daredevilkink | Prompt Post #4

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Prompt Post #4

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Because of ~handwavey science disaster that's probably Stark's fault~ MCU!Matt ends up briefly in comics!Matt's universe.

When he gets back, he's not quite the same with Foggy and Karen. More open, less tentative with his affections.

What comics event does he see or hear about to make him appreciate his friends and how lucky he is to have them?

Possibilities include (obv. spoilers):

Karen's major fuck-up of a life, inc. drug addiction and eventual death, Foggy's many "deaths" and cancer, Matt losing the practice and being repeatedly disbarred, Marvel's Civil War story line.

*traumatized all over again*

(For some reason, my brain decided to make this a series of AO3-style TWs: Trigger Warning: Drug Addiction, Major Character Death, Trigger Warning: Cancer, Civil War -- Marvel.

Sorry, sometimes I think I'm funny.)

(And that should be, Civil War (Marvel). That's the authority tag over at AO3.)

Trigger Warnings do basically summarise comics!verse, so I don't think your brain is far off there.

One word: SHADOWLAND

Oh fu- I'd completely forgotten about that storyline.

Matt would come back a *wreck*

if we could somehow work it so mcu!matt witnessed 616! matt trying to kill Foggy while being that demon thing (and hearing people say about how he killed bullseye) wow.
can u imagine.....

Aw man. The whole Shadowland thing would definitely be something that would bring home to MCU!Matt exactly how easily he could lose himself and hurt those he loves, but also how damn lucky he is to have a friend like Foggy. Even when Beast!Matt is going to kill him, Foggy truly has faith that Matt wouldn't hurt him, and the whole reason he gets caught by the Hand in the first place is when he breaks into their freaking fortress because he refuses to believe Matt's completely been taken over by the demon.

I read DD 511 the other day where Foggy breaks into The Hand complex and I literally cried. like his first response is to sit by the front door and yell at Matt like.. sweetheart. I love you.

I'm imagining mcu Matt walking in on foggy yelling at the front door and them being like 'wtf' and 'man you chose a bad time to universe travel.' and then foggy somehow convincing Matt to help him scale the building and get in because 'im going to do it anyway so u may as well help me out'
Matt gets feelings about Foggy never giving up on him.

Thank you so much for reminding me of Shadowland. I need to work that into my current fic somehow as it will be somewhat of a plot point.

Fellow Satan, nice seeing you again.

_{This takes place between Volume 3. 35 and 36, although you don’t have to have read it to understand. If you do want to afterwards, here’s the link: http://viewcomic.com/daredevil-035-2014/}

--

His first thought, after the sound in his ears like the buffeting of a high wind has died down, the vibrations running up his body abruptly ceasing and leaving him shaken, goosebumps scattered up his arms and his senses raw-nerve sensitive, is that he’s probably going to throw up.

The second, as he tightens his fist around whatever it is that he accidentally picked up, is that he’s going to maybe waive his no-kill rule in favour of murdering Tony Stark.

Throwing up first though. Maybe.

It doesn’t help that wherever on God’s earth he’s ended up, it stinks. The sort of overpowering smell that coats the back of his throat, clogs up in his nose. Antiseptic and rubbing alcohol and saline, threaded together with sick and sweat and something that makes him think of rotting fruit.

He may just throw up after all.

He’s so focused on reining his gag reflex into gear and breathing in retrospective very loudly that he doesn’t notice two very obvious things.

The first, that he’s in a small room. The second, that there’s someone else in here.

Something stirs under a light duvet, low-grade starched sheets rubbing against skin.

“Hmm, whassat?” The voice sounds tired, thick with sleep. “I was jus- just dozing.” There is the loud creak of a yawn.

Matt jolts at the intrusion, tensing up. He blinks, and tries to get his bearings. He’s guessing maybe – Lord Almighty, the smell - he’s in a hospital. He’s standing in a small room, one bed off to the side. The TV near him on mute, crackling and humming faintly. Flowers slowly dying on the windowsill. The sounds of the wards outside, quick steps and the squeaking rubber of worn wheels traversing the corridors beyond.

