Work Text:
“Foggy.”
It only takes the one word for him to realise. Something’s wrong. Matt’s using his serious voice. Matt’s not prone to getting all emotional anyway, he’s a(n outwardly) calm sort of guy, but there’s a strain there Foggy can hear clearly down the phone line. Not the final-exam-tomorrow sort of strain, or the water-bill-due-tomorrow strain, but the I’m-really-physically-hurting sort.
Almost the tone of voice Matt had used when he’d said Claire, phone Claire, only that had been way worse. Foggy doesn’t want to think about that anymore. He’d already thought about it. He’d drunk about it. Case closed.
“Jesus,” Foggy says. “You’ve been…uh…out again, haven’t you?”
Matt huffs out a laugh, which hitches itself into an audible wince. “Ah, yeah,” he says. “Look, if it’s not a good time –“
“No, no, it’s fine,” Foggy says quickly. “You all right?” You didn’t get attacked by any crime lord ninjas again, did you? he almost asks, but he’s not quite ready to turn that into a joke yet. Not quite.
“I got a cut on my back,” Matt admits. “Fairly deep. Can’t reach it. Don’t know what sort of crap might be in there.” A pause. “Remind me to keep up with my tetanus boosters.”
“You didn’t do that before you – you know what, never mind. What about your nurse friend? Not that I want you bleeding everywhere, much less bleeding out, but Matt, well, you know…”
“Claire’s not in town.” And whoa, that had the clipped edge to it Foggy associated with Matt feeling bad about not working it out with a girl. “You’re the only one I could call.”
The only one he could trust. The only one who knows. Christ.
“All right,” Foggy says. “I’ll be right over. I can probably manage to apply a band-aid.”
---
By the time Foggy gets to Matt’s apartment he’s worked himself into a mood, both because he’s worried and because he was halfway through The Empire Strikes Back. This deal was getting worse all the time. He should pray Matt didn’t alter it any further.
No, bad line, bad metaphor, that might involve Matt actually killing someone. Strike that thought.
He knocks, though Matt probably knows he’s here already. Sure enough, almost as soon as Foggy’s knuckles hit the door, Matt calls, “It’s open!” He still sounds like he’s in pain.
“You better not be lying in a pool of your own blood again, Murdock,” Foggy says in reply. It’s hard to restrain the instinct to shout it, since Matt is still in the next room over, but he doesn’t want Matt’s neighbours to hear. Meanwhile, there’s a smothered bark of laughter from Matt. He could hear it just fine.
Matt himself is lying face-down on his sofa. Whatever other injuries he’d taken, they apparently weren’t enough to prevent him getting changed and putting his gear away. So that’s something.
“Hey, Foggy,” Matt says. Foggy’s used to Matt not meeting his eyes, but the part where Matt doesn’t even bother to move his head Foggy’s still trying to adjust to. It's a little creepy. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I still might run away screaming at the sight of blood.”
In the light of that godawful billboard Foggy sees Matt raise his head and smile. “Thought you could have been a butcher.” Not to mention Foggy hadn’t run away screaming the last time, when there had been a lot more blood. Like, a lot more blood. And seriously, they weren’t mentioning it.
“All right,” Foggy says. “What do I do?” Aside from turn on the lights. Matt might not need them, but Foggy sure would.
Matt rucks up his t-shirt, giving Foggy access to his back. He’s managed to get some sort of gauze wad secured over the cut and mostly stop the bleeding. It starts again sluggishly as the rudimentary bandage is removed. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t need stitches,” he says. “But I can’t reach it to clean it right.” He winces again. “I think there’s a splinter in there. Ow.”
The wound, when Foggy inspects it, is long, jagged, and ugly-looking. “Damn,” Foggy says. “I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen now you have the suit.”
“Well, to be fair, it happens much less often now I’ve got the suit.”
“So what happened this time?”
“I fell through a floor. Landed…unluckily.”
Foggy whistles. “Definitely get those tetanus shots.” He washes his hands and Matt walks him through what to look for, how to clean the cut out, and how to get the bandage on properly. It takes longer than Foggy thought it would. There’s a reason he didn’t go into medicine. There are many reasons Foggy didn’t go into medicine.
“You were right,” Matt says when it’s done. “You definitely could have been a butcher.”
“Shut up,” Foggy says without heat. “I came all the way over here and spent my evening getting bled on because you asked me to.” He frowns at his shirt. “I think this might be a write-off.”
“Leave it here. Least I can do is clean your shirt.” Matt smiles. “I’ve got pretty good at getting blood out of clothing.”
