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Something is happening in Greenwich Village.
Matt can hear screaming. Explosions. The sounds of battle.
This isn’t the usual daytime crime. No, something is different; Matt can practically taste it. It makes his skin itch, all the more so because he can do absolutely nothing about it.
For one thing, he’s seated in a courtroom on the other side of the city. For another, he’s next to Foggy, who would probably flay him alive if he tried to sneak away.
He does his best to tune it out. Focus on the task at hand.
New York City has no shortage of superheroes; surely something as intense as what Matt’s hearing would be worth calling in the big leagues…right?
He jolts as Foggy elbows him.
“Get it together,” his friend hisses quietly.
Matt stiffens and forces himself to listen to the sentencing that the judge is reading out. He already knows what the woman is going to say—she has a habit of muttering under her breath.
Still, he can’t let their firm look bad. Can’t let Foggy look bad. It is, quite literally, the least that Matt can do.
Maybe he was wrong, earlier, in mentally categorizing Foggy as his friend. At this point, they’re mere colleagues. Nothing more, and, Matt hopes, nothing less.
Yes, he’s well aware the wedge between them is his fault. No, he doesn’t know why he thought lying to his closest friend would end well.
You wanted to protect him, a small voice in Matt’s head whispers.
It’s wrong, though. Matt’s come to terms with the fact that he only wanted to protect himself.
(“Maybe it's about you having an excuse to hit someone,” Foggy said. “Maybe you just can't stop yourself.”
Matt had wet his split lip and replied, “I don’t want to stop.”)
They win the case, and Matt plasters on a smile. He allows their client to pull him and Foggy into a hug, and nods along goodnaturedly as their client’s wife offers praises of her own.
The woman pushes a tray of something caramel-scented and jiggly—flan, maybe?—into Foggy’s hands.
“For your help,” she says. “Please, enjoy.”
They don’t bother sticking around once the couple leaves. Foggy seems about as eager to talk to their opposing counselor as Matt is—which is to say, not at all—and celebrating their win with a drink feels far too intimate for whatever the two of them are now.
So they go back to the office, the cab silent save for the soft sound of jazz piano eking out of a barely functional radio. The sound of it grates on Matt’s ears.
It isn’t until they reach their floor of the building that Foggy seems to come back to life. His entire posture shifts, his shoulders becoming less droopy and the muscles of his cheeks twitching in what Matt presumes is a smile.
He pushes open the door with a flourish, hoisting the cake out in front of him.
“Look alive, Karen!” he calls. “We brought dessert!”
A few months ago, Matt could have come in alongside Foggy with their arms linked together. He could have smiled with his then-best friend and joked with Karen.
Now, Foggy doesn’t even bother holding the door open for Matt. If they’d exchanged more than ten words in the past week, he’s certain Foggy would have a biting comment about how Matt surely could have seen it coming.
Silently, Matt catches the door and slips inside.
“Matt!” Karen says. “Come eat cake with us!”
Foggy’s heartbeat pounds faster at the suggestion. Clearly, Matt isn’t wanted here.
“I can’t,” he says, plastering on an apologetic smile. “I’ve got to finish putting together my argument for tomorrow.”
Karen sighs. “At least take a piece to eat while you work.”
He allows her to cut him a slice, gripping the paper plate she’d set it on with clenched fists. Foggy still hasn’t said a word to him, and Matt’s sure that someone as observant as Karen has noticed it by now.
He hurriedly takes his flan into his office, shutting the door behind him and sinking down into his desk chair. He can hear his coworkers settling down at the table in their miniature kitchen and, as much as he hates himself for it, allows himself to eavesdrop.
“So, Karen,” Foggy says. “What did you spend your morning doing?”
“The Bulletin had me help with some last-minute reporting,” Karen replies. “I assume you saw the news?”
“Uh…”
“There was an alien attack,” Karen says.
Foggy groans. “Why is it always aliens?”
Matt hears Foggy stab at his food, the sound making Matt’s own stomach roil. “I take it the Avengers handled it? I mean, seeing as we’re not all dead.”
Karen snorts. “Well, if you read my article you’d see that Tony Stark, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange took the creatures down.”
“Doctor Strange?” Foggy repeats. “What kind of name is that?”
“Apparently his real one,” Karen says. “Public records show he’s a neurosurgeon.”
“Guess every idiot in a costume has to have a day job,” Foggy mutters.
Matt winces.
“I’d stay out of Greenwich Village for a while, though,” Karen advises. “The NYPD said it got pretty busted up.”
If he and Foggy weren’t one bad conversation away from implosion, Matt would tease him about being right. He knew he’d heard something weird earlier! But any mention of it would invoke thoughts of Daredevil, and that would ruin their threadbare truce that apparently involves perpetually dancing around the subject.
Not that Matt prefers talking about it head on. Being interrogated while half-dead on his couch that first day after Foggy found out was bad enough on its own.
“There’s some unconfirmed chatter that the three of them may be in space right now,” Karen continues.
“Sorry, did you just say in space?”
Karen’s hair swishes as she presumably nods. “Like I said, nothing confirmed, but…”
She suddenly shudders, the chair creaking beneath her.
“Karen?” Foggy asks. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Karen replies shakily. (Lie.) “Sorry, I just feel kind of weird.”
Her phone rings, then, loud enough that it startles all three of them.
“Shit, it’s the Bulletin,” Karen curses. “I should take this.”
“Right,” Foggy says. “I’ll put your flan in the fridge for later.”
“Thanks, you’re the—“
For a moment, it’s as though time’s suspended. Just a sliver of a second where reality hasn’t taken hold; the odd space between breaths before the lungs start to burn.
Then Karen’s phone clatters to the floor, and her heartbeat vanishes.
The world explodes into sound.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Hello? Is- is this a joke?”
“Mom? Mom, where did you go?”
“Help! Someone help!”
“What the fuck?!”
It’s Foggy’s voice that pulls Matt out of the spiral of noise. Instinct has his attention immediately drawn to his friend, whom he quickly realizes is well on the way to working himself into a panic attack.
To be fair, Matt isn’t all that far behind himself.
He stumbles to his feet, practically tripping in his haste to get through the door. Any lingering tension between the two of them is forgotten. Matt needs to know what’s going on, and he needs to know now.
