"Guts" Nelson

Following the man’s gaze down to her overstacked plate, Nadia grinned. “No, not a circus act! Do they have circus acts like this? I’ve never been to a circus before. I always thought it looked fun!” It was one of many things she’d missed out on during her time with the Red Room, one of many things she’d put on her list of ‘wants,’ despite Natasha’s husband grumpily assuring her that the circus was overrated. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I love the street performers! They’re one of my favorite parts of  New York.” Most other cities she’d been to had nothing like them, and even if they did, she’d never had much of a chance to admire them. The Red Room did not fund vacations, it arranged assassinations.

When the man laughed, Nadia’s smile only widened. He seemed friendly, and she’d always gotten on well with friendly people. “What? You think someone may have poisoned the food?” Her brow furrowed in concern, and she glanced around the area quickly. Her English was nearly flawless – the Red Room would have nothing less – but assassins worried about poison in their food far more often than they concerned themselves with food poisoning. 

As the man went on, it was Nadia’s turn to laugh. “Oh, no, I don’t think you’re old at all! I don’t know many expressions.” She grinned as he went on, nodding her head. The history books she’d learned from had been heavily edited as well, and there was something comforting about knowing that it was a universal thing rather than a Red Room thing, though she was sure the editing in her books had been a touch more intense. “You want it to taste like chicken? I think we should aim higher! I’m hoping for steak.” She spooned a little more on her plate, pausing as someone took the stage. “Oh, that’s the President, no? I’ve never seen him in person before, only pictures. He looks different.” 

“They do, actually!” Foggy said, grinning. “Never been? That’s a shame. My parents used to take me every summer, this carnival would roll through my uncle’s town and we’d take a day trip out there. You should try it sometime,” he said, though in all honesty, she was maybe too old to really experience the magic. “They’re not bad,” he agreed with a smile. “Unless you’re late for work. Try explaining to your boss that you’re late because someone was breathing fire in the middle of the sidewalk,” he quipped. 

His brow furrowed at the strange response. “Uh, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Not deliberately. But it happens, ya know? Especially with fish if my understanding is correct.” He shrugged it off -- judging from her accent she wasn’t from New York originally. Maybe it was just lost in translation. 

She had a nice laugh, Foggy appreciated that. “I’m still pretty old,” he said, taking a moment to pile even more food on his plate. “But hey, English is hard to learn, ya know? Too many little expressions everywhere. There’s gotta be a book of them,” he mused. He laughed again, not unkindly, just genuine amusement. “Another expression,” he explained. “But you’re right, steak would be much better.” He glanced up, following her gaze towards the stage. “He does,” he agreed, brows furrowed. “Guess it’s time for the press op,” he quipped. 

Most would assume that Matt hated parties. Given his hypersensitivity, that was a reasonable expectation to have, but it was actually the opposite. Some of Matt’s best memories happened during parties, like his first kiss, that time Foggy tried to barter with the waiter about caviar without realising that he didn’t have to pay for canapés, meeting Elektra, getting one over on the Hand for the first time. That meant that there was really no conceivable situation that Matt was in that would make him avoid the party, especially when the grand majority of the city was in a safe place, meaning the Devil wasn’t required. Even though he knew that the entire thing would go to hell before long - and it really, really had - it hadn’t stopped him from enjoying it while it lasted, and eating as much as he possibly could.

“Hey, I wasn’t even anything to do with this one!” Matt argued, a grin on his face despite himself. In the most disastrous of moments Matt seemed to find levity, whereas in the happiest he was burying his head under the covers. Try explaining that one! “So we go through the window,” Matt said with a shrug. There was a part of him that was joking, but another part that was thinking his cane doubled as a billy club - and a grappling hook. “Tragically, it all went to hell before I even got the chance to get drunk,” Matt said, feeling as if he was describing his first date all over again, right down to hiding under a bar. Columbia had some stories to tell! “I was being serious about the window. At least, moderately serious. There’s also the roof, that’s an option.” Matt paused for a moment, listening intently. “No one’s focusing on the elevator.” At the next question, Matt’s breath hitched for a moment. He remembered that stranger on the street calling him the Devil, saying that she knew. Other than her, though, he felt pretty confident in saying his identity was still a secret. “No one but you and a bunch of ex-girlfriends,” Matt replied. “Dodging pitchforks will be reserved for the night job. Matt Murdock is just a helpless civilian right now, so you gotta help me to that elevator.”

Foggy wasn’t freaking out -- he was understandably concerned with the riot happening on the other side of the bar. That was reasonable! He and Matt had crashed some major parties, both high class and of the fraternity-variety, but he’d never seen anything unravel this quickly. If it weren’t for the screams and the sound of breaking glass on the other side of the bar, it might’ve felt like they were back in college. In fact, it still sort of did. The past and present blurred spectacularly for a moment.

She nodded slowly, fully believing he had experienced something similar, until he gave her a look that said otherwise. “Oh!” Patsy said with a too loud laugh. “Personally, I just try to avoid too many witnesses. Bad for the rep, you know? But you seem to be the only one who noticed – or cared, that is. Not too shabby.”

It was probably the best that he chose to laugh at that comment. Despite the freakishly high amount of superheroes who died and came back, people still didn’t react super positively all the time. She got it, to an extent. Patsy easily could have come back as, like, a zombie, or a demon. Then there were the heroes who died and didn’t return. There were so many unknown variables. “Ugh, you’re tellin’ me. That’s easier said than done, in a place like this.” Patsy knew she would have probably been better off in California, but it hadn’t felt right. Somehow, chasing after thieves while trapped in another dimension was better. “That’s probably a good idea. I feel fine, but I’m not the best judge of whether or not I’m okay.”

“No wonder you barely blinked when I popped out of costume right in front of you.” That was one explanation for it, anyways. The ability to change in and out of her costume at will was, sadly, one of her more useful powers. “I’m from California – we don’t walk anywhere.” How convenient a lawyer would be if she wasn’t already best friends with the greatest one there was. “Really? That’s surprising. I guess you’d get a lot of customers with that niche, though, huh? But I already have a lawyer. I was briefly an investigator for her agency, actually.” Because clearly, this was a woman who excelled at being inconspicuous. 

