daredevilkink | Daredevil Prompt Post #11

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Daredevil Prompt Post #11

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*

A month later, and he finds himself crouched behind a lovely and stench-filled dumpster baking under a hot sun.

Well, it’s certainly not the first time he finds himself in the trash, now is it.

He sighs, but he needs to move past the odor. None of that information is helpful here, so what else we got?

Inside, he smells fresh pastries and coffee. Warm and inviting. There’s that dull roar as people converse inside a crowded space, and Foggy in a near panic attack as Matt seizes on a cold bathroom floor.

“Shit,” he mutters, because he needs a plan. His top priority right now is to get inside and collect the clothing that should, theoretically, still be there.

Just the opportunity opens for him when a door, the back door, swings wide, and a frazzled employee appears, sighing audibly as he collapses on the overturned milk crate propping the door open. The young man, no more than a kid really, roots around inside an apron pocket until Matt’s nose is assaulted with that distinctive burn of a lit cigarette. It’s all he can do to suppress an irritated cough.

Crinkling his nose, he considers his options.

He could take the kid out. Piece of cake. Sneak up on him, give him the drop, and... liberate him of his clothing. Stroll right into the coffee shop just as if he belonged there.

Here’s the catch, though. Matt has never beaten up some poor soul for their clothing, and he doesn’t intend to start now. His condition, he firmly believes, is his problem to worry about, and only his.

So that isn’t an option. Instead, he stays stock-still and waits the guy out, and with any luck, he’ll go and leave the door still propped open for him once break time is over.
Or not. The guys gets up, grinds his cigarette butt into the ground with the toe his shoe, and starts dragging the milk crate back inside. This is the moment Matt has to move, and he has to move fast, otherwise the door’ll click shut behind the guy, locking him out, and then he’ll be back to square one.

After a quick survey of his environment, he finds a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes just inside the dumpster. Reaches in, careful not to disturb the heavy lid, then grabs the first flattened box his hands land on. Crams the soggy cardboard into the door jamb to stop it from latching shut, and waltzes right in, just as if he belonged there.
Immediately to his right sits a small room, not much bigger than a closet. He’s guessing a break/storage room. Fortunately for him, the coffee shop is busy enough to require all hands up front, so he’s all alone. In the center of the room is a card table with four folding chairs tucked underneath, and along the back wall sits a row of hooks, presumably for jackets. At the far end of the row hangs a hooded sweater, though why anyone would bring that into work in this heat is beyond him.

He snatches that up, slips it on and zips it up as far as it’ll go. The sweater rides too high on his torso to cover his lower half, so tilts his head to find something else to pilfer.

In the right-hand corner sits a stack of boxes, and inside the box stacked at the top is about a dozen plastic-wrapped packages each containing a folded thing made of cloth. Shirts maybe. He rushes over and rips into the first one he finds. Work aprons. Excellent. He folds the one in his hands in half, and ties it around his back. He reaches in for a second one, folding that one in half as well, drapes it across his bottom, and ties it in front. It probably looks ridiculous, but as least he isn’t naked.

Exiting the room, he keeps his ear out for any employees, but they’re still all up front, tending to the morning rush.

So far so good. The men’s room is just outside the back room, and when he finally slips in, he collapses against the door as if someone’s cut his strings.

“Matt!” Foggy says, scrambling up from the floor where Matt’s clothing still sits in a heap. “What the fuck are you wearing.”

“Had to improvise,” he says.

“Oh,” Foggy says, sounding a little baffled. “Okay. Um. Is it... normal for you to come back so soon?”

So soon? He doesn’t… “Oh, no,” he says, realizing what Foggy meant. “No. It’s a few weeks later.”

“Oh,” Foggy says again, with that same note of confusion in his voice. Then: “I sure hope no one saw you, buddy.”

“They didn’t.”

“No offense, Matt, but you have no way of knowing that.”

Shit. Sometimes he forgets.

“Pretty sure,” he dodges.

Seemingly satisfied with that, Foggy says, “okay,” and starts gathering up Matt’s clothes. “We can’t stay here. You,” he says, unceremoniously dumping the pile into Matt’s lap, “need put some real clothes on.”

Matt groans in protest. He doesn’t want to get off the floor, so Foggy sternly says, “you had a seizure, Matt. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

“Fuck,” he mutters, because he honestly forgot about that. He stands, says, “okay,” and sheds his stolen clothes like skin. Once he’s naked again, Foggy turns his back to give him some privacy.

Once he’s done buttoning up his shirt, adjusting his tie, he has a realization. “How is it there’s no one else in here. I had a seizure--”

“Matt. You weren’t gone more than a minute.”

“Jesus,” he says. Really? “So you called the paramedics.”

“While you were seizing. Yes.”

“Can you--” he starts, but cuts himself off when he hears the urgent scream of ambulance sirens. He has to remind himself not to comment on this. He shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Come on,” Foggy says. “Be cool.” And Matt grabs onto his elbow, exiting the restroom as if nothing were amiss.

They spill out onto the sidewalk just as the paramedics arrive, and book it out of there. It’s an incredibly shitty thing to do, but they have places to be, bar exams to take, and Matt really, really doesn’t want to deal with paramedics.

“What if they found out,” he says, trying not to shudder. “About, you know,” and makes a vague gesture toward himself, meant to indicate his condition.

“You’re paranoid,” Foggy says. “And I don’t see what the big deal is, anyway. People find out, and you’ll what. Get treatment? God forbid.”

“It’s not that simple, Foggy,” he says. He really, really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now.

“It could be, if you let it.”

Matt huffs out disapprovingly, but doesn’t otherwise comment. They just continue onward toward the test facility.

“Okay,” Matt say, in the moments before they’re checked in and shown their seats. “Wish me luck.”

“Wish us both luck, you mean. And you got an extra month of study-time, so I don’t even want to hear any complaints.”

Yeah,” Matt says through a large exhale. “I just need to stay here long enough to get through it. If you have any suggestions…” he gestures widely. “I’m all ears.”

“Preferably the kind that doesn’t come in pill form?”

“Don’t even joke,” he says through a laugh.

Foggy claps Matt on the back. Says, “best of luck, buddy. Seriously.”

Matt nods, jostles his body against Foggy’s just a woman approaches and says, “Mr. Murdock?”

“That’s you,” Foggy helpfully whispers, and moves on to find his seat.

He turns toward the woman, starts fidgeting with the top of his cane. “Yes, uh. Yes?”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m Jen. I can show you to your seat if you’d like. We have all the accommodations you’ve requested set up for you and ready to go.”

“Great, fantastic,” he says, relieved. One less thing to worry about. “Thank you.”

The desks are all lined up in neat rows inside the wide, open space of the Javits Center’s examination room and the din of anxious test takers is almost too much for him. The way the wall of sound blankets over everything, fills up the cathedral-like dome overhead.

The temperature inside the building rises another degree, and it’s already too hot, almost stifling. He sways on his feet when a touch of dizziness overtakes him. Clenches his fists to get it under control.

“Mr. Murdock?” Jen says, a note of concern in her voice.

“No, it’s okay. I’m--”

“You’re gonna do fine,” she warmly says. Squeezes his elbow before vanishing into the crowd.

“Okay,” he says to himself. Time travel doesn’t exist. The outside world? Doesn’t exist. Nothing else except for him, this desk, and the work in front of him.

*

Im so damn happy you updated. I love this story so much.

"Later that night, Matt wakes up in the middle of night to relieve his bladder" was this part during a time traveled where Matt ended up on Fggy's house or it was the same day he got back. Im not sure if i rread that scene right.

Oh Matt get a grip or you ganna end up traveling during you test and we dont want that

you have made my day. no joke.

the middle of the night bit is intentionally ambiguous as matt doesn't realize he's traveled until he's woken up the next morning. he's at foggy's place, and Foggy feels comfortable enough to kiss matt on the forehead, so you can read into that however you like.

<3

exactly.. loks like they are "together" cause Foggy si all cozy with him and he knwos he si not his Matt...

"Later that night [it's] the middle of the night."

Oh man. I dunno how I missed that. Spending too much time at the department of redundancy department I guess.

I filled this: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11768238

*

Predictably enough, Foggy floats the idea of going out for celebratory drinks pretty much the second the convention center’s doors swing open and the horde of tired and hopeful lawyers-to-be spill out into the warm summer evening.

“What, you’re teetotaler all of a sudden?” Foggy complains when Matt doesn’t answer. He picks at the button on his shirt cuff and sways on his toes.

“No,” he says, stifling a yawn. “I’m just… I’m--” He’s just tired. Really fucking tired.

“--waiting for my ride.”

“What ride? Josie’s isn’t that far from here, you know. ”

“No, I know… that’s not what I mean.” He runs his fingers over the grip of his cane, aware of the crowd of people within earshot. He leans right into Foggy’s personal space and keeps his voice pitched low. “You know.” And here he moves his hands as if imitating a puff of smoke, “‘Poof’.”

“Oh,” Foggy says, dragging out the word. Matt imagines a lightbulb appearing over his head the moment Foggy realizes his meaning. Ding! “I guess I forgot you were… Visiting.”

Matt snorts at ‘visiting’ and gives a vague nod of his head. “Yeah. So, I um. I want to try to catch up on sleep if I can?” Plus, he’d rather not travel while inebriated if he can possibly avoid it.

Christ. Maybe he should think about cutting back on the drinking. It’s probably a minor miracle that he hasn’t ended up in Time Travel Survival Mode half in the wrapper.

He groans, so Foggy says, “yeah, of course--”

“--I mean, I don’t wanna bail on you--”

“--No, I get it. Don’t worry about it.”

“But hey,” Matt says, slapping Foggy on the shoulder, “at least you’ll have the advantage over me for a change.”

“Oh my god,” Foggy says. “Present-you has no idea you’ve even made it here. This is gonna be great!”

Through an amused smile Matt says, “yeah, feel free to milk that for all it’s worth, too, because I had to sweat that out for nearly a month,” and Foggy’s delighted laughter at Matt’s expense is full and bright and everything he could ever hope for.

“My how the tables have turned.” Foggy says, going for classic cartoon villain. Moustache twirling and all.

They part ways and say their goodbyes. When he makes it back to his place, the short hair the back of his neck stands before he’s even gotten the key in the door, and when he does open it, he just hovers over the threshold for several long seconds, and listens.

Once inside, he shuts the door behind him as quietly as possible, and moves through the apartment with stealth, keeping his senses wide open and on full alert. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but he has this nagging suspicion that someone else has been in here.

He sorts through the possibilities. He doesn’t really know anyone who would just waltz in and make themselves at home. Apart from him, that is, but he doesn’t think so. Present-native Matt is still cooling his heels at the future home of Nelson and Murdock, attorneys at law. And while it’s possible he’s picking up on the echoes of a future version of himself, he doesn't think that’s it either. Matt, he… he tends to read as neutral to himself without a physical presence to ping off of.

It’s… baffling, to be honest. He can’t find any evidence of intrusion. Nothing is missing or out of place. There are no unfamiliar odors hanging in the air, or anything else that doesn’t belong. Nothing at all to corroborate his initial suspicion.

He gives a frustrated huff and shakes his head. He’s just… he’s just really tired. That’s all this was. He’s tired and worn out, and he’s just letting his imagination run away with him.

The best thing for him to do right now would be to just try to forget the whole thing. Put it out of his mind and focus on the here and now. (Admittedly, he’s never been very great at that…) Settle in for the night, take a hot shower, and hell, maybe even try to get some actual sleep before he gets pulled back to the present.

Of course, whatever invisible mechanism is behind his time traveling apparently has other plans for him. And a pretty fucked up sense of humor as it turns out, because not moments after he’s stepped out the shower and toweling off his hair, the rubber band snaps, and he’s sent back to the present on top of a nice big pile of rotting garbage, face-first.

“Great,” he grumbles, as he tries to swat away a bee buzzing just above his head. New Yorkers are too hurried to bother looking into the alleyways they pass by, so no one will notice the naked man in the trash. So he plugs his nose, tries not to gag on the smell of rotting food waste, and pulls himself up to standing. Brushes away something wet and slimy from his knees, and climbs up the nearest fire escape to scour the rooftops to raid some poor soul’s clothesline.

“Let’s try this again,” he says out loud when he gets back home. Strips off his ill-fitting and ill-begotten clothing right in the middle of his living room, and heads straight for the shower to wash away the stink of rotting garbage.

And once again, after he’s dried off, he crawls straight into bed still naked, and tries to fall asleep.

*

Like many fellow newly barred attorneys, Matt and Foggy cast their nets far and wide in hopes of scoring something big in the choppy seas of the competitive job-market.
But it’s all so much bullshit. The whole song and dance of ‘doing it right,’ and ‘going through the motions’. He knows where he’s going to land. Foggy too. They just have to get there.

And he do has to put in a little effort to get his friend on board with the whole trusting him about the future thing, because the fish aren’t biting, and Foggy’s starting to panic.

“I’m not a puppy, you know. I can’t just keep nipping at your heels as my big life strategy,” Foggy says over breakfast.

“I know that,” Matt says, trying to keep his tone light. “but Foggy, you aren’t hearing me. I have told you we--”

“I know what you have told me, Matthew, but we need actual jobs, not hypotheticals.”

“Nelson and Murdock isn’t a hypothetical.” Why does he not get that? “It’s a real thing that really exists. I know this for a fact, because I have actually been there.” He shrugs. “We settled this. Years ago, I thought.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Foggy says, then he makes some kind of complicated hand gesture that Matt has trouble parsing. “But you need to learn how to live in the present, Matty.”

“Story of my life,” he mutters.

“Dreams are nice, but we need a gameplan.” Foggy says, emphatically gesturing at the floor. “And I mean for right now. Not six months from now, not two years from now, but now-now. And definitely not something we might have discussed several years ago. I get that maybe it all bleeds together for you, but Jesus H.”

“It’ll work out, Foggy. You’ll see.”
“You always say that!”

“And have I ever been wrong?”

“How the hell should I know!” he yells, and Matt breathes out hard through his nose.

