in Brooklyn,” Foggy repeats. “I’m not moving to San Francisco. I’m staying in New York.”
“You’re not leaving,” Matt says, slowly. “But—your job. You quit. What about that San Fran friend and his practice? What will you do now?”
“I told that friend, in very polite terms, to shove it,” Foggy explains. “And I’ve already applied for a new gig.”
“You have?”
“Yup,” Foggy says, over-pronouncing the ‘p’, making it pop out of his mouth. “I have it on good authority, since I’ve heard it from a very reliable source, that the position of assistant D.A. will open up next month. They haven’t chosen the new A.D.A. yet, so I thought, why the hell not? Nothing can be worse than being a corporate douchebag sitting behind a desk and reviewing variations of the same document over and over again.”
“You’re running for assistant D.A.?” Foggy shrugs. “But you haven’t actually been in a courtroom for over six years! Do you even remember how it’s done?”
“Low blow, Murdock, low blow,” Foggy murmurs and Matt presses a hand to his mouth to hide his giggles. “I’ll tell you why I’m doing this. I’m doing this, because the D.A. is so afraid of you that he’s not even trying to fight you anymore. Someone has to step up and be worthwhile competition for you, and save the D.A.’s office’s reputation. So beware, Murdock. We shall meet in court.”
“You’re going to run cases against me?”
“If I get the job, you bet.”
“You honestly think you’re up for this?”
“If memory serves,” Foggy says, “and if it doesn’t, ask Jack, I included the department newspaper clipping in his album specially for this, I have one win over you.”
“Impossible.”
“And yet.” Matt shakes his head. “We went against each other once and I won, Matt, fair and square. Ergo, my track record is much better. So perhaps the question should be, are you up for this?”
“I don’t remember you ever winning against me.”
“Ah!” Foggy tsks. “Professor Riley’s employment law moot court, second year. I steamrolled you.”
“Employ—That was hardly a win during what could hardly pass for a moot court.”
“Steamrolled you.”
“Then I suppose we’ll just have to see which of us is better in an actual courtroom.” Matt shakes his head, as if he couldn’t quite believe this. “You’re not leaving.”
“Well, no.” Foggy glances down at his already empty bottle that he’s fiddling with. “You know, I promised to turn Jack into a mini golf champion, and that’s not something I can do over one of those amazing and state-of-art technologies like Skype. Besides, “Foggy tears the corner of the Czech label off the bottle, “New York is my home.”
“You’re not leaving,” Matt repeats again.
“No.”
“You’re really not leaving.”
Foggy looks up from his bottle and at Matt, at Matt’s face, Matt’s disbelieving goofy smile that so radiant and happy that it physically hurts to look at.
“No,” Foggy tells him, and packs as much affection and conviction into it as he can, “I’m never leaving again.”
68.
"Are you happy?"
They’re sitting on the floor of Foggy’s new place. Foggy has swung by Matt’s office to pick him up Wednesday afternoon, after Kirsten has left to get Jack from pre-school and Marci has left on her date and Karen has left to go home and write her thesis. It’s not much bigger than Foggy’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment, but it’s in a much safer neighbourhood and there’s even a playground around the corner. There are swings there, nice for when Jack will come to visit him, because that’s something that he knows will happen, now, Jack visiting him. He’ll come and they’ll have pizza, and a proper sleepover one day.
Matt smiles at his beer bottle, the cheap and disgusting stuff that they’ve picked up on their way here. It’s the kind of smile Foggy has seen on him a lot since he came back, and the same smile Matt used to give him back in law school, unguarded and genuinely happy. It’s nice to once more be the reason for it, to be the person who put it on Matt Murdock’s ridiculously handsome face.
"Yeah, Foggy," he says and maybe Foggy cannot hear heartbeats and is not a walking polygraph, but he still knows Matt is sincere. "I am. I am now."
Matt grins. Foggy grins back. He cannot help it.
For the first time in a very long time, he is too.
Honestly.
Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [16/16]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-15 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [16/16]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 12:32 am (UTC)(link):'D
Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [16/16]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-16 03:03 am (UTC)(link)AMAZING,BEAUTIFUL, HEARTBREAKING. Everything that a fic should be.
I need that part where Foggy is agains Matt. I need that fic.
Everythign ws so good. This is pure gold.
Re: Fill: All Our Yesteryears [16/16]
(Anonymous) 2015-07-28 03:10 am (UTC)(link)What a fantastic job you did with this premise. You packed so much into it, and I had so many feels.
SO many feels.