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“Without this,” Matt says, crouched in the dingy stairway of the warehouse with Elektra’s heartbeat loud in his ears, “I’m not alive, not really.”
Without you is what he really means, what he doesn’t say. (He’ll regret it later.)
On the rooftop, they take down the Hand’s ninjas with systematic precision, Matt covering for Elektra, Elektra covering for Matt. One of them comes up behind him and puts him in a headlock, and he can hardly breathe for all of three seconds before Elektra guts him.
When all that remains of the Hand’s army are four lone warriors, Nobu enters the fray. A kick to his already-tender ribs puts Matt briefly out of action, and Elektra swiftly moves in to intercept Nobu’s next blow as Matt struggles to his feet. He throws himself back in, sweeping Nobu’s legs out from under him as Elektra gets in a blow to the underside of Nobu’s jaw. They work in sync, the two of them, moving in tandem as their fight takes them across the rooftop. Nobu’s ragged breathing and Elektra’s adrenaline-spiked heartbeat ring in Matt’s ears, and he has never felt more alive.
Then Nobu manages to knock Matt’s mask off, gets hold of one of Elektra’s sais and there’s nothing Matt can do to stop its whistling arc as it hurtles towards his jugular. The air before him shifts as Elektra moves, and Matt doesn’t need to hear the dull thwick the sai makes to know it’s found its mark.
“Elektra,” he whispers, bearing her to the ground, the sound of her rapidly weakening heart muffling everything else – the police sirens four stories down, the distant hum of New York traffic farther down the block, Nobu’s strained breath as he struggles to his feet behind him – they all fade into a background hum.
She exhales for the last time, her body going still and unmoving in his arms, and something in Matt breaks. He doesn’t remember kicking Nobu off the rooftop, or taking down the four remaining ninjas, but when he finally straightens, he’s the only one standing amongst the body-strewn concrete.
The distant cacophony he’d been holding back rushes back in – the dank smell of New York’s dirt-strewn streets, Brett barking orders across the NYPD radio frequency – and underneath all that, the distinct lack of Elektra’s beating heart.
-
4 months later
“Congratulations,” Matt says, as soon as Foggy opens the door.
“What?” Foggy sounds confused, hovering in the doorway in sweatpants and a dress shirt. Matt had evidently caught him getting ready for work.
“On your new job.” Matt sidles into the apartment uninvited, seats himself on the sofa. It’s new; the smell of new leather and plastic wrap lingers. “They’re paying you that well, huh?”
“I –” Foggy says, flustered and (knowing him) angry at himself for being flustered. He takes a deep breath that Matt can feel all the way across the room. “What are you doing here, Matt?”
“Nothing,” Matt shrugs, folding his cane away and snapping the band in place. “I was in the neighbourhood and I thought I’d – drop by.”
Foggy’s blood pressure spikes. The fingers of his right hand twitches, and Matt waits, waits for the dam to break, for the rage to boil over.
“Four months, Matt,” Foggy says, voice low and steady. “Not a word from you. Not a phone call, a message. I went to your apartment a couple weeks ago, you know–” (Matt knows; he was on the roof of the adjacent building, listening) “–and you know what your landlord said to me, huh? Said you’d skipped town, that you weren’t coming back. So I’m going to ask one more time, and this time you’re gonna answer honestly, what the hell are you doing here?”
Foggy’s stepped closer (Matt can smell his aftershave, and the coffee he had not an hour ago). He’s now standing in front of Matt, who tips his head back against the sofa’s headrest so Foggy can see his eyes.
“I was, I left New York to clear my head after – after Elektra,” he says, “I was in Tunisia, following the Hand’s trail –”
“Not what I asked,” Foggy says shortly, cutting across him. “Why are you here, Matt?”
Matt stifles the urge to beg, to plead forgiveness. Anything to have Foggy look at him like he’s worth having again.
He ducks his head, speaking to his knees. “I came to apologize, Foggy. I came to say I’m sorry, for everything. Taking Castle’s case was a mistake, and I should’ve – I should’ve helped. It was my idea and it’s my fault our firm’s in the ground and I’m sorry, Fog.”
