Chapter Text
It had been two weeks.
Two weeks since Foggy made the new napkin while sitting at the old wooden table in the storage room of Nelson’s Meats. Two weeks since the three of them toasted, celebration and excitement hanging in the air between them as they started a new chapter. Two weeks since Matt moved back in with his husband in his apartment that smelled like home and dust and plastic police tape. Bruises were fading and wifi was set up in the space above Nelson’s Meats and they filed for a new business license.
And yet, despite a new door that spoke of hope for a bright future being open in front of him, Matt could still hear the echoes coming from the closed door behind him—violent reminders of the past months that stole his breath away, ghosts of the people he had lost haunting him in the shadows, the betrayal of those he had hurt bleeding through in their words.
And the ache in his lower back and the ringing in his ears reminded him it was all his fault.
He shifted on the vinyl booth seat he was sitting in. The curve of the back put his hips at an odd angle and he was squirming to find a position that took pressure off of them. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them under the table.
“...strawberries. A whole festival for them in the summer,” Foggy stabbed into the air with his french fry. “Which, we would have to wait until the firm started making money again to visit. I forgot how expensive starting a new business was.” He stuck the fry in his mouth.
Matt was only half-listening to Foggy, distracted by the ache where his spine met his hips, where a building crushed multiple bones and the nuns did their best to set them with ace wraps and prayers.
“And I mean,” Foggy continued, taking loose fries off of Matt’s plate, “it could be worse, I guess. We could have deposits and first month’s rent to pay for.” He sighed, his head cocking. “Utility deposits to pay for. The new sign itself…”
Matt tuned into a siren outside – long and low. A firetruck. He cocked his head to try and listen to the radio inside the vehicle as it passed, but the dispatcher’s voice was garbled and lost amongst the other noises blending together. Matt felt his fist ball on his lap in frustration.
“Matt?”
Matt turned his attention back to his partner. “Hmm?”
“You with me?” Foggy blinked.
Matt chastised himself. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I heard…a siren.” He said lamely, picking up a cold french fry and popping it into his mouth to make it look like he at least trying to participate in this half-date that was his idea in the first place.
Foggy sighed – a short, huffed breath through his nose that prickled the surface of Matt’s skin and twisted his stomach into knots. The pain in his back was forgotten as he focused on this unfamiliar emptiness in his chest. Foggy was sitting three feet away from him, but it could’ve been like he was on a different planet, orbiting on a completely different path now. And Matt knew it was all his fault.
Matt was trying. Now. He was. He didn’t want to lose Foggy. He couldn’t lose Foggy. He had just gotten him back.
Foggy was trying too – jokes came fast and loose at the office, he agreed to drinks after work at Josie’s again, and pecked Matt back when Matt leaned in for kisses.
Foggy laced his fingers together. He was still wearing his wedding ring. Matt didn’t know where his ended up after Midland Circle and at this point, he was too afraid to ask.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something,” he started, his words weighed out before they were spoken. Matt’s breathing stopped as he focused wholly on Foggy–his heartbeat, on the wafts of cortisol that tipped off Matt that he was growing anxious about what he had to say, the anxious jiggle of his leg underneath the table.
Matt uncrossed his ankles and recrossed them. It didn’t help the pain or the nausea at the sudden tension that filled the space on the table between them, smothering out the smell of greasy french fries and Matt’s half-eaten patty melt sandwich.
“I was initially looking for myself,” he started, “I mean, God knows the whole office needs it, but I found a therapist in the area that you might want to make an appointment with?”
“Therapist?” Matt repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Therapists were for crazy people. He wasn’t crazy.
“Yeah, Matt,” Foggy sighed again and it felt like an arrow shot right through his heart. Matt hated those sighs. He couldn’t read anything in them. Was Foggy exasperated with him? Angry? What would he be angry about now? Matt was trying now. “With what you’ve been through the last couple of months, I thought you would like to talk to someone about it? I know you used to see Fath–,”
Matt’s hands were already balled into fists, but he felt his fingernail dig into the skin of his palms as the sound of blood soaked pleads of forgiveness filled his ears and the weight of not being good enough punched through his chest with enough force to leave him breathless. “No,” he cut Foggy off before he could say his name. “I don’t need a therapist.”