“Okay,” he says. Breathes out again, this time to get his own anger under control. He hates this. He and Foggy. They’re always fighting. “Can we… set this aside for now? Wait and see what happens… or, or we can just keep doing what we’ve been doing, and--”

“--and wait and see what happens?”

“I’m just saying, you’re getting all worked up for nothing, and--”

“--I’m getting worked up.”

“Yes! And if you just trusted me on this--”

“I do trust you, Matty, I do, and I know you’re not bullshitting me with all this future stuff--I have known you way too long for that, but come on. If you can’t see where I’m coming from--”

“--I do, though! I really do. And... I realize I probably sound crazy to you. I mean, in this market? Opening up own firm? It probably sounds ludicrous, but--”

“No buts, Matty, no buts because we can’t pay our bills on buts.” Foggy audibly breathes out through his nose, probably counting down from ten, or something, and continues, “but.” He stretches the word out: Buuuut. “But I do trust you on this.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Foggy agrees, and that’s all that’s needed for them to set the topic aside for the time being.

*

Quietly, Matt starts looking into all the ins and outs required to get their business off the ground. He probably should let Foggy in on that, but for now it’s strictly in the research phase. There’s no harm in that keeping it close to the vest, and besides, N&M is going to happen, so... why not help it along a little.

Shortly after that the phone call they’ve been waiting for comes in, and Matt and Foggy both start their internship at L&Z the following Monday.

“It’s a broom closet,” Foggy complains once they’re given their first assignment and shown to their office. To be fair, ‘office’ is a pretty generous description: it’s literally a file storage room with a pair of desks pushed together.

Matt purses his lips, so Foggy says, “don’t you start.”

He puts his hands up, palms forward. I haven’t said a word.

Though maybe Matt’s coming across as more distracted than usual, because a few days later Foggy mutters at him, “focus on the now, Matthew.” Which. Yeah. Not his strongest suit.

*

Going forward, Matt tries to take a more mindful approach to everything he does. During the day, he brings nothing but his full attention and the strictest of professionalism to the law firm. And at night he throws himself into his training regimen at the gym, and he puts in as many hours of meditation as he can possibly stand.

It’s a welcome distraction, this intense focus, but it’s a distraction nonetheless, and he knows it. Knows he can’t keep this pace forever, especially since he isn’t sleeping.

Still, the nagging itch that he’s somehow on the wrong path claws and scratches at him.

It isn’t possible to be on the wrong path. It’s not, because that’s not how time travel works. Past, present, and future are all laid open like a book, he just gets to be one of the lucky souls who can flip through the pages.

So there’s nothing to worry about.

“Do you…” he starts, when Foggy enters their little closet-office. “Do you ever worry about timeline divergences? Say if we end up on the wrong one or something?”

Foggy acts like Matt hadn't said a thing. He just continues on to his desk and deposits an entire armful of bagels onto it. Then sits and begins loudly chewing through an onion bagel. After audibly swallowing he says, “nope. Because I know that’s not actually a thing.”

After a beat: “It’s not, right?”

“I don’t know,” Matt quietly says. “But. Something doesn't feel right, I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

He still hasn’t told Foggy about that strange night in his apartment. The one where he’d felt the echo of someone else’s presence. Or how he isn’t really sleeping, or even how he’s started to worry that maybe things haven’t exactly been right ever since he had that seizure on the bathroom floor the morning of the bar...

“Okay, so even if we are on the wrong timeline or whatever--and I am not conceding that we are, by the way--is there anything we could do about it?”

“No,” he admits. “Probably not. I mean, I’ve never been able to directly change anything, so.”

“Well, okay then. There’s you’re answer.”

“Yeah,” he says, “you’re probably right,” even though he’s not sure he really believes it. “But… you’re ha-- I mean, this is where you want to be?”

“Me? Hell yes. Hang here long enough, and we are guaranteed permanent employment. Put our degrees to use, make a couple bucks?”

“Is money what’s most important here? What about helping people? What about doing the right thing?"

“God, you and me, we're always going around in circles with this,” Foggy complains. "You're too focused on the future where everything is perfect, and we are exactly the justice-serving do-gooders you imagine us to be. And just because life isn’t unfolding precisely the way you expected, doesn’t mean it’s time to start panicking. Jesus.”

Everything isn’t perfect in the future, Foggy, you hate me for large chunks of it.

Though he wisely keeps that thought to himself. Foggy continues: “Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but you need to stay in the present, Matthew. It’s all some of us have.”

*

It’s all so much corporate bullshit, though.

Matt bites his tongue and keeps his head down whenever they have to defend a shady business whenever they see fit to bend or even break the law whenever it suits their bottom line. Which of course, is all the time.

The last straw comes when the Roxxon Corporation threatens to countersue a dying old man, and Matt knows, deep down to his very soul that he cannot keep doing this.

This is definitely the wrong path, just not in the way he feared.

“This is not justice,” Matt argues afterwards. “What happened out there was wrong, and you know it.”

“Sometimes I really hate you,” Foggy says, but he doesn’t sound like he means it.

Matt gives him a confused look, so he adds: “Can I tell you a secret?”

He snorts. “I am all ears,” he says.

Foggy start emptying file boxes and packing his stuff. “I may have been looking into everything we’d need to start a business…”

“Yes!” Matt says with a fist to the air. “Foggy this is great! I don’t know what to--”

“Don’t start celebrating yet, Mother Theresa. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”
But it’s going to be worth it.

*

Oh Man. I swear Just a few days ago i was checking if there was a New chapter.
This was a pretty light one i do Wonder if The persona that went to matt's appartment is another traveler. He would be able to detect if he is the one that went there.
I hope you dont give up Man ñ. This story is awesome.

This is so great! I missed the ending last time I was in this part of the site. Thanks for taking the journey all the way through, anon, it's great work.

Yoooo, this fic is my jam! I'm excited to find out when Frank is gonna get the message and find out, or will he just stumble upon it by accident? Will he be happy, or too frightened of both the what ifs and what happened to his family to give Matt the love she wants.

Also Foggy+Matt reconciliation! That makes this fic A+++++ in my book! :D

*a heads up: the child molester thing happens toward the end of this chapter. I don't actually show that, but it's still pretty upsetting.*

*

The first time Matt got to go down into the cellar with his dad, it was to help him get the ‘X-MAS!’ box out of storage and bring it back up into the apartment.

For years he had wanted to go down there with his dad, and each year his dad had said no, he was still too little, maybe when he was a little older. And when he was six he was finally allowed to go! “Sure,” his dad had said. “I could use another pair of hands.” It was such a big feeling too, like being a grown-up, but he was kind of scared too, it was so dark down there. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, and his dad had been right, maybe he was still too little. Standing at the top of the stairs, he thought about turning around and going right back into the apartment where it was warm and bright and nothing could hurt him.

“Nothin’ to be scared of,” his dad said, and he tried reassuring him with a wide, bright smile. Matt doesn’t remember if it had actually worked, but he knows he nodded obediently, and trailed after him.

His hesitance hadn’t diminished any when they reached the caged off storage area at the back of the cellar. It was so dark, and there were spiders everywhere.

He had to keep himself from checking his clothes and shaking his head like a big wet dog in case he’d picked up any eight-legged hitchhikers. They gave him the heebie-jeebies, but he wanted to be brave for his dad. Being allowed down in the cellar at all was a big kid privilege, and if he was too scared, maybe his dad would send him right back upstairs, and never allow him downstairs again. It was a strange feeling, being so at war with himself. He wanted nothing more than to be big and brave and strong, but he also wanted to thunder up those stairs and go right back into the safety of their warm apartment.

His dad then handed him a dulled silver key. Their apartment number was etched across its head, and Matt understood immediately that it was his job to unlock the closet-sized cage which held all the things they either didn’t use often enough, or didn’t have room for inside the house.

He’d never opened a lock before, but it seemed his tiny fingers were perfect for the job. It opened right up, no problem.

He beamed at his dad who gave him a ‘good job,’ or an ‘atta boy,’ or something similar.

Anyway, the cage door swung right open, and his dad had reached right up for the top shelf, and pulled down the thing they’d come for: a dust-covered cardboard box with the word ‘X-MAS!’ printed on it in big, bold letters.

(The Christmas before, his dad had handed him a fat black magic marker and asked him if he’d like to do him a favor and label the box for him. For posterity, he said. Matt understood that his was an important job, and he took great care to make each letter as neat and even as possible. They ended up all slanting sharply downward, but his dad didn’t care, so neither did he. For all their Christmases remaining, Matt would on occasion imagine those letters sliding off the box and breaking apart at the joints until they were nothing but a pile of bold lines and sharp angles. And after he lost his sight, he said, ‘is still there?’ and Jack, not privy to Matt’s private joke, allowed him to stick on a Braille label somewhere underneath them. He still imagined the magic marker letters sliding off, but the Braille label stayed firmly in place.)

The X-MAS! box (sans label, of course) was pretty ancient, older than Jack himself, probably, but Matt loved everything about it. And inside it. Loved all those gaudy glass Christmas bulbs; the thick gold and silver garland; the thin, shimmering metallic icicles that managed to get just everywhere, strands and strands of the stuff hidden in vents and ground into the carpet long after the tree and everything else had been packed up and put away; his late grandmother’s creche, and each of the tiny figures, all of them made of pewter; the tacky ceramic angels; the plastic candles with the orange light bulbs that had to be scotch-taped onto each windowsill, they were so top-heavy; the glitter encrusted paper snowflake-thing he’d made in kindergarten; all of it. Above all else, though, he loved the time he got to spend alone with his dad. It was magical. (And Matt, he hasn’t decorated for the holidays since, much to Foggy’s disappointed. By the time Christmas had rolled around during their first year in school together, Foggy had orchestrated a full out campaign meant to convince Matt just how wonderful, how magical decorating their tiny dorm could be. Sure, it wouldn’t be the same, but that was the whole point! They could create their own traditions now that they were all grown up and on their own. Matt, though, he just couldn’t bring himself to… he didn’t think there was much of a point. He did accept the standing invitation to have Christmas with Foggy’s family, and he was polite, and he smiled a lot, and he never, ever let on that this time of year was difficult for him. He knew they meant well, and they were great folks, they really were, but they felt sorry for him enough as it was.)

Anyway, his dad carried the box back upstairs, and Matt had never been more relieved.

“Would ya look at this mess,” his had dad muttered once he set the box down on the living room carpet. Complaining, but only half-heartedly so. He winked good-naturedly at Matt, and dug around inside the box for longer than was strictly necessary. For dramatic effect Matt supposed. Then, with a great flourish, he hauled out the thing he’d been after, and held it up high enough so Matt could really get a good look at it. The thing in those huge and mangled boxer’s hands wasn’t so much a string of lights as it was a basketball made of green wire, multi-colored opaque incandescent light bulbs, and knots. Lots and lots of knots.

If there’s one thing he remembers from that day though, it’s how frustrated he’d gotten as he tried untangling the whole twisting Gordian mess. How entirely unsuited his tiny fingers were for the job. He was frustrated, and angry, and he wanted to throw the thing across the room, watch it smash against a wall, and maybe it would break apart they way he imagined his thick, black X-MAS letters would. Then, without saying a single a word, his dad had given him a serious look, and plucked the whole mess of wire right from his hands. It was like he’d plucked away his frustrations, too. So he watched his dad as he worked, awed as the old man’s thick fingers worked and teased and pulled and pried. But the thing that really stands out in his memory of that day was his dad’s knuckles. Not just how they moved as they worked, but how they looked. They were so huge and swollen, bruised, scabbed over, broken from too many fights, and he remembers the way they looked against that ball of wire as it twisted through those mangled hands. Those sore knuckles had to have made the work unbearable, but it never once fazed him. Or, at least he hadn’t made any noises about it. No verbal complaints, no groans of pain, no nothing. He just kept at it, working right through the tedium of it, and through the pain of it, and kept working until the job was done. It was amazing.

His dad had laughed a little in a self-deprecating manner when Matt commented on the quiet show of strength he’d just witnessed. “There’s no magic involved. It’s just focus. Say you’re in the ring against a guy, right, and he’s bigger and stronger than you. Got more wins under his belt. So you go, ‘look at this guy. I don’t stand a chance against a guy like that.’ But thinkin’ that way’ll have you beat before the thing’s even started. So how do you get through it? This is what you gotta do: focus on your two fists, and nothing else. Don’t think about how many fights the guy’s already won, ‘cause you’re not in any of those other fights. You’re in this one. And make sure you don’t think ahead to the end of the fight, either, don’t worry yet about about winning or losing, ‘cause it ain’t over till you hear that bell. So now there’s nothing left but the moment you’re in. Just worry about completing this punch, then the next one, and then the next. You go down, you get up and do it some more. That’s it. And it’s the same with the Christmas lights. You take in how big the problem is, and you get so overwhelmed by it, you’ll want to quit before you even started. So just take it one step at a time. This is true whether it’s for boxing or anything else in life. You understand what I’m saying?”

Matt’s not sure if he had understood then, but he knows he nodded like a good, obedient son, and was rewarded for it with a wide grin and a playful swat to the head.
And his dad had been right, of course he had, Jack Murdock was a wiser man than anyone was willing to give him credit for, but for now, right now, he needs to figure out what comes next. Because today he climbed the tallest building he could find, and like the reckless idiot that he is, he swan-dived off the top of it without a second’s thought to where--or how--he was going to land.

Well, that’s not entirely true, now is it. He does know. He just doesn’t know if it’ll be a soft landing, or a flame-engulfed disaster.

(Don’t turn tail and run back into the house. Be big and brave and strong.)

Christ. If only Jack had been a time traveler, too. Then maybe he could come here and do all this hard work for him.

He rolls his aching neck and shoulders. Unfolds his legs from the half lotus he’d been sitting in. Moves to get up, because been sitting here for entirely too long and the only thing he’s managed to accomplish is feeling sorry for himself.

