Archive of Our Own

Foggy sees Matt Murdock for the first time in eight years from the police side of the one-way glass of an interrogation room, with Brett Mahoney standing next to him and witnessing the wreckage of his first love, which Foggy now really regrets bemoaning when it happened. “I should really be making you recuse yourself,” Brett says.

Matt's still hot, but he's a more put-together hot than he was in college. He's replaced his dollar store sunglasses with some fancy red ones that are round but somehow don't make him look like a John Lennon wannabe. He's traded in the oversize sweaters for a pretty respectable suit, for a paralegal, which is what the file in front of Foggy tells him Matt is doing these days. It's kind of sad, knowing the smartest guy he knows didn't manage to go on to law school like he wanted to, but Foggy gets a little twinge of pleasure out of it too, like the universe took revenge on him for breaking Foggy's heart. He's not proud of it, but there it is. “You're the one who called me. And he needs a good lawyer, right? After that Karen Page almost got killed in custody?”

Brett scowls at him, but he really shouldn't, because some kind of shit is happening in this police station. “Ms. Page was released for want of evidence, especially in light of an officer who was clearly on a mental break attacking her. Mr. Murdock … he was at the crime scene with blood on his hands, Foggy.”

“In case you hadn't noticed, he's blind.”

“Doesn't matter so much, in close quarters. And he's strong.”

Foggy remembers that, and even if he didn't, his brain helpfully supplies a three-second graphic replay of some of the proof of it. “So your evidence is that he's built?”

“Foggy. Tell me you aren't going to—”

“I probably wouldn't have recognized him if I'd seen him on the street,” Foggy says, and it's a little bit bitterness and a little bit honesty. This Matt isn't the Matt he thought he knew, with his shy smiles and the way his head tipped back when he laughed. “Looks like things have been pretty shitty for him.”

“Most people wouldn't call 'paralegal for a successful construction company' shitty.”

None of his family, much less family friends, met Matt during that first semester and a half of college. Matt declined invitations with a laugh, especially after they started dating, and Foggy was never suspicious. So they don't know how bright Matt was, how he had the future ahead of him, could have done anything he wanted and wanted, always, to help people and make their lives better. Sure, he's still hot, but Foggy doesn't recognize much else of the Matt he thought he knew. “Are you going to let me in to see him, or did you just invite me here so I could gloat while he's thrown in an oubliette?”

“Man needs a lawyer,” says Brett, because at heart he's a nice guy. At this particular moment, Foggy kind of hates him for it. “I'll show you in.”

Foggy follows him, winces at the way Matt's hands are shackled to the table like he's some kind of threat and glares at Brett until he takes them off. “Public defender was appointed?” Matt asks, and he's still got that mild voice.

“You're in luck, and a friend of mine needed some pro bono hours,” says Brett in a blatant but face-saving lie.

“Thank you,” says Foggy, and Matt barely twitches, but he definitely twitches. “Mind leaving me with my client, Sergeant Mahoney? Our conversation is protected, of course, due to—”

“Attorney-client privilege, yeah, I know,” says Brett, but he leaves them alone, and Foggy sits down with Matt's file in front of him and Matt across the table with his jaw held tight. He recognized Foggy's voice, probably, but he's not going to be the first one to speak.

“Foggy Nelson, in case you don't remember,” he says, and both of them know it's a dig, but both of them know he probably deserves a dig or two. “If you'd rather have a different lawyer, please let me know, I know this is unorthodox, but he called me, and—”

“No, I ...” Matt's face softens up into a smile that looks real, but that's really no indicator as far as Foggy is concerned. “From what I hear, I couldn't ask for a better lawyer in the city.”

“You hear wrong, but, uh. Thanks.” Foggy's only been mentioned a few times in stories out of HCB, since he's only been an associate there for a couple years, but he's been on the team for a couple higher-profile cases in the past few months. He's definitely not famous enough that people would recognize his name if they hadn't been actively looking him up. He has no idea how to feel about that. “So, Mr. Murdock, can you tell me about the situation as you understand it?”

Matt's face contorts a little, like he tasted something bad. “Matt's fine. I'd met Karen Page and Daniel Fisher for drinks at a bar Karen chose the night before last, at about seven. I was a few minutes late, so they'd already ordered drinks when I got there, but it didn't take long to get me one once they found me.”

“Why were you late? What were all of you drinking?” Most clients, Foggy coddles through that kind of conversation. It's probably bad form to ask the questions so baldly, but Matt knows these techniques, Foggy would bet any money. It's better to just be honest and get all the information he's going to need while it's still fresh.

“I had to stop at home for some files I wanted for the meeting, and it took more time to get to the bar than I'd budgeted for. I don't know what Karen was drinking—something in a glass. Daniel and I were both drinking beer, he recommended me the same kind he was drinking, on tap. There should be receipts saying he ordered well before I did.”

Foggy makes a note about the receipts. “How many did you have?”

“I'd just started my second glass, last I remember, but I was feeling it more than I should have been, and both of them seemed to be too.” Matt frowns, remembering. “The meeting wasn't very productive from the start—Daniel wasn't sure about two low-level employees approaching him, and then he was nervous—but we all started feeling our alcohol too fast. I put Karen in a cab and, since Daniel was worse off than me, I offered to walk him home. I know we got there, but the next thing I remember ...”

Foggy waits, but Matt doesn't seem inclined to continue. “Next thing you remember, your hands were bloody and he was dead.”

Matt's mouth quirks in a way he doesn't quite recognize. Just another reminder that they've both grown up a hell of a lot since the first year of college. “Yes. I know how that sounds.”

“Why didn't you put him in a cab like you did Ms. Page?”

“Honestly, I was hoping he would sober up enough that I could talk to him more about what we were meeting about.”

Foggy sighs. “Yes, this meeting. A secretary and a paralegal approach a lawyer about … what, exactly? You talk about going looking for some files, but none were found at the scene.”

“Luckily, they weren't the only copies, but … we have reason to believe that Union Allied is laundering money, doctoring their accounts, something like that. Karen found a discrepancy, and brought it to me, since I'm the only person she knows in Legal. We have lunch sometimes. I thought of bringing it to Daniel.” His fists clench. “I wish I hadn't.”

“Why didn't you bring it to the police?”

“We wanted to be sure. But it seems like someone needs to keep it quiet. Which only makes me believe it more. We need to get the files out, and considering an officer attacked Karen ...”

“This sounds pretty complicated, Mr. Murdock. I know and you know that you didn't really need to go to a lawyer with it. Once you had the data, if something was wrong, you would know it. Why not report from there? Why get Mr. Fisher involved at all?”