For a long while the only sound in the room is Foggy’s breathing and accelerating heart rate. Then Foggy takes another step, until he’s nearly standing over Matt on the sofa, “Sorry doesn’t cut it, buddy. You don’t get to keep doing this, keep waltzing in and out of my life whenever you want.”
“I know,” Matt says, low and plaintive. He tilts his head up so Foggy can see his face, see the raw honesty writ all over it. “I know it’s not fair on you, or Karen, so I left. Got out of your hair a bit so you could live your life in peace –”
Foggy’s hand clenches. Matt feels the shift in air and doesn’t stop him when Foggy fists a hand in the collar of Matt’s shirt and hauls him up.
“You don’t get to do this, Matt!” Foggy shouts, and Matt sags in relief because the dam’s broken, and now he can finally do what he does best: damage control. “You don’t get to play the martyr and the man all the damn time!”
Foggy shoves hard at his chest and Matt goes, letting his back hit the wall (he cracks the glass of a framed photograph). “Sorr –” he starts to say, but Foggy cuts him off with another push, harder this time.
“Stop apologizing,” he snaps, leaning close enough the tip of his nose brushes Matt’s (Matt almost stops breathing altogether). “Not everything is your fucking fault, you know.”
“What do you want me to say, Foggy?” Matt says, voice cracking. “I did what I could – I stopped Castle, I stopped the Hand, I’ve done everything I could to protect this city.” To protect you, he doesn’t say.
“Well, maybe this city could do without your help, Matt,” Foggy says; he sounds tired. “Have you ever thought maybe the Kitchen would be better off, safer even, without your vigilantism?”
Matt sucks in a breath like he’s been sucker-punched (he kinda wishes he’d been, because that would hurt less than this). “Foggy, I –”
“Get out,” Foggy says tonelessly, loosening his grip on Matt’s collar. The of my life hangs in the air between them, as deafening as if Foggy’d screamed it.
“Okay,” Matt heads towards the sofa, scoops up his cane and makes for the door, pausing on the threshold when the air becomes infused with the tang of salt and he realizes with a start that Foggy’s crying.
Matt turns, another apology on his tongue, but Foggy beats him to it, striding across his living room and pulling his hand back like he means business. Matt’s eyes slide closed (in relief, anticipation) as he leans into the punch, the sharp burst of pain that flares in his cheek a soothing balm to the chaos in his head.
“Foggy,” he breathes, as another blow lands, and then another, and if this is what Foggy needs, Matt’s more than happy to give it to him. Foggy’s breathing hard and from the concentration of salt in the air, he’s crying harder than ever.
Matt catches Foggy’s wrist the next time, stopping the punch before it can land. “You’re hurting yourself,” he says, tapping Foggy’s knuckles, which are bruised and sore.
And Foggy laughs, a high, bitter sound, but doesn’t yank his hand away. “Always the fucking hero, aren’t ya, Murdock,” he says, smiling through his teeth, then, quieter, “You can’t save everyone in this damn city, you know.”
“Yeah,” Matt says, Foggy’s pulse jackhammering like a hummingbird’s under his hand, “Yeah, I know. But I can at least try.”
“Always the fucking hero,” Foggy says again, softer this time, tinged with affection. “C’mere, Murdock.”
He catches Matt by surprise, tugging on his wrist hard enough that Matt’s center of mass tips, and he finds himself with an armful of Foggy and a mouthful of brown hair.
“Welcome home, Matty.”
Matt lets loose the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and as he melts against Foggy, breathing in the clean scent of his aftershave and shampoo, he tries to tell himself, over and over again, This is enough this is enough this is enough.
“Feels good to be back.”
-
He bumps into Karen the following week, the first time he leaves his apartment to go to Josie’s.
“Hey!” she says brightly, clutching two sweating beers as she turns from the bar.
“Hey,” he says, tapping his cane and praying for the sweet release of death.
No such luck.
“So,” Karen continues with dogged determination (which Matt grudgingly admires), “Back in town, huh? It’s been, what, five months?”
“Four,” Matt says at once, then wonders why it even matters. He’s still the one who left (who fled) with his tail between his legs when Elektra died.
“How’ve you been?” Karen asks, sounding genuinely curious. She was always too good for him.
“Uh – good, I’ve been good,” Matt says, “You?”
