Matt, Karen, Frank, Foggy â they were all tied up in each other. It was a hell of a story, but when you were living it, it felt more like a nightmare. Everything had gotten so tangled up and twisted around, the bond that used to keep them standing had become the thing choking them â and Foggy hadnât known what else to do but walk away. To issue the final ultimatum. A part of him had hoped itâd shock Matt, that itâd knock him out of whatever madness overtook him during the Castle case, that heâd never really let Foggy walk away. But he had. âYeah, sheâs not the only one,â Foggy whispered, picking up the empty bottle of eel and toying with it. Just to give his hands something to do. âYouâll have to tell me sometime,â he said, glancing over at Matt. âMaybe not right now. Considering weâre unpacking a lot and Iâm fairly certain my head will explode if we go too much further into the twilight zone.âÂ
Life was never meant to be this complicated. He knew he was signing up for a different life than his parents when he went to law school, but he thought it would be trials, not vigilante murderers coming back from the dead after those trials. He thought his biggest fights would be in the court room, not trying to convince his partner and best friend not to risk his life every night. He wished walking away had been as simple and clean a break as he imagined it â but he couldnât deny that even when they werenât speaking, heâd been thinking about Matt. Wondering if he was okay. If he was alive.
Foggy inhaled, held his breath while Matt spoke. He wanted to understand, but the world Matt described â that wasnât his world. He didnât hear everything, he didnât see a world on fire. He saw a world that could be changed from inside the system, a world that had so much potential, even with all the crazy things happening every single day. Their lives had almost been normal once â or at least, they had seemed normal once. âIâm not saying itâs a bad goal,â he said quietly, setting the bottle down. âI just â I hope you know everything youâre getting into, everything youâve been into. Because yeah, maybe itâs Godâs plan or something, or maybe itâs just â ya know, a freak accident. Maybe none of this really is your responsibility. You canât fix the whole world by punching out bad guys.â But it was a foregone conclusion at this point. Matt Murdock was stubborn as hell, and there was no stopping him once he set his mind to something. âYouâre not that person,â he said quietly. âYouâre not. I just donât want you to be a dead person, either. Martyrs get a nice mention in the history books, but they donât ever seem happy.â
He leaned back, holding onto the bar to keep his balance. The reality was starting to hit him, settle into his stomach like a heavy weight. Really, that worry had never gone away. Foggy could pretend that with enough distance, he could forget, but how did you forget a guy like Matt Murdock? You just didnât. âI knew she was bad news,â he said, shaking his head. âDidnât I say that? I said that, I know I did.â His brow furrowed, and he bit his lip for a moment. âSo if she was⊠helping you with this, if she knew about it all ââ A fact that stung, just a little bit. Not only was Matt getting laid while Foggy wasnât, but this random girl had known things about his best friend that Foggy wouldnât find out for years. âThen what happened? Why did she leave?â he asked, because heâd never gotten a straight answer before. âFair enough,â he whispered. âBut youâre⊠okay, right?â he asked, a tiny note of desperation in his voice.Â
It was like the decision to forgive had already been made. The second they walked in here maybe, or maybe it happened months ago. Maybe it happened the day after Foggy walked away, and heâd just been too angry to see it. But Matt was right â they were kind of married to each other. They were always going to be in each otherâs lives, for better or worse. âActually,â he said. âI got married yesterday. To Sharon Carter, remember her?â But his joke didnât land any better than Mattâs, there was too much at stake right now. Foggy reached out, clasped a hand on Mattâs shoulder. âYouâre a mess,â he agreed. âLike, eighty percent of the time. But hey, some girls dig that. And Iâve never seen anyone as passionate as you, Matt. Youâll figure it out,â he said firmly, like he was making a promise.Â
He was making a lot of promises in his head right now, couldnât find the words to say them aloud. All he knew was, he was in this now. This weird, crazy life his best friend was going to live. Foggy couldnât stop him from going down this path, but maybe he could make sure he wouldnât walk it alone. âI was being polite,â Foggy said, scrubbing a hand over his face. âWe are going to be very, very sorry tomorrow morning in court.â He shook his head, tried to process this brand new twist, and just sighed heavily. âI knew she was trouble. I mean, hooray for beating death and all, butâŠâ He didnât know how to feel about Elektra. She had broken Matt down completely in college, and when she returned to his life, she did it again. She left a wake of destruction in her path, but Matt fell for it every time. âAnd your heart?â he asked, biting his lip. âDoes that mean you two are⊠you know, back together? Because as your newly reinstated best friend, I have to make my disapproval known.â Not that itâd make much of a difference â and it was hard to deny something that would make Matt happy, even if it was fleeting.