“Matty?” the figure in the bed asks. “What you doing back here?”

Matt starts. Swallows down his nausea to zero in on the one occupant of the bed. Clearly no threat. Weak. Movements sluggish. The electrical buzz of machines and monitors around them. A familiar heartbeat, beginning to thrum faster.

Matt would know that heartbeat anywhere.

“You’re not Daredevil,” the figure says nervously. His throat rough, scratchy. Matt releases too late that he’s standing there – in full costume – in the middle of a private hospital room. If he was ever going to go for subtlety, that hope went south quickly. “Your costume’s all wrong.”

Matt says nothing, biting his lip because he really wants to interrupt with his well-worn objection that it’s not a costume, it’s a suit, and the figure – his friend – carries on. Indignant and trying not to sound scared.

“Whoever you are, get the hell out of here, alright? I don’t care if you’re a member of the goddamn Hand, I will – will try and punch you very hard, don’t think I won’t.”

He sounds just like him. But what’s he doing here? Of all places?

“Foggy?” Matt finally breathes out the question.

He’s removing his mask before he knows it, slipping the circular Stark device in his pocket so he doesn’t lose it, and shuffling closer to the bed. He regrets not bringing his glasses, so he knows his eyes are tracking erratically, but he’s never needed them really, not with Foggy. He’s trying to take in everything rapidly, anxiously learning this landscape anew to only bring up new questions; Foggy’s outline, smaller than before (has he lost weight?), the heat variations around his head different and the sound of hair brushing against his neck absent (has he had a haircut?); the lingering notes of stale sweat and the clinical smell of at least five other people that reminds him of Claire – latex and swabs and the tang of blood from the IV pricked into his arm. There is some sort of hospital version of a tomato-based dish that has never seen a tomato, uneaten and cooled on the bedside table.

Why is Foggy in hospital? Why does – God, why does he smell like chemicals?

Where the hell has Tony’s stupid machine brought him?

“Matty?” This new sort-of Foggy who smells wrong still sounds cautious. Struggling to sit upright against the headboard, movements stilted and hard fought as Matt judges it safe to move nearer to the bed. “You’re supposed to – you’re meant to be in court.”

“Am I?” Matt’s sure the ADA’s not got back to them yet about the Hoban trial. His schedule had been pretty sparse that day. Which was why he’s been around Avenger’s Tower in his night-job clothes, looking into some sort of legal loophole as a favour to Stark. He’s still a bit antsy about his privacy, even if Tony likely knows his name, social security number and favourite colour. Tony, who clearly leaves all sorts of weird tech he’s been fiddling with lying around where anyone could find it. Matt had just picked it up to move it, and now he’s here. Wherever here is.

“We talked about this,” Foggy says slowly, and then pauses. Turns out this Foggy has the same change in breathing before he speaks that Matt’s Foggy does. That he puts on exactly the same tone when he’s getting to the end of a particularly thorny problem, working it through aloud.

“Is it just me, buddy,” he says carefully. “Or are you not as ginger as you were before?”

Matt wasn’t really expecting that question.

“Uhh…” he says as a placeholder to actual words, as his brain blanks and attempts a frantic reboot.

He must look like he’s floundering because this new Foggy takes pity on him.

“Where were you, before you were here?” he asks. “You do anything out of the ordinary? Get hit by a laser beam? Alien teleporter? Magic spell? You piss off a magician – do I need to call Stephen for you?”

Matt shakes his head dumbly, and brings the circular whatchamacallit out of his pocket to hold out to Foggy. Thinking back, Tony may have said something about looking into dimension travel in his mile-a-minute ooh-shiny way when Matt had first tapped on the glass windows of his workshop. Matt hadn’t really been listening, admittedly.

“I think – I think I may be in the wrong universe?” he offers lamely.