“Dude, do you even know how creepy your face looks right now? Or how that sounds?”
That actually makes Matt pause. “Sorry, Foggy,” he says.
“Nah, don’t be.” Foggy pauses himself. He remembers one of the things Matt said that night – his breathing changes when he has something he wants to say, apparently. Well, they both know that now. “Look, I’m ready to make a joke of all this. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear you joke about it, if you know what I mean. Ha ha, it’s funny because you almost died. That sort of thing.”
“Foggy –“
“Matt. Funny is me losing my shirt to you at poker. Not funny is me thinking about all the times you could have died. You could have died! I don’t know how many times you could have died!” His voice falls to a whisper. “What if I hadn’t been there that night, huh? I would have come around later, you know, I’d’ve just found your body lying on the floor.”
Matt sits up and makes eye contact. As unnerving as the thing where he knows Matt doesn’t need to look even vaguely in his direction is, this eye contact is worse. Looking into his friend’s eyes, Foggy has no doubt at all the man is blind. There’s just something too still about them, like Matt’s forgotten how to show emotion there.
The eye contact is for Foggy’s sake alone. It’s not anywhere near as comforting as Matt seems to think.
“I’m not afraid of dying,” Matt says quietly.
“I’m afraid of you dying,” Foggy replies. "I am shit-scared of you dying on me."
Shockingly, that was a conversation killer. Hah, killer. It was funny because Matt might still get himself beat to death one night, or shot by a cop, or something. When did serious conversations with Matt start to threaten tears?
Oh, that was right.
“Yeah, fair enough,” Matt says after a long and awkward pause. They both knew Foggy was telling the truth. “Look, I don’t intend to get myself killed. I don’t want that. Trust me, I don’t.”
Foggy doesn’t quite believe him. To say it, though, would instantly give him away. He knows now why Matt pretended to believe all his little white lies – to give Foggy what privacy he could. He needs that semblance of privacy now.
And Matt might need Foggy to at least pretend to believe him now. Who knows? Foggy can’t hear a person’s thoughts in their heartbeat.
“It’d heal on its own,” Matt adds. “It’s not life-threatening or anything. But I didn’t fancy bleeding through my shirts for the next few days.” It’d be extra laundry, after all.
“You call me,” Foggy says. “If there is something I can do to help keep you alive and in one piece, you call me.”
There is another lengthy silence. Foggy thinks of all the ways this could go bad for one or both of them. Matt’s a criminal. Foggy’s aiding and abetting. They’re both going to have to lie like rugs, they could be disbarred, they could be arrested, they could even get killed.
But at last Matt says, “Yeah, I will. I promise. Thanks, Foggy.”
“No problem. You got a shirt I can wear home? I feel like a refugee from a horror movie in mine right now.”
---
When he does at last get back to his own apartment in the early hours of the morning and wearing Matt’s biggest sweatshirt, he googles two things before he turns in. How to launder bloodstains, and first aid courses he can take after work.
He has a nasty feeling he might need to know both these things.
When he gets to the office on Monday morning, Karen says, “Matt won’t be in to work until after lunch. He said he was getting some tetanus shots or something.”
“Good!” Foggy says. “It’ll finally be safe to poke him with rusty nails again. God, I’ve missed being able to do that.”
Karen laughs, and for a moment it’s like there’s nothing wrong about the situation at all.
---
If there’s part of regular practice that Foggy hates – really, really hates – it’s family law. Hates it, hates it, hates it. The angriest and saddest people he sees are divorce and custody cases. Love turned sour, children turned to bargaining chips, people trying to hurt each other as much as they can without actually drawing blood.
It does help people, though, and it pays the bills too.
Their current client is a desperate man. His wife has abused him and their two children for the better part of a decade. She will still likely get full custody of the kids. It’s a bad one. The worst family law case Foggy’s been personally involved in, though he’s heard a few horror stories from friends.
“I’ll kill her,” their client sobs. “I mean it. I will. I’ll kill her if I have to.”
Foggy glances over at Matt. To their client Matt undoubtedly looks as cool as a cucumber, eyes hidden behind his dark glasses. Foggy knows better. Matt’s lips are pressed tightly together and his hands are pressed flat to the table. He’s pissed.
Devil suit pissed, maybe.
Come to that, is Matt an equal opportunity vigilante? Does he beat up women like he beats up men? Teens and old people like he beats up people in their prime? Does Foggy really want to know?
“Mr McGuire, please,” Matt says. “Calm down. Calm down. This is not over. There are still avenues left to explore. There is no need for violence. It’s best to handle this with the law.”