“Good. I’m doing great,” she says, with too much enthusiasm than the remark merits. “I’ll see you around,” she says with forced cheer, before heading to a corner booth with her drinks. There’s a young man there, presumably Karen’s date. (Co-worker? Friend? Or more?)
Matt hates himself for caring; he lost that privilege four months ago.
“Yeah, I’ll – see you,” Matt says after her, feeling terrible and knowing he deserves it. (It’s not a good realization.)
-
That night there’s a bank robbery, which Matt barely gets to in time to resolve the hostage situation. He leaves the robbers cuffed and unconscious for the cops, and in the time it takes for them to arrive he calms a hysterical old lady down (she’d been held at gunpoint by one of the men).
When Matt hears the sirens from half a block down he stands, says reassuringly, “The cops’ll be hear in a minute, ma’am,” and ducks out the building into an alley, where he scales the wall to get to the roof.
“Nice work, Red,” he hears when he lands, and Matt spins, unexpected anger building in his chest.
“Was this you?” Matt gestures at the jagged hole in the side of the bank, the detonation having severely injured at least half of the bank’s employees. “Did you –”
“Naw, Red, not my style,” Frank says, his heartbeat steady (but that could mean nothing, knowing Frank). “I was just passing by and thought I’d see if you needed help.”
The ache in Matt’s chest eases and he straightens. “Thanks.”
“You alright, Red?” Frank asks, “You look dead on your feet.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” Frank shrugs, leaning back against the rooftop railings. “You look like you got somethin’ on your chest, and it’s not like I got better things to do on a Friday night, anyway.”
“It’s just,” Matt says, mirroring Frank’s position by the railings and tilting his head up to the sky. If the streets of Hell’s Kitchen smell unpleasant by day, they’re positively rank by night, after a day of exhaust fumes from car engines and detritus restaurants tend to chuck out into alleyways. Matt breathes the rotting city into his lungs and tries to remember why it’s worth saving.
“You ever wonder about what you – what we – do, Frank?” Matt starts, “About what happens when we lose control?”
Frank’s silent for a long while. “Sometimes,” he finally says, “But mostly, I’m thinkin’ I got a wife and son and daughter to avenge, and a son of a bitch to kill.”
Matt exhales, pushing the city’s stench out of his lungs. “The people around me, they get caught up too much in what I do, and I can’t – I can’t risk them. But –”
“But you also can’t stand being away from them for too long, and you can’t stay away from the streets either. Is that right, Red?”
Matt stays silent. It’s confirmation enough.
There’s the pop of a thermos being uncapped, and the bitter-rich scent of coffee hits Matt’s nose. Frank pours some into the cap, proffers it to Matt. “Coffee?”
Matt shakes his head mutely.
“Suit yourself,” Frank shrugs, downing the mouthful and immediately pouring another. “Look,” he says, when half his coffee’s gone, “I may not have anyone around for me to look out for right now, but I remember exactly what it feels like to care that much for someone, to have a constant ache in the side ‘a your chest when they’re not around. And believe me, as much as you think you can, or should, give that up so you can take up the mask full-time, it ain’t worth it. If you cut all your ties and do this,” he gestures at Matt’s suit, “you’re not gonna have anythin’ left to fight for, and that. Well, a Daredevil who is the Devil in mind is the last thing Hell’s Kitchen needs.”
“I – thank you, Frank,” Matt says, his thoughts on Foggy and how he’s stayed by Matt’s side through all of his bullshit. (He deserves better than you, Matt tells himself.) “That was – thanks.”
“Anytime, Matthew,” Frank says, and Matt blinks, because – oh. He’d forgotten Frank had been there That Night, when Nobu knocked his mask off and Elektra had died saving his life.
He pulls the mask off (it’s only polite) and tips his head in Frank’s direction. “Night, Frank.”
He’s halfway across the roof when Frank calls out, lowly, bitterly (why would Frank be bitter, Matt wonders), “Good luck with Miss Page.”
Matt half-turns, his mask propped on his hip. “It’s not Karen I’ll be needing luck with, Frank,” he says, before leaping across to the next rooftop, and then the next, leaving Frank with his coffee, a no doubt confused expression on his face.