Not-Foggy takes the gadget off of him, studies it carefully for a few seconds, and then exhales. It isn’t a sound of surprise. Or shock. If anything, it’s long-suffering. Run of the mill.

Matt would be offended if he wasn’t so relieved that Foggy was taking this all so well.

“Dimension hopping. Gotcha.” His tone switches from blasé to concerned. “Ok, new not-ginger Matt. Why don’t you sit down before you fall down, first off. You look awful. You’ve got chairs in your universe right? There’s one over here, to my right."

Matt makes his way over to one side of the bed, where he sinks down into a plastic folding chair gratefully, feeling shaky. He’s not quite shaken the sensation of nausea slicked in his stomach, and how the adrenaline of his initial realisation has worn down, he feels exhausted.

“You’re lucky,” this Foggy says, chattering to fill up the silence. Matt’s grateful he’s not being expected to talk, and wonders if it’s a universal thing amongst Foggy’s: the ability to read Matt Murdock like a book. “Your Stark’s as ostentatious as ours. This thing has a big STARK INDUSTRIES sign looping around the sides. These sort of gizmos common where you’re from?” Matt shakes his head. “Figured maybe not. Least Stark had the decency to label it with helpful non-braille buttons. You tell him you’re blind?”

“It was more an accident than anything,” Matt explains. “It wasn’t meant for me.”

“He should have included braille even if it wasn’t,” Foggy says with the stubbornness of someone who had held many arguments with people over the assistive capabilities of their products. “This button here… looks like it’s a back button. Unless two stood-up triangles pointing in one direction isn’t the symbol for rewind?”

“That seems to have stayed the same.” Something touches Matt’s arm, and Foggy says “Left hand. It’s water. Drink it slowly ok?” as he presses a cup into his palm. “Inter-dimensional travel would probably knock the stuffing out of anyone for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Matt croaks, sipping at the water. He’s quiet for a moment, his stomach settling somewhat. “You’re taking this very well.”

He doesn’t mean his tone to come out accusatory. If he’s honest, he wouldn’t be dealing with someone calming to be his friend from another universe quite so calmly. Or trustingly.

“Meh,” Foggy shrugs with a lazy roll of his shoulders. “I’ve seen you possessed by an actual honest-to-God demon before. Your group of super friends includes a martial artist whose hands glow because he defeated an immortal dragon from another plane, and a teenager who got bitten by a radioactive spider. Considering all that, well, this isn’t particularly out of the park for you. Just wish you’d called ahead. I would have done my hair.”

Matt thinks that the joke is that Foggy doesn’t have any hair, but he’s hard pressed to find it funny beyond a lacklustre smirk.

“Anyway,” this new Foggy continues, taking the now empty cup off Matt. “I’ve got to pass the time somehow. All the nurses are busy elsewhere, and you’re due in court any minute. . Ooh, that’s a thought. Do I need to be careful of what I say? This isn’t going to be like The Butterfly Effect is it? Or Back to the Future? I’m not going to say something and end up not existing, or wind up with no arms because I changed history, or whatever?”

“No, buddy,” Matt says, and he smiles slightly. This Foggy’s so like his own, it’s hard not to. “I think you should keep all your arms.”

“Phew. That’s a relief.”

“My…”Matt starts, not sure if he wants to carry on, before he swallows and keeps talking. “My Foggy, he’s… he’s not in hospital.” He fiddles with a cracked edge of plastic along the arm of his chair, scuffs his feet on the linoleum. “Why are you in hospital, Fog?”

He suddenly thinks, irrationally, that this is somehow some sort of Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shtick. Seeing what could be, the worse possible future for old Scrooge so he can grow as a person, change his ways, learn the true meaning of Christmas, etcetera.

“I have to be here, for the chemo,” Foggy says, and Matt nearly chokes because Christ that’s what the smell is. A cocktail of aggressive chemicals eroding Foggy’s cells before the ones decaying inside of him start poisoning the rest.