“And as your lawyers we are certainly going to discourage you from doing anything illegal,” Foggy chips in. “Trust us, it won’t help.”
They calm down their client (Foggy defers to the living heart rate monitor’s judgment on that one) but he leaves the meeting wanting to shout and break things himself. He wants to go to Matt’s office and scream at his friend.
Matt Murdock, that bastard, didn’t – doesn’t – believe the law was the best way to handle this sort of thing. Not when it came right down to it. How dare he tell people to follow the law when he himself broke it, repeatedly, along with people’s bones. Matt’s a habitual criminal, and not on the order of pirating Game of Thrones.
Liar! Foggy wants to yell at him, hypocrite!
He’s made Foggy one as well.
It sounds corny even inside his own head, but Foggy cares about what’s right. He cares about justice. Not only justice in the long-term abstract sense of justice he believes in from his textbooks, but justice for the people in front of him right now. He knows what it’s like to fail someone. He’s a lawyer. He knows what it’s like to lose.
He still believes that the solution is to work harder, to fight smarter. To do his job better, not flip the table and go hit someone until they admit all their crimes. As much as he loves Matt, he still thinks he’s doing this all wrong.
But because he loves Matt, Foggy won’t turn him in. Matt’s trying to do his best too. In his boneheadedly stupid way.
They say a true friend was one who’d bring the shovel if you called him at midnight admitting you’d killed someone. By that measure Foggy’s not much of a friend. Foggy will help because he trusts Matt won’t ever, ever, call him in need of a shovel.
He’s in such deep shit if anyone ever finds out about this. They both are. Karen too, even though she doesn't know about any of this. All three of them. He can feel a migraine coming on.
Karen leaves to get coffee and Matt appears like magic at Foggy’s doorway. “We cool?” Matt asks.
“You a mind-reader now too?” Foggy asks him. “Yeah, we’re cool. Just, I dunno, I’ve never done the secret identity thing before. I feel like Lois Lane reporting on Superman.”
Only with more breaches of professional ethics. It gets a chuckle from Matt anyway. “I’m not ready to get married yet,” he says.
“I told you, this is way more important than a civil union!” Turns out he’d meant it, too, way more than he thought.
---
“I’m so glad you and Matt made up,” Karen says over drinks on Friday. Over her third drink, to be exact, and those three were probably why she was saying something.
Karen’s fantastic. He, the master of the foot-in-mouth, could not have resisted asking for details long since if his employers had suddenly had a major fight. She’s left it for weeks, she’s had three drinks, and she’s still only poking sideways. “You can ask,” Foggy says. “You’ve kinda earned it.”
She smiles. “If I’ve only kinda earned it, will you answer?”
“I will kinda answer it,” Foggy says. “Most of it’s…personal.”
Karen leans forward. “So what happened? Did it have anything to do with that accident he got into?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t want to lie to Karen. He told Matt that. Frankly, he probably decided to keep Matt’s secret the moment he decided to lie to her. “He’s a pretty reckless guy, you know.” Karen giggles. Foggy knows why. Matt comes across all restrained and quiet. But Foggy presses on anyway. “No, really. He’s never been real careful about…stuff.” Daredevil. Apropos. “I was scared. Yelled at him a bit. It got heated.”
Karen looks scandalised. “So you yelled at the injured blind guy?”
“Hey, Matt’s not made of glass,” Foggy protests. Steel or some other heavy construction material, but not glass. “Never has been. He gave as good as he got. That’s why it was a fight. And not, you know, just me yelling at the injured guy.”
“I just can’t imagine you yelling,” Karen confesses. “You don’t really seem like the yelling type.”
“- she says, having heard me sing.”
They both burst into giggles then. “That was singing?” Karen asks when she gets her breath back. “I thought you were murdering a cat.”
“No, no, I’ve been told that cats being murdered sounds way better than my singing.”
Foggy feels a lot better once they’re off the topic of his fight with Matt. And the rest of the evening goes fine. “Should we ask Matt if he wants to meet us at the next bar?” Karen asks at one point.
“Sure, I’ll give him a call,” Foggy says automatically. Then he remembers that Matt might be out. Significant pause, can’t-tell-Karen out. “I think he might be busy though.”
“No harm in trying.”
“No harm in trying,” Foggy agrees. Oh for the days where the words Matt’s busy meant that he was at the library or on a date. Something harmless like that. Or relatively harmless; Foggy’s met some of the women Matt’s dated. Something less dangerous than what he’s afraid Matt’s doing right now instead of sitting in a nice warm bar emptying a bottle or two with them.