-
The next day Matt spends approximately five hours deciding what to wear, before finally deciding on a grey dress shirt and jeans (casual but not too casual.) He rings Foggy’s door at exactly half-past-ten, reasonably late into the morning that Foggy should be out of bed, but not late enough that he might’ve gone out for lunch.
“Yeah, I’m coming!”
The door opens and Matt’s assaulted with the smell of bacon and coffee, as well as the knowledge that Foggy’s standing not two feet from him in nothing but a bathrobe.
“Uh, if now’s not a good time I can come back,” Matt tries, turning to leave, but Foggy’s hand snares his wrist and Matt finds himself tugged into the apartment with a “Don’t be stupid, Matt.”
Matt seats himself at Foggy’s breakfast bar (when did Foggy even get a breakfast bar?) and swivels his chair around, hoping desperately Foggy will say something to alleviate the tension hanging thick in the air.
“Coffee?” is what Foggy comes up with, and Matt relents, thinking of Claire, of Frank, and what they would do.
“Thanks.”
They eat breakfast in (relatively) companionable silence, Foggy having cooked enough for five.
After, Matt leans back in his chair and berates himself for stalling.
“Foggy,” he starts, then stops, because this is harder, much harder, than he thought it would be.
“Hm?” Foggy looks up.
“Do you – uh, would you. I mean, I’d like to, to.”
“Matt, buddy, you okay?” Foggy (bless him) sounds genuinely concerned for Matt’s mental health.
Matt summons courage from the parts of him that have gone against entire mobs in a fight and won. “Doyouwannahadinner.”
“What?” Foggy scrunches up his eyebrows in confusion and Matt wants to melt into the floor and die.
Matt feels his cheeks flush. He tries to will the blood away from his face (it doesn’t work). “Do you want to have dinner. With me,” he adds.
“Sure, buddy,” Foggy says, and Matt’s teeth click in frustration because Foggy’s gotten it wrong.
“No, I mean,” Matt inhales, tries again, “Dinner. As in –”
“– A date?” Foggy says, and Matt startles, because Foggy’s heart is beating triple-time and he’s leaning across the bar like his happiness hinges on Matt’s answer.
Matt takes the shot. “Exactly like a date.”
“YES,” Foggy almost-shouts. Matt winces at the assault on his eardrums. “I mean, yes, Matt. Hell yes. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that?”
Matt opens his mouth.
“No, don’t answer, that was rhetorical,” Foggy babbles, “The answer is far too long, asshole. Wait, you’re. You’re serious, aren’t you? This isn’t a joke?”
“No, Foggy, course it’s not,” Matt says, “I wouldn’t – I’d never joke about this. You mean far too much to me for th –”
The rest of his words are cut off when Foggy reaches across the bar, snags Matt by the lapel and drags him into a kiss that tastes of coffee.
Matt doesn’t think he’s ever enjoyed the bitter taste of caffeine that much in his life.
-
They set the date for dinner next Friday, and Matt finds himself barely able to concentrate all week, the mingled nerves and excitement too much for him to handle. Friday comes, and Matt spends the better part of the day in bed, wondering whether he should call the whole thing off because he’s only just realizing what a catastrophically bad idea this was.
In the end, Matt goes, because Matt Murdock is a lot of things, but a coward isn’t one of them (or so he likes to think). He decides on a navy shirt and dress pants that fit him snugly (he’s noticed Foggy’s breath hitching whenever he wears them).
6:45 finds Matt outside the restaurant, pacing nervously and ‘accidentally’ hitting the restaurant’s potted fern repeatedly with his cane. At five to seven Matt seats himself at a booth tucked near the window, angles his head towards the restaurant’s double doors, and waits.
The minutes trickle past, long enough that the couple at the next table over finish their meal and leave. Matt taps his phone, which chirps 7:27 to him. Matt blinks; it’s not like Foggy to be this late, if at all.
“Sir,” a waitress says, materializing at his elbow. Matt opens his mouth, a ‘Not now’ ready on the tip of his tongue. “There’s a call for you, sir.”
Matt takes the proffered phone, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. “Hello?”
“Hello, Matthew,” the voice on the other end of the line purrs, and Matt feels his blood run cold, because he’d know that voice anywhere (he’d spent so much of these past months missing it).