Foggy sighed again and Matt fought the urge to writhe around in his seat in frustration. He ground his teeth as he held back words he knew he would regret.
You would lose him like you would lose Father Lantom. A voice mocked. The last couple of months, it had sounded like his father. Or Wilson Fisk. Rarely Stick. Now it was an amalgamation of all three of them at the same time. A voice not of this world. A voice vicious and cruel and broken. The voice of the Devil.
Matt could suddenly smell the heavy weight paper that was used for braille. Crispy and prickly with divorce decree on the same line as their names. He tried to imagine his life empty of Foggy’s presence again.
He suddenly couldn’t find oxygen.
“But, text me their information anyway,” he said quickly, which made Foggy’s form perk up a little. He wasn’t promising he would call. He probably wouldn’t call. But he could show that he was trying. For Foggy.
His attention went back to his empty third finger. Where was his wedding ring?
He couldn’t lose Foggy. He was home and Matt had been homeless long enough that he knew that he never wanted to go back to that place ever again.
“I put it all in a box,” Marci said before Foggy even had a chance to greet her. She stepped to the side so Foggy could enter her spacious, airy apartment that looked over the Hudson filled with enough Anthropologie furniture that it could’ve been a catalog ad.
“Thanks,” Foggy said, his eyes zeroing in on the file box that was overfilled with his stuff.
“You know,” Marci said, her heels echoing through her sparsely furnished place. “I could’ve dropped it off at your new office.”
Foggy ignored Marci as he squatted and rifled through the box. He had some t-shirts and a hoodie and a throw blanket in here. His extra toothbrush and a box of Chex Mix he forgot he pity-bought sat at the bottom. But, that’s not what he was looking for. He dug harder, pulling out things and setting them on the floor next to his knee.
“What are you looking for?”
“The picture,” Foggy’s eyebrows furrowed as he dug, growing more and more alarmed that he couldn’t find it. He wanted it for his new desk. He couldn’t bear to look at it during the months that Matt was gone and Foggy was convinced he was dead. He threw it in Marci’s bag one night before they went to go drown Foggy’s sorrows in alcohol. “Oh, wait,” his fingers gripped the frame and he pulled it out. “Here it is.”
Foggy sat back on his heels as he looked at the picture. It was his favorite candid of Matt that the photographer managed to snap when he didn’t know she was there. He was standing next to one of the many candle stands in the byealter of Clinton Church, the lights casting a glow around his figure that looked like a halo as he enjoyed a peaceful moment before their wedding. And maybe that’s why Foggy had such a hard time looking at it during those months without Matt, because it had reminded him of where Foggy convinced he was – amongst the angels and the saints.
Foggy wasn’t religious, but he felt God when he looked at that picture.
“Thanks for not throwing this out,” Foggy dropped it into the box and hastily covered it with the stuff he displaced.
“I wouldn’t throw out your stuff, Foggy Bear,” Marci said. “I will throw you out, though. I have a date coming in half an hour.”
“Damn,” Foggy rose with the box in his hands. “Already replaced me, huh?”
“That implies you were there to even need replacing to begin with,” Marci joked as she leaned against her breakfast bar.
“Ouch,” Foggy said with mock hurt and then shifted the box to his hip. “He cute?”
“You already know he is,” she said. “It’s David from accounting.”
“David? Really?” Foggy repeated. David was nerdy and smelled like Fruit Loops. And…kind of looked like Foggy with the soft, nerdy funny-guy thing he had going on. Foggy pressed his lips together. Marci definitely has a type.
“Yes, really,” Marci rolled her eyes. “And now I can bring him back to my place now I don’t have a depressed, grieving widower camping out on my couch.”
“Ouch,” Foggy said again.
“How is the zombie hubby now that he’s back from the dead? What happened with that, anyway?” Marci asked, her green eyes boring into Foggy as her head cocked.