So he pushes himself up to standing, and as he does his legs buckle and he ends up falling to the floor. Hard. As he goes down, time seems to a slow. way. down. until it seems like it’s almost stopped, and he thinks that maybe he’s become unstuck again.

“Not now not now not now please god not now.”

He’s close to tears, but at least he doesn’t go through the floor. “Jesus,” he mutters, because he tripped and fell. That’s all. Landed hard enough to hurt, sure, but he didn’t travel. He’s here, he’s still here in his own living room, and he’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed.

He’s kind of sweaty now, and a little bit shaky, so he gets up to take a shower and maybe try to get in some sleep if he possibly can. A big if.

Maybe it’s because he’s feeling a little bit fragile, a little unsteady on his feet, but he’s hit with an intense bout of nausea as every sound from seemingly every corner of the city assaults his brain. He curls in on himself, hands flying up to his ears, because it’s too loud, it’s all so loud, and he can’t, he can’t…

Stop. Breathe. Do it like this: In out in out in out…

Okay. Next, sort through it all, weed out everything that’s not needed. Well, nothing from outside is actually needed, but he needs to sift through it all a little bit at a time. Identify each and every discrete bit of information before he can dismiss it as irrelevant. Otherwise it might all get away from him again.

He breathes, carefully, deliberately, and winnows away the din of New York City late at night.

He thinks he’s got it under control when a single sound hangs suspended in the air around him. It’s sharp and desperate and he thinks that maybe this is what initially set him off. This is what he’d picked up on a subconscious level, and it overwhelmed him because it’s just so… it’s--

The cries of a small child, a little girl….

And.

He’s breathing hard, standing in the middle of his living room (when did he get back on his feet?) and his body wants to move, go forward, run, run, but he doesn’t…

Once his head clears, and everything’s gone back to manageable levels, he picks up the phone to file a report--like you’re supposed to--and for the rest of the night he’s antsy and anxious. Tries to sleep but just tosses and turns. Tosses and turns.

This goes on for two more nights, and on the third night, he decides to do something about it.

Well, truthfully he solidified his decision earlier in the day; if he hears it again tonight, he had said to himself, he’s gonna go after the piece of shit. Walked into the store and asked the nice girl at the counter to help him find a nice, big hooded sweater. Black. And a t-shirt, too. Yes, also in black, that’d be great, thanks. Big, harmless smile. Everything paid for in cash.

At home, he tears a long strip from the black t-shirt, and stuffs it into his pocket. Searches his closet for an old pair of sneakers; he’ll throw them away after the job is done, and he hopes and prays it won't come to that, but...

He stands in the middle of his living room, waiting. His hands are sweaty, and he's over come by the strangest sensation, like everything's stretched out into infinity for a fraction of a second before it all collapses into a singular pinpoint of time. This is it, this the demarcation. He realizes that now.

He heads up to the roof and stands on the ledge, poised and ready to go. “Give me an excuse, asshole.” And he does.

When he finds the guy, time slows right down. One punch, then the next, and then the next one after that. Till it’s done. Till the guy won’t be able to hurt anyone else, ever again. “And if you do, I’ll know.”

Matt’s never bleed for anyone else before. His hands are blood-drenched from pummelling the guy, sure, but he also managed to get in a lucky shot and split Matt’s lip right open.

It’s a good feeling. He did good, and he is good, and when he gets home he sleeps good, too. Better than he had in a long, long time.

*

The beggining of his hero journe. I do wonder i he ever gets back to this da and finds otehr Mat here. What woul he ssay and do....

“Holy shit,” Foggy says when Matt finally arrives at Josie’s and carefully leverages himself into his seat. Every muscle, every particle in his body aches. “Let me guess; I should see the other guys?”

Frankly, yes, though he desperately prays Foggy will never, ever have to.

Still, Matt’s thrown off by the question. It feels completely out of context, or maybe Matt’s the one out of context. He’s not sure. His mouth gapes open, moves around words that refuse to come.

Pain explodes as the movement stretches and aggravates the open wound on his bottom lip, and he cannot begin to imagine how he must look to Foggy right now. He does remember how his dad would often look right after a fight, though. His face huge and swollen, brow bloodied, bottom lip fat and split, busted open like an overcooked sausage.

Matt must look a lot like that now.

Next to him, Foggy’s body language shifts from loose and good-natured to wary and suspicious. It was a joke; he’d meant it as a joke and Matt was supposed to have taken it as such, especially since it was one Foggy has employed often whenever Matt’s been back from the boxing gym. And now he’s sitting here not responding the way Foggy expects him to. “I’m fine. Just have to be more careful.”

“Okay, just. I worry about you, you know?” Foggy’s voice is tender and earnest, and Foggy means well, he knows he does, but he also knows his friend’s concern stems from his long-standing believe in Matt’s vulnerability out there in Time Travel Land, which is unfortunate. He understands now that the front he’s carefully constructed these past several years must seem confusing and contradictory, given Foggy’s experience of him.

Well, that’ll all get up-ended soon enough.

“Yeah, man,” he says. “I know you do. Just. Thank you. You know. For looking out for me.” Matt can smell that distinct scent of salt in the air just as Foggy blinks back unshed tears. Then Foggy’s hand inches across the sticky bar top toward his own folded ones, and Matt makes himself go very, very still.

He is incredibly aware of his own breathing. It’s the only thing he hears.

Foggy never makes contact, though, just snaps his hand away as if it had been burned, as if Matt himself was too harmful to touch, and he does his very best not to react. He can’t let on that he knows about all this drama unfolding, can’t let himself feel even the tiniest bit slighted.

“Anyway,” he says with a feigned laugh, hoping to alleviate some of the tension hanging over them.

“Have you noticed,” Foggy starts, and Matt has to swallow a smile; Foggy’s also aiming to redirect the conversation from the weirdness of the last few moments, “that we are still haven’t had our orders taken? I mean, why do we keep coming here, the service is terrible.”

“Wait. I thought we keep coming here because the service is terrible.”

A beat for effect, then: “I do believe you have a point.”

“I know I do. It’s why I said it.”

Just then Josie materializes in front of them. Right on cue. “What’ll you have, hun,” she says to Matt. She says it flatly; a rote response to one of a thousand interactions she’ll have to weather tonight. But it’s also her way of letting Matt know she’s there at all. Just don’t make the mistake of suggesting to her face that underneath the layer of stone-cold indifference lies a bleeding heart; he’s been a patron at this particular bar long enough to know you may just end up wearing some of it.

He opens his mouth, almost asks for his usual--whisky, neat--but settles on ginger ale instead. “Hope you’re not the designated driver,” she mutters before jotting down Foggy’s order and then vanishing off to wherever it is she goes.

“...you’re not, right?” Foggy inexplicably says.

“What, driving? Of course not.” He makes it a point of raising his eyebrows and screwing up his face, like Foggy should know exactly what kind of idiot he is.
Foggy answers in a forceful, emphatic whisper, “no, that’s not…. I mean.” He leans in close. “You know.”

Matt understands ‘you know’ in this context to mean ‘traveling,’ so he leans in to say in the same low voice, “I assume you mean that euphemistically.”

Foggy none-so-subtly clears his throat. “You assume correctly.”

“Okay, well. I’m not. Not at the moment, anyway.”

“Not at the moment,” Foggy repeats blandly. Like he doesn’t quite understand what that string of words even mean.

Josie arrives just then with their drinks, and Matt, with his focus centered entirely on Foggy, on their conversation, startles at her voice. “Right in front of ya,” she says by way of apology, sliding his soda forward. The bottom of the glass scrapes across the wood grain as it goes, the path well-worn and familiar. She stops just short of his folded hands, and some of the soda sloshes onto the bar in front of him. He resists the urge to move his hands out of the way, to hide them, to keep his raw and swollen knuckles from coming into contact with cold, acidic liquid. Instead, he keeps his hands firmly on the sticky bar top, and offers Josie a warm, grateful smile along with a polite ‘thank you.’

“Anyway,” he repeats after she’s disappeared again, “here’s to us.”

“To us,” Foggy agrees. “To Nelson and Murdock.” And Matt has to do a small internal dance at that, because Foggy’s finally, finally gotten it right, gotten the order right. It means this thing that has been quietly brewing in the background of his life is a real thing that’s really happening, and things are finally, finally coming together. He knows it won’t last forever; he knows that, but he also knows that this new hopeful thing is something worth fighting for. And he plans on doing just that. While he still can.

*

“Well, I’d say I’d know it when I see it, but. You know.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I do try."

“Man, I just can’t-- I mean, you’ve really been there. Really for real. Like, we haven’t even meet the real estate agent, but you know the place well enough to describe it in full detail.”

“Oh, shit. Did I travel without realizing it? I mean, my clothes don’t survive the trip usually, and I’m pretty sure I’m not naked right now, but if you don’t know, then I must have. I know it must seem weird, but I promise I can explain! See, we’re actually good friends in the future and I am-”

“--Not funny.”

“Wait, so. Does that mean you just lied to me? Because I’m pretty sure you said I was. Actually, you said I was, and I quote, ‘hilarious.’”

“Sarcasm, Matthew. Learn it. Live it. Love it.”

“Anyway. So the appointment is all set up? With the Realtor?”

“Yup. Monday morning, eight a.m. sharp.”

“Cool. I um. I should tell you I won’t be around for breakfast on Sunday.”

“‘Won’t be around’? Matt. What’s more important than freshly baked bagels, let me ask you.”

“I have things. To do.”

“Things.”

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, things.”

“And are you going to actually tell me about these oh so important things, or do I have to guess. Oh wait, I know! You are such the sly dog. You have a date you didn’t want to tell me about. I am hurt, nay scandalized that you couldn’t trust your ol’ pal Foggy enough to…”

“No, hey, listen. I don’t have a date. I. Uh. I’m planning on attending Mass this Sunday.”

“Whoa. That’s-- Okay, no, that’s actually not all that surprising, but. Just seems kinda out of the blue. It is kinda out of the blue, isn’t it?”

“Eh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Met the priest traveling once; thought maybe it’s time to make it official.”

“Oh wow, look at you. Okay, so. What’dya say we grab something after, then.”
“Yeah, maybe.”

“Cool. See ya when I see ya.”

*

Matt is… in the process of building himself an outfit. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple, practical affair made of easily attainable pieces meant more for ease of movement than anything else. It’s a far cry from the devil suit thing he’ll eventually end up with, but it’s a good, solid start. He plans on adding onto it incrementally, as he expects experience will be his best teacher from this point on.

He stands on his roof overlooking the city and listens. Really listens. There’s so much pain, and so much of it digs its sharp claws right into his skin, and he knows , he just knows that he has to do something about it. Knows he can’t keep his head in the sand anymore.

God. For so long he was just this dumb, naive kid. It’s actually kind of amazing how long he’d been in denial.

Well, he knows better now, and he’s decided; he ‘s finally going to do something about it.

First though. First he has something important to take care of.

*

“Forgive me, Father. It’s been. Too long since my last confession.” And once Matt opens his mouth and starts talking, the words just spill out, like a deluge. All those old wounds, wounds he didn’t know he still carried, wounds that still rot and fester in the dark depths of his subconscious; they all come bubbling up to the surface now as he unburdens his soul; tells this priest about his dad, about how he’s been thinking about him a real lot lately, about how they’re alike, and how they’re not, and importantly, about how they both got the devil in ‘em.

“But do you have anything to confess. This is confession after all.”

And when Matt asks the priest for forgiveness not for what he has done, but for what he will do, the man’s stunned silence fills entire libraries.

When he finds his voice the other man manages, “what is it you plan on doing?”

That night Matt frees the devil for the first time. Tonight it’s sex trafficking, but who knows what’ll come next. God. He thought he knew what he was getting himself into, but he had fucking idea, did he.

He does know this: it feels good to do good, and he doesn’t want to stop.

*

“Didn’t have a date my ass,” Foggy says when he calls Matt the next morning. He hurts. Pretty much everywhere.

“I swear I didn’t.”

“Uh huh. Well, come on. Up and at ‘em. We’ve got so much time! And too little to… Actually, strike that. Reverse it.”

A long pause. “You never laugh at my jokes.”

“You’re right; never.”

But before meeting the Realtor, they grab coffee first.

“That is quite the shiner you’re rocking.” Foggy says. He sips his double espresso mocha hazelnut latte or whatever it is. He sounds upset, though Matt suspects he might be imagining it.

“Just have to be careful,” he says, playing it off like it’s nothing.

“Uh huh.”

Foggy saw him just the other night; he knows full well that Matt’s sporting a brand new injury.

Matt shrugs. “Sometimes… finding clothes isn’t. Ideal.” Even though he hasn’t traveled recently, and he has not, will not, not ever, beat the snot out of some poor soul just for something to wear. And he hates himself for implying so.

Foggy just responds with a stretched out “Jesus,” like he’s come to some new and entirely distasteful understanding of who Matt even is now. Like, as a person. He shifts uncomfortably under his friend’s scrutiny and as he does, he worries at the leather strap of his cane. It doesn’t really help.

Foggy checks his watch, says, “ ready to rock and roll?”

And Matt nods. Here it is; time to go.

*

They look at a few different places, none of which meets Matt’s approval.

He finds reasonable excuses for rejecting each of the properties they look at but Foggy’s getting frustrated. Sure, he’s doing his best not to show it, but Matt can tell.

“I’ll know it,” he assures after he’d rejected both places they’d toured so far.

Foggy makes some kind of deep guttural sound at the back of his throat. He thinks Matt can’t hear it, but of course he can.

He understands. He really does. Plus, Foggy’s mentioned hating feeling beholden to Matt’s impressions of the future before, hates the fact that he feels trapped within the confines of time as if Matt himself controls its unfolding. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but he understands. Understands where Foggy’s coming from. Understands why anyone might think Matt, of all people, would have any kind of say in these things.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Foggy mutters as they leave the third property of the day. It’s getting to be late afternoon; the sun is setting, and he and Foggy, and their poor, harried Realtor would like to wrap this all up and go home already.

“Fog,” he mutters back. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m looking for.”