“Elektra,” he says to the sound of her delighted laugh, and isn’t sure whether it’s anger or relief that seizes him like a tidal wave, choking him.
“It’s been too long, Matthew,” she says, and there’s the sound of scuffling that Matt can faintly discern in the background, followed by a high-pitched whine –
“Foggy,” Matt gasps, doubling over at his table and waving the hovering waitress away with an impatient hand. “Elektra, what have you done?”
“Oh, nothing much. Nothing permanent, anyway,” she giggles, and over the receiver Matt hears more scuffling, some shouting, a dull thunk and then – silence.
Matt straightens, his back a rigid line of tension. “I swear, if you’ve hurt him I will –“
“You’ll what, Matthew?” Elektra asks, all innocence, “Punch me a few times? Give me a good old beating? Because that’s all you’re good for, isn’t it, Mr. Daredevil?”
“Elektra, no more games,” Matt growls, the hand holding the phone to his ear tightening till the plastic casing cracks. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll, I’ll do it.”
Matt can feel Elektra’s pout over the line. “You’re no fun, Matthew,” she says, then proceeds to give him the address. (Matt has no way of verifying whether that’s the truth or not and the thought terrifies him.)
“If you want him,” Elektra says now, breathy with excitement, “Come and get him.”
The line goes dead and Matt pushes his chair back so hard it skids a food few feet before toppling, with a resounding crash, right onto a passing waiter’s foot.
“Sorry,” Matt mutters, distractedly, uncaring. He doesn’t want to what Elektra’s doing to Foggy this very minute. “It’s – something’s come up, I’ve gotta –”
He unsnaps his cane, lets it fall to its full length, then turns and strides out of the restaurant as quickly as a blind man should be able to. The minute he’s out on the street, he ducks into the nearest side street, ditches the cane and pockets his glasses. In a little under ten minutes he’s made it to the parking complex Elektra directed him to.
Crouching behind a satellite dish on the nearest roof, Matt assesses the situation. He’s learned by now to wait for the quiet but telltale exhalations when dealing with members of the Hand, and sure enough; Matt counts two-eight-sixteen of them, posted in and around the complex. There are four of the warriors on the third floor, which is presumably where Elektra and Foggy are.
Matt waits until the guards patrolling this side of the building have gone to make their rounds before leaping across to the roof of the complex, landing with a roll and crouching low in case anyone on the ground saw him. He winces; he’d grown accustomed to letting his suit absorb most of the impact on landing. His dress pants have been ripped in the knees and he’s sporting a nasty gash on his right arm where he braced it against the granite upon landing.
He picks himself up, because it doesn’t matter (none of it does). Nothing matters now except finding Foggy and bringing him back safe. Something slices none-too-subtly through the air, aiming for the back of his exposed neck, and Matt twists, bringing his knee up into his attacker’s rib cage. A pained, choked-off grunt (are the Hand’s ninjas allowed to make any sound except breathe, Matt wonders), and then his assailant launches himself at Matt, knocking him down. They grapple, and Matt takes a hit to the sternum before managing to knock his opponent out. (He punches him in the head a couple more times, just to be sure.)
He doesn’t meet any other guards on his way down; presumably they’ve all spread out by now and are on the lookout for him. On the third floor, he lingers in the stairwell and considers ambushing the four guards he knows are posted there. In the end he decides against it; the thought of what Elektra might do (might have already done, might be doing) to Foggy once left to her own devices stops him.
So he takes the last few steps at a run and lands with a distinct clatter at the bottom of the stairs. He steps out into the open, and at the sound of four katanas being unsheathed, he raises both hands, does his best to look non-threatening.
“Call them off, Elektra,” he says, his own heartbeat loud in his ears, “We need to talk.”
Matt doesn’t hear it coming (which is saying something because he likes to think he hears, like, fucking everything, okay), and barely manages to avoid being impaled by Elektra’s sai, which goes whistling over the top of his head. He spins, lands a blow on her arm by sheer luck, but is too slow to block the swift kick she aims at his already sore ribs.
“Elektra,” Matt gasps, doubled over with the sudden force of his realization, “Your heart, it’s –”
“Dead, I know,” she replies, pulling down the mask she’d used to muffle her breathing. “They,” she gestures at the warriors flanking her, “need to control their heartrate in combat, but the Revenant took care of that for me.”