Maybe all happiness was fleeting. After all, most people didnât get a second chance at life. Once death took you, that was it. Maybe you just had to take what you could get while you had the chance â and this felt like a chance. Foggy let out a long breath, not quite a sigh, just a moment to breathe. âOkay,â he said softly. âBut you can get it, right? Why this would feel⊠the way it feels.â Neither of them had ever been great at talking about their feelings. Personally, he blamed society, for making men feel like the only emotion they were allowed to feel was anger. But he and Matt were more than just anger, they were more than negative, violent emotion. They had whole worlds inside them, and maybe Foggy wouldnât ever understand every part of Mattâs world⊠But heâd sure as hell try.Â
They were both desperate tonight. Desperate to hang onto each other, even when the world wanted to rip them apart. Desperate to make each other understand everything that had been going through their minds during the Castle case, and maybe even before that. There was a lot of history to unravel, but Foggy felt like his feet were on solid ground for the first time during this conversation. âThen I guess we gotta stop lying to ourselves, huh?â he whispered, feeling the magnitude of it all hit him like a tidal wave. âI can take care of myself, you know. I helped an Avenger take down a whole group of street thugs the other night. On accident, and mostly I just cowered, but still,â he said, biting his lip again. He closed his eyes tight, but realistically speaking, he knew Matt was just being honest. âOkay,â he said again. âThatâs what I needed to hear. Josie!â he called, holding up the bottle. âWeâre gonna need another one of these to go, all right?â Josie rolled her eyes, but slid another bottle towards them. Foggy turned back to Matt, and stood up, enveloping him in a tight hug. âYouâre a stupid asshole,â he muttered, voice muffled by Mattâs shoulder. âI needed to say that at least once. But fact is, youâre my stupid asshole, so â your place or mine to continue this little catch up?âÂ
In many ways, it felt as if Mattâs life in between training with Stick, going to college and where he was now had been stalled. When he wasnât out fighting the war that his mentor had trained him to fight, it was as if he was just biding time, like he could breathe in but that breath just got stuck in his chest. When he was out as Daredevil, he was alive in ways that he could never imagine. He was helping people, he was hearing the people of Hellâs Kitchen, the place that he loved, the place that loved him, thank him for what he was doing, call him a hero, trust him that he would protect them against anything, even if the fight was stacked impossibly against him. Matt wished that he was the kind of person who could find life in his day job, but he wasnât. He doubted he would ever be.
âAgreed,â Matt said, raising his hand to Josie for the last drink of the night, grateful that at least the conversation about Frank would be stalled for the meantime. There was plenty to discuss regardless, and what the Punisher had done or would do in the future was tied up intrinsically to both of them, a problem that wouldnât go away anytime soon. They could leave it on the back burner for one night, Matt was sure of it.