“Coma,” Foggy said the rehearsed lines of the story that Matt, Karen, and him devised to explain Matt’s sudden appearance. “They couldn’t ID him while he was out, I guess.”
“Your life is so weird,” she shook her head and glanced at her expensive watch again. “Anyway, it was nice visiting with you,” she gave a big, megawatt smile full of bright, white teeth and started ushering Foggy towards the door. Foggy adjusted his grip on his box again and headed for the exit, knowing he was already a month past his welcome in Marci’s place.
“Thanks for letting me crash here,” Foggy said in the doorway. “You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. It was a hard couple of months.”
Marci’s eyes went sympathetic. “Of course, Foggy Bear,” she said, “you’re my friend and it was hard watching you sulk so hard.”
Foggy rolled his eyes, wishing he could take back every heartfelt word. “I wasn’t sulking. I was grieving. Matt’s my husband and I thought he was dead.”
“I know,” Marci said. “I’m glad you got him back. It’s not everyday people survive building collapses.”
“No,” Foggy said. Or fights with mob bosses or men who could throw office supplies like projectile weapons or prisons full of violent convicts or corrupted FBI agents. But, Matt did it. Foggy thought of that picture at the bottom of his box. Matt had a guardian angel or two looking after him, that was for sure.
“Alright,” she said. “Bye.” She closed the door on Foggy.
Foggy huffed a breath. Out of all of his friends, Marci had been there for him the most the last couple of months. But, in her unconventional, uncouth way. She hoisted him back up and dusted him off when he was at his literal lowest. She was the one that pushed him to run for DA to keep him safe. She was the one who let him go through her files. He was thankful.
He rode the elevator down to the lobby, placing the box down at his feet as he watched the floor number decrease. He sighed and kicked the file box. Besides some things he would probably never see again because they were rotting in an evidence bag in a police station somewhere, this was the last of his scattered things collected. He could finally take comfort in the fact that the horrifying Wilson Fisk nightmare was finally 100% over.
The sigh his body made had his knees almost giving out. He gripped the golden bar that ran the length of the elevator and tried to keep on his feet as it shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open.
David From Accounting was standing in the elevator banks waiting for Foggy’s elevator. His eyebrows shot high with surprise as he took in Foggy.
“Foggy, hey,” he greeted.
Foggy let his eyes wander over David. Yeah, he had the geeky charm and they probably wore the same size in pants, but Foggy was leagues hotter than this guy in his Northface zip-up and Reeboks? Foggy choked back a scoff.
“Hey, David,” he greeted. “Here for Marci?”
“Yeah,” David said, a new defensive edge to his voice. “You?”
Foggy thought about messing with this guy, but he decided to throw him a bone instead. He was in a good mood. “Nope,” Foggy felt himself smile cheekily as he picked up his box. “Date with my husband, actually.” My super cute, very alive husband, he tacked on in his head.
David mentally wheeled back as surprise flitted across his face. God, Foggy would never grow tired of knocking straight people off-balance with his sexuality. “Oh,” he stammered and blushed. “Well, have fun.”
“You too. Tell Marci I said hi.” Foggy said and held in his giggle until the elevator doors were firmly closed.
Matt rose when he heard the office door click open and Foggy’s heartbeat step through it. His spine cracked audibly in multiple spots like a cheap glow stick as he stood to his full height and he winced through the pain that started right above his hip and shot through his leg to his knee in arcs of hot lightning.
“That didn’t sound too good,” Foggy commented as he dropped a file box onto his desk. “Are you okay?”
Matt massaged his lower back as he motioned to the mess. “I’m alright,” he said and dropped his hand, “just trying to get these files sorted."
Foggy sighed one of his unreadable sighs and Matt felt his chest tighten as he stepped gingerly (not because of pain; because of the stacks files on the floor) to his own desk. Their office was mostly just a big storage space. They had enough room for three desks – Foggy’s and Matt’s next to each on one wall, Karen’s on the other – and a table to hold their fax machine, printer, and a small coffee pot. A four-person table sat in the middle of the room as a makeshift conference table of sorts. And since Karen was no longer the office manager, it was up to all of them to do paperwork.