Foggy shrugged. “It’s New York,” he said simply. “People are getting used to superfolk falling from the sky. Mind you...” He glanced towards the car, and winced at the dent in the top. “That guy is definitely going to be pissed,” he said. “I might be a lawyer, but we don’t actually have to sell our souls. Course I cared,” he said, offering her a small smile.

It was hard to keep up with every costume, vigilante, Avenger, or Justice Leaguer in the city now. Even with them being isolated in this hell dimension, there was an awful lot of heroes that came along for the ride -- which was probably a good thing. “No kidding,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I imagine shock’s gotta be kicking in. Besides, whoever you were chasing, they’re long gone by now. Maybe someone else in a costume will catch up to them,” he said, shrugging again. “So, let me pretend to be a hero for a minute and help you over there?” he asked, offering his arm out to her. 

“I thought we agreed magic was a lie you tell children and old people?” Matt asked, grin widening as Foggy continued to speak, bursting into laughter as he brought up the age old TARDIS reference. For all of the secrets that Matt had divulged, he was never, ever going to tell Foggy that he didn’t remember a word of that argument. He was good at bluffing, and he could guess what his own arguments were well enough. Foggy’s mind was also pretty well known to him by this point as well. “You’re right. Every word of those four hours is imprinted on my brain, right before I threw up in Marci’s bed.” It was a good excuse for Marci to hang out with Foggy without Matt being invited, though, which was entirely why Matt had done it.

Matt continued to listen, raising an eyebrow towards his friend as he did so. “You’re right,” he said, attempting for deadpan but the smirk on his face definitely subverted that somewhat. “The experience is magical. Josie is basically the tooth fairy, and Bob? Bob is Father Christmas.” Bob, right now, was busy bashing Paul’s head into the wall. In Bob’s defence, Paul had hit on his husband.

“You sure looked like you were going to, for a while there. Josie took down our tab. It nearly broke her heart. I swear I heard her crying behind the bar, once, though that might just have been the leaking tap again.” Few people brought out Matt’s humour, but Foggy had always been able to get down to the base of it, draw it up to the surface. That was part of the reason, though far from the main one, that Foggy Nelson was his best friend. “Impressive isn’t necessarily a good thing,” Matt muttered. “I mean, they always say that a leader should be someone who doesn’t want the position, because then they’ll respect it. Doom seems to almost revel in the power. And there’s just something … off about the way he’s handling things.” Matt sighed, ran his finger around the rim of his glass, pretending he couldn’t feel dust on his fingertip afterwards. “I don’t know. There’s not really a benchmark for this kind of thing. Is there any talk at your place about what’s going on? Hogarth seems the type to get stuck in.”

“No, you thought magic was a lie you tell children and old people. I argued that magic is a pleasant concept of fun, though I conceded it was not entirely sustainable,” he said, laughing with Matt. He couldn’t help himself. Foggy narrowed his eyes suspiciously, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you forgot the TARDIS argument,” he said, laughing again. “Though I gotta say, that was one of your finest moments as a wingman. Marci wasn’t thrilled, but I looked like quite the hero when I cleaned it up and sent you home in a taxi.” 

Foggy smirked too, grinning as Josie flipped Matt off (again), and glancing back just in time to see Bob acquaint Paul’s face with the bricks. “Ooh, that’s gotta hurt,” he said, wincing sympathetically. He motioned Josie over, and told her to send some rounds over there, for all three of them. “Nothing fixes domestic strife like alcohol,” he quipped.

Matt laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it. He had always been morbidly entertained by irony, was all. “No, I’m pretty sure Karen ducked out when they mentioned putting on a mask and being a vigilante.” Matt wasn’t entirely sure, though. He wasn’t entirely sure of anything anymore. The firm had once seemed to be the one place where they could all be open, honest with each other, where they could be a family, part of every aspect of the others’ lives. Instead, it had been basically the exact opposite. Matt had been Daredevil, Karen was chasing down Frank, and Foggy was entertaining other job offers. They all had secrets, they had all lied at one stage or another, and that was what life summed up to, really. “Frank,” Matt said lowly, taking a long gulp of his drink. “Yeah, that’s – that’s also a story. He kind of saved my life, a while back. That was how I figured out he wasn’t in a box. Figured keeping his secret was the least I could do to pay it back.”

He wondered, sometimes, what it felt like to have relationships that weren’t as complicated as this. He wondered what it would be like to be a person that felt entirely one way or another, settling on hate or love, and not allowing the two to intersect. It seemed as if Matt had forever lived on that line, never knew when good enough was too much and vice versa. Foggy had tempered some of his bad decisions in the past, but only the ones that he had known about. Even at that, Matt rarely listened to his best friend as much as he should.

“I mean that I can do something,” Matt said. “I have these abilities, okay? I had an accident as a kid, now I hear the entire world so loud it nearly deafens me, every second of every day. I had an accident, but maybe it wasn’t an accident, maybe it was destiny. Maybe it was God telling me that I was meant to be more than just a kid from Hell’s Kitchen who had this insane idea of being a lawyer, of going to an Ivy League. I grow up, I get trained to do the things that I can do now, I keep training through the years because something, something deep down inside of me tells me that there’ll come a day when I’ll be able to use those abilities to help people. To stop anyone else going through what I did. To make amends for the people Dad hurt, maybe, if I can do that. So if I have these powers, if I have these skills, and the will to use them, and I don’t? That makes me just as bad as the people out there that want to hurt people, that kill people, that make them suffer. And I don’t ever want to be that person, Foggy. I can’t.”