“I am trusting the blind man to know what he’s looking for. That’s just fantastic.”

“Hey. Have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?”

“How would I know?”

“Yeah. You might have a point there,” because who can keep track of what someone else may or may not know.

The third time’s the charm though as they trudge up endless flights of stairs into the office Matt knows will be the future home of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at law.
He can’t help the goofy grin threatening to take over his entire face when he enters the conference room. This is it. This is the very room where he smacked his head from underneath the conference table that will eventually live here.

He turns to Foggy, trying to tamp down his enthusiasm.

“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins widely at him.

“Yeah,” he says to his friend. Then to the their poor beleaguered Realtor, “we’ll take it.”

*

That is a hilarious idea.😁

*

They’ve barely had time to get the office up and running before Foggy’s pal at the 15th Precinct calls him up with a hot tip about a potential new client.

“You gotta stop bribing cops, Fog,” Matt says once he’s disconnected the call and shoved his phone into his pocket. Matt’s referring to the legally dubious quid pro quo thing Foggy and Officer Mahoney have going on, though he’s only half serious about chastising Foggy for it. It’s become something of a running gag; Brett’s mom Bess likes her cigars, and Foggy likes greasing those wheels whenever he can.

But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: as a murder suspect handcuffed to the table in a cramped interrogation room. Matt never would have guessed.

She’s understandably upset and mistrustful of the two young and likely very ambitious lawyers. She’s young and in a vulnerable situation but she isn’t stupid. Knows ‘too good to be true’ when it materializes in front of her in their freshly pressed suits and reassuring smiles.

Matt hopes their strict professionalism will go a long way in assuaging some of her suspicions regarding their motives. (Though to be fair, she would be correct about the ambitious part. After all, they’re not here entirely out of the goodness of their hearts…)

They take their seats, and Foggy pulls out his notepad to begin reviewing the case as they know it so far. Matt contributes by setting his focus on their client. He believes in her innocence wholeheartedly, but he has to leave aside everything he already knows about her. Has to set aside what he remembers of her from their previous encounters; that time he locked himself in his office while she was there; or the time she had come by his place with a big, kind heart, a bouncy helium balloon, and a healthy dose of skepticism about his so-called ‘car accident.’ (Correction: he ignores everything he thinks he knows about her) and focuses on what’s in front of him. In the here and now. Her heartbeat rings so clear and so true he feels justified in placing his faith in her innocence.

“What’s the catch,” Karen says. She says it very carefully, like she wants to believe their presence here represents the answer to her prayers, but suspects she’s really looking at a deal with the devil.

“There’s no catch here, Ms. Page,” he says. “We can help each other. You need representation and we, frankly need clients.”

“Well, I don’t have any money,” she spits out.

So Matt doubles down by offering up their services pro bono.

Foggy abruptly turns to Karen. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, sounding a bit perturbed by Matt’s offer. Then, “Matthew, a word?”

He and Foggy huddle together in a cramped corner of the tiny interrogation room. Hold their little confab in hushed and hurried whispers. “All right. What’s the deal here. Your crystal ball has something to say about our little murder suspect over here, doesn’t it.”

“You know I don’t have a crystal ball, Foggy.”

Foggy groans at that. Matt is being deliberately obtuse, and he knows it. He jerks his head at the interrogation table, likely shooting Karen a quick glance, then crowds Matt deeper into the corner. He’s gripping Matt’s bicep a little too tightly, and his hot breath tickles the hair around his ear. If this was anything other than a professional setting, Matt might have been forgiven for thinking things were about to get interesting. He clears his throat and bites at the inside of his cheek.

Oblivious to how warm it’s gotten, Foggy says, “yeah, but… You kinda do.”

And well, yeah. He’s not wrong. Matt might not have all the details here, but he does know a whole hell of lot more than he’s letting on.

Even still, he replies with a clipped, “not always.”

Foggy sighs. Lets go of Matt’s arm and smoothes out his shirt from where they were pressed together. Poor Foggy. He’d hoped they’d struck gold with their first client, and here Matt is giving the store away. “Let me guess. It’ll work out?”

Matt stifles a laugh. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. It is a good start, though.” Foggy nods his head at that and lets out an exaggerated sigh. Resigned to fate whether he likes it or not.

They retake their seats and Foggy reaches across the table so that he and Karen can shake on it.

Foggy leans in toward Matt. In an exaggerated stage-whisper he says, “she still looks completely pole-axed, by the way, but I think she’s coming around.”

“Great.” Matt extends his own hand and adds, “welcome aboard.”

*
The next night Karen is attacked in her jail cell and he and Foggy get their client the hell out of there. The three of them head back to the office to sit down to have a frank discussion about what she knows and who she suspects attacked her. As she unspools her story, he finds his fingers tapping against the underside of the conference table. The story she tells is a good one; a young secretary at a large construction company; a ‘nice guy’ in the legal department she asks out on a date; a dubious-looking pension file. The numbers didn’t seem right, she says. After confronting her boss about it, he had just waved it off as a hypothetical experiment they were playing around with. A “theoretical model,” they called it. Then she goes out for drinks with the guy from legal, and the next thing she knows she’s blacked out and dragged back to her apartment. Where she awakes next to her date’s cold and very bloody body and her own bloodied hand wrapped around an equally bloodied butcher’s knife.

(“I know it looks bad.”

“Yeah. No kidding.”)

She describes the victim—one Daniel Fisher—as a nice guy with a wife and kids. If he was married, a family man, then why did she ask him out for drinks? They weren't having an affair; he knows that much. Guilt often reads much the same as lying does; flushed face; fidgeting; an elevated heart rate. But Karen has been telling the story freely, without guilt or shame. Like the thought of cheating hadn’t even occurred to her.

So it’s something else then. Karen is a cautious person. Skeptical by nature. Asks a lot a question. He doesn’t think she’s the type to just let things go.

He has a hunch but keeps it to himself. For the time being.

It’s obvious that telling her story dredges up a lot of the pain and emotional turmoil she’s been under in the last day or so. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she says and keeps saying, and it kills him because he knows it’s not. It’s so obviously not.

She’s crying, and Foggy’s wrapping her up in his arms because he’s big-hearted too.

“I’ll keep you safe, Karen,” Matt says. And he means it. He really, truly does.

Now that Karen has nowhere else to go, Matt invites her to his place for the night. It’s nothing untoward; she needs a safe place to stay, and he wants to get a better sense of who she is and what else she might know. He doesn’t want to make this feel like an interrogation, though, so he offers to order take out. In return she dances around asking him personal questions. He doesn’t mind, and honestly it’s something he’s come to expect. People are very often nakedly curious about his blindness, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but he’s learned to not take it personally. To be self-deprecating about it. It helps put people at ease; to assuage their pity or their self-consciousness, maybe. It’s probably a little bit manipulative, but it’s a good way to break the ice.

He wants to walk her through the events leading up her being attacked in her cell because there’s one thing he doesn’t quite understand.

“Why go through all that trouble?” he asks. “Why not just get you out of the way in the first place?” Maybe to frame her? But why?

“They did,” she says, and he suspects she’s misdirecting.“In my cell.”

“Yeah. The second time.”

She found a suspicious file, went to her boss, then started telling other people about it. And not just any other people. ‘A nice guy from legal.’

Karen is suspicious by nature. Inquisitive. Doesn’t let things go.

She intended on blowing the whistle on the whole thing. Probably still does, actually.

He leans in very close, and opens up his focus.

“Karen. Do you still have the file?”

She tells him she wishes she had. That she gave it to her boss when asked, and it hadn’t occurred to her to make a copy. “Guess I’m just not that smart.”

Huh.

That was the first dishonest thing she’s said to him.

“Ah, well,” he says, wanting to defuse the tension hanging between them. He actually hadn’t meant to get that intense about it. “It was just a thought.”

“Anyway,” he says as he gets up and walks toward the bedroom. “I’ll make the bed up for you.”

*

Later that night, Karen waits until he’s asleep to sneak out of the apartment.
Except he’s not sleeping, and he half expected she’d slip away anyway. Probably to recover the file from its secret hiding place. So he grabs his black outfit and follows after her.

And it’s a good thing, too, because inside Karen’s apartment a man holding a knife lunges at her just as Matt bursts through the door.

A USB drive clatters to the floor, and the man dives after it. Matt goes after the guy, and they go a few rounds before the tussle ends up with them both crashing through a window. The guy gets up, and he’s wielding some kind of long metallic object. A broken piece of scaffolding maybe. A pipe. Guy clocks him over the head with it, and Matt loses focus for a long couple of seconds.

Then the guy swings at him with his knife, and Matt scrambles for the pipe. Grips it like a baseball bat and clocks him over the head with it.

“Holy shit,” Karen says after the guy goes down for the count.

He didn’t realize she’d been standing that close to the action.

Matt uncurls the guy’s fingers and snatches the USB drive from his hand. Hold it up toward Karen so she can get a real good look at it before informing her that he’ll make sure it gets in the right hands.

She wants to whistleblow? Then that’s what they’re going to do.

*

Back in his apartment, he drapes his drenched clothes over the shower rod and towels himself off. He doesn’t know where Karen’s gone to, doesn’t know if she’ll sneak back in here like nothing’s happened at all. He doesn’t really care. And despite his aching muscles and his throbbing head, the only thing he wants to do is to crawl into bed and try to see if he can’t catch some sleep.

He isn’t traveling much these days and is sleeping better than he has in years, and he really, truly hopes the trend continues.

*

Come morning, Karen sneaks back in carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee.

Matt’s hand lands on the egg carton just as his front door creaks open.

“Oh,” she says when she sees him pouring vegetable oil into the frying pan. “I didn’t think you’d be up yet. I let myself in, hope that’s okay.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, smiling. He whisks eggs into the pan. “Care for some?”

“Oh,” she says again. “I didn’t know you could,” then under her breath, “that’s stupid, of course he can.” She huffs out a small laugh. “I mean, yes! I would love some scrambled eggs. Thank you. I. I brought coffee? I wasn't sure how you took it so I guessed? Hope that’s okay.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” he says. “Really, it's great.” He gestures toward the tiny kitchen table. “Please.” Have a seat. He continues stirring the eggs then readies a pair of plates. “So,” he starts. He wants to broach this as carefully as possible. “I was surprised to wake up to an empty apartment this morning.” He plates the eggs and approaches the table slowly, every step and every movement careful and deliberate.

“Oh, let me, um.” She stands and takes one of the plates from him. With his now free left hand, he feels for the back of his chair before setting down his own plate and takes a seat. “Yeah. Um.” She’s going to lie to him; he’s sure of it.“I just needed…” She steels herself and changes tack.“I need to tell you something.”

“The file,” he says. He makes it sound like a question, like he doesn’t already know how this goes.

“Yeah, actually,” she says, and she recounts the events of the night before; the file, the man with the knife, and the guy in the mask who materialized from out of nowhere. He saved her ass and promised to help her expose the bastards who did this to her.

“Well,” he says. “Sounds like you had a more exciting night than I did.” He’s suddenly very aware of the bump on his head, has to actively keep himself from feeling for it. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

They finish breakfast, and Karen offers to wash the dishes. “It’s the least I can do,” she explains.

So he calls Foggy.

“Morning, Sunshine. I trust babysitting duties went without a hitch.”

Oh right. Babysitting. He forgot that was how Foggy put it. “If I recall correctly, it was you who said that was an inappropriate way of putting it.” Foggy barks out a laugh at that. Then Matt adds, “that was last night, wasn’t it.”

“Sure was,” he says, still laughing. “How’s your head, by the way.”

Ice cold panic floods his veins. There’s no way Foggy knows he was in a fight last night. He can’t possibly know. “My head?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, says it like Matt’s the world’s largest idiot. “You, under the conference table?”

“Oh right!” he says, rubbing at the sore spot on the top of his head. “God. That was a long time ago.”

“Your definition of ‘a long time ago,’ and my definition of ‘a long time ago’ are two completely different things, buddy.”

“Sometimes that is true,” he says through a wide smile. “Listen. We’ll see you in a little bit, okay? We’re just finishing up breakfast over here. And there’s been a development. It’s nothing huge, but. Who know. Might help.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good. See you guys soon.”

“So,” he says as he pockets his phone. Karen’s finished drying the plates and silverware and is now on to scrubbing out the baked on egg still stuck on the frying pan. “You’re welcome to stay here if you'd like, or you can come with me to the office. Or if you have somewhere else you need to go, but Karen. I would really like for you to stay close if at all possible. For all we know someone could come after you again.”

“You’re sweet,” she says, and Matt smiles at her. “But I couldn’t… you’ve done so much already and…”

“Leave the dishes, I’ll finish them later.”

“Oh, no, I’ll just… there’s not a lot left and I--.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Come to the office. We can keep you safe. I promise. I do have to warn you though: Foggy likes an well-prepared meal as much as the next person, but he cannot cook for shit.” She very generously laughs at that. “So don’t let him try to convince you otherwise.”

“Okay,” she says, still laughing. “I think I can manage that. And who knows. Maybe I’ll cook for you guys some time.”

“I look forward to it, Ms. Page.”

*

Later that night, Karen is true to her word and prepares them an old-fashioned virtue-infused lasagna. She says it’s old family tradition meant for a future spouse, and as they eat it, Foggy kicks him in the shin.

It’s nice. The three of them. Of course it won’t last, but he intends on enjoying it all the same. Learn to life in the moment and all that.

Though he can’t help the worry twisting away in his gut. The collision is imminent; time to brace for impact.

But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: with the offer to help them out around the office in exchange for taking up her case. Matt never would have guessed.

*

"It’s nice. The three of them. Of course it won’t last, but he intends on enjoying it all the same. Learn to life in the moment and all that."
Things are stating tot ake shape in Matt's mind and he knows every days gets closer and closeto where things fucked up Foggy and that will hurt him.