“Matt,” Foggy croaks, turning towards him. “Thank God you’re okay.”
“What happened?” Matt asks.
He’s grown to accept his blindness and the unique abilities it’s granted him, but damn if he doesn’t resent not being able to see what’s happening right about now.
“It’s Karen,” Foggy says. “She just disappeared.”
“People don’t just disappear,” Matt replies.
“Okay, Mr. Super Senses,” Foggy says bitterly. “Tell me where she is, then.”
Matt winces. “I…don’t know.”
“It looked like she just turned to dust. That’s…is that even possible?”
There’s something hopeful in Foggy’s voice, like he’s clinging to the idea that Matt can somehow explain it all away. Matt wishes he could deliver.
“I don’t know,” Matt says again, feeling like a broken record. “People around the building are also gone.”
It’s not just here, though. It’s around the block. It’s the dozens of overlapping 911 calls, the sirens whizzing down the street. It’s the cars smashing into each other, suddenly driverless.
He can smell the blood. The fear.
Matt grits his teeth. He can hear Foggy swallow, clearly sensing from Matt’s expression that things are worse than he’s letting on.
“I’m turning on the news,” Foggy announces.
He quickly grabs his laptop off his desk—they aren’t exactly swimming in enough cash to afford an actual television in their office—and clicks over to what Matt presumes is a news site.
“—hearing reports that these disappearances are happening worldwide. Our correspondent in Wakanda has more information. Indrali, what are you seeing on the ground?”
There’s a pause before the other reporter speaks. “Hi, David. I’ve spoken to a few injured warriors here, and they say that the group of superheroes known as the Avengers enlisted their help in fighting a horde of aliens.
“Like the rest of the world, it seems half of the population here has vanished from existence,” Indrali continues. “No official statement has been made yet, but we’re hearing from witnesses that King T’Challa may have been one of the victims.”
“Half of the world,” Foggy repeats. “How is that even possible?”
Matt shakes his head. “It shouldn’t be.”
“They’re showing cell phone footage now,” Foggy says over the reporter. “People are just turning into ash.”
“Is that what happened to Karen?”
The air around Foggy’s head moves as he nods.
“Matt,” he says shakily. “Matt, what if we’re next?”
Matt doesn’t know what to say, so he stays quiet. From its position on the floor, Karen’s phone begins to ring.
“Is it the Bulletin again?” Matt asks as Foggy picks the device up.
“It's her dad.”
Matt swallows. “You should answer. He- he deserves to know.”
“Why can’t you answer?” Foggy asks petulantly.
“You know her parents like you better.”
“Which is why you should take one for the team and be the bearer of bad news!”
The team. Matt knows it’s just a figure of speech, but it still sends a happy buzz through him. He immediately squashes the feeling down. Now is not the time for sentimentality.
He holds his hand out for Foggy to give him the phone. Foggy answers the call before passing it over and, presumably, puts it on speaker.
“Hello?” Karen’s dad says. “Karen, are you there?”
“This is Matt, Karen’s coworker.”
“I know who you are,” the man snaps. Matt doesn’t take it personally. “Let me speak to my daughter.”
“I’m sorry, but Karen’s gone.”
Saying the words aloud makes them all too real, and Matt feels tears welling in his eyes. He hopes his glasses hide them—he can’t afford to fall apart now. Foggy’s counting on him.
“What?” Karen’s dad chokes out.
“I, uh, take it you’ve been following the news?” Matt asks.
“Who needs the news? I saw my wife disappear before my fucking eyes!”
For a moment, Matt doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have much experience in the family department, and he certainly doesn't have any when it comes to fatherhood.
“We’re all upset, sir,” he tries. “And I can’t imagine how hard this must be—“
“Obviously!” Karen’s dad spits.
“But we all love Karen, too,” Matt finishes.
(He doesn’t say loved, past-tense, because that would imply permanence, and that’s far more than Matt can emotionally handle right now.)
He waits quietly as Karen’s dad collects himself. Across the room, he hears Foggy’s fingers tapping against the screen of his phone, which buzzes a few times. Probably checking in with his family.
Matt thinks, morbidly, that maybe it’s better that his own relatives have already bitten the dust.
“I’m sorry,” Karen’s dad says eventually. “Just…let me know if you hear anything from her.”
“Of course,” Matt promises. “Take care.”
He taps at where he thinks the disconnect button is, relaxing minutely when the call finally ends.
“Any news on your end?” Matt asks in Foggy’s direction.
Foggy sighs. “My mom says she and Dad are okay, but no one else has replied yet.”
Foggy’s phone vibrates again, and his breath suddenly catches. Matt is at his side in an instant.
“Theo’s girlfriend just texted,” Foggy says, voice thick. “He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Fogs.” Matt places what he hopes is a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
For the first time in nearly a month, Foggy doesn’t lean away from his touch.
They stay huddled together in the office for another few hours until it becomes clear they aren’t in imminent danger of disappearing.
Matt splits his attention between the ongoing news reports and the pandemonium outside, feeling the mother of all headaches building behind his eyes.
Foggy has taken to stress-eating the remaining flan and scrolling through social media, reading aloud the statuses of random colleagues and former classmates who are still around.
They both stay away from Karen’s desk.
Matt nervously clears his throat when Foggy finishes rattling off an update about a random person from his freshman Punjabi course.
“Claire Temple,” he says. “Can you check on her?”
He doesn’t have his burner phone, and it sounds like Foggy has access to some sort of check-in list on Facebook.
“That’s your hot nurse friend, right?”
The words could almost be a joke, if not for the dissatisfied lilt in Foggy’s tone. Matt knows the two of them met under less than ideal circumstances—and, in a perfect world, would never have met at all—but surely Foggy must know how much she means to Matt, their singular kiss notwithstanding…right?
Matt nods. “She works at Metro General.”
Foggy sighs; Matt continues to hold his breath until he hears Foggy’s fingers tap against his phone screen.
“She checked in twenty minutes ago,” Foggy reports a few minutes later.
His heartbeat is steady—truthful. Matt feels some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders.
“Thank you.”
Foggy doesn’t reply, probably imagining whatever traumatizing carnage he’d watched Claire stitch back together on Matt’s bloodied body. Some friend Matt is.
“We shouldn’t just keep sitting here,” he eventually says into the terse silence.