There had never been a chance of Foggy, or Claire, or Karen, or anybody else talking Matt out of what he knew that he needed to do. It was beyond just wanting, now, and maybe it always had been. “No, no,” Matt said, shaking his head, feeling it go a little starry at the edges. God, how much had he drank? “I wasn’t doing … this. I was training. Maybe a bit of this. Elektra …” Matt paused, tapped his fingers against the edge of his glass, laughing lightly as he lifted it to his lips. “That was Elektra. We were showing each other what we could do. She got me, several times. The rest of the bruises, that was just sex.” Matt finished off that particular confession with a shrug, knowing that Foggy had bought the excuse that wasn’t quite an excuse a hundred times before. “Yeah, a name I’m not saying tonight,” Matt replied smoothly, even if it felt like the words should stick.

Honesty had never came easily to him. Matt doubted that it ever would. Too much honesty in one night and he bolted. He felt exhausted, like he had spent everything that he ever had to give. He didn’t want to be exhausted, didn’t have the luxury of allowing it. He would have to go out the next night, and the night after that, and protect people, protect his city. “I understand,” Matt said. “I get it. Still sounds like we’re married, though.” The joke cut itself off at the next words, and Matt felt as if the ice cubes - poor as they were in the bottom of his glass - had made their way down into his chest. “Maybe I don’t know how to love someone,” Matt said lowly. “Actually I – I know I don’t know how to love. Properly, I mean.”

Matt loved too much. He had always loved too much. The nuns had tutted over it, had touched the back of his head and said, ‘poor Matty,’ so many times that it nearly drove him insane. They thought he’d get his heart broken, and that would be him. They doubted how strong he could rebuild it back again, or the people who would let him do so, Foggy top of that list. “Only very intoxicated? Damn, because I am pissed,” Matt admitted. He needed to be, really, for this conversation. “I mean she’s back. Land of the living, just as she was, everything the same. A few things different, maybe, but she – her heart’s the same.” Still skipped a beat when she walked in and seen him, the only tell he had ever been able to cling onto. “I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but she’s back. And I’m – I’m happy about it.” If Matt could ever be truly happy, which he sincerely doubted.

“There are other things that are important to me too,” Matt said, “and you know about them.” Foggy had been the first person that Matt had ever really talked about his dad to, and definitely the first one that he had divulged his criminal leanings to. Even if the majority of Hell’s Kitchen had known, Matt knew that there was something to be said for him finally saying the words out loud.

The sound of the bottle hitting against the bar would’ve made him jump in college, the noise of it screeching in his mind for a second afterwards, but now, Matt sat perfectly still. “I’m listening,” Matt said softly, tilting his head towards Foggy as if that would make a difference. He could hear a pin drop ten blocks away if he tried, further now if he focused intently, though he preferred not to let that much stimuli in if he could help it. Foggy’s words were solid, they were laden with everything that they hadn’t said for years and everything that they had. “I can’t lose you either, Foggy,” Matt said, hoping that the desperation in his voice was anywhere close to Foggy’s, because he felt it deep down in his gut, even if he wasn’t the best at showing it. “I was trying to protect you from this. If you got hurt because of me, that…” He couldn’t even put into words how painful that would be, and he had gone to college specifically to be able to string any sentence together. “I can’t promise I’ll come back,” Matt said, “but wanting to?” He took a breath, thinking of all those dark days, all the hard weeks that he’d spent holed up in his dorm, in his apartment, in his office as the years moved on. “I can want to,” he said finally. “I want to want to, which is the first step, right?”

Matt, Karen, Frank, Foggy -- 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 -- and Foggy hadn’t known what else to do but walk away. To issue the final ultimatum. A part of him had hoped it’d shock Matt, that it’d knock him out of whatever madness overtook him during the Castle case, that he’d never really let Foggy walk away. But he had. “Yeah, she’s not the only one,” Foggy whispered, picking up the empty bottle of eel and toying with it. Just to give his hands something to do. “You’ll have to tell me sometime,” he said, glancing over at Matt. “Maybe not right now. Considering we’re unpacking a lot and I’m fairly certain my head will explode if we go too much further into the twilight zone.” 

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 -- but he couldn’t deny that even when they weren’t speaking, he’d 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 -- that wasn’t his world. He didn’t hear everything, he didn’t 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 -- or at least, they had seemed normal once. “I’m not saying it’s a bad goal,” he said quietly, setting the bottle down. “I just -- I hope you know everything you’re getting into, everything you’ve been into. Because yeah, maybe it’s God’s plan or something, or maybe it’s just -- ya know, a freak accident. Maybe none of this really is your responsibility. You can’t fix the whole world by punching out bad guys.” 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. “You’re not that person,” he said quietly. “You’re not. I just don’t want you to be a dead person, either. Martyrs get a nice mention in the history books, but they don’t ever seem happy.”

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 didn’t. “I knew she was bad news,” he said, shaking his head. “Didn’t I say that? I said that, I know I did.” His brow furrowed, and he bit his lip for a moment. “So if she was... helping you with this, if she knew about it all --” A fact that stung, just a little bit. Not only was Matt getting laid while Foggy wasn’t, but this random girl had known things about his best friend that Foggy wouldn’t find out for years. “Then what happened? Why did she leave?” he asked, because he’d never gotten a straight answer before. “Fair enough,” he whispered. “But you’re... okay, right?” he asked, a tiny note of desperation in his voice. 

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 he’d just been too angry to see it. But Matt was right -- they were kind of married to each other. They were always going to be in each other’s lives, for better or worse. “Actually,” he said. “I got married yesterday. To Sharon Carter, remember her?” But his joke didn’t land any better than Matt’s, there was too much at stake right now. Foggy reached out, clasped a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “You’re a mess,” he agreed. “Like, eighty percent of the time. But hey, some girls dig that. And I’ve never seen anyone as passionate as you, Matt. You’ll figure it out,” he said firmly, like he was making a promise. 