“You want me to try and rub out the knots?” Foggy offered.
Matt felt himself give a wan smile. While a massage from his husband sounded nice, knots of lactic acid did not cause the kind of pain that could be soothed with some rubbing. “I’m okay,” he assured and lowered himself down to his creaky, uncomfortable office chair. He hoped his glasses hid how tightly he shut his eyes through the transition from sitting to standing.
“How’s the filing going?” Foggy had turned to the box on the desk. He pulled items – mostly clothes, by the sound – and set them aside until he pulled out a picture frame and set it down on his desk, angling it so it was facing him. Matt opened his mouth to teasingly ask him if it was Taylor Swift, when a scent hit him in the face.
Expensive hair spray, cheap self-tanner, Coco Chanel perfume.
Marci Stahl.
The Devil sunk his claws into Matt’s chest, poisoning him with a churn of emotions that left him jarred and stole the air from his lungs.
He replaced you.
Matt felt his hands ball into fists as a flash of white hot rage hit him like a bullet, his whole mental map blazing crimson. How could Foggy just replace him? With Marci? He was only gone for…for a couple of months. Foggy couldn’t even wait until his corpse grew cold to fall into the arms of Marci Stahl?
Matt fought to recenter his breathing, his fingernails digging crescents into his thighs through his trousers. Foggy didn’t replace him. He wouldn’t. Marci was just his friend. And he could just ask him. He could ask him and Matt could convince himself that he was blowing this all way out of proportion. Foggy wasn’t currently twisting a knife in his back. He wasn’t.
Matt opened his mouth and the words died right on his tongue as the Devil hissed in his ear.
Pathetic.
“Matt?”
Even if it was true, it was all of Matt’s fault anyway. His fault for telling the cabby to take him to Father Lantom instead of Foggy. His fault for almost losing himself to permanent corruption. His fault for betraying Foggy. His fault, his fault, his fault...
It was amazing Foggy didn’t leave him permanently for Marci Stahl.
The fire inside Matt died to the chill of emptiness. The Devil’s poison turned his soul gangrenous.
“Darling?” Foggy asked and walked over. “You alright?”
Matt forced a smile to his face and his hands to his laptop. “Yep,” he rewound the last couple of minutes of conversation in his head to Foggy’s original question about the files. “The files are a mess, Fog. I can’t make heads or tails out of them.” He huffed out a chuckle that sounded more like he was a prey animal being constricted by a large snake.
Foggy sighed and Matt felt like pulling his skin from his flesh.
“It’s your fault,” Foggy said and Matt’s heart dropped into his stomach over the thought of Foggy could suddenly hear his thoughts. “Putting the one with the attention span of a goldfish to sorting the files.”
Matt snorted, but he was still trying to take, deep meditative breaths to calm himself down. Matt hadn’t been enough for Foggy these last couple of months. Matt had so much to make up for. There was so much time stolen from both of them. Matt could make it up. Matt could be good enough for Foggy.
Because if he wasn’t…if he wasn’t good enough...
He inhaled another breath of Marci Stahl as the Devil hissed in his ear again. He closed his eyes.
You’ll lose him.
Foggy woke up to the sensation of being tickled.
His eyebrows scrunched over bleary eyes as he blinked and focused on what was tickling him, never expecting that it was Matt’s lips. He sucked in a breath as Matt skated loose kisses down his torso towards his happy trail and became fully awake when Matt’s fingers bunched around the waistband of his boxers. “Matt,” he gasped, “wh-what are you doing?”
Matt answered by climbing over Foggy’s thigh to get between his legs. Well, if Matt insisted. Foggy spread his knees to allow Matt enough room. Matt laid on his belly between them, pulling down Foggy’s shorts enough to free his hard dick and balls.
“I’ve been thinking about it for ages,” Matt said in his gravel-y, just woken up voice.
Foggy moaned, pressing his head back into the pillow as Matt licked around his head and then traced the vein with his tongue all the way to the base. He then took Foggy all the way, his throat fluttering with a light gag around Foggy’s head.