*

The wall behind him scapes against his back, but he doesn’t push away from it. Instead, he presses his body further into it, lets the cool roughness of the uneven brickwork dig deeper into the back of the damp clothing he had stolen from a poor woman’s clothesline. He had crouched behind the building’s large HVAC unit and waited until she had disappeared back inside. Then he sprang into action, pulling down whatever clothes his hands landed on first. A thin t-shirt, a pair of boardshorts. Both were entirely too small for him, and still damp and heavy from the wash. Still, he was grateful. “Thanks for these,” he muttered to the woman as she moved around inside the building’s shared laundry room. “And sorry.”

Right now he’s standing on the sidewalk about a half a mile north of where it happens, and he can hear the plaintive whine of emergency vehicles as they rush toward the scene. It’s an odd feeling knowing those sirens are flying through the busy city streets specifically for him.

Just like every other time he’s been dropped off here, the deep instinctual urge to run towards the scene just so he can to run toward his dad and touch him, talk to him, hear him is so overwhelming he wants to cry. And just like every other time he’s been here, he cannot move his feet no matter how much he wants to. They may as well be cemented into the sidewalk for as much as he’s able to move them. The sidewalk is harsh and uncomfortable on his bare feet, but they aren’t going anywhere. Not for a good long while.

“Do you know what’s happening?” a woman asks him. Her voice is rich and warm and definitely not from around here. A tourist, maybe. She didn’t startle him, but he definitely should have noticed her presence sooner. He’s in full Time Travel Survival Mode here, and he needs to stay on his toes. It doesn’t matter if this particular moment in time is as familiar to him as the back of his own hands, he cannot afford to get so caught up in the spiralling vortex of his own thoughts and emotions that he completely misses what goes on around him.

Though maybe it isn’t too surprising he hadn’t noticed her. Most people move through their lives as walking clouds of scents and smells; there are shampoos and hair dyes and perfumes and colognes. Antiperspirants and deodorants and makeup. People douse themselves in all manner of grooming products in their day to day lives. Matt included. (Except for when he’s traveling of course.)

But not this woman, oddly enough. There isn’t a single molecule of artificial fragrance on or about her person. No jewelry either now that he’s paying attention.

It’s an intriguing detail, but ultimately an unimportant one. And honestly none of his damn business.

He focuses on his surroundings to get a better sense of what might have prompted her question, and he nods to himself when he notices a man standing in the middle of the street. Probably a detail cop redirecting traffic. Right. The street had been closed off. He remembers that now.

“I uh. Yeah,” he says. He moistens his lips. “There was an accident? A car accident. Well, it was a truck. Hit kid.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of where it’s all unfolding, knowing full well that she wouldn’t be able to see it from here. They’re standing approximately ten blocks north of the accident site, though for him it may as well be a thousand miles away.

This was all a very long time ago. The wounds have all closed, the scars have all healed. That he’s forced to relive this one particular moment again and again is beside the point.

She shifts her weight, and he expects she’ll ask him how he knows all this, but she doesn’t. After all, the sirens are close enough now that she should be able to hear them, too.

What he hears is his dad’s panicked voice calling his name as he picks his way through the chaos. Angry, helpless tears prick at his eyes, so he says, “kid’ll be…” A hard swallow. “I mean, I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

He’s pretty sure he’s not actually okay.

“Well, I was hoping I’d get to see something exciting during my stay in New York,” she says.

“But maybe not that kind of excitement.”

“Perhaps not,” she says dismissively. Then she turns and starts walking toward the accident site. Maybe to see the excitement after all.

Something sharp and ugly pulls at his gut at the thought of his accident being nothing more than someone else’s source of entertainment. Something exciting to watch while on vacation.

He knows, realistically, that accidents such as his will tend to draw a crowd. Most people have a natural sense of morbid curiosity, and he has to remind himself that this isn’t actually about him.

He can’t take this sort of thing personally. Besides, how is this woman--how is anyone--supposed to know that he and the boy currently knocked to the ground, and writhing in pain from having toxic goo spilled on his face are one in the same. There aren’t many who would make that leap.

He wipes away hot, viscous tears, folds his arms protectively over his stomach, and waits until he’s once again alone.

And as the woman leaves him, as her feet slap against the hard surface of the sidewalk, Matt finds himself vaguely wondering just what kind of tourist explores the city barefoot. Whether they’ve come to gawk at little boys struck by moving vehicles or otherwise.

*

He’s deposited back in the present in the middle of Foggy’s living room.

It’s not a graceful landing. He crashes somewhere near Foggy’s glass and metal coffee table, legs carelessly sprawled out underneath him. He moves just the wrong way, and bangs his right ankle into one of the coffee table’s cold metal legs hard enough to shift it half an inch out of place. An empty glass tips to over like a felled tree, then rolls off the table and falls to the hardwood floor, where it continues on for another several feet. At least it didn’t shatter upon impact. Foggy probably wouldn’t appreciate having to sweep up shards of glass on top of everything else. Matt flushes with guilt, so he scrambles after the wayward glass and sets it back on the table.

Still sitting on the floor, Matt rubs at his bare ankle. It’s a little tender to the touch and he expects the injured spot will blossom into a nice, angry bruise.

At least he’s able to bear weight on it without it yelling at him. It’s stiff and uncomfortable, but he doesn’t have to favor it as he makes his way to Foggy’s couch.

“What’s all the racket out there,” Foggy complains. Right on cue. Now framed in the doorway of his bedroom, he says, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

He offers his friend an apologetic expression. “Sorry for waking you,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Foggy grumbles, but when he flips on the light switch and sees Matt sitting on his couch, he lets out a soft gasp of surprise and mutters out a quiet, “Holy hell.”

Which confuses the shit out of Matt. He doesn’t have any new injuries, safe for the ankle. And surely Foggy’s not reacting to his nudity. He’s been through this often enough; he knows how this goes.

“Fog?” Matt tries.

He seems to startle at Matt’s voice. Wipes sweaty palms on his pajama bottoms and says just a little too emphatically, “I will go and get you some clothes. Be Are Be.”

Matt waits for Foggy to return with something for him to wear, awkwardly pooling his hands in his lap as he does.

When he emerges again from the bedroom, Foggy sets down a folded pair of flannel pajamas on the couch cushion beside him. “At you nine o’clock,” he says and gingerly sits down, careful to leave plenty of space between them as Matt dresses.

“Coming from anywhere exciting?”

Matt sighs through his nose and finishes buttoning the pajama top. “Yeah,” he says, shoulders slumping a little. “The… you know.” He flaps a hand. “The accident.”

“Oh, man,” Foggy says. “I’m sorry to hear that, dude, I really am.”

“Nah,” he says. Tries to say it lightly, but he’s not sure how convincing it is. “It’s… don’t worry about it. I’ve been there so many times now it’s practically a second home.”

He tries for a small laugh to go along with a big, self-deprecating smile, but he doesn’t think it works. Foggy just seems sad.

“Foggy, I--” I don’t need your pity. He absently worries at the button on his shirt cuff and offers his friend a lopsided smile.

He doesn’t really want to get into this now. His accident and everything surrounding it is too heavy a topic of conversation for this time of night. Thankfully, he and Foggy seem to be on the same wavelength about that. Foggy pushes himself off the couch with a heavy groan. “Sorry, pal, but beauty sleep calls.” He gestures to where Matt is sitting. “Couch is yours though, if you want it.”

“Yeah, man. Thanks. See ya in the morning.”

*

They don’t stay at Foggy’s place long come morning. Instead, Foggy walks Matt home, and while Matt’s in the shower, Foggy makes himself at home by putting on a pot of coffee.

“What are you gonna tell Karen,” Foggy says after Matt’s emerged from the bathroom. He’s dressed and ready to. Teeth brushed. Hair combed. Just has to duck into the bedroom to grab his wallet, his phone, his tactile watch.

“Tell her what,” he says from his bedroom doorway. Foggy’s now sitting at his tiny kitchen table, sipping over-sugared coffee. He scrunches up his face in disapproval, but keeps his thoughts to himself.

At least Foggy’s a well-mannered, considerate mooch and cleaned the pot out after he was done with it.

Trying to give Foggy the hint to hurry it along, Matt makes his way over to the hallway to collect his briefcase, his keys, his cane. Pats at his shirt pocket to make sure his glasses are there, and slips them on. All set, ready to go. Just waiting on Foggy.

“Where do you want me leave this.”

“The coffee mug? Just set it by the sink. I’ll take care of it later.”

“Sure thing,” Foggy says from the kitchen. Matt hears the ceramic mug hit the inside of the metal sink, and a second later, the rush of running water from the faucet. He swallows a smile as he waits for his friend to finish rinsing the mug out for him. “I mean, what are you going to tell her about your whole deal,” Foggy adds.

“My ‘deal,’” he quotes. “I don’t know, Foggy.” Foggy makes his way down the hallway now, and Matt opens the door and steps aside to let Foggy exit first. “I don’t know. Probably won’t tell her anything. Frankly, I don’t see how it’s any of her business.”

He shuts the door behind himself and they head for the stairs. “Yeah,” Foggy says. “I totally hear you on that. But. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just hide from people you work with, you know? I mean, what if you have an episode right there in the office. What if I’m not around when you do?” He asks that last question like the very idea of it keeps him up at night.

“Yeah, that’s... likely. I agree. But if… or when it does happen, we will deal with it accordingly, all right?”

“No, not all right! Take it from me, Matt. Watching someone literally disappear right in front of you is weird, and honestly? Kind of traumatic.”

“Well, you let me know when you come up with a better idea,” he says, though what he really means is ‘I am done having this discussion.’

Under his breath, Foggy mutters, “but what the hell do I know.” Thankfully Foggy drops the subject as they continue on toward the office. Instead, he spends the rest of the walk enthusiastically comparing these early days of the law offices of Nelson and Murdock to opening night of a brand new Broadway show.

“And this,” Foggy says, gesturing grandly as if to encompass the entire city of New York, “is our big debut. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

*

“Good morning, guys,” Karen says once they arrive at the office. Matt sets his cane in its usual spot by the door and goes to stand next to Foggy and Karen a few feet in front of Karen’s desk. “Would you guys like some coffee? I made a fresh pot.”

“None for Foggy,” Matt says, elbowing Foggy in the ribs. “He’s had plenty.”

“It was one cup, Murdock. Seriously. Lighten up.”

He turns to Karen and gives her a quick nod and a serious expression. My rule stands, it means, and she seems unsure how seriously she should take that. Tentatively she says, “well... how ‘bout you, Matt? Can I get you some coffee?”

Before he has the chance to answer though, Foggy with a low whistle. “Man,” he says. “Have you been busy around here, or what. Gotta say, it looks good. I mean, it looks really good. This must’ve taken hours.”

“Oh,” she says, brushing Foggy off with a cheerful sort of casualness. Matt doesn’t buy it at all. “Just wanted to keep busy, you know.”

“Well, it looks amazing.” Turning to Matt, Foggy says, “I am not kidding, dude. The place is friggen immaculate. Not a single moving box or stray paper to be found!”

“Wait. Was it messy in here?” he deadpans.

“Nope!” Foggy cheerfully replies. “Forget I said anything.”

Karen then brushes her hand against Matt’s arm and quickly pulls it away again to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Did I tell you guys I saw the guy in the mask again?”

Matt stiffens. “Uh. You what?” While it’s true he has been active lately, he hasn’t encountered Karen in that context since that first night in the rain, so he has no idea what she’s talking about. He clears his throat and as the conversation unfolds, he keeps his expression as neutral as he can possibly manage.

“Don’t tell me you’re stalking the guy now,” Foggy admonishes. “Seriously, Page. He’s a few french fries short of a picnic. What’re you trying to do, get the guy’s autograph? You should be staying away from that nut job, not actively hunting him down!”

“It’s not like that!” she says. “And he isn’t dangerous, Foggy. The guy saved my life, remember? Anyway. It’s not like I went out of my way to see him or anything, I just happened to catch him running across a rooftop near my apartment. That’s all.”

“Well, as long as you’re okay,” Matt says. He hopes his bland, detached expression of sympathy and concern will be enough to steer the conversation away from… himself. It mostly works.

“What Matt said,” Foggy agrees. “Take care of yourself, Page, we kinda need you around here.”

Heat pools at Karen’s cheeks and Foggy takes that as his cue to head to his office. Once he’s there he yells out, “you two! Just because we have no clients, doesn’t mean there’s no work to do!”

Foggy’s tone is playful though, and Karen laughs nervously, unsure how to take it. He has to remind himself that she’s still getting to know them. So Matt explains, “Foggy and I have been talking about doing this for a long time.” He shrugs. “We are, to paraphrase my good friend Mr. Nelson, ‘waiting in the wings before the curtain rises.’ And... he’s a little excited.”

She makes a small ‘aw,’ sound at that, seemingly charmed by Matt and Foggy’s dream made reality.

“Well,” he says. “Thanks for coming in and straighten up. I would tell you it looks great, but…”

She pats him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Matt.” Then: “I’ll go and get you that coffee.”

*

*

It isn’t long before he travels again. Things have been so quiet for so long now, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to have his life interrupted like this. It’s frustrating, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. This is his life, after all.

He is surprised when he realizes he’s ended up behind the bushes not far from where he and Foggy shared a dorm room all those years ago.

It’s funny being back here now. He knows it was a long time ago, and he can feel the weight of the intervening years on his body and in his soul, but it feels fresh in his memory still. He almost can’t believe how long it’s been.

He’s changed so much since he was that awkward college kid; he’s grown so much that he suspects he’s a completely different person now.

No, not a different person. Just someone who has grown more into himself. He’s probably still not there yet; probably still has a lot of growing left to do.

He doesn’t really know.

What he does know is how desperately he needs to find cover and get out of the pouring rain.

He tries warming himself by vigorously rubbing his arms and hands, and thinks back to his time here. He’s pretty sure there was a window somewhere nearby that he’d used to use to slip into the building; it leads into one of the administration offices, if he remembered correctly. Then from there he would only have a few hallways and a flight of stairs to contend with.

Sure enough, when he gets to the window, he finds it open a crack, and he’s able to pry it open without much effort. He lands on his injured foot wrong, it bends and rolls awkwardly and his already swollen ankle screams in protest.