“Nobody was going to listen to a paralegal and a secretary, even if we were right. Do you know how Karen is?”

Foggy almost says something extremely unworthy of him, and only his professionalism keeps him from doing it. “Only that she was released, after that mess in holding. She's not in danger right now, charges were dropped, especially since she wasn't the one with blood on her hands. I'd worry more about yourself right now.”

“I didn't do this. I don't remember, so I don't know who did it, but I didn't, Foggy.”

He never really knew Matt, that was made very clear to him, but he always was a sucker for his lies. He just has to hope this one is the truth. “Luckily for both of us, right now it doesn't actually matter one way or the other if you did it or not. It just matters what evidence they do and do not have, and I am going to start figuring that out right about now. If it helps, I'm pretty good, and there's a PI who works with my firm sometimes who might be willing to help.” If Foggy pays her enough. He really doubts Hogarth is going to want to bankroll Jessica Jones's rates for a pro bono case.

“I know you're good. I—thank you. I know you can't have wanted to see me.”

Matt saying it himself kind of takes some of Foggy's righteous anger out of him. There's no response to it that isn't a lie, though, and Foggy remembers every moment of that horrible conversation with the asshole who never bothered introducing himself but who Matt called Stick. He's not going to lie. It wouldn't do him any good. “I'm going to speak to some people, and hopefully the next time we speak it will be about the charges being dropped,” he says, and picks up his papers to leave the room.

Matt doesn't answer, and Foggy is relieved about that. He really is. He's just glad he doesn't have to say that out loud.

“Nelson,” says Jessica Jones, who everyone but Hogarth always refers to by first and last name together, like the opposite of Madonna, and who once referred to him as the most bearable of the associates working under Hogarth. He's pretty sure that secretly means she wants to braid his hair and have sleepovers. “Heard you got involved in some bad-press murder case, good boy of the neighborhood gone wrong.”

“It doesn't look great for him, no.”

“But?” Jessica looks unimpressed, but that's fairly standard. “Come on, you have to give me more than that, and also contribute to my whiskey fund.”

His tiny discretionary fund is all going to be blown on this case and Hogarth is going to raise her eyebrows at him and he's going to get fired and crash and burn and have to be a butcher after all and Matt Murdock is definitely, one hundred percent not worth that. But another lawyer, a lawyer whose heart Matt didn't break, would listen to his client, would fight tooth and nail to get him off, because that's what lawyers do, and Foggy is a good one, no matter what an asshole old man said eight years ago. So he's going to do this. “He says he didn't do it, and for some stupid reason, I believe him. Someone was obviously trying to set up a woman who was working with him, Karen Page, and she almost got strangled in prison. I'm kind of worried they have similar plans in mind for him.”

“Oh yeah? They who?”

“Union Allied Construction. Looks like they've been doctoring some books. I need to work on Ms. Page, see if she'll trust me with the information, because that's going to go a long way to exonerating him.”

“The company could be corrupt and Murdock could be a murderer. One doesn't rule the other out.”

“You know what I like about you? I think it's probably the sense of unending optimism I get from you.” Foggy sighs. “Can you do this? Yeah, yeah, I pay your usual rates, all that, but can you figure out if he actually murdered someone?”

“You're a lawyer. Innocence or guilt doesn't actually matter, right? Just evidence?”

Foggy is not up to unpacking the bitterness in her voice about that one. “Can you do it?”

“I can figure anything out, Nelson. I'll call you when I have what you need.”

Foggy's next job is talking to Karen Page, which turns out to be pretty easy as soon as he walks into the station to sweet-talk Brett into handing over her number, because she's at the front desk, crying and yelling a little about Matt not being guilty and they just have to understand. He clears his throat, and the duty officer looks a little relieved and a little worried. “I'm sorry, would you happen to be Karen Page?” he asks.

She spins on him so fast he puts his hands up in the air, which makes the duty cop twitch a little. “Who are you?”

“My name is Franklin Nelson, and I'm Matt's lawyer. I'm working very hard to get him released, but I think you might be able to help. Think we could maybe get some coffee or something, Ms. Page? My treat?”

“Why should I trust you?”

Foggy has had clients who are paranoid and distrustful before. Hell, he interacts with Jessica Jones on a regular basis. He makes a living off of reading witnesses and juries, and he's not bad at it. Karen Page was attacked in a police station, so whatever she knows, someone wants her to not know it. All things considered, her paranoia is probably pretty healthy and he shouldn't feel too offended about the obvious dislike of the prettiest woman he's met all day. “You probably shouldn't, but that's not going to change standing around in the precinct. Seriously, coffee. Completely public place, you pick the route, stay on the phone with a friend if you want, but I need to know what's going on to help my client, and apparently we have similar goals.”

“Franklin Nelson?”

“You can call me Foggy. Pretty much everyone does.”

“Okay. I'm texting someone that I'm with you and to call the cops if I haven't checked in within two hours. There will be a code phrase.”

Definitely not unwarranted paranoia. “You send your text. I'm going to check in with my client for a minute, make sure he knows about my progress.”

She looks up from her phone, sharp and sudden. “You're not a public defender. How did you find out about the case?”

“Friend at the precinct. He knew I need some pro bono hours, and he also knew that if someone else gets attacked in holding here it will look really bad, so he called the best lawyer he knows.” It's only mostly a lie.

She doesn't look impressed, but Foggy isn't going to blame her for any of that. He is going to be a professional and a good man and everything else he should be, because he's not going to let his ex make him the worst version of himself, even if he kind of wants to be. “And that's it?”

“That's all confidentiality allows. I'll meet you out here as soon as I can. Feel free to tell whoever you like where you're going, and keep me in the dark till we get there.” And hopefully he won't get murdered. If Matt and Karen Page are some kind of serial killing duo he's in trouble, but he's going to hope that Matt didn't end up down that road.

She nods sharply, and Foggy goes through the layers of red tape to get back to Matt, who comes into the interview room hunched and frowning, way more pinched than he should be considering he looked at least reasonably okay only hours ago. “Foggy,” he says once they're alone. “Do you have news already?”

“I have my best woman on the case, and I'm about to try to get your best woman to trust me with whatever evidence she's got, because that's the best way to exonerate you that I can think of.”

Matt frowns. “I don't want Karen in danger.”