“Oh, yeah?” Foggy retorts. “What should we do, then? Go out and serve some vigilante justice to the people who turned to literal dust?”
Matt twitches. On the sidewalk, a woman sobs over an empty baby stroller.
“You don’t get it,” Matt says. “You can’t hear what it’s like out there.”
Foggy stomps over to the large window and jams his fingers against the glass.
“Well, I think I can make a pretty educated guess,” he snarks. “And you know who isn’t going to make this any less of a shitshow?”
“Foggy—“
“Daredevil,” Foggy continues over him. “So if you think we need to leave here, we will. But so help me god, you will not be putting on any fetish gear today.”
Matt bites his lip.
“The subway’s down,” he says eventually.
He doesn’t mention that he can still hear the screams echoing in the tunnels. The least he can do is spare Foggy from that.
“My place isn’t that far,” Foggy says. “We can walk there from here.”
“We?” Matt questions.
Foggy scoffs. “No way I’m letting you go by yourself across Hell’s Kitchen right now. I’m instituting a mandatory buddy system.”
Matt…isn’t quite sure what to make of this. First, Foggy avoids him for weeks. And now he wants them to be attached at the hip? Maybe it’s an opportunity for Matt to try to right some of the wrong he’s done.
He immediately chastises himself for the thought. Half of the world is gone, and he’s here thinking about his own wants? It’s beyond selfish.
“Are you sure?” he asks Foggy.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Foggy replies, irritated. “Now get your stuff so we can go.”
It isn't until the two of them step outside that Matt realizes how much of a sound buffer the building had provided.
The noise is overwhelming. So much of the basic input he’s used to—heartbeats, steady footsteps, even breathing—is gone, and in its place is pure chaos. And chaos is unpredictable, which is…not great for Matt’s navigational skills.
“There’s a lot of debris on the ground,” Foggy says. “And- shit, is that blood?”
Matt nods, doing his best to block out the scent of copper. “Heard a lot of car accidents earlier. Some helicopters, too.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Foggy whispers. “It’s like the apocalypse out here.”
Matt tightens his grip on Foggy’s arm. He doesn’t have the strength to chastise the blasphemy.
“How much of this can you sense?” Foggy asks.
“Not much,” Matt begrudgingly admits. “Sounds are…a lot.”
Foggy hums and begins to walk, Matt easily falling into step.
“There are a lot of abandoned cars,” Foggy says. “Looks like someone hit a building—careful, there’s some glass up ahead.”
Matt hears his cane crunch over it a moment later, and easily sidesteps it. Usually, he’d be inwardly annoyed by Foggy acting like Matt needs extra help just to walk down the street. He can get around fine on his own, it’s just…with everything going on, even paying attention to the vibrations from his cane is overwhelming.
It leaves him feeling vulnerable. Weak.
“Honey, where are you? Why aren’t you answering the phone?”
“Dispatch, we’ve successfully evacuated the subway car.”
“10-10, report of bus collision on the Hell Gate bridge.”
“Is anyone there? Can you hear me?”
Matt scrunches his face up as though that will block out the onslaught of stimuli.
“We’re almost there, buddy,” Foggy assures.
Matt knows he doesn’t deserve the comfort, but he leans into it anyways.
The five blocks to Foggy’s apartment seem to stretch on for miles. It takes everything in Matt to keep walking as usual while fighting off the looming sensory overload.
Just make it inside, he tells himself. That’s all you have to do.
He nearly sobs when they cross the threshold of Foggy’s building; and while the whirring gears of the elevator nearly brings tears to his eyes, he knows there’s no way he would’ve been able to haul himself up the stairs.
He feels weak. Wrung out. He tells himself it’s because his world on fire has turned into a raging inferno and not because half the universe is gone. Because Karen is gone, and he feels disgusted by his relief that at least it isn’t Foggy.
The door unlocks, and Matt stumbles past Foggy to almost collapse on his couch, his cane falling out his limp grasp. He buries his head between the seat and one of Foggy’s ridiculous decorative pillows, trying to cut down on the input.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Foggy asks.
“Loud,” Matt grits out.
An ambulance whizzes past on the street. Matt curls into himself even tighter.
“One sec,” Foggy says, disappearing into another room.
When he returns moments later, he presses something plastic into Matt’s hands.
“Check it out,” Foggy says. “Noise canceling headphones.”
The ear covers are made of smooth leather, and Matt carefully maneuvers them over his head. The relief is so stark that he nearly cries.
“So?” Foggy asks. “Pretty nice, right?”
“Thank you,” Matt chokes out.
“Sure,” Foggy says. “Get some rest, buddy.”
Usually, Matt would argue. Insist he’s fine and, even if he’s not, force himself to be. But all the noise and the chaos and residual Daredevil injuries have left him utterly drained, and he lets his eyes slip shut.
When he wakes an indeterminate amount of time later, it’s to the smell of cheap beer and stale tomato sauce. It takes him a second to remember what happened, where he is.
“Fogs?” he croaks, letting his borrowed headphones slip down around his neck. “You there?”
The question isn’t strictly necessary; he can hear his friend’s familiar heartbeat in the kitchen.
Still, Matt smiles when Foggy answers in the affirmative.
“What time is it?” he asks as he sits up.
“Almost six,” Foggy replies.
Matt pauses mid-stretch. “I was out for two hours?”
“It’s not like there was anything else to do,” Foggy points out. “And you clearly needed it.”
Matt shrugs, rolling his shoulders to try to relieve some of the lingering tension in them.
“Dinner’s almost done,” Foggy says. “Want a drink?”
“Not if it’s that shitty Miller Lite you have,” Matt replies.
“How do you even—oh. Right.”
Crap. Now Matt’s gone and made it weird.
“I was just kidding,” he tries to cover.
“No, it’s- I think I have an IPA around here somewhere.”
Matt shifts on the couch.
“Have you heard anything else on the news?” he asks, trying to break the tense silence.
Plus, he’s curious. A lot can happen over the span of a few hours during the apocalypse.
(He wonders if these are the same End Times written in Thessalonians. He’d feared the Rapture as a child, spent his days praying never to hear the trumpet that would signal Earth’s destruction.
The clergy had reassured him that, if he followed the scriptures, he would be among those called to spend eternity with the Lord in Heaven while the dead returned to Earth.