He was making a lot of promises in his head right now, couldn’t 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 couldn’t stop him from going down this path, but maybe he could make sure he wouldn’t walk it alone. “I was being polite,” Foggy said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We are going to be very, very sorry tomorrow morning in court.” He shook his head, tried to process this brand new twist, and just sighed heavily. “I knew she was trouble. I mean, hooray for beating death and all, but...” He didn’t 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. “And your heart?” he asked, biting his lip. “Does that mean you two are... you know, back together? Because as your newly reinstated best friend, I have to make my disapproval known.” Not that it’d make much of a difference -- 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 didn’t 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 -- and this felt like a chance. Foggy let out a long breath, not quite a sigh, just a moment to breathe. “Okay,” he said softly. “But you can get it, right? Why this would feel... the way it feels.” 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 wouldn’t ever understand every part of Matt’s world... But he’d sure as hell try. 

Foggy was representative of what life could have looked like had she not gone down the path that she did. If Sharon had chosen to remain at Harvard, if she had learned law with the rest of them and got her adrenaline kicks from defending innocent people with words rather than bullets and shields, would she be wearing nice clothes like Foggy was right now? Would her apartment no longer be stuffed with hidden weapons caches? Would she be able to sleep through the night without hearing a noise and immediately pointing her gun towards it, heart beating hard in her chest as if to remind her that she was alive, that she had lived, that nothing had been able to kill her yet?

Sharon knew that there was no version of reality in which she would be comfortable with a life where she worked in an office, walked the streets like everyone else, and allowed other people to go out onto the field and risk themselves for her safety. What Foggy did was endlessly important, he defended people in his own way, and Sharon didn’t have the strength to do that. She would rather go out in a blaze of victory after a hard fought life than have to sit in silence and figure out who she was under all the aliases. If there wasn’t something sad about that, she wasn’t sure what else there was to feel sad about. “At least? You really should have gone for two paychecks’ worth, just for the extra pizzazz. You might have gotten a nice watch with it, too.” Sharon, of course, knew all about government salaries, but that went without diving into. Her career was a conversation off the table. “A thing of sorts,” she conceded. Foggy got paid to argue, it wasn’t a completely fair battle! “Steve.” The name made her breath catch, just for a moment. (Weakness.) “No, God no. If you run a background check on him then he’ll want to run one on me, and that would be the relationship – the thing – over. You know what I did in college, Foggy!” Or at least parts of it.

Realistically, college had been the last time that Sharon was entirely honest with Foggy Nelson. She regretted it, mostly because he was one of the few civilians in her life who had actually stuck around, who hadn’t cared when she disappeared for months on end, whose friendship continued on as if the break had never happened. “To not screwing things up!” Sharon announced, holding up her drink with a laugh. “Wait, you got an Avenger to help you beat up thugs? That’s so amazing! What did he smell like? I heard heroes have a certain aroma to them. A good one, obviously.” Did she oversell that? Maybe. Was she enjoying herself? Potentially. “I can’t believe you met Hawkeye. That sounds fantastic. It also sounds like a fanfiction, so I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but …”

It wasn’t a glamorous life, at least not the way he lived it. (Hogarth on the other hand -- that woman made every court room look like a runway. Was that a sexist thought? He wasn’t sure.) But Foggy had never wanted glamour, or fame -- though he wouldn’t mind a little bit of fortune. Just enough. Truthfully, he’d gone into law because it was challenging, because it was hard, because no one in his family had ever done it before. And it was tedious and technical at times, but he lived for that. There was nothing like standing up in court, fully prepared, and ready to blow everyone away -- not because he was glamorous or heroic, but because he had worked hard on very boring material. Not everyone could do that, Sharon was proof. Her strengths lay elsewhere, he couldn’t really imagine her as a lawyer, or as a lawyer’s wife for that matter. She was too much her own person. 

“Well, you see, I also like to eat,” Foggy said, smiling at her. “And I’m not getting paid in pies and bananas anymore -- which is not something I thought I’d miss, but...” He shrugged, and the smile on his face turned bittersweet. The days of Nelson & Murdock were even less glamorous than working here, but they had been precious in a way he couldn’t grasp at the time. Maybe because he’d never imagined them ending the way they did. “Besides, I’m making do with my grandpappy’s old watch,” he said, holding up his wrist. It was nothing special, but the back was engraved with his grandfather’s name, his father’s name, and now his. Maybe one day, he’d get to pass it on, too. 

His smile grew wider when Sharon conceded, and he nudged her arm a little. “See? Can’t pull a fast one on me, my darling,” he quipped. It was rare to see Sharon discomposed like this, and frankly, he was enjoying it a little. Mostly because, it was a sign this ‘thing’ really meant something to her. “All right, all right, no background checks. He’ll never find out about the car in the pool, or the numerous citations for underage drinking,” he teased. “But if this ‘thing’ gets serious, you gotta tell me,” he said quietly. “I mean, I am your husband.” That joke wasn’t going to get old anytime soon.

One of the benefits - the many, many benefits as far as Matt was concerned - of maintaining a secret identity was that even when people were pissed off at Daredevil, which was relatively often, they had only the vague notion of who Matt Murdock even was. That meant when the party descended into chaos and heroes with public identities were outed as avoiding Doom’s list, Matt was more than capable of hanging around, taking advantage of the free booze that had been left unattended, and shoving as many cheeseballs as he possibly could into him. After all, this was his cheat day, he had actually been relaxed before the entire thing went to shit, and it was his night off. He was taking advantage of the party regardless of how it ended!

Matt landed, perhaps a little more gracefully than typical, behind the bar, and found himself pressed up against another person who was also avoiding the drama currently going on. A second was all it took for Matt to place Foggy’s heartbeat, and he held out a small bag filled with cheeseballs as a greeting. “Why do all the parties we go to have to end the same way?” Matt asked with a smirk. “I’m surprised you didn’t go for the door while you had the chance. Are you eager to take advantage of the free refreshments, or are you just trying to avoid getting your head taken off?” Either seemed a good enough excuse, all things considered.

Foggy should’ve known better, really. 

A party this good? People this happy? Food that plenty? It was bound to go wrong somehow. Doom’s list was still on the screen, flashing names and faces and powers for everyone to see -- and more importantly, for everyone to see who hadn’t listed. But while everyone else seemed to be working themselves into a raging frenzy about the unlisted, Foggy breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Matt’s name conspicuously absent. 