“Assuming you didn't kill Mr. Fisher—and I don't think you did,” he adds when Matt flinches, even though he's only a little bit sure that's true, “then there's some kind of conspiracy about these Union Allied doctored accounts that people are willing to murder for. Twice, I guess, since Ms. Page was apparently attacked in custody. You can defend yourself if they come for you, right?”

“They don't need to come for me if they discredit me, and that's already been done for them.”

“So if we get them to drop the charges, that's when you need to be worrying? Cool, good to know that's on the horizon. Anyway, what I'm saying is that Karen is already in danger. I'm trying to get both her and you out of it, and the way to do that is to spread the information you two have around so much that trying to do away with everyone who knows should be impossible.”

Matt's face goes through a range of expressions that Foggy would bet any money he doesn't realize Foggy still knows how to read. Matt may have kept secrets the whole time they knew each other, might have gone off with some kind of weird ninja trainer as soon as he crooked his wrinkly finger and insulted Foggy a couple times, but his poker face sucks. “There's a reporter at the Bulletin, I follow his stories and I think he could write this one. Ben Urich. Karen agreed to that plan, once we had some more evidence.”

Foggy hates this whole case and regrets every life choice he and the Columbia Housing Department have ever made. “Okay, I will talk to Karen about that as soon as I'm sure you're not going to be slapped with a libel suit on top of the whole murder in the first degree thing. Do you have a code word or something that will make her stop looking at me like I'm in here with a stiletto to kill you with? The knife kind, to be clear, not the shoe kind.”

There's a twitch that's almost a smile. “No. She'll trust you, though. It's hard not to.”

“I don't think you found it—no, sorry, unfair. Look, I hope you know that no matter what happened in the past, you're going to get the best legal representation I can manage.”

Now Matt is looking unhappy again, but there's really no avoiding that. “I know that. Thank you. Just … be Foggy Nelson. Karen will like you. I promise.”

Foggy has no idea what the fuck to do with that, but he thanks Matt anyway, updates him on the course he's taking and all the avenues he's preparing, and goes to meet up with Karen Page.

“Matt talked about you a time or two,” Karen says begrudgingly over coffee, looking a lot more poised than she did in the station but no less weary.

Foggy suddenly feels a lot less poised. “Nobody wants to hear what their exes have to say about them, I'm pretty sure.”

“If you feel that way, why are you defending him?”

Rubbing it in Matt's face that he grew up better and more successful than that asshole said he would, and probably lording it over him a little that he got to do what he wanted while Matt's ninja career means he's not a lawyer like he wanted to be. Indulging in the last few fond feelings he has left. Proving to himself that he can be a good person. “Believe me, if I had a concise answer I'd feel way less weird about this whole thing.”

“He only ever said good things about you,” she says, testing, maybe twisting the knife a little. “That's the only reason I'm here.”

“And, I hope, to help him. Because if you have anything resembling proof about what you two say you found, that's going to be the fastest way to get him free that I can think of.”

She doesn't look convinced, but that's fine. That was just the opening sally. Foggy skirts the subject, asks how long she and Matt worked together, how well she knew Daniel Fisher, whether she thought their drinks at the bar had been drugged, and if so, how the people drugging them knew where to find them. Karen answers the questions begrudgingly, and finally with a little more openness. It's not exactly a trust circle, but it helps.

“There's a USB drive with the files on it,” Karen finally says. “Only I know where it's hidden.”

“That just gives them more motivation to go after you, not less,” says Foggy, as gently as he can manage, and her jaw tightens as she nods. “You don't have to give it to me. Matt said you had your eye on a journalist, but make sure you're copying the files. The more copies, with the more people, the less reason anyone has to kill you. Except being pissed off, I guess.”

Her smile is small and actually a bit worrying. “I do piss people off sometimes.”

“So share some information. Fair warning, any reputable journalist is going to laugh you our of their office the first couple times, but you can try. I'm working with Jessica Jones, who's a very good and very scary PI. Check out her Yelp reviews, ask me for her number, whatever, but she could do things with that information that none of the rest of us can.”

She nods slowly, and he thinks that maybe she might even be saying yes. “I might do that. Jessica Jones, you said?” He nods in return. “I'll look into her, and see if I can talk to Ben Urich. You concentrate on getting Matt out.”

“It's all part of the same thing.”

“I guess so.” She frowns. “I know enough about you after a few months of working with Matt to say … I don't know. To thank you for stepping in, I guess, if you're legitimate about it.”

Foggy really wants to ask what the hell Matt has said about him, why he'd bring up a guy he only knew for a few months and left willingly—eagerly, even. But that's not really his business, and he needs his head as clear as it will get for this case. Plus, he can respect Karen's nosiness, but he sure doesn't need to indulge it. “I'm really trying to help, yeah. This isn't an elaborate plot of vengeance against my ex so I can get him thrown in prison for the rest of his life.”

She still doesn't look convinced, but he's going to have to let time take care of that.

Jessica calls him that night, when he's looking through police reports and statements to find any matter of procedure that's been done wrong so he can get Matt out that way. There hasn't even been a bail hearing yet, because there aren't technically charges, because it's the damn weekend, but charges will be coming pretty fast on Monday morning if Foggy is any judge.

“You didn't tell me your ex-boyfriend was wrapped up in this, Nelson. Not sure if I should be charging you more, or less because I'm going to be able to blackmail you about it forever.”

Foggy sighs. “Always nice to hear from you, Jones. What do you have?”

“Your guy has some pretty shady connections. Are you sure he didn't do this?”

“If he did, I'm pretty sure it would be covered up better.” That's what shady ninja organizations are for, Foggy's pretty sure. “Did you call just to show off what you found going through Facebook?” He knows there's a picture or two of them from that first semester out there. “Or do you have actual information?”

“I've got a lead, and a call from someone Page. Carol, maybe?”

“Karen.”

“Sure. Is she legit?”

“I think she is, and if she trusts you it's way more than I'm getting from her.” Jessica snorts. “Or if she just gives you the information, I'm not expecting miracles. But apparently she's got a USB drive with some files from Union Allied that might prove they're up to something if she'd obtained them by legal means. Which is why she's trying to leak them to the press.”

“Smart,” says Jessica, as close to impressed as she ever gets, which is still pretty sarcastic. “I'll talk to her. Union Allied is definitely up to something—most of these opportunist construction companies are, but they're especially shitty. That doesn't prove your boyfriend didn't murder that guy, though.”

“Again, I know. But all I have to do is muddy the waters.”

“Lawyers. You really make a person feel all warm and fuzzy and trusting of the justice system.”

“You climbed into a tree outside someone's apartment window and photographed him getting spanked by his mistress two weeks ago,” Foggy points out.