It’s only the fact that this Foggy still has the gadget on his lap that stops Matt slamming the return button and dragging his Foggy to the nearest hospital for every scan they have.

Matt gets a face-full of chemicals to the eyes and gets enhanced senses. Foggy does nothing at all and gets cancer. How is that fair?

“Hey! Hey, chill, bud,” Foggy says quickly. Matt’s panic must be readable from a mile off. “Look, your Foggy is footloose and cancer-free. And probably at least ten years younger, judging by how much of a spring chicken you look. He maybe doesn’t even have the divorce to look forward to.” Foggy’s hand is on his arm again. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean your Foggy will be. There are differences. You miss out on being ginger, your Foggy doesn’t get a sarcoma. He’ll be fine, Matty.”

Matt wants to believe that.

“So what else has your universe got ?” Foggy plows on, clearly trying to change the subject. “You got flying cars yet?”

“Sorry.”

“Well you’re nothing but a disappointment.” Matt smirks at Foggy’s put-upon tone. “Are we even lawyers? Did we manage that right?”

“I am. You’re a butcher,” Matt delivers deadpan. He manages to keep a straight face until Foggy says incredulously “A butcher?!” before he cracks. “Yeah, we’re lawyers. Nelson and Murdock. We’re not long running, just a little place. We’ve enough to keep the lights on and pay Karen. It’s enough.”

“Karen?” Foggy’s voice has suddenly gone dull. Like the reminder of an old wound, aching come winter. “Karen Page?”

“Know her?” Matt asks. He’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.

“She worked with us, for a while,” Foggy says with a forced brevity. He sounds so sad. Even after, what must be this Foggy, years later. Matt’s never really thought about how easily Karen’s slipped into their lives. How important she is to both of them. “Is she…” Foggy clicks his tongue against the back of this teeth like he’s not sure where to put his words. “Is she safe? Happy?”

There’s something in her voice, Matt wants to say. It’s another one of the secrets we’re all keeping these days.

“Seems to be,” he says instead.

“Does she know? About you? About the whole…” Foggy makes a hand wave gesture at Matt’s outfit. “…Daredevil thing?”

“No.” Matt attempts not to sound guilty. “I thought it would be safer.”

“Tell her.” Foggy’s statement is surprising in its intensity. “No, seriously Matty. If you and I have learned anything all these years, and my Matt would tell you the same…” (It shouldn’t make Matt feel an inexplicable warmth in his chest, listening to Foggy describe this other him as ‘mine’, but it does. “…it’s that keeping secrets from people doesn’t stop them getting hurt. It only makes you lose them quicker. People will get hurt anyway. And she’s family, Matt.”

“I’ll… I’ll think about it,” Matt says quietly and Foggy nods, reaches out and squeezes Matt’s hand.

“That’s all I ask,” he replies, and rubs at the IV port on his wrist. “Do I know, at least?”

“You found out.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

“You found me bleeding to death on the floor of my apartment.”

“Ouch. Tough break. Poor me. Poor you.”

Foggy sound like he means it, sounds sincere in the same way Matt’s Foggy does, and Matt doesn’t know what to do with that. He wonders how this Foggy found out. Whether this Matt had made the mistake of lying as well. Whether every Foggy has found out badly, whether every reveal involves crying and a slammed door.
Out of the many universes he could have stumbled upon, he likes to think – hope – that at least one Matt Murdock wasn’t too scared to tell Foggy the truth.

“You and me – well, you and him,” Foggy carries on. “You all ok now? Don’t need me to pop round and give him a stirring pep talk on the powers of friendship?”

If anything, Foggy’s bounced back from those long dark days where everyone was hurt and no-one was talking with a new fervency . He doesn’t approve of the mask, but he understands. Sees the good it can do. Has struggled with how he fits into Daredevil’s life when so much of what he knew about Matt’s wasn’t what he’d thought it was. And Foggy’s not a fighter, can’t help that way, so he takes first aid courses and stocks his house with half a hospital’s worth of gauze and bandage, makes sure Matt’s eating and brings food into work when he knows he isn’t.