He hoped Matt had the foresight (ha) to not even come to this thing. Foggy hadn’t seen him, or heard the click of a (wholly unnecessary) cane on the floor, so maybe he was. When things started to take a turn for the worse, Foggy weighed his options. Getting out? That’d be tricky as hell, but maybe he could wait it out from the safety of the bar. Specifically, the floor behind it. 

The bartender had taken off, leaving plenty of booze for the taking, and an excellent hiding spot. Foggy was crouched down, trying desperately not to be seen, when all his hopes were dashed. Matt landed beside him, inexplicably holding cheeseballs. Inexplicable or not, Foggy still helped himself to a handful before answering. 

So far, the party was an absolute delight. Nadia felt energized surrounded by happy people, and the mixture of expensive food and alcohol was certainly helping to improve her mood even further. She’d danced a little, instructed on moves by Cassie, and gotten fairly good at some of the more popular dances before taking a break to wander through the crowd, picking up more food and drinks as she went.

Hovering by the food table now, Nadia attempted to balance a truly impressive amount of finger foods on a plate in one hand while holding two glasses of champagne in the other. The show of balance and skill probably wasn’t what the Red Room had in mind when they’d worked on training her, but it was certainly impressive all the same. Perhaps even more impressive was the way her head bobbed to the music as she held the towering plate and glasses, the movement having no effect on her balance whatsoever. 

Glancing up as someone joined her at the table, Nadia flashed a grin. “I’m eating everything,” she announced, as if the pile of food on her plate didn’t make that obvious. “I don’t know what caviar tastes like, but I know I’m eating it.” She watched the man spoon the caviar onto his plate, making note of what the food looked like and glancing to her plate to ensure that she hadn’t missed it. She hadn’t; it didn’t seem like she’d missed anything, which was good!

Smiling as the man spoke again, Nadia wrinkled her nose in a display of confusion. “I don’t think we’re in Rome,” she told him. “I think the whole issue surrounding the circumstances of this party is that we don’t know where we are. It could be Rome, I guess!” Glancing from his plate to hers, her grinned returned in full force. “Do you want to try the caviar together? Have you had it before?”

Foggy glanced at the girl’s plate and immediately felt reassured about the amount on his own. Just because he was trying the cavier didn’t mean he was going to miss out on the more comfort foods available. “What are you, some kind of circus act?” he joked, grinning to show her the teasing was lighthearted. “Seriously, I pass by street performers who don’t have balance that good.”

He laughed at her assertion.“Eating everything is an excellent policy. Ten out of ten would recommend,” he agreed. “But if this winds up giving up food poisoning, we’re going to feel very silly.” Which was an understatement, really. He’d actually mourn losing all this free food to something as dumb as throwing up.

MARC’S plan for the evening is mostly to blend in, something life has luckily given him more than enough practice in. In a room full of this many people someone is bound to know something, and if Marc can stay under the radar he won’t miss what might be valuable bits of information–passed between glasses, between the closely pressed together mouths of dates. He lingers around the bars, holding a glass he has no intention of drinking, around the tables brimming with food, places where its easier to make conversation–but he doesn’t really anticipate the reverse, that people might want to make conversation with him. Though, in his own defense, it’s not like he radiates friendliness, or sociability, it’s not a stretch to imagine people leaving him more of a wide berth. 

He chuckles when the man examines the caviar on his plate a healthy amount of skepticism, tries to hide the expression and the noise behind the glass in his hand. “Some of the guys in my unit tricked me into eating some when I first joined up, it’s not as bad as it looks.” He shrugs. “But if an Egyptian street vendor tries to tell you he has the genuine article, it’s definitely not and you will end up throwing up in the desert–learned that one the hard way, haven’t really had a taste for it since.” 

Foggy laughed. He hadn’t really expected anyone to comment on his pseudo-joke -- in fact, some of the better dressed had given him quite the look. “You’re all right,” he told the guy, grinning crookedly at him. “Which service did you serve in?” he asked, genuinely curious. Foggy liked people, liked hearing their stories, and it seemed like this guy had plenty. Everyone else seemed vaguely wary of him, but anyone who could talk fish was all right in Foggy’s book. “Now, tell me -- how do you know what the genuine article is? I’m a connoisseur of the fish market on fifth, you see. By which I mean, I enjoy haggling with the Japanese guy with all the best swordfish.” 

When Matt had first became friends with Foggy in college (after a positive start, there had been many, many months when Matt had contemplated murdering his roommate in his sleep, because goddamnit that guy was a foghorn after he’d had a few drinks) he had assumed that they would talk in classes, help each other out with studying and when they graduated, that would be it. Foggy was only friends with him because it was convenient, because they were stuck together for three years and then some, but that didn’t turn out to be the case at all.

Instead, Foggy had stood beside him at graduation, gone out afterwards, and still been there with his hand on his shoulder when they got their first job, left Landman and Zach to go out on their own. He stayed beside him when it was revealed that his best friend was a vigilante famed for his violence, when Matt took on the Castle case, when things fell down around him. That was why standing in the middle of his apartment telling Foggy to leave had cut through him so much. He told himself there had been a reason behind it, but speaking to him again now, feeling the relief of his company, it was hard to remember what had been so important.

“The magic of it?” Matt repeated, laughing as he did so. “You’re right. It’s a magical place. The Tardis has nothing on these sticky seats and glasses that, according to urban legend, have been used as bladder relieving devices several times this week.” Josie’s didn’t have the most reliable or polite clientele. What that said about them, Matt wasn’t sure, but all he knew was that they had the most fun they ever had in this bar, and the drinks were insanely cheap. “Survival, our new jobs, the fact that I actually managed to catch a cab to work this morning,” Matt mused, listing the reasons off on his fingers, “or maybe even just the fact we’re sitting here. Seems like something of a miracle to me.” He paused for a moment, holding his hand up to call Josie over. “So, what do you think?” Matt asked. “Is the President rubbing you the wrong way, too?”