He swears under his breath and pushes aside the brief explosion of pain to take in his surroundings. No suspiciously convenient bags of clothes left lying around for him this time around. Which is probably for the best. That’s a puzzle he still hasn’t managed to crack.

Once he’s out in the hallway, he keeps low to the wall, ducking into doorways and hiding around corners whenever he hears anyone approaching.

Thankfully he’s gotten pretty good at being stealthy in his old age, and he makes it to his former dorm room without incident. Well, without much incident. He does manage step wrong on his injured foot, and he ends up colliding into the wall outside the dorm room with a loud thud. Great. Now they both know he’s out here. He steels himself for the mess he’s about to step in and slowly opens the door. It creaks on its hinges and Foggy, feeling put out by the intrusion says, “hey, pal. You’ve got the wrong,” and he trails off when he takes in the full view of a soaking wet Matt slamming the door behind him and pressing his body firmly against it. “Room,” he finishes helplessly.

Matt probably looks like a drown rat, and his ankle is throbbing, and his present self is holding a folded set of clothes out for him.

“I am so sorry,” Matt says as he grabs the proffered clothing, because he would have avoided this whole thing if he could have. But. He pulls the shirt down over his head, and it sticks uncomfortably to his wet body. “I’m cold and wet and--” he’s about to mention his swollen ankle too, when present Matt interrupts him.

“Let me guess. Behind the bushes?”

“Yeah,” he says with a huff through the nose. “Every damn time.”

“What the hell was in that beer,” Foggy mutters. He shakes the empty can around in his hand as if he’ll find the answer floating around in there. Poor Foggy. He sounds absolutely shell shocked.

“You aren’t hallucinating,” Matt says. He’s trying to shimmy into a pair of his old jeans, but he’s having a tough time of it; they bunch up at the thighs and when he finally does manage to pull them over his hips, he can’t seem to zip up the fly. He makes a face because he loved these jeans when he was in school. He practically lived in them. Now it seems he’s outgrown them.

“So how should we do this,” Present Matt says, just as Foggy’s freaking out about the fact that the two Matts sound exactly the same.

“You can do it next time,” he deadpans, slapping his younger self on the arm. You know, when you’re me.

Foggy lets himself fall onto his bed and very slowly says, “you never told me you had a brother.” He’s so desperate for a rational explanation for all this, and Matt feels like a complete asshole. He remembers how hard this was on Foggy. How scared Foggy was of him.

Even recently Foggy had referred to this moment as ‘weird and traumatic.’ Clearly the memory of seeing Matt vanish into thin air that first time never really left him.

His younger self is curled in over himself, bracing himself against the pain right before he travels. It’s gotten better as he’s gotten older, easier. The pain less intense, but he still vividly remembers how awful this was.

“Jesus, now?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” And he really, truly is.

Present Matt is writhing on the floor, trying to hold it together. He’s just making it worse for himself, but he knows he won’t listen to anything he has to say. Matt was a stubborn asshole back then. Still is, if he’s honest with himself.

He isn’t just making it worse for himself, he’s making it worse for Foggy, too. He’s panicking badly and screaming Matt’s name. Over and over and over.

“What the fuck is happening! Matt! Maaaatt!!”

“I am not going anywhere, Foggy, you have to believe me. Just. Let me explain everything, okay? Will you let me do that?” And he’s groaning and sobbing from the pain of it, and Matt wants to say to him, ‘stop talking, you idiot. Just let go. It’s going to be fine.’

“Oh my God, Matt!!” And Foggy’s crying, and both Matts are crying, and then there’s a loud sucking noise like all the air has been let out of the room. A person-shaped arrangement of clothes lies perfectly flat against the floor, as if Matt’s body had been beamed right out of them by some unknown alien force.

Foggy’s down on the carpet in an instant, gathering up Matt’s clothes and holding them tight against his body. “What the fuck did you do to him!”

Foggy radiates nothing but pure anger and fear and overwhelming grief. He jerks his arm back and chucks the clothes at Matt like an angry, pointed accusation. Matt doesn’t try to catch them or otherwise move out of the way. He just stands there, letting them hit him square in the chest. Like an admission of guilt. They slide gracelessly off his body and pool loosely at his bare feet. Matt takes a small step forward, and now both he and the pile of clothes inhabit the space his younger self had just vacated.

Matt puts his hands up, placating. “Foggy,” he tries.

“NO!” Foggy shouts. His voice breaks and his face is worryingly warm and he’s crying so hard he’s hiccuping after every word. “Don’t you dare come near me! You. You killed my friend!”

In another context this might even be funny.

“I didn’t--” He pauses so he can take in a deep breath. So he can ground himself.

“Listen, Foggy. I know watching that was…” he can’t help the sad smile that forms at his lips. “Upsetting. You’ve told me it was, and I didn’t take you seriously enough. I am really sorry for that.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Never mind. Don’t worry about it, I--”

“What happened to Matt?” Foggy’s gulping in breaths again, but at least he’s trying to calm himself. Trying to make sense of the weirdness happening right now in his dorm room.

“I’m. I’m uh. I’m right here. I’m not trying to be funny with you, Foggy. You really did watch me vanish, but. I’m… also here.”

Foggy’s quiet for a long time, but his heart beat is steady, and his breathing has mostly evened out. He’s coming around, Matt thinks.

“You’re staring at me right now, aren’t you.”

“You’re blind,” Foggy blurts out, like he’s just now realizing it.

And Matt can’t help but to laugh at that. “The lack of eye contact gives it away. Or so I’ve been told.”

“You’re really Matt?” Foggy says, just as Matt’s saying, “I’m going to sit down now. My bed’s still over there, right?” He gestures toward his old bed, knowing perfectly well how it’s situated within the room. Though it seems smaller than he remembers. Everything in here does. Not only that, but the walls and the furniture and everything inside the room feels pressed closer together than he would have guessed if he had to go by memory alone. “It has been a long time since I’ve been here.” He feels his way over to his old bed, and Foggy takes that as his cue to do the same.

Foggy feels very far away; there is a wide gulf between the two them, between the two beds.

“So,” he starts. His legs hang over the edge of the bed, and he’s leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’m a time traveler? I’m from... the future. I know that sounds dramatic, and kind of ridiculous, but it’s also the truth.”

Foggy’s breathing goes shallow and panicky again. Tripping all over his words, he says, “Holy shit. Holy shit. The fu-- For real? So Matt is… he really is--? And I just witnessed a paradox?! Because the same atoms can’t exist in the same space at the same time, or whatever, so that’s what caused him to--!”

“No, no,” Matt interrupts. “Foggy, breath. It’s nothing like that, okay? I didn’t… I didn’t annihilate myself. If it worked that way, I would think both versions of me would have been destroyed, don’t you think?”

“Oh my God, that can happen?”

“I don’t think it can? I’ve never actually given it that much thought.”

“You don’t know?”

He shrugs, his shoulders going high around his ears. “I’m a lawyer, Fog, not a theoretical physicist.”

Foggy barks out a high, deranged sounding laugh at that. Like he thinks he’s losing his mind.

“Wait, you actually are a--. No, never mind that. We need to talk about what the hell happened to Matt. I mean, you touched him. You touched him, Dude-Who-Looks-Like-a-Slightly-Older-Matt. Then he was writhing in agony on the friggen floor and then he just evaporated right in front of me!”

“Yeah, but. It’s not because I touched…” Matt coughs. He’s trying not to confuse Foggy with here with his usual pronoun usage. “I can exist in the same space more than once. And I do have my own thoughts on how that’s possible, but. That’s a conversation for another time.

“Just. I am real sorry it played out this way, Foggy. I really am, but it was just… it was just spectacularly bad timing. A coincidence. That’s all.”

“‘Bad timing’? I’m supposed to believe that?”

He wants to throw his hands up and say ‘believe what you want. I don’t care.’ But that wouldn’t be very helpful here. He needs to tread carefully; he has to remind himself that while Foggy is listening calmly as Matt explains the weirdness of the situation, he is still upset. And scared about what might have happened to his friend. His well being. Matt just needs to get through this delicate situation by stepping on as few landmines as he can possibly manage.

“I can tell you about where I went,” he says, gesturing at the pile of clothes on the floor. “If you want.”

“You can do that? That’s not gonna… do anything bad?”

“You watch too many movies, Fog.”

“Hey.”

“No, It’s fine. I can. I tell you stuff all the time, actually.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You know how I told you I’m a lawyer? Well, we both are actually, and we--”

“No, stop!” Foggy says. He sounds panicky suddenly. Scared of what Matt might reveal. “I actually don’t want to know.”

“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, no I get it. That’s… Yeah.” He stands and says, “are my glasses still on the floor?”

“Uh. yeah. Hold a sec.” Foggy goes over to Matt’s pile of clothes and picks up the pair of glasses left behind there. He hesitates before bringing them over to Matt.

“Here you go,” he says, placing them in Matt’s palm. He had grabbed Matt’s wrist before setting them there, and the significance of that is not lost on him.

“Thanks, Fog,” he says as he slips them on. “I’m just. I’m gonna go and get out of your hair.”

“You’re really gonna take Matt’s glasses?”

“Well, they are mine.” He pats at the nightstand next to his bed. Grabs his wallet. Leaves the phone where it is.

“I’m not sure that isn’t theft,” Foggy says.

“Can’t steal from yourself,” he says. Then he walks over to the door to collect his cane. “Right where I left it,” he deadpans.

“Hey, dude,” Foggy says as Matt opens the door. He huffs out a small laugh because Foggy still can’t bring himself to call him by his name. “If you really are Matt, then how did you get so shredded?”

He really does laugh at that. “I’ll talk to you soon, Fog.” And shuts the door behind him.

After that, he decides to head to the library. Maybe if it isn’t too busy, he can put his head down for a little while before he’s sent back to the present.

A young woman behind the check-out desk greets him with a warm hello. Then apologetically she says, “I know you requested a couple books in Braille, but they aren't in yet. Sorry.”

“Oh. No, that’s okay. I'm not looking for them today. Um, maybe you can tell me if there are any seats available?”

“Yeah, of course. There’s a row of empty carrels along the wall to your left. About ten o’clock?”

“Great,” he says. “Thanks.”

He finds a spot easily enough, and folds up his cane before setting it on the table. He pulls the chair out, and the front legs drag something across the thin carpet. He reaches down to the floor and is surprised when his hand lands on soft, cool fabric. He lifts it up to his nose. He doesn’t recognize the perfume, which light and fragrant. It’s a woman’s blouse. Under the desk he also finds a long silk skirt and a pair of high heels. He doesn’t know anything about women’s clothing, but if he had to guess, he would say these were expensive, fashionable pieces. They feel well made and of high-quality material. The shoes especially. They feel stiff. Brand new. Worn once or twice, but no more than that.

Why would anyone…

This is a quiet part of the library, and what other students get up to is none of his business. He gathers up the clothes and heads back to the front desk.

“Lost and Found,” he says to the woman still at the desk.

“Oh,” she says. “A whole outfit. Okay.” Then she’s writing something down on an index card. Probably cataloging the items. “You found these all together?” He nods, so she starts placing the clothes into a stiff paper grocery bag.

Surprised, Matt asks, “what’s with the bag? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“To prevent the spread of bedbugs,” she says with a shrug. “Apparently there was a big outbreak a few years ago, so now we keep any Lost and Found items in bags instead of leaving them all piled in a box somewhere. Makes sense, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he says absently. Then to the woman, “thanks.”

“Sure, no problem,” she says at Matt makes his way back to his carrel, where he rests his head until he gets brought back home.

*

"Matthew! You are NOT going to Tort like that!"

"What? I'm out of clean clothes. It's not that bad."

"Not that bad? Must I remind you that you are 100% blind and cannot judge visual items despite being smart as hell?"

"I've dressed like this before-"

"You made me promise. You have a shirt that has an X-files theme on it. You paired it with a pair of kicks that for some reason have a little alien drawn on them and you seem compelled to wear alien green glasses."

"Guess I'll save this for the convention."

"Borrow a shirt from me and switch shoes."

"Aliens DO exist, Foggy."

"Sure they do, buddy. Sure they do but I'm not letting you be called Spooky Murodck, Matthew the Martian or something like that."

"No one's ever called me that."

"So you so say but I've heard some people talk. Marci was really tempted to get you tin foil for your birthday."

"Tin foil doesn't work."

"Really? What does."

"If I tell you, they'll know."

"Uh."

"I'm kidding."

"Oh you got me."

"Tin foil'll work."

"Matt, I can't tell when you're having me on sometimes."

"I believe they exist but I doubt they're visiting...yet"

"Come on, we're going to be late."

"You're coming to my convention."

"Only because you helped in the shop this summer. Mom and Dad would say it's the last of me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tort now, aliens later."

I wanna add to this but I can't cause I suck but I love this!! +100

*

Matt blinks back into the present late at night and only feet away from his building’s front door.

“God,” he mutters, because his muscles are all still tight and achy, and his stomach feels vaguely queasy. “Blah,” he says, tongue unfurling from his mouth, but thankfully the queasiness passes. At least he won’t be puking his guts out all over the sidewalk.

Anyway, he desperately needs to get inside. Briefly, he considers buzzing up one of his neighbors; Fran in the apartment across from his, maybe. But. It’s late, and the last thing he wants to do is to wake anyone up. Actually, the very last thing he wants to do is to have to explain to another person how he managed to lock himself out while completely naked.

On the street behind him, a car horn blares, loud and aggressive, and he would really rather not have the cops called on him, thank you very much. No matter how well he’d be able to lawyer his way out of it.

He slinks around toward the back of the building, stands underneath the fire escape, and flows into a half-assed stretching routine. He needs to loosen those tired, achy muscles, get his blood flowing again.

He’s still stiff, and a little sore, but he reaches for the lowest rung and hauls himself up with ease. He swings his body up the ladder, legs first, and uses his body’s momentum to carry him to the rooftop above. He moves like an Olympic diver, only in reverse. And he doesn’t make a sound.