And Matt did his best to do right by the Lord, even though the justifications for his seemingly unholy actions grew flimsier as time passed. So if this truly is the Second Coming, part of Matt is unsurprised he was deemed unfit for Heaven.)
(But then, if this is truly God’s machinations, why have Foggy and Claire been left to suffer here with him?)
“It’s mostly just the same chaos,” Foggy says as he rifles through the fridge. “Some reports of world leaders dying, but they’re trying to keep it under wraps.”
Matt nods. “Understandable.”
“The Avengers are supposedly holding a press conference tomorrow.”
“Like they’ll tell us anything,” Matt huffs.
He remembers the tight-lipped PR stunts the group pulled after the first Battle of New York, and again after nearly blowing up an entire foreign nation. But still people sing their praises, forgiving them for playing God with no mind for the consequences.
Matt has witnessed the devastation firsthand, though. He remembers how many classes Foggy missed after Loki destroyed his family’s butcher shop, and all the Sokovian refugees they helped to fight housing discrimination in their first year as a solo firm.
“Sorry, Matty,” Foggy says from the kitchen. “Looks like I’m all out of hipster beer.”
“It’s fine,” Matt replies.
“I could probably run to the store,” Foggy continues. “Do you think they’re still open? Because I’ll try—“
“Foggy,” Matt interrupts. “It’s just beer.”
“How can you say that?” Foggy asks, slamming his own drink down on the counter. “How can you be so calm?”
Matt takes a deep breath. He doesn’t think they’re talking about alcohol anymore.
“I’m good at masking my emotions,” he says. “One of Stick’s lessons.”
True to form, Matt easily disguises the bile that creeps up his throat each time he talks about the man.
“Right, your ninja teacher,” Foggy says.
He’s started pacing, the soles of his leather shoes shuffling against the floorboards. It’s like he’s ready to bolt at any minute.
“But that’s—“ Matt pauses, trying to find the right words. “Seeing Karen, and hearing about your brother…I can’t imagine how hard that is for you.”
Foggy sniffles. Matt tastes salt in the air.
“You know, if I wasn’t so emotionally distraught, I’d lay into you for sounding so condescending,” Foggy says.
Matt winces. “Sorry, I- I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No,” Foggy mutters under his breath. “You never do.”
Matt wonders if Foggy has always held such a resentment towards him; always felt like Matt had some sort of superiority complex. It wasn’t a secret that Foggy was the most in touch with his feelings of the two. He wasn’t afraid to cry or yell or do any of the other things Stick disapproved of, and Matt honestly used to envy him a bit for it.
Matt knew how to compartmentalize, how to sort emotions like the barrage of stimuli he encountered every waking moment. Foggy’s friendship may have eroded some of the rigidity over the years, but a part of Matt will always associate vulnerability with cruelty.
(Before that day he spent spilling his closest-guarded secrets after Foggy had saved him from bleeding out, he hadn’t cried in front of his friend since the day Elektra left him.)
(“Come on, you big dope,” Foggy had chided. “Just let it out. Cry already!”
Matt glowered. “I don’t need to cry.”
“Um, one of the hottest women to walk this planet just broke up with you,” Foggy retorted, exchanging the now-empty beer in Matt’s hand with a full one. “Now drink up and let it out.”)
Has the apparent decimation of half the world taken Elektra, too? The jolt of fear the thought sends through him is strange, considering he hasn’t heard from her since undergrad.
(He wonders about Stick, too. He doesn’t know how the prospect of either outcome makes him feel.)
The microwave timer beeps, and it seems to snap Foggy out of his daze. Matt listens as Foggy silences the alarm, slides something onto his hand—a potholder, probably—and opens the oven.
“I made dinner,” he calls over his shoulder.
The smell of salty tears still lingers over the wafts of cheap, defrosted pizza now spreading through the apartment. (And the blood in the streets, the ash, the screaming—)
Matt quietly slides into a seat, thanking Foggy as his friend deposits a steaming plate in front of him.
“I know it’s not exactly gourmet,” Foggy says. “But in my defense, I was planning to get groceries tomorrow.”
“I can tell,” Matt replies, making a not-all-that exaggerated grimace as he eats a bite. “How long has this thing been in your freezer?”
“It was either this or microwave popcorn, asshole,” Foggy snarks. “Wait—what if people are looting the grocery stores? Are we gonna starve?”
“Maybe your doomsday-prepper uncle was right,” Matt jokes.
“Do not bring Uncle Murphy into this!”
Matt chuckles at Foggy’s theatrics, the familiar banter settling around him like a warm blanket.
They finish eating with an odd sense of normalcy. It’s like today—like this whole month— just never happened. Matt’s sure they both know they’re playing pretend; but hey, if anything calls for a truce, the apocalypse has to qualify.
“You should stay here tonight,” Foggy says out of nowhere.
Matt nearly chokes. “What?”
“It’s not safe out there,” Foggy continues. “I know you have your ‘world on fire’ or whatever, but that didn’t seem to be helping much earlier.”
Matt shifts in his seat. Deep down, he knows Foggy’s right; but a lifetime of being seen as inadequate—as someone who can never truly be self-sufficient—makes him instinctively protest.
“Are you saying you care about me all of a sudden?” Matt asks. “Because a few days ago, you wouldn’t even speak to me.”
“Yeah, well, that was before we went through this traumatic life event together!” Foggy counters. “And- and I never stopped caring about you, asshole.”
I never stopped caring about you. Matt’s head spins.
“Foggy, I—“
The sudden vibration of Foggy’s phone on the table is so intense that the silverware rattles. In Matt’s pocket, he feels a similar buzz.
“Emergency alert,” his phone’s automated voice says.
“What’s it say?” Matt asks Foggy, not wanting to bother with the technology. (And maybe, if he’s being honest, selfishly craving to hear Foggy’s voice.)
“It’s from the mayor’s office,” Foggy replies with a sigh. “They want everyone who isn’t a first responder to shelter in place tonight while they clear the roads and, you know…”
“Count the dead,” Matt says flatly.
“Yeah,” Foggy swallows. “That. You know, I don’t think we’ve gotten one of these alerts since the first time aliens invaded.”