Matt nodded, listening to Foggy with the same respect as he had given him. âI see perfectly clearly, Foggy,â he replied. âIâve seen everything that goes on in this city, or at least the scum thatâs under the surface. Iâve heard it bleeding out every single night. Maybe if everything was quiet again, maybe if I could put my head under my pillow and tell myself nothing was happening, things would be different. But I canât hear a woman screaming on the street and convince myself not to go out and help her. I canât hear a kid crying and not want to go and be what Iâve always been.â At the beginning, it had been as simple as that. Helping people, individuals, and making them feel safer. Then the mobs came. The gangs. Navigating the politics of Fiskâs criminal empire, and getting tangled in it all the way down. Now, Matt knew he couldnât be a half measure. He needed to be a hero, and that was exactly what he was going to do. âThatâs why Iâm not only the Devil,â he said, keeping his voice low, not that anyone was listening in Josieâs anyway. âIâm the lawyer, too. Two sides, same coin. I canât have one without the other.â
He knew what Foggy was worrying about, because he had been in the same position. He had watched his father get down further and further into the rabbit hole. Even if Matt had only been a kid, he understood what it meant. Jack was never pleased with good enough, and eventually, it got to a stage where he couldnât say no. Being a lawyer was first and foremost, Matt still believed in the system, but there were gaps in that system that only Daredevil could fill. âYou said that a few times,â Matt said, smirking despite himself. âShe figured it out, Foggy. I couldnât deny it, and I trusted her. Still do.â Despite the overwhelming evidence that he probably shouldnât, he bet that he always would. âI told you, it was complicated,â he said. He took a breath, and then, âHer father died. Things changed. She changed, I changed. And then one night, I realised just how much, and she left. I donât know where she went, she never told me.â
Okay was a relative term, and one that Matt doubted had ever applied to him - at least it was in the same realm as fine. âYeah. Yeah, Iâm okay. Better than Iâve been in a long time.â Most of that was down to the fact that even though Foggy was clearly creaking out, his friend was still standing in front of him - or sitting, on the barstool - and it sounded as if that desperation, that emotion, was translating itself into a bridge between them. âSharon?â Matt repeated, smoothly covering up the fact that he almost choked on his vodka. âYeah, yeah, I remember her. Natâs friend. Nice girl, besides threatening to stab me in the head.â And aiming the knife towards it. And throwing it.
Foggy had always been better at holding onto people than Matt had, at repeating and appreciating what he had and not pushing it away. Maybe that was because he understood that he deserved it, because he saw his own worth, or maybe it was just the entire being of Foggy Nelson that encouraged people to stay. Matt was willing to bet it was a bit of both. âHey, maybe youâre fucked, but I have an open and shut grand auto case. Iâve been working on that bad boy for a month. Thereâs no way the judge is giving us anything but guilty.â And then, the conversation moved to something far less open and shut, possibly the furthest from it. âMy heart is complicated,â Matt sighed. âI donât -- no. I mean, I donât think so. She just came back, and sheâs working things out, and I âŠâ Luckily, Foggy kept talking, even if it was expressing his disapproval. âNoted,â Matt said, smile pulling on the corner of his mouth. âNot every day you get to have a conversation like this about one of my exes, right?â
Matt nodded again, feeling as if this entire night he had just been a poor imitation of a bobblehead, all things considered. At least they were on the same page now, though, instead of crying in his apartment or screaming in the bathroom of a courthouse, Karen outside wondering what the hell was going on. âI get it,â he said and then, to prove that point, âDad.â Matt knew what it was like to worry. He knew what it was like to hear that gunshot and know something had happened, that deep, writhing dread in his gut. He knew how his dadâs blood felt on his hands, same way as Foggy knew his. At least in Mattâs case, he was doing something to help people.
âWhich Avenger? If you say Hawkeye, Iâm finding a new best friend. Iâm taking that reinstated status and shoving it broadside up your ass.â It was all said with a joking tone that was rarely hard for Matt to access when he was in Foggyâs company. Girlfriends and tragic loves aside, there was something to be said for the simplicity of a best friend - even if it came with its fair share of complications, too. âAnother one? Are you sure weâll be able to feel our legs if we drink that on the way back?â Matt said with a bright laugh following his words. It was as if the world had lifted itself up off his chest, and he was loving every second. When Foggy barrelled into him, Matt didnât hesitate before wrapping his arms around him too. After all, he had heard him coming. âYouâre worse than a mother,â Matt replied, fondness seeping through every word. âDepends on who has more booze. Plus, you canât sleep on my couch, and Iâm not getting a bad back before tomorrow. Billboard, you know.â