The ninjas sheathe their swords and step back. Matt straightens, slow and wary.
“How,” Matt says. He swallows, tries again. “How does it feel?”
“What, being dead?”
Matt stays silent.
Elektra’s smile widens; Matt hears the stretch of her lips, the skin pulled tight to expose teeth. “It feels extraordinary. It’s ironic, Matthew. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this,” there’s the faintest rustle of fabric, then the warm, barely-there tickle of her breath against his ear, “alive.”
“I’m glad,” Matt says, and the iron claw that’s been clamping down on his chest loosens its grip: just a fraction, but it’s enough. Matt breathes, and it no longer feels like nails scraping down his esophagus, into his lungs.
“Where are you keeping him?” he asks now.
In response Elektra reaches into a pocket and rattles something at him. A pair of handcuffs, Matt decides. Reinforced steel, by the sounds of it.
“Is this really necessary?” Matt says, but he’s already stretching out his arms, wrists upturned. “I’m not going anywhere without Foggy.”
“Oh, Matthew,” Elektra says, almost pityingly, “I know,” and snaps the cuffs shut.
-
Elektra leads him down a flight of stairs, and then another, her hand at his elbow more for her sake than his. They hit ground level and keep going; Matt gathers that this complex has more underground levels than it does above ground.
Matt hears Foggy’s heart when they’re two levels away, and he almost crumples in relief. The claw lifts, the weight on his chest gone, and Matt can breathe again. The stale, coppery air is the best air he’s ever inhaled.
“He’s okay,” he says, and Elektra laughs at him a little.
“Of course he’s fine, Matthew. I promised.”
The stairs finally level out and then Matt’s hurrying across the room to Foggy’s side (the dozen armed ninjas stationed around the basement be damned) and crouching down to check his vitals. He’s awake but groggy, obviously having taken a couple of beatings at the hands of, well, the Hand. But he hasn’t lost too much blood and his pulse, when Matt checks it, is steady.
“Matt?” Foggy slurs, tipping his head back in the chair he’s tied to. Then, when his eyes evidently slide into focus and clarity kicks in, “Matt. You’re here!”
Whatever Elektra used to knock Foggy out clearly hasn’t worn off, because he sounds far too happy about his current situation than anyone in their right (sober) mind would.
“Yeah, buddy,” Matt says, resting a hand on Foggy’s knee, “I got you, you’re okay.”
“Course I’m okay,” Foggy grins, “I’ve been waiting all – all evening for you to show up, and now that you’re he – eere, the party can fin’ly start.”
Matt frowns. “Party?”
“He means this one, Matthew,” Elektra says, and now she’s standing behind Foggy’s chair, because if there’s one thing Matt can’t do (as he’s realized lately), it’s track people without heartbeats.
The sound of a pistol cocking reverberates in Matt’s eardrums, and he startles, jerking himself up and positioning himself so he’s squarely between Elektra and Foggy.
Elektra rolls her eyes (at least, Matt assumes she does). “Oh, Matthew. How predictable.” She sounds almost disappointed. “Always the martyr. Always saving people.”
“Yeah, well,” Matt says, readying himself to kick the gun out of her hand, “It’s kinda in the job description.”
He lunges at Elektra, then, grabbing for the gun and preparing to twist it out of her grasp. She practically thrusts the gun at him. Matt takes it, confused.
She produces another pistol then, and places the barrel on the back of Foggy’s head.
“Elektra, no –” Matt swings his own gun up, aiming it at the center of her forehead. The ironclad grip returns with a vengeance, and every breath is a scrape of nails against the back of his throat. Matt’s heartbeat thunders, the organ straining painfully against the confines of his rib cage.
“It’s your call, Matthew,” Elektra says. Matt has a sinking feeling that if she still had a heartbeat, it would be perfectly steady right now. “You can kill me and save your friend,” she jabs the barrel rather viciously against the base of Foggy’s skull to punctuate her words, “Or you can be the martyr you’ve always wanted to be and watch me shoot Franklin here in the head.”
Elektra’s finger tightens on the trigger, and Matt stops breathing altogether.