At least he knows where Matt might be. Sort of. If Matt turns up dead in a gutter tomorrow, Foggy knows enough not to be shocked.
Now isn’t that a cheery thought?
“Is there something wrong?” Karen asks.
“Nothing important,” Foggy lies, because if it’s for Matt apparently he’s going to lie until he’s blue in the face. “Matt’s not answering. Let’s hit the road, hm?”
---
Another matter occurs to him, so he goes to Matt and asks, “Do you have a will?”
It's safe to ask. Karen went home already. Foggy hates that he has to check whether his office is safe to talk in. It's not like the usual confidentiality stuff. It's keeping secrets, plain and simple. Keeping secrets from someone he cares about. It is not the basis of any sound relationship of any sort. What happened with him and Matt earlier should be proof of that.
“Why?” Matt asks. “Trying to cash out on me already, Nelson?”
“Nah, man. I’d be pushing for life insurance if that was the case.”
The corners of Matt’s mouth quirk upwards in amusement. “Not sure I could get any. Do you know any good policies for violent vigilantes?”
“Uh-uh. What I told you about making jokes about your much-more-likely-to-be-imminent demise still applies.”
“You just asked me if I had a will.”
“Yeah. I did. The wisecracks are on my terms until further notice. Besides, I’m being serious at the moment.”
Matt makes a diffident sort of gesture.
Devil may care, Foggy thinks. But Foggy cares too and he’s not letting this go so easily. “So,” he says. “Do you have a will?”
“No,” Matt says.
Foggy sighs. “Seriously? Do any of you superhero types think about stuff like that?”
“I’m not a superhero, Foggy.”
“You’ve got a costume, you’ve got a nickname, and you’ve got a secret identity. You count as a superhero-type at least.”
“I thought about it,” Matt says softly. “A will. Couldn't think of a lawyer who'd take it on."
He’s not going to ask about when Matt thought about a will. God knows there have probably been a lot of opportunities and occasions for inspiration. “I passed the bar,” Foggy says. “And if anything bad happens, I want to know what you want me to do with your stuff. What you want me to tell Karen, whether you want me to tell her the truth or if you fell down six flights of stairs and broke your everything.”
“Not if I get shot, I hope.”
“What did I say about jokes, Murdock?”
“All right, all right. I’ll get that sorted too.”
“Good.”
He turns to go. “Foggy,” Matt’s voice stops him. “If anything bad happens to me, I want you making the decisions. You know what I’d want.”
I wish it included not putting yourself in danger. “Got it. Power of attorney.”
Strangely enough, the conversation actually makes him feel better. It definitely makes him feel like Matt takes his safety as seriously as he can with his current hobby. Foggy still wishes that Matt could have taken up something safer, like BASE jumping, or at least something more legal, like, oh, maybe the practice of law. Or BASE jumping again.
He’s forgiven Matt, but he’s still angry with him. Funny how that happens. But he does feel better about this all than he did.
---
From time to time Matt makes the papers as his alter ego. Usually the editors make some sort of devil-related pun. Foggy’s actually surprised nobody’s guessed that the Daredevil is Catholic yet.
Karen spots an article entitled The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (at a guess, Foggy thinks Matt was at the docks last night) and happily smooths out the page. “Your friend in the mask again?” Foggy asks her.
“Our friend. He gave you information too, didn’t he?” she says. “He’s gone and upgraded outfits on me though.”
“Looks a bit tougher,” Foggy observes. “Less like he ordered MMA gear off the internet.”
“What did it look like before?” Matt, that lying shit, asks. Though to be fair he might not have known how he looked in that outfit. Foggy’s no longer clear on what Matt can and can’t discern.
Foggy thinks about it. “Like he was chasing down Princess Buttercup,” he decides.
And the confused look on Matt’s face is definitely worth it. Karen chokes back a laugh. “Definitely getting a Princess Bride vibe off of that last outfit,” Foggy continues. “Very Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“Princess Bride?” Matt asks. “Dread Pirate Roberts?”
“It’s a book,” Foggy says.
“And a movie,” Karen adds.
“I wonder if the Daredevil is not left-handed.” Foggy knows perfectly well that Matt is ambidextrous. “I’ll get you the audiobook.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Karen says. “He did save my life. I’m not going to laugh at his clothing too much.” Her smile widens. “Even if he might get into a fight with Inigo Montoya at any moment.”