Once on the roof, Matt casually hops up on the ledge, stands, and lets his bare toes hang loosely over the lip of the building. Casts his focus out wide, sends it across every seedy street corner and every dark alley below. Breathes in and just lets the city wash over him.

He should probably head inside and get dressed, and he will, eventually, but for now he just wants to stand here and let the weight of his city press itself against his cool, bare skin while he thinks about the last time he stood up here.

It was only a couple of nights ago, but that doesn’t feel right to him for some reason, like much more time had passed than that. Probably just that ol’ temporal jet lag wreaking havoc with his internal clock again.

Karen had mentioned spotting him a few nights ago dashing across the city skyline, and he suspects the two of them have the same night in mind: Matt had some asshole pressed against a grimy brick wall, while said asshole begged and pleaded for the punches to stop, please, dear God just stop punching, at least spare him his teeth, please, Jesus God.

Of course, Matt wasn’t very interested in stopping. Instead, he kept at it until the guy was ready to spill his guts.

Matt loosened his grip enough to give the guy enough room to breathe.

The guy reminded Matt about the human trafficking ring he busted up on his first real night out, then said, “They’re gunning for you, man. Really fucked things up for them interfering in their shit like that.”

Matt clocked him in the mouth once more for good measure.

Guy spat blood at him. “You poor bastard. You really have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you? Jesus, what a dumb fuck,” and Matt loaded up another fist. He held it back, though, arm trembling from the restraint. The guy might have been pissing him off, but Matt did have to admire the balls it took to give that much lip to the guy turning your face into so much ground chuck.

So Matt got in the guy’s face, horrible breath be damned, and placidly said, “Tell me.”

Like Matt was someone the guy could trust, like Matt was his new best friend.

“Look. You don’t get to piss off the Russian mob and go home safe and sound afterward, all right?” And with that, Matt released his grip. The guy collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap, and Matt simply walked away from the whole thing.

Whatever. He couldn’t say he put a whole lot of stock in the words of some low life asshole who just wanted to keep his face in one piece.

And as Matt predicted, he hadn’t heard so much as a peep from these alleged Russian boogeymen. So he went on with his life, topsy-turvy as it is.

He’s still standing on his building’s roof bare-assed to the world, so he heads inside and considers his next step.

He really wants to grab a shower. Maybe put in some meditation time; catch up on sleep.

But he also thinks he should probably go and use his time to do something a little more productive than that.

So he stalks across his living room, opens his steamer trunk, and slips into the night.

Back on the roof, Matt perches himself over the city like a sentinel. He stands and waits and listens for where he’s needed, and his fists curl tight when he finally hears the desperate cry of a child as he’s ripped from his father’s arms and dumped in the back of some van. For good measure, the kidnappers beat the ever-loving shit out of the kid’s dad before peeling off; Matt can hear every one of his cries, he can feel them in his bones.

He doesn’t know how much time passes; the night flies past him in a haze of blood and fists and one nameless asshole after another, and by the end of it he’s angry and frustrated because nothing he does is getting him anywhere.

He’s just uselessly bashing heads against the wall—his own included—and he’s screaming impotently into the night before he gives up and slinks back home.
In his living room he stands with his shoulders heavy and hunched forward, arms limp at his sides, with his mask dripping loosely from his fingertips. The weight of his failure presses hard against his chest as the kid’s ear-piercing screams play on a continuous loop inside his brain: Please! Please help me! I just want my dad. I just want to see my dad. And how the hell is anyone supposed to crawl into a nice warm bed for a solid six hours with that on their conscious?

Matt certainly can’t. So instead of trying, he thunders back up the stairs and sprints across the city’s rooftops until he arrives at Fogwell’s gym. He desperately needs to put his fist through something, and the heavy bag he usually favors will do just nicely. It’s not long before he’s channeling all his pent-up rage and pouring it into the thing; he absolutely whales on it, just hits and punches and jabs and kicks and keeps doing it again and again until he can’t anymore, until he has no more sweat or blood or rage to expend. He stands and breathes, and the strange liminality of this place melts away until Fogwell’s gym ceases to exist as a place out of time—now it’s just a regular ol’ boxing gym with regular ol’ regulars, and Matt takes it as his cue to leave.

*

It’s morning, and Matt’s exhausted and angry. Briefly, he considers calling out sick. Give Foggy some bullshit excuse as to why it would be better for everybody if he just stayed home. You know how rough traveling is, he’d say, but the good news is I’m home now, and I could really use some sleep. Not like we have any real clients right now, anyway, right? But maybe give me a call if anything changes. Thanks, Fog, you’re a lifesaver.

Using traveling as his go-to excuse for any flakey behavior is awful, and it’s a habit he really needs to break. The world is not going to stop because he has a weird condition to contend with; no one is going to go out of their way to feel sorry for him.

So he drags his hand through his hair and rubs around his mouth at his stubble. Grabs a quick shower and begrudgingly goes about making himself presentable for the day. Heads into work. Smiles brightly, puts on a good show, and waits for nightfall.

*

Something his dad used to say to him when he was a kid: Whatever you do in life, be smart about it. You understand what I’m saying? You can work with your hands all your life, work real hard and still not get anywhere. But if you’re smart, if you use that noggin of yours, I’ll just bet you’ll be able to accomplish anything.

Well, the only thing he’s managed to accomplish tonight is failure. And pain and “this wasn’t very smart.” It’s the last clear thought in his head before he loses consciousness altogether.

*

A few hours earlier:

There’s an innocent little kid out there taken from his dad, and Matt knows, he knows how much pain and fear and anger both that kid and his dad must be feeling right now.

So it’s not surprising Matt’s thoughts keep returning to his own father. He doesn’t think Jack wouldn’t have approved of his methods, but Matt strongly believes his old man would’ve at least approved of his mission.

(Bitterly he thinks, But maybe I’ll just ask what he thinks about the whole thing the next time I’m sent back to the car crash.)

When he approaches the abandoned warehouse, Matt thinks he’s finally getting the hang of this whole thing. He’s feeling pretty good about the way everything’s come together. Maybe even a bit cocky. All tonight’s informants and all roads in the Kitchen lead to this warehouse.

Inside he hears men laughing and chatting amiably in what he assumes is Russian. Smells the strong scent of cigarettes and alcohol.

They have no idea what’s coming.

Matt heads inside, and instead of going straight for the drinking, card-playing men ostensibly keeping guard, Matt creeps through the building to find wherever it is they’ve stashed the kid.

He keeps his ears open, his head cocked, and his fists ready.

A terrified little boy’s heartbeat should sound very different from the heavy thump-thump-thumps he hears from the men downstairs, but Matt strains and listens and struggles to find anything resembling the sound he’s looking for. There are rodents in the basement and next to a dumpster outside sits a half-starved dog tied to a chain-link fence, but he doesn’t hear—

A loud crack explodes inside his head and the sharp smell of blood blooms inside his mouth. He’s bitten his tongue.

Did. Has someone managed to sneak up on him? Another crack, this time to his ribs, and he whirls around, lashing out as tries to get his focus under control. So stupid. He’d wasted so much energy looking for the kid, he neglected to keep track of what was going on around him.

A dozen men swarm over him, some of them bludgeoning him with metal pipes while others slash at him with butchers knives and broken beer bottles. He fights with whatever strength he has left and somehow, somehow manages to crawls away. He has no idea how he does it, he only knows the cool night does nothing for him, in fact it saps away any fumes he might have still had in the tank.

He thought he was doing this right, going about it smarter, but no, actually, this wasn’t very smart at all.

*

Matt first met Claire almost a decade ago. He remembers her saying to his older self something along the lines of, “You pretended not to know me, you bastard,” and Matt had envisioned all sorts of scenarios where he had to keep up the pretense. Turns out though, he isn’t so much pretending as he is struggling just to stay alive.

He knows he’s in her apartment and half dead on the same couch she had tended to him that first time.

And at the time she had mentioned pulling him out of the garbage, but he doesn’t remember that now. Not because of any time-related memory gaps, but because she somehow managed to haul him up here while he was still unconscious. (He does smell like garbage, though, so at least he knows she wasn’t just giving him a hard time.)

“Oh no, you don’t,” Claire says. “You are not gonna die in my living room.”

“I am not…” he groans, “going to die in your living room.” He doesn’t plan on staying here long enough for that. He has a little kid to go and get.

A flat palm rests heavy on his chest. “Stay put,” instructs, “because I’m not so sure about your odds here.”

She says it with such authority, it deserves a little cheek. “You a doctor or something?”

“Or something,” she agrees. “Look. This is my one night off. I would much rather take you to the hospital than—”

“No hospitals,” he says, because if those guys were waiting for him at the warehouse, they most certainly would look for him in a hospital.

Claire throws her hands up in frustration when he tells her this, but honestly he’ll take it because for reasons he can’t explain, he’s flooded with relief now that he’s back here.

Claire continues patching him up and says, “You get this torn up a lot?”

“Not really,” he says through another wave of pain. “Still kinda new at this.”

“I can tell. Your outfit is terrible.” Matt laughs at that (Or tries to, anyway.) “Not what I meant, though. Whoever patched you up before did an incredible job. Not to brag, but this looks like a Claire Temple special. That’s me, in case you couldn’t guess.”

“I didn’t want to assume,” he deadpans.

“These have been here a long time, though. If I had to guess? I’d say a decade at least. You sure you weren’t out there getting slashed up by thugs while you were high school or whatever? I’m guessing at your age, by the way.”

“Yeah, no. I wasn’t doing this in high school.”

“Well, that’s good at least,” she says as she fishes a penlight from her first aid kit.

“But it does raise the question—” and Matt grabs her wrist to stop her from checking his pupils.

“Okay, I’ll stop fishing,” she says, but he keeps his fingers wrapped tightly around the delicate bones in her wrist. The penlight drops to floor. “I need to make sure you don’t have a concussion.” She says it slowly, like she thinks he’s stupid. Or concussed.

“I don’t have a concussion.”

“Yeah, see,” she says as she collects the pen from the floor, “I can’t just take your word for it.”

“And I can’t let you aim that in my eyes.”

“Yeah, about that. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been looking at things.”

“You mean the way I don’t?”

“The way you don’t,” she agrees.

He shifts his weight on the couch and immediately regrets it.

“I just got through stitching that up,” she complains, but she still reaches for the first aid kit to do it all again.

“You know, Mike, you’re oddly trusting.” To punctuate her point, Claire tugs at that last stitch a little tighter than strictly necessary.

“Mike?” he asks.

“Sure. Unlike you, I have no problem with making assumptions, so unless you want to tell me otherwise, Mike it is.”

“Ha,” he says. “Okay, well, I could…. I could say the same about you. After all, I’m a guy you pulled out of the garbage.”

“A blind guy, apparently.”

Matt winced, and not just from the pain of having a needle repeatedly jammed through his skin.

“You mind explaining that one?”

“Maybe next time.”

“Ha. Ha ha. He’s funny. Well, I hate to break it you, buster, but there is no next time. So unless you pay really well, this is strictly a one-time offer.” A beat: “Do you pay well?”
“Sorry.”

Her lips part and she pulls in a breath to speak, but three floors down Matt hears a cop knocking on doors looking for a man fitting Matt’s description.

“They’re coming,” he says, and he tries getting up from off the couch. He doesn’t get very far, in fact he face-plants right in the middle of Claire’s living room.

“Who is. Those guys who did this to you?”

God, he wishes he knew how this plays out. He feels like he’s lost his footing here. Claire helps him back up to his feet and he nods.

“How the hell can you possibly know that?”

“I can hear him,” he says. “He’s searching the building.”

“What so, you’re a blind guy with super-hearing?”

The man is on Claire’s floor now, and Matt closes his eyes and braces himself against a wall. Not now, Claire, he wants to say, but she doesn’t seem to expect a response. Instead, she heads for the kitchen, opens up a cabinet, and pulls out a frying pan.

Matt swallows a small laugh because this isn’t the time for finding things funny, but the frying pan Claire hefts over her shoulder like an extremely heavy baseball bat is in fact the very same pan she threatened his older self with that first night he was here. And he’s thrilled to remember that some things never do change.

Matt smells the guy’s cologne wafting down the hallway, and when he mentions this to Claire, she simply says, “What the fuck.”

“He’s next door,” Matt whispers, as the man masquerading as a New York City cop thanks Claire’s elderly neighbor for her time.

Even though he’s warned her, Claire still jumps clear out of her skin when the knock on her door comes.

He’s got to give her props for how quickly she recovers her composure, though. She answers the door, pulls the “I was sleeping,” routine, and apologizes for not being more helpful.

“Phew,” she says as she shuts the door. She leans heavily against it. “That was a close—”

“He’s not gone,” Matt says. He hears the guy making a phone call. “Oh, no,” he says. “He’s calling for backup.”

He pushes away from the wall from where he was hiding/bracing himself, and moves into action. He’s limping, and he can feel the stitches in his side pull and tear, but he has to move.

He’s not in much fighting shape, but on the stairwell Matt’s able to get a drop on the guy. Literally. He grabs a fire extinguisher from the wall and drops it on the guy’s head as he thunders down the stairs. The guy collapses in a heap, and Claire goes to find a kid she says helped her bring Matt upstairs when Matt suggests they take the guy up to the roof.

*

“I can’t believe I’m condoning this,” Claire says as Matt restrains the unconscious mob guy.

“He has information I need,” Matt says. He checks the binding to make sure they’re secure and grabs the guy by his lapels. “Wake up,” he says. “Tell me where the boy is.”

“Fuck you,” the guy spits.

“Fine,” Matt says and socks him in the face.

As the guy’s head lolls to the side, Claire says, “I'm a nurse, I know my way around the human body. I can show you just how to make it really hurt.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I spent my night stitching up a guy who was ribboned up by assholes trying to keep him from rescuing some kid. This guy’s one of them?”

Matt nods.

“Then yeah. Do what you need to.”

*

Russian asshole’s stubborn though, and tough. Matt follows Claire’s instructions, applies the right pressure to tender and sensitive spots on the body, but the guy’s made of steel, and Matt thinks what he really needs is a stronger incentive.