Matt doesn’t like the fact that Foggy’s decided he’s going to be the one to pick up the pieces (he shouldn’t have to be), but he can’t help himself from feeling grateful.

“He’s fine,” Matt says. “He stayed.”

“Us Nelson’s, ey? Suckers for punishment, the lot of us.”

There’s no doubt in this Foggy’s voice. It’s likely been eroded down by years. His Foggy’s heartbeat has already stopped getting faster when he hears someone mention Daredevil’s name, when he sees grainy footage on the news or splashed across page one of the Bulletin, when Matt needs to make his excuses and leave because there’s something the Devil needs to attend to three blocks away.

Matt’s not sure what he’s done to deserve any of this.

“I wasn’t sure you would,” he confesses.

“Of course I would, buddy,” Foggy says, and how, how does he say it so easily, knowing what it could cost him, maybe what it has cost him in this universe. “If your Foggy is anything like me, he can’t help himself.” Foggy makes a loose fist and taps Matt on the shoulder with it in a pretend punch. “Face it Murdock, you’re stuck with him. Me. Whatever. Ah-ha, and speaking of foolhardy morons, pass me the remote will you? You’re on.”

Matt focuses on the buzz of the television in the corner, the ripples of heat from the overworked fan in its workings. Foggy’s tapping a button on the remote, and he must be adjusting the volume from mute, because suddenly Matt can hear the familiar sounds a courtroom. The scraping of chairs, weighty sheaths of paper being flicked through, someone with the remnants of a head cold seated near the back judging by the acoustics and their incessant sniffling.

“Brought to you live from the city of New York,” Foggy introduces grandly. “You’re there, right at the front as always. Ginger. Oh so ginger. Pretty much orange. There’s this shade of orange they put on packets of candies and kid’s juice drinks to slam home that something is nutritious and healthily dosed with chemicals, but also fun and child friendly. You are that shade. Looks like you lucked out on that one. You’ve still got the glasses though. Maybe that transcends universes or something. Same with the handsome duck thing.”

“The defence calls Mr. Matthew Murdock, ” a woman’s voice declares.

“That’s Kirsten,” Foggy explains. “You have a Kirsten where you come from?” When Matt shakes his head, he takes this as a cue to carry on. “She’s your legal partner while I’m stuck playing chemical roulette in here. She’s stunning, not that you can appreciate that, but then again, all your girlfriends seem to be the supermodel type. Or morally questionable. Usually both.” On the TV, this Matt Murdock seems to be getting sworn in. Matt hears his own voice like an echo on the other end, and it’s more than a little jarring. “Except she’s your ex, and you’ve got this whole will-you-won’t-you thing going on, because you’re pushing the wrong side of thirty and still think it’s ok to go all lone-wolf when you think you’re getting too close to people, and she’s a kickass ADA who’s not taking your shit.” Matt side-eyes Foggy with a frown, and watches his outline waver as Foggy holds his hands up. “Hey, don’t give me that look. I know you, remember, or at least, the other version of you. We’ve had years together, Matty. It entitles me to at least some leeway to speak my mind.”

“You never needed my permission anyway,” Matt says, and hears Foggy hum a grin.

“Will you state your name for the record?” Kirsten is saying as Matt tunes back into the broadcast. Wondering why Foggy’s heartbeat is gradually elevating. Why he breathes out like he’s steeling himself. Fists the covers with hands that are suddenly not as steady as they were.

“Absolutely,” Matt’s echo says. “My name is Daredevil. ”

No.

Matt’s mouth goes dry. His chest tight.

On the other side of the screen, the courtroom explodes into chatter. The judge bangs the gavel for order, but no-one is listening.

“The cat’s out of the bag now,” Foggy murmurs. He sounds quite resigned to it all. His heartbeat is still up, but not like he’s surprised. It’s more an anxious thing.

“What’s he doing?” Matt whispers, horrified. “What in God’s name...?”