Jessica snorts. “Yeah, yeah, we both lead glamorous, classy lives. Look, keep your head down, okay? Assuming you and Clara are right about this whole vast conspiracy thing, they're going to have the money to go after you.”

“I knew you loved me,” Foggy says, because he knows it will make her swear and hang up, which she does. He allows himself a few seconds to grin, because it's hard to come out of a conversation with Jessica Jones feeling like a winner, before he sobers up. This is getting messier and messier, and he's regretting picking up Brett's phone call more by the second.

Or at least he'll keep telling himself that.

Matt looks even worse when Foggy visits him the next morning, like he hasn't slept at all. Foggy has dim memories of Matt saying something confused about hearing like a bat, and smelling like a bloodhound, and if it was true, or if he's remembering right, Matt has to be pretty miserable in holding. He'd be even more miserable in gen pop, and they're out of time before charges get brought.

“I don't have good news yet,” Foggy admits, and watches Matt's shoulders slump. “I have a PI on the Union Allied track, I've been looking through evidence, but you might have to win this in trial.”

“You would win it. I know you would. If it gets that far.”

Foggy is familiar with Matt's brand of pessimism, even a few years down the line. “They already tried it with Karen and it didn't work. If they try with you, it's going to be really obvious that they're trying to cover something up. So it'll get to trial, but if there is some sort of conspiracy and you're not the murderer, they'll try to rig the trial. Right?”

Matt swallows. Foggy waits. “I don't know what they're capable of. But if they can buy off an officer to try to kill Karen … probably.”

“You remember the procedure? They bring charges, you plead not guilty, we figure out bail and get you free ASAP. Do you have … uh, anyone who will post that?” Shady ninja organizations can probably afford bail, if Matt is still with them.

Matt nods shortly, which kind of proves Foggy's guess that he's still with those people. “I'll give you a number to call if it comes to that,” he says. “Are you—no, never mind.”

“Just ask. We may as well lay our cards on the table.”

“Are you happy?”

Foggy would lay any odds that it's not actually what Matt was going to ask the first time, but he'll answer anyway. “As happy as most people are, I figure, in general. At this exact moment, no, because I'm trying to keep my ex-boyfriend out of prison and as I'm sure you know that's awkward to say the least.”

Matt's mouth twitches, not quite a smile but not not a smile either. “I can understand that.”

“But my happiness is not relevant right now. I'm going to talk to someone about the charges. You just … try to look mild-mannered and behave so the judge is more likely to set a low bail, okay? I hope it doesn't come to that, but it can't hurt to be prepared.”

“Thank you for doing this.”

“Thank me when you're out of here.”

Matt doesn't seem to have anything to say about that, so Foggy goes to try to sweet-talk Brett, who one of these days will allow himself to be sweet-talked. It doesn't get Matt anywhere, especially since apparently now the DA's office is very much involved, but he can at least tell himself he's laying a foundation.

“You want out of this.”

“Hi, Jessica, how are you? I'm shitty because Hogarth is giving me the judgey face for taking on this case and also all the evidence seems a little too legit.”

“Your boyfriend didn't do it, whatever, someone else can get him out of jail because like I said, you want out of this.”

Foggy takes a deep breath, lets it out, and tries to scrape together some kind of response to that. “How do you know he didn't do it? And what is it that I want out of? Because I think I can make my own decisions about that.”

“About a crime lord taking advantage of the reconstruction to try to make the city his and your ex and Karen Page being stuck in the middle of it? Because that's what's happening.”

“Of fucking course it is.”

“Also, you know your ex is sketchy, right? I really hope that's not news to you. He was off the grid for years and now he's living somewhere that a paralegal's salary really would not pay for and also he spends a whole lot of time at a boxing gym.”

There's a reason he called Jessica in on this, and Foggy reminds himself that her being too smart for anyone's good is a good thing, not a bad one. “I know he's sketchy. He's not the mystery here, so if you want to dig up his secrets you can do it on your own time. How bad is this whole crime lord thing?”

“Bad. I'm still digging his name up, that bad. Murdock crossed the wrong person, and if that information gets out, especially connected to him, he'll be coming for everyone. Including you.”

“And you?”

“I can handle myself, Nelson. You can't.”

“Hey, I am a whiz with a baseball bat and also with screaming, I have excellent lung capacity.” It's amazing how he can hear Jessica's unimpressed look over the phone. “If I drop this, Matt's going down for a murder he didn't commit. So for preference, I would get him out without poking the vicious crime lord. Is that a possibility?”

Jessica mutters something uncharitable about lemmings and also someone named Trish that he thinks is supposed to be disparaging his self-preservation instincts. “Let me figure it out. I'll forward you what I've got about Murdock. I'm dealing with the files from Karen, and she's talking to Urich at the Bulletin even though I gave her this warning too, so there's going to be a blast radius. Try not to be in it.”

“Super comforting,” he says, but she's already hung up, so Foggy makes a face at his phone and goes back to work.

The tox screens come back by noon, and Foggy heaves a sigh of relief as soon as they come in, because there it is, the lever he can use to get Matt out of prison, and maybe even trial: all three of them were drugged with the same chemical, and Matt had enough in his system that it was a miracle he was conscious when the police found him, which also explains why Matt doesn't remember anything.

“There are a hundred things they'll argue,” Matt says when Foggy brings him the news. “I could have built up an immunity, I could have stabbed him when I was unconscious, maybe on a bad trip, but that would reduce it to manslaughter at best.”

“Yeah, and I know how much the police hate to lose a suspect they could pin something on, because they like their solve rates high, but it's reasonable doubt and raises the wonderfully muddying question of who drugged you all in the first place.”

Matt's smile is tiny, but it's at least a smile. “I can't say I'd mind knowing the answer to that myself. Any leads yet?”

“It's barely part of the case so far, unfortunately, but it's not your everyday roofies, so there's a chance they'll be able to track the supply, and from what I was able to tell from a quick google, it's too expensive to afford on a paralegal's salary. Though so is your apartment, from what I hear.”

Matt winces. “Using some of my dad's life insurance policy, since I didn't use all of it for ...” He trails off, and Foggy fills in the whole story about ending up as a ninja instead of a lawyer, even if he doesn't know large parts of that story. “But my finances are clean.” If probably slightly laundered to get that way. “I never drugged anyone, and … I suppose I could be violent while unconscious if I was having the wrong nightmare, but I don't know how to use knives.”