Matt doesn’t look any less confused at that statement. And he still can’t protest. It’s kind of brilliant. “Audiobook, my friend,” Foggy says. “You will understand in time.”
“Right,” Matt says, drawing out the i.
“Oh,” Karen says. The paper’s drawn her attention again. “Captain America’s said something about him.”
“Makes sense,” Matt says. “He’s a New Yorker too, after all, no wonder they’d ask.”
“’I understand he’s a vigilante,’” Karen reads out. “’I believe in the rule of law and in making the law fair for everyone. And as a rule I can’t say I approve of the level of violence the Daredevil employs, against criminals or not.’”
“Says the soldier,” Foggy grunts. Suddenly he’s getting all indignant on Matt’s behalf, and he doesn’t like what Matt gets up to in his off hours.
But Matt just says, “It’s a fair answer.”
Karen shakes the paper at them. “There’s more. ‘I understand the frustrations that might lead a person to take the law into their own hands, and I know a few people who have reason to be grateful for what the Daredevil’s done.’”
“Also a fair answer,” Foggy says. “There we go, your – our – masked friend is now semi-Captain America approved.”
“Provided no more bones get broken, I take it,” Matt says.
“I’m grateful,” Karen says.
She’s here and smiling because Matt put on that mask. She wouldn’t have lived long enough for her to become friends with either of them if Matt hadn’t done what he did. Then there’s the bullshit with Fisk. For that, for all of that, Foggy’s grateful too. It’s yet another reason not to turn Matt in, to help Matt how he can – like he needs another.
Actually, he probably does, since this is a big fucking deal that could get both of them disbarred if it doesn’t get Matt killed, but Foggy thinks it’s a pretty good reason.
---
“Foggy.”
It’s that tone. That very special tone. “Again?” he asks.
“I hit my head,” Matt says. He does sound a bit out of it. “Pretty bad.”
“What do you need?” He’s already standing up.
“Observation. Overnight, if you can.”
“Not a hospital?”
“Foggy – I wouldn’t ask, but it’s safer…and you said…if you can’t it’s okay, I mean it.”
Definitely out of it. “Yeah, I know. I live in hope that you will eventually get a medical professional to deal with that sort of thing. Give me an hour. Don’t fall into a coma or whatever.” He hangs up. Matt trusts him. Matt is trusting him. This is what Foggy asked for. This is what friends do.
Then he pokes his head back into his mother’s kitchen, where she’s preparing dinner for the entire Nelson clan. “I gotta go,” he says. “Matt needs help. It’s an emergency.”
This time, Matt is at least up and about when Foggy gets there. “If you have a concussion you’re supposed to be resting,” Foggy says.
“Hello to you too,” Matt replies. “Why’d you bring your laptop?”
“Movie night, bro! You are banned from reading and cooking and generally moving around. Doctor Foggy is in. And he brought movies.”
“Movies. Seriously?”
“Yeah. Just sit back, enjoy the dialogue, tell me what the foley artists are using. That sort of thing. If you want overnight observation I’m bringing something to do. It’s not like I can read any of your books.”
Movie night, because it’s another thing friends do. And because it sounds so much better than “concussion observation night.”
Forty-five minutes later Foggy’s got a loud and cheesy bar fight playing on his tiny laptop screen. Matt's not looking, but he's paying attention all the same. "It sounds like they're smacking steaks together in a dowel factory," he complains. "And what's the celery supposed to be?"
"Bones breaking."
"Bones breaking don't sound anything like that."
"God, it's like taking a physicist to Star Trek. Shut up or I will take advantage of your current infirmity and make you listen to Twelve Angry Men."
"Foggy, no!" Matt pastes on a look of mock horror. "You can't! I've heard things. We're lawyers!"
"I can and I will sink that low, Murdock. So sit down and try not to bleed into your brain."
He does (sit down, and since he doesn't get any worse Foggy assumes his head injury isn't terrible either). And he's not that upset about the movie either. Foggy can tell. He can still read Matt well enough to tell that.
They'd agreed to move forward, since they couldn't go back to where they were. It was a more honest way of being friends, but God knows it isn't easier. They'd pulled plenty of all-nighters together, trying to keep each other awake over their textbooks. Foggy never wanted to pull an all-nighter looking for signs that Matt hadn't sustained a serious head injury, but he knows for sure that it's better than finding him dead.
A few hours later, when the sun is rising and the billboard light is fading by comparison, Matt says, "You know, I might avoid concussion if it means I don't have to sit through another movie night."
"I'm incentivising you," Foggy says, and turns the volume up.