Foggy pauses. “God, I hate that I just said that. But, hey, looks like you’re stuck here. I mean, as long as you decide to actually obey the law today.”
The sudden switch from friendliness to accusation gives Matt whiplash. Honestly, Matt would prefer just open hostility at this point.
(That’s a lie, and even Matt knows it. He’s far too attached to Foggy to yearn for the sort of flagellation he knows he deserves.)
“You win, okay?” Matt says. “I’ll stay here tonight.”
Foggy just nods. He doesn’t protest when Matt says he’ll take the couch, and it’s so weirdly un-Foggy-like that Matt’s tongue trips over the excuse he’d just carefully concocted to avoid Foggy’s usually obnoxious over-hospitality.
(Because he knew he couldn’t say that he can’t stand the smell of Marci’s perfume lingering on Foggy’s sheets; that would be weird and invasive and yet another reminder to his friend that Matt is incapable of respecting boundaries.
It’s also the fast-track to a line of thinking he can’t afford to pursue, especially not now. He’s never deserved anything less.)
“Do you think they’re all really gone?” Foggy asks quietly. “Like, for good?”
Matt shrugs, wishing he had a better answer. He could offer some platitude about the Avengers fixing everything by morning, but he’s tired of lying to Foggy.
“I know you’re not the most, uh, religious, but…if you want to pray with me, the offer’s open.”
Foggy sniffles. “Yeah, I guess I’ll give this whole God thing a shot.”
The thing about Hell’s Kitchen is that it’s never quiet.
Even now, with half of its population turned into dust, its commitment to noise pollution remains steadfast.
Maybe that should be comforting. It’s not like Matt can see how many people are missing; and if everything sounds the same, he should be able to pretend things are okay, even for just a little while longer.
But for the first time since he got ahold of his abilities, Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t feel like his.
He can’t hear or feel the subway rumbling underground, the seismic waves rippling into buildings and creating an easy frame of reference. The dog that always barks behind the bodega on 54th is gone, and it makes the man humming a poor imitation of Spider-Man’s so-called “theme song” the next block over sound as though he’s two feet away.
Even Foggy’s contributing to the cacophony, despite claiming he was going to bed an hour ago.
Matt hears a drawer open, and then the jingle of pills—Ambien, maybe? Good. Foggy deserves some rest after dealing with today.
Because the crying, the prayers…Matt has lived through many disasters, but he’s never heard the city so destroyed.
“May thy glory, O King of Kings, be exalted…”
Matt forces himself to stop listening. He has more than enough grief of his own to fixate on.
Focusing on his hearing always sends his other senses out of whack, though, and Matt swears he can feel every individual stitch of his shirt rubbing against his back. He carefully shrugs it off, wincing as the motion tugs at a lingering bruise on his side from a few nights ago.
His pants are next, neatly folded and placed on the floor. He sets his glasses gently on top; they were a gift from Foggy, and the least Matt can do is keep some vestige of their friendship intact.
Matt sighs and settles back against the pillows. He has no illusion of getting to sleep any time soon.
He hears the news in an apartment a few floors down, and tunes his hearing in.
(He can’t hear any heartbeats in the room with the TV, and Matt prays it’s because they forgot it was on. The thought that whoever was watching the program simply disappeared mid-broadcast makes him shudder.)
The news anchor sounds familiar. Probably one of the local ones.
“This just in: Harlem’s hero Luke Cage has been spotted rescuing civilians from a collapsed building.”
Matt’s run into Cage a few times on patrol. He’s a good man—better than Matt, at the very least—and his continued survival is clearly beneficial for the city. It’s not like Matt’s senses grant him such helpfulness.
And even if Matt did possess the strength to lift people out of the rubble, would he? Those kinds of heroics aren’t meant for men like him. Daredevil is a creature of the night, confined to bruised knuckles and back alleys and secret identities. He is darkness and blood and rage, far more than any penance can ever wash away.
It’s a reality that Matt has long accepted. The safety of Hell’s Kitchen is his burden to bear, both with the mask and without it. He’d be delusional to think his actions were worthy of such praise, least of all by the media.
Matt has long been labeled a threat by the press. The Bugle still blames Daredevil for the Punisher’s murder spree, and the only person they seem to hate more than him is Spider-Man.
Karen had been the first one to call him a hero, that morning after he saved her—at least, she’d been the first one to call him that who mattered.
And now she’s gone, and there’s absolutely nothing Matt can do about it.
Nothing he can do about any of this, because if the Avengers couldn’t stop it, what chance does Matt have? He’s tempted to try, though, if only for the selfish excuse to get rid of the angry energy tingling beneath his skin.
Foggy asked him to stay, though, and if Matt leaves now, it might disintegrate their tenuous truce. And Matt can’t handle that, especially now that he quite literally has no one else left.
So he stays, says another prayer, and listens to Foggy’s heartbeat.
Matt’s barely dozed off when he hears Foggy gasp in the other room. His heart is pounding, so loud that even someone without Matt’s senses could probably hear it.
Years of living together have taught Matt how to interpret these signs, though the conclusion never gets any less upsetting: Foggy had a nightmare.
Matt won’t say anything. He knows how personal it is—more personal than Foggy even realized for so long, considering all that Matt could hear.
He stays still on the couch. He doesn’t want to disturb Foggy, especially if the man thinks he can go back to sleep.
He listens as Foggy pads into the bathroom and splashes some water on his face, a murmured “get it together” spoken into the mirror.
Matt cringes and tells himself to stop listening.
But he can’t. More than that, he doesn’t want to.
He doesn’t bother feigning sleep when Foggy creeps out into the living room. He’d promised to stop with the lies, and in this case, the small effort at truth was actually doable.
“Hey,” Matt greets softly.
Foggy takes a few steps closer. “You stayed.”
Matt nods as Foggy flicks on the lamp, the bulb buzzing quietly.
Then Foggy’s heartbeat ratchets up in speed. “And- and you’re in your underwear? What the fuck?”
Matt shrugs. “Didn’t feel like sleeping in my suit.”
“I could have given you clothes to borrow,” Foggy points out.
He sounds incredibly flustered for someone who’s seen Matt in various states of undress over their years of living together in cramped dorm rooms. Is Matt’s still-healing injury from a few nights ago worse than Claire made it seem?