“Maybe don't tell the nice police officers that, Matty,” says Foggy, and immediately wants to take the nickname back, because Matt looks so stupidly happy all of a sudden, like they aren't still sitting in a police station and Matt isn't going to go down for someone else's murder when something about a crime lord is happening and getting him involved. “You said in your statement that the reason you had a knife in your hands when the police knocked the door down is that you were removing it from his chest so you could attempt CPR.”

“There was enough blood that I didn't think it would work, but I felt for his pulse and there were a few beats so I wanted to try. It … I didn't really have the time, and I don't think it would have worked anyway.” That's all consistent with his statement, anyway, which is good. Foggy hopes he lied as little as possible to the police. “I was a few feet away from him when I woke up—I think it was a few feet, I can't really gauge the distance. I woke up because I felt something wet, I thought maybe I'd dropped a water glass when I was drunk or something, but it smelled wrong. That was the first time I touched him.”

“Okay. I'll see if I can sweet-talk some crime scene analysts, see if they can find some proof of that, that would help. Or I hope it would. The tox screen is the first big break we've had, we should try to ride the momentum a little bit. It was a kitchen knife, from the same set as his, but you're blind and you were drugged, so you would have left your DNA all over his kitchen looking for a knife. There's an angle to work.”

Matt nods. “I wish I could help more.”

“All you have to do is tell the truth as you remember it. The rest of it is my job.”

“I remember a lot of things,” says Matt, that asshole. He must realize that Foggy is not too many moments from decking him, because he shakes his head, straightens his shoulders. “Thank you for all your help. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Just don't say anything to the police unless I'm here and everything will be okay.” That's familiar. He's said that to plenty of clients before, sometimes comforting, sometimes exasperated. He really has no idea what he's feeling like today. “I'll talk to you later.”

Foggy is expecting calls from about four different terrifying women, but Marci Stahl isn't one of them. It's only been three weeks since the last time she called him for a night of drinks and no-strings-attached sex, and usually they go a couple months between. So he picks up feeling some trepidation, which is immediately validated when she greets him with a husky “It's your lucky day, Foggy, you're being headhunted.”

“As much as I enjoy head in all its forms, I do not know what you're talking about,” he says, which is about ninety-five percent a lie.

“I just had a very interesting conversation with one of our senior partners, who heard that you've got a great reputation and wanted to hear all about you. I talked you up, of course. Good old 'Guts' Nelson—”

“I regret ever telling you about my junior high attempts to make myself seem cooler.”

“Never gives up on a case or a sob story, puts juries at their ease and then wins debates while you aren't paying attention, really good with his tongue … don't worry, I kept that part to myself. But he'd heard about you somewhere and seemed very interested, and then he told me to call you.”

“I'm happy where I am, Marci, we have this conversation every time you ask why I don't want to be just a tiny bit more soulless. And where the hell would he have heard of me? I haven't taken on anything big lately.”

“Which is great,” she says, blithely ignoring him saying that he's not up for a job switch, “because he says you should drop all your cases and come next week if you can. Hogarth and company have enough of a stable that you wouldn't ruin anything, and our offer is very persuasive. Five thousand above your current salary to start, and guaranteed promotion within five years. People would kill for that kind of promise from Landman and Zack.”

“Yeah, because I'm pretty sure they would actually run the Hunger Games if they could get away with it.” Foggy sighs. “Look, I at least need some time to think.”

“Clock is ticking, Foggy Bear! It's a very limited time offer.”

A very limited time offer. A pointed mention that sounds parroted about dropping all his current cases. A law firm that tends to care a little more about money than about the actual law. Crap. “How limited are we talking here?”

“End of the business day. If I don't get a yes out of you, he's just going to call with the hard sell, and believe me, I could make you a really hard sell, don't put him to the trouble.”

If she's purring her words out like that, he suspects the partner promised her a not-insignificant bonus and maybe a promotion too. Normally she's not exactly willing to say out loud how much she wants to have sex with him. Theirs is a relationship built on subtext and cocktails and a few too many late-night study sessions in law school. “Marci,” he says, and stops. She is, kind of sadly, one of the best friends he has. “With all due respect, I think L and Z is involved in something extremely shady right now and that you might want to be out of there before it hits the fan.”

“What makes you say that?” she asks, and all the flirtation goes right out of her voice like it was never there.

“Why the hell else would they suddenly be doing aggressive recruitment of a no-name lawyer they turned down for an internship? Aggressive, time-sensitive recruitment that would require him to drop all his cases? You just said it. I never give up on one.”

“If you got mixed up with the mob or something ...”

“I'm kind of worried that you did. Think about it, okay? Your senior partner can try to give me the hard sell if he wants, but I don't drop my cases. Maybe you should tell him that.”

“Just think about it. We'd make great co-counsels,” she says, and hangs up on him.

Landman and Zack is trying to shark tank recruit me and get me to drop my cases while I'm at it. They might be a lead, he texts Jessica Jones.

Watch your back, he gets back twenty minutes later.

Foggy sighs and picks up his phone to harass the police department about the tox screens and the crime scene analysis.

Karen Page calls him that evening, when he's halfway through a motion for Matt's release for insufficient evidence, which is more wishful thinking than anything else, if slightly less wishful than it was that morning. “Ben Urich wants to meet you, to ask about your professional opinion on the evidence. He and Jessica Jones have been talking.”

If there's enough evidence for Jessica to talk to the press, that's definitely something. Maybe not something that will prove Matt's innocence, but something that could mean a break in whatever he's accidentally gotten himself involved in. “I'm still at the office. You two can come here, or I can meet you somewhere.”

There's a somewhat muffled conversation on Karen's end of the line. “We'll come to you.” She sounds kind of terrified about it. “We'll be there in twenty minutes or so.”

“There are security guards on duty, and they are too long-term and bored to be plants from an evil organization,” Foggy promises, maybe a little optimistically. “And we can fudge your names in the visitor register.”

They do just that when they get there. Ben Urich looks wary and exhausted but also trustworthy. Foggy has looked up some of his stories, and he's best-known for some of his big stories in the wake of the superpower-related disasters New York has seen recently, including a piece about Killgrave when that shitshow went down as Foggy was just starting under Hogarth that was mostly about the needs of the police force to adapt when superpowered individuals were around, a fact of life and not unlikely to commit crimes. That one, Foggy remembers reading at the time, and thinking about the ex-boyfriend who'd told him about hearing heartbeats and voices from across the city, about having a radar instead of sight, on the worst night of Foggy's life. It's not really an auspicious beginning for them, though Mr. Urich definitely doesn't know that.