“All right,” he says and hauls the guy over the edge of the building until he’s mostly dangling over it. “I’m only going to ask once. Tell me what I need to know, and you get to walk away. Do you understand.”

Guy spits in his face again.

“It’s your funeral,” and Matt says and hoists him up, making like he’s going to throw him overboard.

“Okay, okay,” the guy finally says, and he finally, finally gives Matt the name and address of a Russian restaurant where his pals are keeping the kid.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it,” Matt says, and despite what he had just told the guy, Matt tosses him into the open and waiting dumpster below.

“Holy shit!” Claire screams as she comes running over. “This has gotten way out of hand—”

“Guy’s fine,” Matt says. “A few broken bones, but unfortunately he’ll live.” He turns to her, fully. “I have to go. You,” he says, “need to find somewhere safe. Do you have a friend, somewhere you can stay? I can’t guarantee these guys won’t come after you. They know you helped me.”

“Yeah, shit. I have a friend I’m cat-sitting for,” and she gives him the address.

“Good,” he says. “I’ll come see you when I’m done.” He turns and heads for the edge of the roof. In the moments before he backflips off of it though, he hears Claire say to herself, “What the hell have I gotten myself into.”

*

Matt jumps, but he doesn’t make it to the ground.

Instead, he lands inside what seems to be a tiny bedroom. There are two twin-sized beds, a pair of desks.

Shit. This is his and Foggy’s dorm room.

No. No no no no no. He can’t be here! This is—

Goddamn it all to hell. Matt’s fist forms into a ball, and it’s all he can do to keep from bashing it into a wall.

On the other side of the door, he hears his own voice. “Hey,” his impossibly young voice says. “I’ll just catch up you later, okay? I just remembered I have… things. I need to do.” And wow is Matt a terrible liar. Even he doesn’t believe the sincerity of that.

“Are you kidding me, Murdock?” Foggy. Matt wants to cry. “Fine, your loss then, you nerd.” And with that his friend’s footsteps retreat down the hallway.

Present Matt’s body language is rigid and angry, but he doesn’t say a word. Just tsks at him disapprovingly, but Matt remembers how freaked out he’d been to encounter an older self who was that beat up.

Young, naive, and in denial.

This is who I am, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Just picks up some discarded clothes from off the floor, dresses, and shoulders his way out of the room.

*

Holy cow I started this thing way back in 2016!!! That's a long time. Thank you so much for sticking around and reading this. OP, if you're still around, thank you for the original prompt. I was content to stay a lurker and this prompt brought me out. So thank you. <3

*

Back when Matt and Foggy still attended school here, sometimes, if the weather permitted, they would pack up whatever they were working on and move their studies outside.

They even had their own spot; a patch of grass under a small shady tree to call their very own. Which is exactly where Matt intends to ride out this stupid little detour. Sit under his and Foggy’s tree, stretch out his legs, feel the warm sun on his face, maybe nap a bit, and wait it out until he’s sent back to the present. Might as well take advantage of a beautiful day while he can. A small respite before he’s thrown back into the fray.

The only hitch in his plan is the presence of a woman already camped out there. It’s strange he hadn’t noticed her right away. Stranger still that someone would violate the tacit understanding amongst the student population not to encroach upon spaces already spoken for.

So either she doesn’t know of the unspoken rules on campus or doesn’t care. He’s not sure which he finds more annoying.

“I see you,” the woman sing-songs. She’s reading a book, or pretending to, and hums to herself as she flips to the next page and continues reading.

Matt needs a new place to camp out, then.

Despite being fully clothed, he feels utterly naked standing outside like this, without the usual trappings of Being Matt Murdock. His cane and glasses are still in the dorm room; Matt had forgotten all about them as he dashed out the door, too concerned with getting out of his own way. Of course, his present self has a more rightful claim to them, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling exposed; it’s not as if he’s some random nobody on campus; he was a student here, and a lot of people knew him then.

So he changes tack; shoves his hands into the pockets of the jeans he’d borrowed from himself and heads in another direction. He’s still bruised and bloodied from the fight with the mob guys, and Claire’s stitches had all been ripped away from his body upon traveling, because of course nothing foreign can survive the trip. It’s just another way in which he stands out here.

Still, he keeps walking. He has no idea how well he’s blending in, but he needs to go somewhere. Maybe he could go back to the dorm room, try to sleep through it in old bed. (He hasn’t done that in years, though. Mostly because it’s awful.) But he strongly suspects Matt’s still there brooding, and he would much rather avoid facing that right now, thank you very much. Matt was an angry kid back then--he knows that now, he understands that about himself--and he doesn’t really want to be put in a position of having to explain himself--to himself. The present version of himself still has a lot of growing up to do, and the days are long but the years are short and he’ll get there… he’ll get here before he knows it.

Part of him thinks it would be funny if he just went back to his apartment. That’d be great, right; he could go and sit on the sidewalk outside his building, or put in some meditation time up on the roof. It’s a nice enough day for it. Or maybe he could wait it out on top of Claire’s building. That would be weirdly fitting, right? But time is the greatest distance between places, not space, and he doesn’t get a say in it.

Keeping his head down, he dodges a small cluster of oncoming kids too busy laughing and goofing off and being, well, kids to notice him.

Which suits him just fine. Gives him the perfect opportunity to quietly duck behind the nearest building to hide there in the shade.

Where he very nearly collides into someone.

“Oh, I didn’t… hmm.”

“How foolish of me,” the woman says by way of apology, and Matt recognizes her. He knows he does. He’s just not sure from where.

You’re the woman from under our tree, but that doesn’t explain the deeper sense of familiarity he’s experiencing. Her body language, her smell. Sure, she’s wearing some kind of perfume, and he doesn't know the first thing about women’s fragrances, but it’s an oil with a light, subtle scent, but underneath that… he’s met her before and for the life of him he cannot place when or where. Which is frustrating, because he’s usually better at this sort of thing.

He coughs, because he can’t possibly be making a good impression by standing here like a weirdo. “I’m uh. Hi. Matthew. Murdock.”

“Hello, Matthew. Elektra Natchios.” She extends her hand for a handshake, and Matt’s not sure how he should play this. Should he continue the incognito routine and accept the handshake as if he were sighted, or should he ignore it as if he weren’t. Well, he did give her his name. If she doesn’t already know who he is, she’s bound find out eventually.

She retracts her hand when he doesn’t respond and hums with an air of skepticism. “I’ve seen you around,” she flatly says, and all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Pre-law, is it?”

He breathes through his nose, because this woman isn’t a threat to him. She’s just another student here. Just like he is. He shakes his head a little; this encounter is so strange, it’s throwing him off kilter. A tiny record skip keeps happening inside his brain; an oscillation between his two usual modes of present and not-present, present and not-present.

Temporal jet lag he can handle. But this. He has no idea what to make of this.

He laughs a little, and her breathing and heart rate remain steady; she gives absolutely nothing away.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe one day I’ll even have my own firm,” and he’s aware he sounds a little too knowing, but for now it’s just a harmless little in-joke.

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, and she too sounds a little knowing.

“And you?” he asks, hoping to deflect some of the attention away from himself. He feels scrutinized, under a the glare of a white-hot spotlight. It’s the very last thing he needs right now.

“I,” she says, “am late for class. Another time, perhaps?”

“Hm.” She’s good. He still can’t get a solid read on her, and it isn’t lost on him that he’s learned absolutely nothing.

Under her breath she sing-songs, “Goodbye, Matthew.”

He’s not sure how he hadn’t noticed before, but she’s carrying her sandals by her fingertips and her bare feet slap against the cool pavement. His mouth hangs open and he’s absolutely floored that he’s able to place her now.

“No,” he says aloud, because the idea he’s entertaining--it’s impossible. Impossible. She couldn't possibly be the same barefooted woman he met at his accident that one time; the dates don’t add up, the math doesn’t work. Unless she’s lying about her age, but then, she told him her age, had she.

He’s robbed of the opportunity to dwell on the implications of Elektra Natchios any further however, because he’s hit with a familiar bout of nausea and then he’s doubled over and dry heaving. “Okay,” he mutters and braces himself. Places both hands against the cool facade of the building as his brain splinters into a thousand tiny pieces. He’s convulsing on the ground, and an ocean roars in his head until the world goes deathly quiet, then his ears pop and his time at Columbia University is nothing more than a distant memory. Where it belongs.

“Okay,” he says, and takes stock of his surroundings.

Return trips to the present are never an exact science. You could get dropped off close to when you left, but not always. The gap usually isn’t too wide, though, whether in time or in space. Sometimes, though, he wonders what his experiences with time travel would look like if he were better traveled. If he ever had occasion to leave Manhattan in his normal, everyday present-native live, would he then sometimes find himself traveling outside of the city?

He has no idea, and honestly, he finds the thought vaguely unsettling.
One thing’s for damn sure; he won’t be testing that theory anytime soon. Or ever, if he can possibly help it.

But now’s not the time to worry about that. Now, he knows, is the present, and where is the corner of 11th and 44th; the Troika restaurant.

Which, “Of course.” He’s often complained about not getting a say in where and when he’s picked up and dropped off, and well. Now he gets his wish. This is exactly where he wants to be.

He’s not going into that restaurant naked. That is absolutely not happening.

This kidnapping was a deliberate ploy by the Russian mob to get his attention, specifically, and he cannot afford to allow himself to be vulnerable and distracted by prioritizing a search for clothing. Sure, he’s had success doing exactly that before, and would probably succeed again now, but this is too important. He needs to be focused. Needs to make sure that scared little kid is his top and only priority. Which means going back and collecting his outfit.

It’s either on top of Claire’s roof or somewhere in the alleyway behind her building. Depending on exactly where he was when traveled. He hopes his outfit is still there, still where he left it. He has nothing else to go on but hope, so he vaults onto to the rooftops above, and runs like a bat out of hell, keeping mindful of his bare body as he sprints and flies and tumbles. The air is cold on his skin, and the jumps and landings are rough on his feet and shins, but there’s nothing to be done for that now. He just has to go. He has to.

His clothes are in a heap next to the dumpster. Even his gloves and boots are here. “Thank you,” he whispers in prayer, and dresses for battle.

A memory of his dad bubbles to the surface. “Let’s get to work, Matty,” the phantom voice says, and so he does.

*
“Let’s get you home to your dad, okay?”

“My mom too?”

“God, Jesus, yes. Of course you’re mom too. Of course. And she’ll be. She’ll--They both will, okay? Let’s get you home.”

*

He waits in the shadows long enough to be sure the kid makes it safe inside the house, but he doesn’t stay. Doesn’t wait to hear the house wake up as the front door opens, doesn’t wait to hear his parents’ sobs of worry and confusion and relief that their boy has been found and brought home safe.

That moment isn’t meant for him.

So instead, he goes home, sloughs off his clothes like shed skin, and collapses on his bed, where he jerks and twitches just as he’s falling asleep.

*
“I didn’t expect a full moon this time of day,” someone says.

“Damn,” he mutters, because he was honestly hoping he was experiencing hypnic jerks as he fell asleep instead of the spasming which usually precedes traveling, but of course he should have known better than that.

“No mysterious paper sack for you today, I’m afraid. Though I can’t say I mind the view.”

“What,” he croaks out. He has a faceful of garbage, so he stands and lets his hands drape loosely over his crotch. “You’re the. You’re her,” he says. She’s barefoot, he notices.

“So we have met. That’s helpful, actually.”

“Elektra, was it?” She hums in bored acknowledgement and stalks toward the mouth of the alley. Looking out, presumably. So he uses the opportunity to open up his focus. There has to be something he can use to cover himself with. He just has to find it.

A pizza box; a blanket covered in cat puke; soiled cloth diapers; burnt kitchen towel; a moldy shower curtain. But nothing--

“Here,” she says. She’s holding out a pair of sweats and a thin windbreaker.

“Uh, thanks?” he says, and starts dressing. “Where did you find them?”

“I have my ways,” she says. As if that were answer enough. She heads back out to stand on the sidewalk. “My, but you’re everywhere here. Oh, look. There’s your father, I suppose. Jack.”

“This is what you came to see, right? Something exciting while on vacation?” He doesn’t bother keeping the bitterness from his voice. She gets to see--and he doesn’t, and--

His fists form into tight balls. Makes an effort to relax them once he realizes he’s doing it.

She laughs at ‘vacation’, but it isn’t malicious. She seems genuinely amused by his choice of words. “Yes, I passed you two blocks back. Just how long ago was that for you, anyway.”

Not very. “A while.”

He joins her on the sidewalk. There’s a lot of chaos happening here, but it doesn’t matter. This was a very long time ago.

“You’re like me,” he says after a while.

“More than you could possibly know,” is her cryptic reply.

“We’ve never met in the present, though.”

“Not in yours, at least.”

“And Columbia? Was that--”

“We shared classes. I’m surprised you don’t remember.”

“I guess you weren’t on my radar then.”

“Hmm. I suppose not.” She runs her hands through her long hair, gathers it all up in a ponytail and shakes it out again. Lets it all cascade over her shoulders. “Well, Matthew. I must be off. I have a flight to catch.” She says that last part a little playfully, and Matt knows exactly what she means.

“Yeah, I like to say 'my ride’s almost here.'”

“We’ll run into each again,” she says. “Until then.” Then she walks off, and Matt very quickly loses track of her.

He’s a little disappointed he won’t get to know what it’s like when someone else travels, but maybe he will. Maybe another time.

*

OHHH nice twist of events.
Elektra is just like him but knows how to control it and also it looks like Matt's travels are getting more frequent.

Man i thought u were done with this fic. It's really goodf and after the end of the show fics are needed to keep this alive

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Page 164 of 165

Daredevil Prompt Post #11

Re: Always Crashing in the Same Car part 17b

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Re: The Defenders Want Daredevil To Get A Life (matt/foggy)

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Re: Fill - No Choice At All [11b/11]

Re: Fill: Positive 2b/?

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