“Oh, you’re so sensitive,” Foggy groaned out, sleepiness making his voice low. “Missed feeling you gag around my cock, darling.”
Matt picked up Foggy’s hand and twined their fingers together. Foggy instinctually went to spin his ring, to remind him how missed he was, and he found it wasn’t on his finger. Oh. That’s right. Foggy put his ring in his keepsake box. He’d have to dig it out.
That thought was deleted from Foggy's brain as Matt’s bobbed, low and tight, forcing Foggy’s cock deeper into the hot, wet heat of his throat. From this angle, Foggy could see Matt’s untouched dick leak spread precum over the blanket he was humping. It was delicious and obscene and caused Foggy’s hips to buck and shove his cock down Matt’s throat. Matt audibly gagged that time, his cheeks pinked and blown hollow to accommodate Foggy.
Matt pulled off Foggy’s dick, drool coating his hand as he jerked Foggy off. “You like to make me gag? Huh?” He asked as his fist grew faster.
“I like watching you make yourself gag,” Foggy argued and groaned as Matt’s fist tightened. “Fuck, Matt. Fuck.”
Matt went down on Foggy again, shoving Foggy’s cock all the way to the back of his throat. Foggy could feel him gag again and he pressed his fingers to Matt’s adam’s apple to feel how absolutely full his throat was. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful like this,” Foggy almost said with a sob.
Matt’s cheeks reddened, and he moaned. Foggy felt like he had suddenly transported into the filthiest, nastiest wet dream he could ever possibly conceive as he watched Matt’s hip stutter as he came all over their bedspread, the head of his cock still rutting unashamedly against the silk.
Foggy was cumming shortly after that, his fingers disconnecting their hands to dig greedily in his hair. “Fuck. You like coming untouched for me? Desperate and drooling–,” He mumbled as he bucked his hips up. He could feel Matt switch between gagging and swallowing his load. Some of it he swallowed and some of it leaked down his chin and dribbled out the corners of his mouth.
Foggy sagged back into the bed once he was finished. He loosened his grip on Matt’s hair to stroke through it instead. He studied the touches of gray that dusted his temples now and his smile lines as he relaxed between Foggy’s thighs with a self-satisfied grin on his face. He didn’t move to clean off his chin, just let his eyes flutter close under Foggy’s touches.
“I love you,” Foggy mumbled as he petted through Matt’s hair. “My only sunshine.”
And realization socked Foggy again that Matt was back. Wholly and in one piece. Foggy let out a long sigh of relief, tension rolling out of him peals like a thundercloud moving on.
“Alright?” Matt asked, his voice now beyond its early morning roughness into straight scratchiness. He traced little circles on Foggy’s hip and his eyes reopened to settled somewhere past Foggy’s leg.
“Perfect,” Foggy said. “You’re perfect.”
Foggy wanted to tease Matt over the blush and the little smile that he tried to suddenly hide in his leg, but whatever he was about to say died in his throat when he watched Matt’s smile morph into a frown and his eyebrows pulled together. It only lasted for a second before he fixed his face into something more neutral, but Foggy caught that flash of…something.
Something that didn’t give him the warm and fuzzies.
“Oh,” Foggy’s delight in his words was glitter. It was magic. “These are pretty.”
Foggy took the flower arrangement from Matt, immediately digging his nose into a rose. Unlike Elektra, whose standards were impossible to meet when it came to displays of affection, Foggy’s standards were not so high. Especially for flowers. Matt didn’t have a ton of discretionary funds, but he managed to find enough to purchase a pretty grocery store bouquet. Or at least, he trusted the bouquet was pretty. It was the one that smelled the best and seemed the freshest.
“What’s the occasion?” Foggy asked as he continued to press his nose into a flower.
Matt felt his face heat and he ducked his head as he headed for his desk. “Just because,” he offered lamely. He wanted to relish in Foggy’s happiness. He wanted to prevent those sighs that felt like a shank between his ribs. He wanted to prevent the voice from pointing out how he wasn’t good enough for Foggy. He wanted to prove to himself that he just wasn’t taking up space in Foggy’s life that wasn’t meant for him anymore.