“Yeah, the magic of it,” Foggy said, mock-affronted. He grinned, in spite of everything, and leaned on the bar. “First of all, we decided the the TARDIS is a scientific marvel way back in freshman year. Not magic. That is not a debate you can forget lightly, my friend.” That conversation had happened in the midst of midterms, when they abandoned the text books for a couple of beers and late night pizza. A normal stupid college kid thing to do, because back then, that’s all they were. All he thought they were anyway. Had Matt slipped out that night, too? Beat up a few assholes on his way to pick up the pizza? 

“Secondly,” he said, shaking the thought out of his head. “I’m talking about this,” he said, gesturing grandly to himself, Matt, and then all around. “You, me, Josie’s, all of it. The experience is magical. The place itself skirts health and safety violations, but the experience --” He paused to beam at the look Josie was giving him “That’s why we’re here, buddy.” 

He’d said something remarkably similar their first time here, when Matt claimed he could ‘smell the mildew’ pooling in the glasses. But he’d come around, just like Foggy came around when they walked out of that internship. At the end of the day, they trusted each other. Even if they didn’t always tell each other everything. 

“Oh, you have no idea,” Sharon said with a sigh, laughing the second the breath left her lips. After all, it was far from a joke, though she had long since perfected the art of pretending that it was. Maintaining a secret identity on the side, as well as serving with the Avengers and helping to run the Panel, made for an insanely busy life, but Sharon wasn’t entirely sure that she would be able to cope with anything less. She had been busy as a child, pushed into various different exercises in the desperate and vain hope that eventually something other than espionage would stick in her interest, and she was busy as an adult. She would be busy as an old woman, too, if fate spared her that long - for there was only so far, she knew, that skill would go. Luck was a massive part to do with it as well.

On nights like this, though, she didn’t need to think about the probability of getting hit by a bullet the next day when she was at work, the chances that one time the villains would get a lucky shot in and that would be her down, dead, kaboosh. She only hoped that she went out in a blaze of glory, doing something that was worth dying for, but the chances were that she would go out as many other agents - on an undercover mission, where her contributions would be covered up as a matter of public and national security. At least her friends would know what she had been doing, or would be able to guess. “Surprisingly little? You should tell your expensive looking suit that,” Sharon quipped. “Whoa,” she said, settling back on her chair, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “It’s not even a thing, Foggy. It’s a – it’s something, but it’s not a thing. I don’t think.” Damn, she had said that out loud. “I met him at work, actually. He asked me out for a coffee, I said no the first few times, and then things changed, and I said yes. His name is Steve.” Commonplace enough. Thank God she wasn’t dating Thor or something, that would’ve been harder to cover up.

Relationships were complicated at the best of times, though, and that was something that Foggy had to know well. His friendship with Matt had always been complicated - even in college they had argued more times than not - but there had been fondness there, laughter there. Anyone could see what they meant to each other. “Well, we will see,” she said, maintaining something of a sense of mystery to the whole thing. “You took down thugs?” Sharon repeated, raising an eyebrow. Her immediate response was to congratulate him, to ask what techniques he used, but that would raise questions. “That sounds insanely dangerous! And amazing. I knew I picked the right husband. What were they doing?”

There wasn’t a duplicity to Sharon -- he always felt like she was being honest, even if she was sparse with the details. But it also felt like there was so much going with her that he couldn’t keep up with it all even if he tried. He really did have no idea, only what he could guess at, only what little glimpses she let him catch. 

He wondered if he should be nervous about that, given everything that happened with Matt, with Frank, with Karen. But Sharon he hoped was the exception to what became the rule in his life -- the people close to you will lie to you. Besides, secrets weren’t always terrible things, right? (Yeah, he wasn’t convincing himself either, but he was a lawyer dammit, he could pretend well enough.) “This suit cost me at least an entire paycheck,” he joked. He was exaggerating, but not by a whole hell of a lot. He laughed and shook his head slowly, still leaning against his desk. “I feel obligated to point out that a ‘something,’ contains the word ‘thing,’ in it -- and thus, is, in fact, a thing of sorts.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully at her, then shrugged. “But if you won’t give me the scoop, I’ll have to imagine the details myself...” he warned jokingly. It didn’t take long for her to give up, even just a little ground felt like an accomplishment. “Steve,” he repeated. “You want me to run a background check? Make sure the guy’s on the up and up? I mean, coffee -- that’s serious business this day and age.” 

Difference number two: he wasn’t wearing whatever he could scrounge up that looked expensive. His suit actually was expensive. Stark wasn’t kidding when he said he paid well. But the biggest difference? He was here alone. 

No Matt. No elaborate plans to try and impress the girls around them. No standing in the corner laughing at everyone they’d fooled. Just Foggy, this glass of champagne, and that table of food. Expensive looking food, by the smell of it. After the papers had been running horror stories for weeks before those resources were found, it seemed like heaven, a heaven he had to immediately check out.

Matt had never believed in soulmates, not really. It was rich, perhaps, considering how he knew God had a plan for everything, for everyone, and surely that had to include the person that they would ultimately spend their lives with, and how deeply Matt himself loved. He had loved Elektra in the kind of white hot, electric way that most only wished they could love someone. With Karen, it had been a flame that slowly developed into a fire, the warmth of home and the hope of a future where he didn’t need to pretend to be good, because she encouraged him so deeply to be that way that it would have to be true. With Claire, he had felt the beckoning towards truth, towards relying on another person regardless of the fact that it put them in danger because he understood, then, that it was her decision, that she was choosing it, that she believed in what she was doing and ultimately believed in him. There were others too, over the years, others that he had cared deeply for and who he knew cared deeply for him in return, Natasha included, but at the end of the day, he was left looking at the same person that had been there since as close to the beginning as anyone had ever been besides maybe Daisy.

Foggy had been there through everything. Every step of the way, every breakdown, every time that Matt built himself back up again, every victory, every failure, his best friend had been there beside him. Maybe there had been some sanctimonious bitching there, other times it had been comic relief, but there had always been support. There had always been family. Matt Murdock didn’t believe in soulmates, but if he did, Foggy was one. Foggy was familial, he was his brother in more ways than he could count, he had been there from the very first day, he had accepted him warts and all. Daredevil had strained that in ways that Matt had never imagined possible, but they were still here. Foggy was still listening to him.That meant there was a chance.