Matt hardly registers the sharp thwick of the bullet, the soft, surprised noise Elektra makes when she glances down at her chest and sees the steadily blooming stain, dark as ink and black as sin, against her shirt. The guards posted around the basement move as one; in a few seconds they’re across the room and on Matt. He elbows one in the face, breaking his nose, twists another’s arm and wrenches it out of its socket, socks one in the jaw hard enough to knock him out. Matt keeps going, and with each warrior that goes down the weight on his chest eases a little more, and the nails scarping his airways are gone, and as Matt roundhouse kicks the last guard in the chest and he crumples, he finds he can finally breathe again.
Matt steps over the fallen guard’s legs and falls to his knees next to Elektra, whose hands are futilely applying pressure to the gaping wound (the wound he put there).
Matt carefully, gently, eases her head onto his lap, smoothes the hair off her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“I thought – we’d,” Elektra coughs, spitting blood, “We agreed, back then. London, Paris, Madrid. Maybe Tunisia. What ha – happened to you, Matthew?”
“Foggy,” Matt says, and hopes it’s enough. “Foggy happened to me.”
For the second time in four months Matt listens as the life bleeds out of Elektra, only this time, there’s no weakening of the heart, no gradual fading of the pulse. There’s only the stone-cold, sepulchral stillness that accompanies a reanimated corpse, and as Matt stays on his knees, listening to this not-life leave Elektra’s body, he tries to tell himself It’s not killing this is different this is different this is different.
-
“You’re a natural at this,” Foggy says, rounding the kitchen island to where Matt’s icing cupcakes for Karen. (They’re very last-minute; both Matt and Foggy had forgotten the three of them had made plans to meet up to celebrate.)
“Y’know,” Foggy continues, reaching around Matt to pour himself a cup of coffee. “For someone who can’t see shit.” Because it’s only 10:30 on a Saturday morning and Foggy Nelson pre-caffeine is naturally an asshole.
Matt’s lips quirk upwards in a wry grin. “Thanks.”
“Seriously, though,” Foggy says, settling himself onto one of the bar stools and swiping some icing from the nearest cupcake with a finger. Matt swats at his hand irritably. “I get the whole ‘using your other senses to fight’ thing because you, like, hear people move and stuff. But this? Unless you’re secretly the God of Icing, I fail to see how super-senses equals perfectly proportional, evenly spaced goddamned calligraphy on pastries.”
Matt grins mysteriously. “One of my many talents. When I was, oh, fifteen, I had a rebellious phase and ran off to join a monastery in Dubai. The monks there taught me –”
“Oh, shut up,” Foggy says, “I’m rolling my eyes, by the way, because you, Murdock,” he jabs an icing-coated finger at Matt’s chest, “are full of shit.”
Matt finishes the last loopy ‘Y’ on the cupcakes that spell out ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ in obnoxious red-green-blue icing (Karen’s least favourite colours) with a flourish. Foggy pushes his chair back, then, his elbow nudging against the tray of cupcakes. It teeters on the edge of the counter dangerously, before tipping and making its unerring descent to the floor.
Matt swoops down, because he’s spent all morning on those cupcakes and he’s not about to do so again. He catches the tray halfway through its fall and manages to right the cupcakes before the icing has a chance to smear.
Being Daredevil comes with definite cupcake-preserving perks.
“Show off,” Foggy mutters under his breath, not sounding guilty about almost destroying Matt’s handiwork at all.
Matt grins, slow and luxurious. “Only when I’m trying to impress.”
He leans across the countertop, stealing a quick kiss, and turns to head to the (their, now, his mind gleefully supplies) bedroom to change into something not caked in flour. But Foggy snags him by the neck of the apron he’s wearing and Matt lets himself be reeled in for another kiss, and when they finally part for air (more for Foggy’s sake than Matt’s; he has excellent lungs), they’re both flushed and impatient for more.
“I – Elektra. She taught me,” Matt pants, and at Foggy’s noise of dissent (disgust?) he gestures at his perfectly calligraphied cupcakes sitting on the counter. “To be fair, she was teaching me how to carve my initials onto a 0.45 bullet, but the principle’s the same.”
“Ah,” Foggy says, then stops. His hand clenches into a fist at his side.