And he could still smell Marci Stahl in the air and he wanted to choke it out with the heavy scent of lilies and roses.
Foggy pouted. “They’re so pretty, Matt.” He rose from his office chair and walked the short steps to Matt’s desk to lean down and kiss him. Matt enthusiastically accepted the kiss back. He was loved and there wasn’t anything the Devil could do about it.
Foggy pulled away first. He poked around drawers and closets until he emerged with an empty bucket. He filled it with water from his water bottle and dropped the flowers inside. “I’ll have to put them in a vase when we get home.” He said. “Thank you, darling.”
“You’re welcome,” Matt felt like he was hanging onto every word and change in Foggy’s physiological tells that could tip off that he was lying. He didn’t sigh, which was good. Matt counted that as a point for him, but he couldn’t shake this feeling of unease either. Foggy was so enthusiastic about simple flowers. A little too enthusiastic to be real.
Matt felt his eyebrows furrow as he opened a random file and pretended to sort through its contents. That unease was pervasive. Matt elicited the response he wanted – making Foggy smile. Why did it feel like Foggy’s reaction wasn’t genuine? It read genuine, but a seed of dread in the pit of his stomach had Matt studying Foggy’s every move as he lowered himself to his own office chair and opened his laptop.
Matt wasn’t allowed to ruminate on his thoughts for long as Karen came through the door with a latte in one hand and some files in the other. She was wearing jeans and sneakers and smelled like the subway. “Already pounding the pavement?” He asked from his desk.
“Ugh,” Karen grunted as she leaned over her desk and started manically flipping open files. “Yeah. I need to go back to the archival building, but I forgot something.” She shoved a couple of papers into her bag and hurried out the door.
“Always on the move,” Foggy commented as he looked between two documents.
Matt felt that burning hot rage again. Why couldn’t Foggy pull his head out of his ass for a second to see that Matt was trying? Why couldn’t his efforts be acknowledged past a simple ‘thank you?’ Matt had been alone for all of those months too. He had been alone and hurting and afraid of what he was becoming.
Your fault.
Matt was back to digging his fingernails into his thighs to keep himself from shaking. It was his fault he had been alone. It was his fault that he had been hurting, that he was hurting. Present tense. It was his fault that he almost became what he despised. He just wanted Foggy to remind him that he was strong enough, he was good enough. Over and over and over–
Matt wanted Foggy’s touch. He needed his touch.
Matt pushed himself to his feet, the pain twinging his lower back putting him back on earth long enough to question what he was doing. Pathetic. The voice spat at him. Foggy didn’t even glance over at him. The anger inside of him was all-consuming over Foggy’s obtuseness. He twisted to grab for his cane from where it was leaning against the wall behind his desk. He needed to get out of here before he threw something at his husband. He was dangerously close to throwing something at his husband.
“Matt?” Foggy finally asked. “Where are you going?”
“Walk,” Matt said. “I’ll be back.”
He went up instead of down, heading towards the roof of the building where a picnic table was set up and a vinyl cloth covered a coal barbecue to protect it from the rain. Only when he was at the picnic table, lowering himself down to the bench, did he finally let the tears that were threatening to spill over drop, but then he immediately sniffled hard and reeled himself back in. Part of him felt stupid for wanting Foggy to come and find him up here. Part of him feared what he would say if he did.
Two stories down, Matt could hear Foggy sigh instead. Matt’s eyes pressed shut as the Devil forced more tears involuntarily down his face. Pathetic.
Matt tried to channel his momentary insecurity from that day into his fists that night.
He found a group of car boosters–some kids too young to really be out at night trying to commit grand theft auto. He dropped from the fire escape above them, landing silently on the balls of his feet like a cat. Ignoring the shooting pain in his back, he focused on the three young men in front of him. Their heartbeats were loud, young, and anxious with inexperience as they jimmied an unbent wire hanger through the window of a sedan.