Foggy stumbles back into his bedroom. There’s the sound of drawers opening and closing, and then Foggy tosses a bundle of clothes in Matt’s direction. He easily catches them, though Foggy’s sudden inhale makes him hunch his shoulders.
Clearly, Foggy still expects Matt to be the falsely constructed version of himself. Should he have ignored his instinct to catch something that he sensed flying at his face? But then, if Foggy was truly worried, he would’ve given Matt a warning.
Was it some sort of test, then?
Matt holds back a sigh. Trying to figure out Foggy’s thought patterns is exhausting.
“I’ll, uh, let you get changed,” Foggy says before returning to his room.
Matt waits a few moments, then slips on the clothes Foggy gave him.
They smell like Foggy, even under the slight scent of someone’s lavender detergent lingering from the shared washing machine. Foggy has used the odorless kind ever since Matt admitted it gave him headaches; and even now, when Foggy has had every reason to disregard Matt’s preferences and comfort, he’s stuck to it.
“I’m decent!” Matt calls after a minute.
The clothes aren’t a perfect fit—the sweatpants hang loose on his hips, and the old t-shirt clings to his shoulders—but Matt still feels better in them. They imbue a sort of calm, the ghost of a reassurance that Matt dares not to ask for from Foggy himself.
He settles down on the couch as Foggy’s footsteps reenter the room, suddenly nervous.
“You okay?”
Foggy slumps down onto the other cushion with a sigh.
“Had a not-so-great dream,” he admits.
Matt winces in sympathy. “Was it about Karen?”
“Yeah.”
Foggy’s heart does something strange, then. Not like he’s told a lie, but not like he told the whole truth, either.
“Mind if I turn the TV on?” he asks.
“Sure,” Matt replies. “Not like I can see it.”
Foggy elbows him and picks up the remote, the TV starting up with a staticky hum. He clicks a few buttons and then groans.
“The satellite’s out,” he relays mournfully. “So is the internet.”
Matt hums. What’s another misfortune on this nightmare of a day?
“Okay, it looks like we have a few choices,” Foggy says. “Sesame Street, Seinfeld reruns, or ten different infomercials. Any of those sound good?”
“You know me,” Matt says sardonically. “I always love to hear Billy Mays’ voice.”
“Har, har,” Foggy replies. “Seinfeld it is. What kind of kid is up watching TV at three in the morning, anyways?”
Matt shrugs, more concerned with the fact that he’s completely lost track of time than PBS’ airing schedule.
He hears Foggy set the remote down on the end table and then situate himself better on the cushion, the motions strong enough that Matt can feel it from his side of the couch.
He must eventually find a comfortable position, because soon it’s just the two of them and the buzz of the TV.
Matt remembers watching a few episodes of Seinfeld with his dad when he was a kid. The faces of the actors have faded in his mind with time, and he can’t tell if it’s a comfort or disappointment to know that he’d once known what they looked like. What anyone looked like.
Foggy offers the occasional narration, but they mostly sit in a not-quite-comfortable silence punctuated by the occasional banjo riff and tinny laugh track.
“I lied, earlier,” Foggy blurts halfway through the second episode.
Matt turns to face Foggy from where he’d been angled toward the screen; even if he can’t see what was on it, he knows that failing to play by sighted conventions makes people uneasy.
“Yeah,” Foggy says. “When I said I had a bad dream about Karen. It- it was about her, but- um, it was about you too. You know…turning to dust.”
Matt swallows. “Oh.”
“But then…you knew that, didn’t you?”
The words aren’t sharp or accusatory in the way Matt’s become accustomed to. In fact, they hardly have any life behind them at all.
“I knew you were hiding something,” Matt admits carefully. “But I didn’t think it was any of my business.”
Foggy sits up straighter, and Matt braces himself for a new round of (well deserved) accusations. The same qualities that make Foggy a good lawyer make him surprisingly adept at harping on the same points and still getting a reaction. (In Matt’s case, another large helping of shame and remorse.)
But before Foggy can lay out yet another argument about Matt’s untrustworthiness, a very un-Seinfeld-like chorus of violins blasts from the TV.
“We’re interrupting this broadcast with breaking news,” a woman who is definitively not Julia Louis-Dreyfus says. “The superhero group known as the Avengers has released a video issuing a statement from Wakanda. Let’s roll the clip.”
“Oh, shit,” Foggy says, twisting back towards the TV.
The speakers go silent for a moment, and then there’s the low hum of background noise. This must be the video.
“It’s the Avengers,” Foggy confirms. “Well, half of them. They’re outside the U.S. embassy in Wakanda.”
“Yesterday,” Steve Rogers begins on the TV, “an alien known as Thanos came to Earth.”
There’s no preamble; no platitudes from the very recognizable voice of America’s favorite son. Even after the Battle of New York, Rogers had a way of sweet-talking the world into believing his merry band of superheroes had everything handled.
“The Avengers and our allies did everything we could to stop Thanos and his army. He had an insidious goal: destroying half of all life in the universe. We’re doing everything we can to reverse what was done, but in the meantime, we need everyone to stick together.
“We cannot let our world fall apart. And we promise you this: if we can’t get everyone back, we’ll damn well avenge them.
“This is the Avengers, signing off.”
The news anchor’s voice filters back in seconds later, summarizing the Captain’s remarks and quickly calling in commentators from around the globe.
Matt’s ears are ringing. It hits him, then, that the people they lost—half of the universe—may never be coming back.
Foggy seems similarly weary as he turns the TV off with a sigh. “Well, that was useless. How long do you think they’ve been sitting on that avenging line?”
“Probably forever,” Matt replies. “Cap sounded like shit.”
“Believe me, he looked like it, too,” Foggy says.
“I take it Barnes wasn’t there?”
Foggy’s hair swishes.
“I’m shaking my head,” he tacks on.
Matt remembers the first time they spoke about Barnes and Rogers’ supposed love affair. It was at the height of the whole Civil War debacle.
(Like most nights, they’d been at Josie’s. Foggy, curled around his beer at the counter, had groaned at one of the TVs hanging over the bar.
“They’re showing more of that Winter Soldier crap,” he’d complained.
Matt had shrugged. “It’s the news.”
“Well, they’re leaving out some very important details!”
Matt raised his brow. Foggy usually only got this worked up about proper meat-slicing techniques and civil rights law.