“Foggy, I –” Matt wets his lip; he has no idea where he’s going with this. “Elektra and I – we’re not – we’ve never been –” He stops, rakes a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Okay,” Foggy says, hollow and wooden, and this is worse, so much worse, Matt thinks, than the claw around his heart and the nails scraping his lungs. “I’m gonna get dressed. You should, too.”
He turns and starts walking down the hall to their room.
“Foggy, wait,” Matt says, pleads, the desperation evident in his voice.
Foggy stops, turns.
“Elektra was – she was the only good thing in my life for a while. Because in college, when you and Marci were together and there was just no escaping her, everywhere I went it was tables for three and weekend plans for three and I’d never seen you so happy, so I – I backed off. Gave you and Marci space, and for a year or so I thought that was the best I could do, always with you but never really with you. And then I met Elektra and she, I guess she took my mind off you. Actually,” Matt ducks his head sheepishly, “She took my mind off a lot of things. And it was just – easier, you know. Easier than staying at the dorm and being constantly reminded whenever I smelled her perfume on you, or, or found her things lying around the place. Easier than being constantly reminded of everything I couldn’t have.”
Foggy’s silent for a beat, then – “Oh, Matt,” he says, getting right up in Matt’s personal space and smoothing his hands down the front of Matt’s shirt. “You idiot,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to Matt’s jaw, “You could’ve had everything in college if you’d asked. I just didn’t – I didn’t think you’d be interested, is all.”
Matt opens his mouth to protest, and Foggy shushes him. “Yes, okay, I know. I’m a catch, everyone should be interested, yadda yadda.” He grins at Matt’s offended expression. “All I’m saying is, you got me now. And you can have everything, anything you want.”
Matt barely registers moving; he only knows his mouth needs to be on Foggy’s, like, yesterday. Foggy evidently agrees, because he shoves Matt none-too-gently against the nearest wall and kiss a bruise against his lips. The same picture frame cracks behind their combined weight; Matt almost grins at the irony.
“Careful, Foggy,” he admonishes, turning his head to suck on Foggy’s neck instead, “We don’t want any complaints from our neighbours.”
“Fuck the Robinsons,” Foggy groans emphatically, tilting his neck to give Matt better access.
Matt worries at the skin stretched over Foggy’s hammering pulsepoint with his teeth, then laves at the dip between his collarbones, giving it a final kiss before straightening.
Foggy lets out a disappointed whine, and it takes all of Matt’s willpower to say, “Karen. We gotta – we’re gonna be late.”
“Spoilsport,” Foggy mutters, “I’m sure Karen wouldn’t mind if we took an extra ten minutes.”
“I’m sure she would,” Matt says, “It’s her birthday.”
And when Foggy pouts, bottom lip jutting out in a rather adorable manner, Matt presses a light kiss to the corner of Foggy’s jaw. “We can – whatever you want, Foggy. Later. Promise.”
-
Karen adores the cupcakes, they each consume a perfectly respectable amount of alcohol, and afterwards, Matt and Foggy never quite make it to the bedroom. Instead Matt shoulders the door to their apartment open, shrugging off his shirt and pulling at Foggy’s impatiently. They toe their shoes and socks off, leaving a messy trail of discarded apparel dotted along the hallway.
“Whatever I want, you said?” Foggy asks, smirking, hooking a hand in Matt’s belt loops and taking his sweet time unbuckling it.
Matt swats his hand away and gets his pants undone in two seconds flat. “Whatever you want.”
They make it as far as the kitchen before Matt decides he’s had enough. He hops up onto the counter and tugs Foggy close, till he’s pressed into the vee of Matt’s hips and Matt’s legs bracket his, and Foggy tilts his head up as Matt angles his down, the slotting of their lips together as easy and seamless as breathing.
Later, much later, Foggy flops down on his side next to Matt on the kitchen floor, breathless and no longer covered in icing. “I gotta give it to ya, Murdock. You really do know how to make a guy feel special.”
Matt props himself up on an elbow, leans down to lick an errant smear of icing off Foggy’s chin. “What can I say,” he drawls, “You’re one hell of a special guy, Fog.”
Because he is, he is, and Matt’s spent years convincing himself otherwise because of what he thought he couldn’t have, but there’s really no denying it, so he licks another smear of icing off the tip of Foggy’s nose and says it again.