He cleared his voice, and all three heartbeats froze.
“Oh shit,” one of them said in a whisper. “It’s the Devil.”
Matt felt that flash of hot rage. His fingers gripped into tight fists.
“Hey, man,” another one said in a bolder voice, “this ain’t what it looks like.”
Matt felt himself give a sardonic smile at their turn of phrase. He cracked his neck. If they only knew what it looked like to him.
“Run, man!” The third said, gripping his friend’s shirt. “Run!”
They scattered in three different directions, dropping the wire hanger on the sidewalk. Matt sighed as he let them go. They were young and frightened enough now that he was certain that he wouldn’t ever find them trying to boost cars again. He bent and picked up the wire hanger, folding it over twice before tossing it down the alley behind him. He turned and headed back up the fire escape.
Since Ben Poindexter had completely ruined Daredevil’s public reputation in the armor, Matt was forced to go out again dressed in the black mask. At least the police knew he was on their side. That was a consolation he did not take for granted.
But the last couple of weeks had been…quiet. Matt spent most of his nights sitting on various roofs of Hell’s Kitchen, listening to its population below live their lives. He couldn’t figure out if everyone was keeping their heads down in the light of Fisk’s arrest and it was a matter of time before Matt’s nights were full of bloody fists pounding the crime out of his city again or if he had finally, truly made a difference with his presence.
He had been enjoying the peace. This night, however, it was grating to him in the worst of ways.
He heard a scream and turned towards it, but then a siren kicked on and Matt relaxed. Hell’s Kitchen police could do their actual jobs now without being distracted by Fisk’s schemes. This made Matt feel…
Useless.
The Devil was screaming now, itching to claw out through Matt’s chest at the first chance at a fight. Matt wanted to pound someone who deserved it into the pavement until he felt delicate bones crack under his fists and screams gurgle in the back of their throats as they lost consciousness. He was not useless. He took Fisk down. He brought peace to his city. His very presence struck fear in the hearts of criminals now. He was not useless.
He jumped the gaps between roofs to the opposite end of the block and squatted, listening for the first sign of struggle. He pressed and pressed out with his senses, listening to couples watch television and the closing windows and hushing children and tapping on their computers as they finished work late into the evening.
Finally, he heard a scream. A woman.
He was off the roof before she could inhale her next breath.
A man was harassing her outside a club. Matt stopped before he got too close. There were people – drunk clubgoers mostly – milling around the sidewalk. The woman screamed again and Matt realized she wasn’t being harassed, she was being carried. Thrown over the man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The scream was punctuated with a laugh as she beat on the man’s backside with her clutch bag. A group of friends looked on, their laughs rising and disappearing into the night. After a couple of moments, he set the woman down on her feet and she lightly punched the guy in the arm. Matt felt immense disappointment as he retreated into the shadows.
He should be happy. He should be pleased. He should be resting on his laurels and enjoying the peace that he was the direct result of. Their ability to be outside, carefree and living their lives was his doing.
But, all he felt was rejection. Rejected by the city he loved.
The Devil screamed to be let out.
Foggy roused to consciousness, freezing where he laid with a second of alarm as he listened intently to the refrigerator open and then shut. A moment later a bottle cap hit the floor. Matt. He pulled the covers off his body and rose to his feet.
“Light night?” He guessed after he had shoved the barn door that separated the living room and their bedroom to the side.
Matt’s mask was off, but his shoulders were tense like he was still readying to fight as he stood in the middle of their tidy kitchen. He took two sips of his beer before he answered. “Yeah,” he said. “Light night.” He didn’t seem at all pleased with admitting that.
Matt’s bruises from that Night of Reckoning (as Foggy was labeling it in his head) were fading to yellow his skin, but Foggy knew that the invisible wounds that inflicted Matt from dancing so close with fate did not heal as easily. He was still going out, despite eradicating the king of crimes from his neighborhood. He still sought to do good, even though he already pushed himself to the limit trying to do his absolute best.
Foggy sighed. “You want to come to bed?”
“Shower,” Matt just grunted back, finishing his beer and pulling out a second one.