“I'm not a numbers person,” he says when he has them sitting. Karen looks a lot steadier than she did before, like tracking down leads has given her a sense of purpose that she needs in the wake of disaster. Foggy can't blame her. “I don't know how much help I'm going to be with this. And I'm going to say up front that none of this is on the record, sorry, Mr. Urich. Client confidentiality.”

Mr. Urich leans back in his chair, arms crossed. “Anonymous sourcing?”

“Not even that. First interview rights if this turns out to be as big as we think it might be.”

“I'll take that,” he says, and finally seems to relax a little. “Karen and I have been running these figures, and I've been looking through some other stories about the construction that haven't added up. The city's funneling all this money into it and it's still not happening fast enough to get people back into Hell's Kitchen and other neighborhoods that got hit the hardest. When it is happening, it's buildings too expensive for the displaced people to afford, so at best someone's taking advantage of a housing crisis to up the rent even more, price out people who have lived here for generations.”

“It is pretty hard to find a place to rent these days,” Foggy allows. “So you think this is some kind of housing mogul, a gentrification effort? Why would they start framing people for murder?”

“My guess is that this person, whoever they are, hasn't always been aboveboard, or doesn't always do things the right way.”

“You think?” Foggy sighs and opens a folder at random, mostly for something to do. It's the Union Allied company manifest Jessica has been trying to track down through shell companies to get to the actual owner, which only makes him feel more frustrated. “You guys may be on a crusade, but frankly, as long as Matt gets out of prison and stays alive, I'm happy.”

Karen frowns. “I'm not. I'm not going to let them scare me, or shut me up.”

“And that's your prerogative. Just don't get yourself killed, okay? That would upset Matt.” He looks back to Mr. Urich. “I still don't know what kind of help I'm going to be about this.”

“I want to know if we're dealing with a real estate scam and an unfortunately legal kind of cruelty or if we're dealing with someone who would have someone murdered—multiple people murdered, including Ms. Page—and frame someone to cover up the crime. In your professional opinion, is Matt Murdock guilty?”

“No.” Matt's definitely not just a mild-mannered paralegal, but he didn't kill Daniel Fisher. “He was drugged just as much as Mr. Fisher, if not more, and I assume the police will realize that means he didn't do it soon.”

“You know the police,” says Mr. Urich, weary again. “They like to have an alternate theory in mind before they abandon their first one.”

“I guess we're finding an alternate theory, aren't we? What do you two have? Anything that would get Matt out of it?”

“If people buy the numbers when Ben publishes them, buy that Union Allied is scamming the city, they'd believe that he was framed.” Karen is fervent, believes it completely, and Foggy thinks about a dorm room bed too small for two fully-grown men and the light in Matt's face while he said And we could work for the community, keep people from getting hurt, keep criminals from hurting them, the two of us against it all. Idealism doesn't always work, but he wants it to, for Karen's sake.

“I really hope you're right.” He looks at Mr. Urich. “Are you going to print?”

“I need plenty of sources. I need to be sure on this.”

“I can't blame you. Jones has been talking to you, right?” Urich nods. “If there's proof, she'll get it for you. Write fast? The court of public opinion is half the battle, and if this goes half as deep as I'm starting to think it does, we're going to need them on our side.”

“I'll do what I can.” He clears his throat. “Karen mentioned that you know Mr. Murdock. Is that why you're so sure he didn't do it?”

“I'm sure he didn't do it because the evidence I've seen makes me feel like he's being set up, and that's all,” Foggy says firmly. “And that's still not on the record.”

Both of them are watching him, pretty much the same look on their faces, but neither of them says a thing, just goes back to talking about the numbers.

Foggy's phone rings the next morning when he's hurrying through some paperwork for another case, trying to get contracts in place for a client Hogarth actually approves of, and it's Brett, so he picks it up. “You did not hear this from me, but Murdock is being released today. Some new evidence got introduced, which you probably already know about, you asshole, and you should get the paperwork ready. He's still a person of interest, but the charges are going to be dropped for now.”

Foggy is not exactly the praying kind, but he might have to change his mind, because only the hand of a merciful God could have done this without him having to expose a vast crime lord conspiracy. “Would that new evidence have anything to do with Matt not being able to find a kitchen knife without leaving his DNA and fingerprints all over the kitchen and those things not being there? Because I mentioned that to the DA. At length.”

He is not making any friends at the DA's office with this case and he has sometimes entertained vague notions about running himself someday, but he really cannot deal with professional disaster on top of personal disaster right now.

“The whole department knows that. Just be ready to come down here, okay?”

Considering Foggy was already wondering if he had an excuse to go down besides consulting with his client, that's not going to be a hardship. He's not going to tell Brett, though, because he has known since the age of six that Brett is a tattletale, and Bess would sell him out to his mom in an instant if she heard he was even thinking about talking to Matt, much less representing him in the matter of a murder charge. “I'll put it on my extensive to-do list. Thanks, Brett. For being in touch about this whole case. It's been nice to have some closure.”

The best thing about childhood friends, or even childhood enemies, is that they know when it's not going to do them any good to push. “Don't get yourself pulled down with him if he's going down,” he finally says. “I'm on shift till six tonight unless something shitty happens, so maybe I'll see you. And if you have any control over whether something shitty happens ...”

“Amazingly, my iron control over the city seems to be slipping lately,” says Foggy, dry as he can get. “Talk to you later, Brett. And tell my client that if he leaves before I've talked to him he's going to be in for a world of completely legal and non-violent hurt.”

When he hangs up, after a few threats of arrest (what's a little abuse of power among friends), Foggy can't concentrate on anything, stupidly nervous to see Matt without a table and some bad prison clothes between them the way he wasn't when Brett first called him. Outside of the constant surveillance of a police station, there are some conversations it would be weird not to have, and Foggy is just starting to come to some kind of peace with all of this, even if that peace is pretty much based on feeling sorry for Matt. He doesn't want to start hating him again.

He channels his energy into texting Jessica. Looks like he's being released, at least temporarily.

Whatever, congrats, Urich is paying me to look into this crime lord, I've been in the city records office all day and I think I have to go out of the city to shake down an old lady tomorrow.

Trust Jessica to give him exciting new things to worry about. Please do not incriminate yourself, Hogarth will definitely make me defend you.

He doesn't get a response, which is kind of alarming, but for now apparently it's Urich's problem, so Foggy goes back to worrying about Matt and pretending that he's doing no such thing.