“I mean, how can you report on this and not mention that Captain America is fighting his long-lost lover?”
Matt snorted. “I think you’ve been reading too many tabloids, Fogs.”
“I’m serious!” Foggy replied. “This is textbook gay erasure!”
“I take it nothing I say will stop you from laying out the evidence for me, will it?” Matt joked.
“You’d be correct, counselor,” Foggy said. “Exhibit A: Barnes literally broke out of Nazi mind control so that he didn’t kill his friend. Exhibit B: Cap became a fugitive of the state to protect him. Exhibit C: have you seen the way they look at each other?”
“Can’t say I have,” Matt replied wryly.
“You know what I mean,” Foggy huffed. “Besides—these are my people, Matt!”
Matt scoffed. “Your people?”
“Yeah. You know, my community. Which inherently makes me an expert.”
Matt had known about Foggy’s sexuality since their freshman year at Columbia. Foggy had tried to hide it at first, but keeping mum about one’s bed partners in their tiny dorm— especially with a roommate with super hearing—meant he eventually admitted to Matt that yes, he was bisexual.
He’d acted like Matt would smite him down in all his Catholic glory, to which Matt had responded that those people clearly hadn’t read the same Bible as him.
They’d continued on as usual, then. Sure, that would’ve been a prime moment for Matt to share that he, too, had more than a passing interest in men. But that would have implied that Matt put the same expectations on himself that he applied to others, and which was laughably far from the truth.
He’d grown to accept that part of himself over the years, though he’d never had more than an errant fling with a member of the same gender. He told himself it was because he was still hung up on Elektra, rather than the knowledge festering deep down that there was only one man who occupied space in his heart.
But that night at Josie’s, a few beers deep and caught up in Foggy’s infectious excitement, his filter melted away.
“I think you mean our community.”
Truthfully, he’d thought it was funny. Cheeky, even. But Foggy had set his glass down on the counter with a thud, and Matt didn’t need his sight to know that he was being stared at.
“How could you keep this from me?” Foggy gasped dramatically. “I thought we were friends!”
Matt blushed, his cheeks heating further when Foggy clasped his shoulder.
“I’m proud of you, buddy,” Foggy said. “Thanks for telling me.”)
On the couch, Foggy starts to pull his knees up, then abandons the effort when something in his hip cracks.
“Can you even imagine it?” he wonders aloud. “They’ve been together for literally a century. To lose someone like that…”
Matt has to bite back the instinctive yes that bubbles up his throat. Because yes, he’d lost Foggy—spent a month mourning how things used to be, how much simpler it all was.
Foggy isn’t his Barnes, though. Foggy is a friend who was rightfully angry about Matt’s lies—lies Matt told to protect him, a part of him argues even now—and Matt doesn’t deserve to wallow over the gaping distance between them.
(Captain America is a much better man than Matt ever will be.)
He aches to do something. To help out and, if he’s being truthful, atone. He’s always sought absolution, brought himself to the confessional in the hopes that even a tiny fraction of his rage and guilt may be forgiven.
But he can do little more now than offer silent prayers that are slowly losing their meaning. Father Lantom—if he’s even still alive—is surely obeying the city-wide shutdown, barring Matt from the hallowed ground that he wants nothing more than to taint with his presence.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
How can he be selfish enough to ache for his own salvation with so many gone? Here, safe in Foggy’s apartment, he is luckier than so many others. He tries to remind himself of this, to thank the Almighty for protecting him.
He resists the urge to put his head in his hands.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
He murmurs the words again and again, as though that will somehow make a difference. He may be a man of faith, but he is far from ignorant enough to rely on divine intervention alone.
But if he doesn’t have his prayers, what does he have left? This is all he has to give to the world, now. He can offer no more supplications, or bloody his fists with righteousness.
The city that once made up the fabric of his world has unspooled, leaving Matt adrift. He hears the Kitchen’s pain, her cries of anguish cutting down to his core. The spaces that her people once occupied are like gaping wounds, and those left behind fill in the spaces with their grief tenfold.
“I should be out there helping,” Matt says, mostly to himself.
“Are you nuts?” Foggy splutters. “You can’t go out there right now!”
“Hell’s Kitchen is hurting,” Matt replies. “People are already out there looting and fighting each other. It’s going to get out of control.”
“So you’re going to, what—find a way to magically bring half the world back?”
“I never said—“
“You may have your ninja skills, but you’re still human, Matt. The Avengers have a Hulk, and even they can’t fix this!”
“Are you kidding? The Avengers have never actually cared about people on the ground. It’s all aliens and space and- and magic powers for them, and you know it!”
Foggy’s jaw ticks. “Okay, well, what about the cops, then? They’re not perfect, but they’re kind of meant for this.”
“They were already useless before this happened,” Matt retorts. “What makes you think they’ll be any better now?
“And half of the vigilante population was wiped out, too,” Matt continues before Foggy can offer opposition. “So I’m asking you—who else is left?”
Foggy’s heartbeat stutters. Clearly, Matt has struck a nerve.
“The city needs me.”
“Yeah?” Foggy snaps. “Well, what about what I need?”
Matt’s breath catches in his throat. “What?”
“People are dead, Matt! Karen, Theo…they’re gone, and they may never come back. I can’t lose you too.”
Matt swallows. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I need you to stay.” Foggy shifts on the couch and grabs Matt’s hand with one of his own.
(Matt, of course, senses the movement before it happens, but is powerless to stop it. He probably knows the bumps and calluses of Foggy’s hands better than he knows himself; a topography made of warmth and, beneath it all, devotion.
Some days, Matt’s certain he would give anything to hold Foggy’s hand, to trace the path of his bones and feel the rush of blood under his skin. Heart line, life line, fate line—it’s only logical that Foggy should hold all of these in his palm.)
“Okay,” Matt says softly, hardly daring to breathe. “I’ll stay.”
Foggy squeezes his hand. His pulse is loud in Matt’s ears and nearly thunderous beneath his fingertips. Matt feels dizzy with the sound of it, the crushing presence demanding all of his attention in the most intoxicating kind of way.
Matt lifts the hand not clutched by Foggy up towards his friend’s face. He holds it still, then, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and waiting for the permission he wouldn’t blame Foggy for denying him of.