“The very one,” Matt said, feeling as if he ought to be cringing. Luckily, he managed to avoid that particular reaction after years of practice. “You asked me to be honest.” Learning that Matt’s foster sister was a superhero really shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise considering where they currently were - in another dimension, surrounded by demons - but Matt understood why it was. “I don’t make a habit of it, no,” Matt said, but the joke fell entirely flat, and he shut his mouth while Foggy’s voice continued to rise. “Wars that mean something. That might be physically harmful, but not fighting it? That would be worse.” That would be devastating, like a forest fire. Knowing he could do something and stepping back was unthinkable. “I’m doing things differently,” Matt said. “I’m telling you this time. I’m trying to – to show you that I trust you. Because I do.” The other teams were monumentally more qualified. They were richer, they had more resources, they had more manpower. “Every single person on all of those teams take a risk every single day. They do it because they know that they can, because they want to help people. What I do, it’s the same thing.”

Matt knew, though, that there was a reason why Foggy’s excuse to Karen about him being an alcoholic had gone so smoothly. Crime fighting wasn’t just a job to him. It had spilled over into his everyday life, and he had allowed it to do so without hesitation. He had given up everything to fight the Hand, and while he knew that was important, while he didn’t regret it, he knew that the priorities he had were skewed. He didn’t know how to change that, but Karen had spoken about honesty, and that seemed like a good place to start.

“Exactly like this,” Matt said. “You knew I went out at night, in college. You never asked where I was going. You didn’t ask because you didn’t want to know. It was the same thing with – with my night job.” Matt didn’t exactly blame him. After all, he had never wanted to know what Jack had done when he was out of their apartment, what had caused him to return with split lips and bust stitches. “To put it lightly,” Matt said, a small smile pulling on his lips despite himself, though it faded as Foggy continued to speak. “And the other thing. Probably.” He had enough drinks to vaguely allude to the other entity in his life besides Catholicism that deserved a capital letter at the start of it. C and D, constantly lingering in the background.

Sometimes, Matt heard hearts beating and he couldn’t work out where it was coming from, whether it was adrenaline, anger, excitement, lying, love, hatred. Every intense emotion was similar, and it relied on him piecing together the other evidence to figure out what it was. Right now, he couldn’t decide whether that heart was beating for him, or in spite of him. “Because I’ve already brought you into enough,” Matt said. “I’ve already hurt you enough. The firm – that was on me. Frank was on me. Fisk, Fisk was on me too.” Matt inhaled sharply. “I-” Telling him was a bad idea. A really bad idea. “I love you, Foggy,” he said finally. “That’s why.”

They had said it a million and one times before, usually under the influence of liquor as they were right now, but there were other times too. After an exam, grinning with the release of it, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders as they called out ‘I love you, man’ walking down the streets outside Columbia. “Both,” he said finally, though the exasperation and light acceptance in Foggy’s voice implied he already knew that much. “I miss her,” Matt said with a breath. Next piece of truth, coming up. Two for three wasn’t half bad, all things considered. “But it’s what she means to me, Foggy. Not what she meant. Elektra – she’s back.” He sounded absolutely, certifiably insane. “I saw her. She was in my apartment. She came to the door and she told me that this group of ninjas, a cult really, brought her back to life.” Jesus. He was going to be put in a mental institution. “Other people have seen her too. Nat.” Nat was the most sane person he knew, so that had to count for something.

At that question, though, Matt paused. “I know that,” he said finally, “but it’ll fix someone’s. It’ll prevent someone’s pain. I - I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t see anyone else lose someone.” Man Without Fear. That was what they called him, but right now, he was terrified. Fisk would get out of prison, and everyone he cared about would be in danger. “You do know me,” Matt argued. “You – you know me. You always have. I don’t know what you’ve kept from me over the years. We both have secrets, Foggy, that doesn’t change who we are. You know that, right?”

Too late, Foggy remembered his mother’s old warning -- be careful what you ask for. He groaned and tossed back the bottle, before slumping forward on the bar. “You’re not gonna tell me Karen’s a vigilante or anything, right?” he mumbled, feeling very, very drunk now. How long had they been here? Sifting through the mountains of problems they had, one pebble at a time -- and still no closer to really understanding. Not the way Matt would want him too anyway, Foggy knew that much. “I already know about Frank, by the way,” he muttered, propping an elbow on the bar to get himself back up. “Ran into him in a cornerstore. Like, what are the odds, even in a city stranded in an alternate dimension.” 

He didn’t even know how to feel, his emotions were like a slingshot. He was irritated and worried and so goddamn happy just to talk to Matt that he didn’t even want to give him the smack he was begging for. He was just so stupid sometimes, always had been. Listening to his guts -- or his powers, whatever -- and rushing headfirst into the worst ideas he could find, over and over. The toughest classes with the worst professors, the hardest internships, the beautiful and questionable women. And as if that wasn’t enough, he ran around in pajamas for months beating up thugs with nothing but a scarf on his head. “What do they mean, Matt?” he asked, a thread of desperation in his voice. “I’m trying to make sense of this, I really am. But what I don’t get is why it has to be you. Why you’re the one who’s gotta go out there and -- and....” He couldn’t even say it. He bit his lip and sighed heavily, picking up the eel only to find it nearly empty. “I can’t talk you out of this, even if I try, can I?” he asked, turning his head slowly towards Matt. 

That determination, that single-minded focus -- Foggy had been jealous of it in college. It was how Matt graduated with honors, how he got the girls everyone else could only dream of. But it was also what destroyed him, over and over. It was his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, his inability to let go, of anything or anyone, ever. It wasn’t like Foggy didn’t understand that -- Matt had lost his dad young, had lost everything before he was ten. After something like that, you either got determined, or you didn’t make it. And in the end, if this was the price... Foggy was glad Matt had made it this far. He just wanted him to keep going, too. 