He’s ruining everything. They’ll lose the practice. Disbarred for sure over ethical violations. Half their cases will automatically go under review, there will be questions over the legality of their methods, and there was a reason Matt kept Daredevil out of the practice. Why Matt Murdock, lawyer, tried not to drag Nelson and Murdock through any of the grime and the dirt that Matt Murdock, vigilante, saw. No one will believe Foggy didn’t know. Even if they don’t get arrested on the spot, they’ll both lose their jobs, their livelihoods. They won’t be able to afford the office space, and has this Matt Murdock even thought about how they’re going to pay for Foggy’s treatment if they’re unemployed?

God, Foggy could die because he – because this man – is stupid and reckless and isn’t thinking about what this will do to his friends.

“What he has to.”

“He can’t take that sort of thing back!” Matt insists, half-panicked and convinced someone’s going to walk through the door of this room any minute to exact some horrific vengeance on Foggy. The scenes in his nightmares made real. “How could he be so – Foggy, he’s told everyone. Everyone knows now. You’re going to be in danger, can’t he see that…?”

“Matty,” Foggy says in a voice that would be soothing on any other day. “Matty, I’m flattered by your concern, but I already am in danger. I’m in hospital.”

“That’s not the same!” Matt nigh-on snarls. He’s gripping his fists together to tight it hurts. What the hell gave this other version of him the right to thoughtlessly throw everything he’d worked for away. “It’s not the same and you know it…”

“Matt,” Foggy interrupts him. “I’m – I may be dying, Matt.” That shuts Matt up, if nothing else. “It’s all up in the air as to whether the cancer will spread or not. Even the doctors, they can’t give me an estimate for sure. And no, this isn’t the same as you making me a target by association for the whole of New York’s supervillain community, but you’re new here, bud. You’ve only come in half-way to this story. Trust me when I say that this was the only ending we could have gone for.”

“Tell me,” Matt whispers. Half wanting to hear, and half wanting to press that rewind button and go home to his Foggy. Promise him he’ll never put him in danger like that. Promise all the things he should have said before. “Foggy, I need to understand.”

Tell me why you’re just letting me ruin your life. Tell me why you have so much faith that I’m making the right decision for the both of us.

Foggy sighs. Rubs his face with his hand. He sounds drained, like he’s racked up one hell of a sleep debt and needs desperately to cash in. But Matt needs to hear this.

“There’s bad guys involved,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “Like there always is. The Sons of the Serpent. They’re white supremacist trash, a hate group, but they’ve got influence. Power. Half the legal system is in their pocket, and you’ve been… you’ve been making life difficult for them. Both in and out of the mask.”

Why do you sound so proud of me, Matt thinks sadly, but he does not interrupt.

“Your identity is pretty much an open secret,” Foggy continues. “They tried to blackmail you into working for them, so they did some digging. About your accident, your abilities. Your friends. They – they used me to verify everything they found out.” Here, Foggy’s voice gets smaller. Beaten up, like he’s gone over it a hundred times in his head and still hasn’t found out how for forgive himself for it yet. “Whatever truth serum-esque shit they used, they messed around with my chemo drugs. Some non-FDA approved stuff they’ve had burning through my system.” Foggy’s tone turns pained, and Matt puts a gloved hand on Foggy’s arm. Feeling the tremors under his skin. “My – my body reacted badly, and it – it wasn’t nice. But it got you to come running. Turns out they’ve a vested interest in me staying alive, anyway. Blackmail. Identity exposure, ‘you go against us, we cut off your friend’s cancer treatment’ sort of thing. So you decided to get there first.”

“But that’s just what they wanted!” Matt says desperately.

“On your terms, not theirs.”

“But what about you?” Matt asks. “Did I – did he even give you a say in this?”