But Foggy—Foggy doesn’t follow the rules. He’s an enigma, even after all their years of knowing one another. A puzzle that Matt is incapable and, more importantly, unworthy of figuring out. To discern Foggy’s inner machinations would be a disservice to him, and simply existing in his orbit is more than Matt deserves sometimes.
Matt flinches at the brush of Foggy’s cheek against his outstretched palm. He’d mapped out his friend’s face before, one drunken night at Columbia. It had been a rush, being so close, even if Matt didn’t have the right words to explain the way his heart felt like bursting.
He’s more careful now, feeling the planes of Foggy’s skin like the most precious of arts. Stubble tickles his palm as he catalogs the slight clench of Foggy’s jaw, dragging his thumb over Foggy’s rounded nose and along the puffy skin under his eye.
When they’d first met, Foggy had given a brief description of what he looked like: dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, “total lady killer.”
Matt had laughed and done his best to imagine it. He’d wished, then, that he could drink in the sight of Foggy himself. Yes, he’d learned to live with his blindness and the other abilities it afforded him; but he was certain that Foggy was selling himself short somehow.
Now, feeling the ghost of Foggy’s breath on his wrist as he traces the subject of his deepest adoration, he realizes his sight could never have given him such intimacy.
He carefully frees the hand still entertwined with Foggy’s to rest it on the opposite brow bone, feeling the flutter of Foggy’s eyelashes. By the time his palms come to rest on Foggy’s cheeks, he feels like he’s on fire.
They’re the only two people in the world, here. An existence narrowed down to just two, a cacophony softened to breaths and heartbeats.
Matt leans forward and presses their lips together. There’s a moment where Foggy doesn’t react, and Matt fears he’s once again miscalculated.
Then Foggy’s mouth moves against his, and the fire under Matt’s skin blazes into an inferno.
The kiss itself lasts no longer than a few seconds; but to Matt, it could have been an eternity. The nerve endings on his lips buzz, craving more and needing space in equal measure.
He had forgotten what it was like to feel a sensation so strongly. To welcome a sensory overload to the tune of his pounding heart. The overwhelming rush of it all threatens to drown him nearly as swiftly as the guilt that bubbles up, acrid and burning in his throat.
He doesn’t register Foggy moving towards him until their foreheads are already touching. The space between the lower halves of their faces grows heady with shared breath, inhales and exhales mingling so deeply that it becomes impossible to determine where one begins and the other ends.
If Foggy kisses him again, Matt thinks he might die.
“Are you sure?” he whispers, clinging to Foggy’s shoulders in an attempt to anchor himself.
“Are you kidding?” Foggy chuckles. “I’ve been into you since college.”
His heartbeat is steady. Something in Matt’s chest loosens.
“Even after everything I did?” Matt regrets the words as soon as they’re out, but he’s always had a penchant for masochism.
“I was mad because I was worried, you idiot,” Foggy says. “And yeah, the lying wasn’t cool. But it’s not worth losing my best friend over.”
A part of Matt hates that it took such a tragedy to bring them back together. He means it when he says he would have borne Foggy’s anger for the rest of his days if it meant undoing the last day. (At least, that’s what he tells himself. He only has God’s judgment to face, now.)
“Can we just be Matt and Foggy for a while?” Foggy asks. “No Daredevil, no lawyering.”
Matt nods, then moves to give Foggy space to tuck himself into his side.
“Huh,” Foggy says, his shoulder pressed against Matt’s shoulder. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
If he focuses his awareness inwards, Matt can easily get a sense of just what sounds are traveling to Foggy’s ears. He’d rather keep his awareness on Foggy’s pulse, though.
“What does it sound like?” he asks.
“Uh. You know.” Foggy makes a series of sounds that he presumes match the beating of Matt’s heart.
“Huh. Yours is more…” He trails off and taps his fingers against Foggy’s hand in time with the pulse he hears.
“Go on, then,” Foggy says. “What does it mean?”
“What?”
“You said you use heartbeats to read people. So read mine.”
The weight of Foggy’s request nearly renders Matt speechless. Less than a month ago, his practice of doing the exact same thing had nearly cost him his best friend.
“It’s not an exact science,” he says carefully. “But this type of pattern usually means someone is nervous, or holding something back, or…”
“Or?” Foggy prompts.
Matt gulps. “Or in love.”
This close, Matt can feel the way Foggy’s hair sways as he nods.
“Okay, now let me listen to yours again.”
Matt holds deathly still as Foggy presses two fingers to the pulse point in his neck.
“You know,” Foggy says, the hint of a grin in his voice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say yours sounds pretty similar.”
The familiarity of Foggy—his voice, his touch, his laugh—is barely enough to keep Matt from slinking away from such intense adoration. As much as he craves it, Matt knows he doesn’t deserve to be the object of Foggy’s adoration.
(Silently, Matt adds gluttony to his long list of sins.)
What he lacks the ability to express in words—for here is an emotion that not even holy scripture can capture—he pours into the squeeze of Foggy’s hand, the kiss pressed into Foggy’s hairline.
They gradually shift to lay side by side on the couch, pressed together in a way that should probably be uncomfortable for two fully grown men. But Foggy’s weight on his chest is comforting, and the closeness is addictive.
He slowly runs his fingers through Foggy’s hair, committing the texture and length to memory. He wants to carve the imprint of Foggy’s body into his own, to meld into a singular entity until his senses quiet into nothing but the points where they connect.
He will make a map of all that Foggy will let him, will memorize his fat and sinew and bones until his mental picture is complete. He wants to know Foggy and, for the first time, he thinks he may be open to Foggy knowing him, too.
He spent a long time eradicating any traces of vulnerability within himself. But for Foggy, he would be willing to unlearn it.
Foggy shifts his position a few more times before sagging more fully into Matt’s chest, his muscles gently relaxing and heartbeat slowing.
Matt wraps an arm around Foggy’s shoulder, loosely enough that it doesn’t wake him. Outside, Matt can hear the city beginning to wake up in earnest, the sounds of resilient people preparing to persevere.
He knows Hell’s Kitchen is not the only thing that will need to be rebuilt from the ground up, nor is it the only thing Matt will need to protect.
But he thinks, as he listens to that familiar heartbeat so close to his own, that Foggy is a good place to start.