Foggy shows up at the precinct at three in the afternoon with some clothes that he really hopes will fit Matt and all the paperwork he even suspects he might need. He's half expecting to run into Karen, but instead he's led to where Matt is getting a lecture about how they might have follow-up questions and he shouldn't leave the city, all the usual warnings that they give all the usual suspects.

“Hey, Matt,” says Foggy, and eight years of stewing on lies and impossibilities and it's still weird that Matt definitely knew Foggy was there before he said it, maybe as soon as he said hello to the duty officer and got directions where he needed to go. “I brought you some clothes, since I figured yours would still be in the evidence locker or ruined.”

Matt still looks exhausted, but his smile is a lot brighter than it has been. “Thanks, Foggy. Do you need to talk to them about closing the case?”

“Yeah, you get changed, I'll check on the conditions under which you're a free man as long as the officer here says you're fine to go.”

Even if he's mostly not doing criminal law these days, Foggy knows this rhythm, talking to the officers, confirming everything in triplicate, keeping one eye out for his dumbass client.

Matt takes fifteen minutes and comes out in the clothes Foggy brought, since whatever he's wearing these days is, again, probably covered in blood in a lab somewhere. At least his cane was apparently left at Fisher's door and got cleared as evidence pretty quickly. He looks more like a stranger out of the scrounged-up police wardrobe he's been wearing, like a reminder that they've had way more time apart than they ever had together. Without glasses on, rumpled and tired across an interview table, there was some vulnerability there. Now, even in sweats with the waistband pulled tight and a t-shirt Foggy never got rid of after an ex left it at his apartment, he looks pulled back and put together.

“We're all set,” says Foggy, because one of them has to say something. “Let's walk and talk, reintroduce you to the city and discuss what followup actions to take.”

Matt nods and follows along in Foggy's wake, his shoulders straightening as soon as they're out of the building and out into a sunny New York day. New York doesn't care if there's a crime lord out there or if Foggy is about to have one of the more awkward conversations of his life, and that's the same kind of comfort it usually is, anyway.

“I've gotta say, I kept an eye on the police blotter for the past couple years, in case your ninja stuff got you in trouble. I can't say I expected you to be getting framed for murder. Or working a regular job at all,” Foggy finally says, because he may as well put his cards on the table.

Matt looks around like maybe someone is going to jump out of the shadows and ask what they're talking about, but Foggy figures that anyone who hears him talking about Matt's ninja shit is just going to think that he's into martial arts or action figures or Bruce Lee movies or something. “There are times when they don't need me. And it helps if I can maintain appearances.”

Foggy is not going to respond to how sad that is, because Matt is talking like it's totally normal and he does not need to get pulled into that. “And then sometimes you use all your vacation time to go off and … do whatever it is that you do?”

“When they need me. If it's something that matters. I don't—I don't let them make me do things I know are wrong.”

In retrospect, Matt probably would have made a kind of shitty lawyer, considering his extremely flexible attitudes towards the law. “Okay,” he says, because that's really not his business to say. “Am I going to get stalked by Mr. Miyagi for daring to talk to you, out of curiosity? Because I'm an old man now, I might have a heart attack if he comes out of the shadows and calls me names again.”

Matt looks wrathful. “Stick has no reason to come near you, and he won't if I have anything to say about it.”

“I still can't believe you know a guy named Stick.”

“And a guy named Foggy,” Matt points out, and Foggy can't help laughing a little at that one, even though Matt's smile is wan at best and fades right back into sadness and anger. “I'm sorry.”

Foggy doesn't fool himself that Matt is talking about anything that's happened recently. It's not exactly Matt's fault that he got framed for murder while trying to figure out an embezzlement scandal, though it's definitely a very Matt thing to get involved in. No, if he's sorry for anything, it's what happened in college. “That was a really long time ago.” He doesn't say he'd forgotten about it, that it wasn't a big deal, because Matt can tell when he's lying. “And what happened happened. It's not going to change now. I'm glad you're doing okay, though.”

“I'm—yes. You too. I'm glad you're doing so well, that you're in a good firm and finding your way through, promotions and everything else.”

Foggy is going to make junior partner within a year, considering he's pretty firmly under Hogarth's wing if only so he's close to hand for scut work. He can probably make senior partner fairly young too, and then he'll have it made. No more worrying about his parents' mortgage, let alone his own. “And you? Are you going to find somewhere else to be a paralegal? Do your ninja missions when Stick shows up and tells you to drop everything?”

That's too harsh, he can tell from the way Matt winces, but he's not going to ask for forgiveness. He's allowed to be a little bitter. “I guess,” Matt says finally, mouth all twisted up. “Maybe I'll look at a law firm this time. I won't—I won't bother you, don't worry.”

“Yeah, that would be a hell of a conflict of interest.” He wants to ask Matt about the ninja stuff, if it's involved with this whole Union Allied thing or if that was just Matt's always-strong sense of justice at work. Instead, he sighs. “I've got to get back to the office, but we'll keep each other updated about your tail end of the case, and you've got my number now, so call me up sometime and maybe we can grab a drink, catch up.” He kind of hopes Matt doesn't call, even as he wants him to. He's never claimed to be consistent.

“Maybe,” says Matt, looking about as torn as Foggy feels. “Thank you for helping with all of this. I know a public defender would have worked hard, but … well, you're the best lawyer I know.”

“Take care of yourself, would you?” says Foggy, because that sounds like goodbye, like maybe he's going to drop his whole life and go to ground as much as being a person of interest will let him do, and at least this time maybe there can be some sense of closure.

Matt smiles, and it's a shadow of the bright grin Foggy used to get in college. “I'll try.”

Jessica calls him that evening, because of course she does. “I know your boy is out of prison and so you don't care anymore, but the guy behind this is Wilson Fisk, and he's scum.”

Foggy is halfway down a beer and just wants to be left to get the whole way down the six-pack, because he really deserves it after the whirlwind of the last few days. He puts the bottle down, because it seems he's not getting that quite yet. “Does Ben know about this? Karen?”

“I talked to Urich, he'll probably talk to Page. Hell, Page should take over my job sometime, she's nosy. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't gone on this little trip she would have, as soon as she found Fisk's mom.” Jessica sounds smug. “Think Murdock wants in on this, since Fisk already got him arrested once and probably isn't his biggest fan?”

“I don't know, you should probably ask Karen that, she knows him best.”

“I saw your Facebook posts. Are you really trying to sell me on that?”