“Of course you did!” Foggy sounds offended on his behalf, and Matt would smile at that if he wasn’t so damn scared. “Look, you’re my best friend, and we’ve got to the stage where we can mostly be mature adults about these things. You tend to lead with your head, always have, but we talked it through. You thought you could play it long term, go along with their terms, bide your time until we found another way. I told you…” Foggy pinches the bridge of his nose, sounds wiped and tired and so much older than Matt is used to. “I said that I didn’t want you to ever have to sacrifice your integrity for me. I stand by that. There may never have been another way, and you would have had to work for them. Knowing what they are, what they stand for, and you would have hated yourself for it. This way isn’t the easiest way out, but we’ll get by. We always do.”

“Aren’t you frightened?” Matt says softly, and Foggy puts a thin fingered hand over Matt’s gloved one.

“I’m not like you,” he says honestly. “I’m not fearless. And I’m scared all the time these days. About the cancer, about you, about this…” He waves a hand at the television. Matt hadn’t even realised it was still on. The other Matt is telling everyone about his abilities, his father, Stick, about things that are secret for a reason. Matt swallows. “I can’t pretend to know what will happen next, but we’ll do it together, like we always have. Look, you’re younger. I’ve got at least ten years more of history with my Matt. I know how hard it gets, and I know how good it can be. He’s been here for me, this whole time. So don’t think for a second that I would ever let him go this alone.”

Foggy sounds fierce. Steady. He has the kind of faith in his voice that can build cities.

This Matt is so damn lucky.

He is so damn lucky.

“I don’t deserve a friend like you,” Matt says honestly, and Foggy makes a pffsh noise.

“Sure you do. And I bet your Foggy would say exactly the same thing.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. Thinking of avocados and moving forward and the raised letters of their small sign. “Yeah, he would.”

“Smart lad. Good head on his shoulders I bet. He probably even has hair on it as well.”

“Nearly shoulder length.”

“Lucky devil,” Foggy whistles. There is a clinking sound, and Foggy’s pressing something into his hands.

“As much as I’ve loved chatting,” he says. “I’ve a feeling my life’s about to get a whole lot more interesting, and it’s probably not going to be long before the nurses have to start aggressively shooing the paparazzi out. There will be autographs, interview requests, the works, and I don’t want you stealing my moment of glory, you get me? Anyway, you’ve got your own Foggy. Go home to him, yeah?”

“You have any advice for him?”

“Not to listen to you as much as I know he does,” Foggy’s smiling – Matt can hear it in his voice. “Nah, seriously. Tell him it’s worth it. Every bit of it. He’ll get what I mean.”

Matt pulls Foggy into a tight hug. It’s awkward, and the angle isn’t quite right, but Foggy’s arms wrap around him like he knows exactly where they go, and Matt tucks his face into the thinner hollows of Foggy’s neck.

“In case your Matt doesn’t tell you,” he mutters. “You’re the best thing that could have happened to me, Foggy Nelson.”

“I know,” Foggy replies, and disengages himself from Matt. He takes his hand and shows Matt which button to press that will send him home. “Now shoo. Or my Matt will start to get jealous.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” Matt teases, and Foggy laughs. Warm and real and immovable.

It’s the last sound Matt hears before he slams the button down and the sound of high wind roars in his ears.

_{The epilogue I never got round to writing: And then Matt arrives back at Avengers Tower to find Foggy tearing Tony a new one over why the hell he leaves his dangerous tech all over the place, and is citing at least ten lawsuits for negligible behaviour before Matt drags him away and spends a lot of time hugging him while bundling him into the Avengers medical facility. And then Matt tells Karen about DD and Karen tells them about Wesley and everything is fine and nothing hurts. The end.}

*FLAILS LIKE CRAZY* Tbh I'm like the one anon here not into the universe-hopping, but this. Was. LOVELY. Oh, Foggy, you are a gem. Oh, Matt, my precious pickle.

This? Amazing. That's pretty much all I can say.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Prompt Post #4

AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

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Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

Re: AU - MCU!Matt briefly visits comics!verse

[Fill]: slipping sideways 1/2

[Fill]: slipping sideways 2/2

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