“Is it a two-beer night?” Foggy asked. “What happened out there for it to be a two-beer night?” His brain started churning up worse case scenarios, each bloodier and more gruesome than the last.
“Nothing,” Matt answered curtly. “Go back to bed, Foggy.”
“If something happened, you should talk about it.” He truly hated that Matt never seemed to be able to talk about what was going on in that enigmatic head of his. That’s why Foggy was Googling therapists. Maybe if he couldn’t talk about it with him, he could do it with someone who had objectivity to his situation. Or at least, someone he respected the intelligence of enough to point out when he was being irrational. He never seemed to trust Foggy on that front.
“Foggy, stop–,” Matt’s form tensed further, if that was even possible, and he cut himself off with a short sigh. He shifted on his feet. “It’s fine, alright? I’m just pent up.”
Foggy didn’t need to be a human lie-detector to register all of that as bullshit. He pressed his lips together as frustration built in his chest. “I thought we were done lying to each other?” His tone was more annoyed than he intended, which was never a good strategy when trying to get Matt to open up. Actually, it did the opposite. Foggy almost watched him physically pull his cards tighter to his chest.
Matt bristled and his fist hit the counter. “I’m telling the truth,” he said. “Nothing happened. Nothing’s been happening. The city doesn’t need m–,” he shook his head and pressed his lips together. “Can we just go to bed?”
Foggy nodded. Two in the morning didn’t seem at all an appropriate time to have this discussion, but was there ever an appropriate time with Matt Murdock? He was tired and annoyed and that rarely added up to any sort of productive outcome to their conversations. “Fine,” he said. “I’m sorry your night wasn’t…what you expected it to be.” He made a face.
“Thanks,” Matt said flatly, draining his second beer and tossing the empty bottle in the sink to be rinsed for the blue bin. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” his tone changed. It was small and tired. Exhausted even.
“It’s alright.” Honestly, he used to beg for Matt’s petty snaps and his brooding and his sudden moodiness back. He wanted all of Matt’s bad parts because they came with all the good. He just wanted Matt back alive and well. “Come to bed soon, okay?” He said in an equally small voice and turned around.
Foggy climbed back into his side of the bed. Then he was reminded as he was getting comfortable again that Matt still didn’t have his wedding band back. He leaned over and dug his keepsake box out from underneath the bed. He fished around past the photos he never wanted to part with and important documents like his passport to Matt’s ring, sitting at the bottom in the corner. He replaced the box in its place and spun the ring on his finger as he waited for Matt to come back from the shower.
Hopefully, getting this back would ease Matt’s bad mood.
About fifteen minutes later, Matt pushed himself into the bedroom, his form silhouetted by the neon wash of pink and green billboard lighting from outside. He slid into his side of the bed with a small, pained groan.
“I got this out for you,” Foggy held out the ring for Matt. “I’ve been meaning to give it back to you for a while.”
“My wedding ring,” Matt pulled himself up to take it from Foggy.
Foggy picked up Matt’s hand and slid the ring on himself. He swallowed as he remembered when Matt’s personal effects that were recovered from the collapse were returned to him – his gym duffle full of his clothes, his ring tucked in the hidden side pocket it was always kept in when he went to workout. They never recovered his body. Foggy was always tormented with the idea that Matt knew he was going into that building to die and that’s why he took it off in the first place. That he chose his ex-girlfriend Elektra over his own husband. He wanted to ask, but he was a coward and was too afraid of the answer.
“Thank you,” Matt inhaled a shuddering breath as he adjusted his ring so it sat as close to his knuckle as it could, “darling.” His voice was shaky and low.
Foggy wrapped his arms around Matt, comforting himself with Matt’s warmth and the weight of his body in his arms. They didn’t find a body, because he had miraculously survived. And now he was back safely in Foggy’s arms where he belonged. Foggy’s eyes slid shut as Matt’s face tucked into his neck and his hands filled with handfuls of Foggy’s sleep shirt.
“I love you,” Foggy whispered in the dark.
Matt didn’t answer back. He was already asleep.