“I thought you had girlfriends!” Foggy protested. “Or, ya know... boyfriends. Whatever. I didn’t think you were -- wait, you were doing this in college?” he asked, alarmed. “You mean, you didn’t trip down three flights of stairs junior year? That was just...” He trailed off, shaking his head, and drained the last of the eel down. “The other thing,” he murmured, swiping at his lips. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Because it’s got a name,” he said pointedly. He tried to talk about ‘the other thing,’ like it was nothing, addressed it by name because like Dumbledore said, fear of a name. And he refused to be scared of Matt’s mental health problems.That wouldn’t help either of them. But being scared of this vigilante shit? That was warranted. 

Foggy shook his head fiercely, at least glad he didn’t have to speak his disagreement aloud. “We were partners, Matt. Hell, we’re still partners, even if we work for opposite sides of the justice system. Half of that responsibility was always mine. Always. And always will be. You understand me?” He took a breath to steady himself, felt emotion welling up in his throat, blocking off his airways. “That’s not how you love someone. You don’t lie to them,” he said, voice colder than he thought it would be. But he bit his lip, and then spoke again. “But I love you, too. So... I forgive you. For some of it,” he added quickly. “You owe me a lot more drinks for the rest of it. By my calculations, I figure you’ll be square somewhere around the time we’re ninety,” he quipped casually, like his voice wasn’t trembling on every word. 

He couldn’t help it, and he knew Matt wouldn’t call him on it. His heart was full to bursting, and he wasn’t sure if it was the conversation or the empty bottle in front of him, but his head was spinning in a thousand directions. He hadn’t realized just how big the hole was until Matt was here, plugging it up like that little Dutch girl with his finger in the dam. Sharon hadn’t been wrong (of course she wasn’t). Foggy missed Matt more than he could say, and he could pretend the ball had been in Matt’s court, but that wasn’t how friendship worked. It was a mutual effort. “I know,” he said, sighing with Matt. “I know.” He closed his eyes for a moment, moved to scrub a hand over his face -- but Matt’s words stopped him cold, hand half-raised. “I’m sorry,” he said, opening his eyes and turning slowly to Matt. “I appear to be very intoxicated, and I’m gonna need you to say that again. Very. Slowly.” He leaned over, one hand on Matt’s shoulder on pure instinct, pulling him down. “What do you mean she’s back? From the -- okay, what is in the water? Doesn’t anyone stay dead anymore? And how do ninja cults raise the freakin’ dead?!” he asked, a little too loudly. A few people glanced over, brows arched. “Movie,” Foggy called. “Terrible, two out of ten, would not recommend. Carry on.” 

That was enough for the patron’s of Josie’s -- they were here to drink, not listen to this kind of drama. Hell, Foggy didn’t even want to listen to this drama, but it was Matt’s drama, which made it his drama. “This is different,” he said quietly. “This is... it’s this important to you, and I never knew anything about it. I never had any idea. This is like, a fundamental part of you, this isn’t like my hitherto-secret aversion to sushi because of the time I threw up at a Hibachi restaurant. This matters, Matt.” 

It mattered. It mattered to Matt, and that meant it had to matter to him, and dammit -- 

A long, long time ago Matt Murdock had been having the worst weekend of his young life, because the medical student that he made out with in the books the night before the first torts exam had unceremoniously dumped him the night after the last torts exam. She had then proceeded to inform him that he was ‘nice, but just not edgy enough,’ and hopped onto the back of her ex’s motorcycle. The rest, as they say, was history, and that was how Foggy Nelson returned to see his best friend with his head buried in a pillow, informing him that his life was over.

Foggy Nelson had, true to form, immediately turned to alcohol, bad decisions, loud music, and faceless girls to dance with and never call. That was part of the reason that Matt loved him so much, part of the reason why Foggy, even with all of the other people in college, was someone that he spent the most time with.

“Thanks for coming,” Matt said. Behind him, he could hear the flutter of tiny paper flags. The anthem was playing on the TV, at least until Josie grumbled and grabbed a broom, whacking it off the power button so the TV flickered to silence once more. “Pretty sure this is, what, the twelfth anniversary we’ve spent here?” Matt laughed, taking a sip of his drink. “All things considered, that’s pretty impressive.”

Things were far from normal -- they’d probably left normal behind a long time ago, all things considered -- but they weren’t bad either. At least, they weren’t ‘never speaking to you again’ bad. There was still a lot he didn’t understand, a lot that maybe he didn’t want to understand. But he knew one thing for certain. 

 Foggy missed his best friend. He missed the easy banter, the shared memories they could pull on when they wanted to annoy each other, the inside jokes. He missed the feeling of Matt’s hand on his arm, and scoping out possible dates over drinks at Josie’s. He missed running up a tab they’d never had any intention of paying, and drunken, late night talks about politics, the future, the past, and the present. He missed all of it, the good stuff and the bad. He even missed walking into a room and seeing that look on Matt’s face, his lips pulled tight, the heavy cloud hanging over his head. The same cloud that had been down-pouring the first night they ever decided to go to Josie’s. 

Selina tilted her head in surprise. “Punjabi? There must be a story behind that and at some point in the future I definitely plan on asking about it.” She met many people, many men. And charmed her fair share. They usually got divided into smooth (someone that might be able to handle her), cute (someone that got an A for effort) and nervous wreck (someone she would eat for breakfast). Then there was Batman, but he was a different story entirely. This man certainly knew how to talk himself in and out of probably any and all situations. The gifts of being a lawyer she expected. But she had to appreciate his daring when he asked her on a professional date. That’s why he was definitely classified in the smooth category. His quick wit amused her. If nothing else, at least they would have a delightful conversation. “Well, I was looking for someone with your… sass to accompany me tomorrow night. An evening spent with diplomats and such. It’s rather boring most nights, I must warn you. I do loathe politics. King T’Challa is great company but the rest of them are unfortunately dull. Are you willing to brave with me?”