“I really didn't know him very well, Jones, trust me on it.” Foggy rubs his forehead. “Look, if you guys want to get mixed up with a crime lord, that's your prerogative, but could you maybe remember that you're not the Avengers? People get mad enough at them for trying to do this kind of thing, and you are all private, non-rich citizens who are going to get me fired if I try to defend all of you in court. God knows Hogarth and I had enough trouble after—you know, last year.”

“Yeah. Last year,” she says, voice flat. “I'm not asking you to get involved in this, Nelson. Unless you want to advise on how to do it legally, like that ever works with this kind of guy.”

Foggy's legal specialties aren't exactly dismantling criminal empires, but Hogarth has him tagging along for some corporate cases, and considering Fisk cares enough about opinions to at least have a few businesses on the right side of the law, the situations might not be totally dissimilar. Not that Hogarth has taught him how to dismantle a corporation. “Unfortunately, I probably need some level of plausible deniability. I can advise on some non-specific questions if you really need it, but it's safer for me, and for all of you in the long run, if I'm not involved. And I know you weren't asking me to be involved. I'm just asking you guys to play this smart. It's going to be hard to defend you in court if you're dead. Any of you.”

“Aw, didn't know you cared,” says Jessica, and hangs up.

He just opted out, so he's not going to hear about this again unless someone gets arrested. He's sure about that. Matt's back out of his life, other than follow-up about the case, and that's the way it should be.

Foggy can keep telling himself that, anyway.

Ben's article is not the first sign he has that something big is happening, in retrospect. Marci sent an ominous text the night before it went to print about rats and sinking ships that he thought had to do with the headlines about a rash of resignations in the police force and city hall that all happened within the course of a week. But the morning comes and there's Ben Urich's byline on the front page of the Bulletin and everyone in New York is talking about a drug bust and a list miles long of corruption charges and housing rackets and one man at the center of all of it.

Landman and Zack is not-too-surprisingly on the list of groups implicated, and Foggy shoots Marci a text of sympathy, now that he knows what she's talking about. Once he's done that, he goes back and reads the article again. Karen and Matt are mentioned, since they were the ones who found the information, but Jessica must be reduced to an “anonymous source,” probably at her own request.

They've had a really busy couple of weeks, apparently, while Foggy has gone back to his regular caseload and tried not to look over his shoulder too much, worrying that something was about to go wrong.

But there it is in the papers, all wrapped up neat, and by the time he checks a few other news sources, it's becoming national news, how the cleanup from the Incident left an opportunity for New York to turn into its worst self, full of corruption. By noon, Tony Stark has released a statement to the press praising Urich for his research, condemning anyone using the disaster for profit, and pledging an unreal amount of money to speed up construction efforts on housing for low-income people who got displaced in the Incident.

Foggy feels like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, and he's sure there's another shoe, probably in the form of trials, which can easily be lost if Wilson Fisk still has any influence at all in New York.

Marci, always the most charming kind of bad penny, turns up at the office two days later and sits on his desk like the first five minutes of a porno. “Hogarth said you put in a good word for me.”

“Least I could do,” Foggy says, with a shrug that doesn't look nearly as casual as he wants it to.

“Take me out for drinks tonight and I'll show you the least I can do,” she says, and it's only not a leer because Marci Stahl frowns on leering.

He winces in advance, knowing what a tell he's about to give, but he shakes his head. “Maybe next time. Not up for it tonight.”

Marci is a lawyer, with a lawyer's instinct for blood in the water, and she goes from casually seductive to ready to cross-examine in less than two seconds. “Someone really got to you, huh? Something about that case that you were working when you turned down my job offer?”

When all is said and done, Marci is one of his best friends, and one of the few people who knows any of the story at all. “You remember me talking about Matt from college?”

“Mostly when you were drunk and morbid, yes.” She frowns. “Your Matt is Matt Murdock from this whole situation, right? That's fucking unfortunate, Foggy Bear.”

“You don't know the half of it.”

He knows it's bad from the way Marci pats his hand, all sympathy, and says “We're going out tonight, to celebrate me being employed somewhere that isn't going to get me put in prison. Don't worry. I'll pay.”

Life doesn't go back to normal, because the new normal involves a whole lot of arrests in every new edition of the paper, the whole nation marveling at the way New York went to shit the second there was an opportunity that someone knew to seize. Wilson Fisk makes speeches from behind bars about making the city better, about breaches of privacy and being misunderstood, and Ben Urich runs story after story about the people he hurt, the people he's still hurting while the city and state drag their feet about dismantling his empire.

There are also stories about some man in a weird costume taking down some of Fisk's people before the police can, and he's trying hard not to think about that.

Foggy does the last of the paperwork for Matt and doesn't talk to any of them, since miraculously there's a dearth of cases that require Jessica's help, so he doesn't have to have the reminder.

That's why it's such a surprise when Karen calls. “Is something the matter?” he asks when they're through with pleasantries, because it's the only reason he can think of that would make her call when she doesn't seem to trust him at all, even after he got Matt out of prison.

“No. I just wanted to check in. There are still enough of Fisk's people out there to endanger us, and there's definitely enough to connect you to us, even if we've been keeping out of it.” She lowers her voice. “I think someone's watching me, on and off. Have you noticed anything like that?”

“No, but I'm not exactly trained to notice it. What about the others? Matt, Ben, Jessica?”

“We've been talking about it, and I realized nobody had asked you, so I thought I would call.”

She sounds like she finds this conversation about as awkward as he does, at least. “Thanks for the warning, that wasn't terrifying at all.”

There's something that's almost a laugh at that, and then Karen quiets down again, and he thinks she's going to ring off, but instead she says “We've all left you on your own with this. Matt said we should leave you alone and Jessica said you shouldn't be implicated, but I think you shouldn't be on your own. You were part of all of it.”

“Implicated in what? You guys were solving crimes, not committing them.” He hopes. He's not even going to touch Matt telling them all to leave him be, because he still has no idea what to do about Matt's sudden reappearance in his life, brief but still leaving him reeling.

“Implicated to Fisk and his people, I mean.” She hums over the line, thinking. “Look, I called you up to ask you if you want to meet for a drink. We're all meeting up tomorrow night, a place in the neighborhood called Josie's. To check in, and maybe celebrate a little, though of course there are still trials to get through.”

Foggy should say no. It's the smart play, and it's the play Matt no doubt wants him to make, and he wouldn't get any more involved with Wilson Fisk than everyone else in the city is. Hogarth is doing her best to keep the firm out of it, so he should at the very least ask her before he meets up with some of the people involved in the situation. “Thanks,” he says instead. “I can't make promises, in case work calls, but let me know when to be there and I'll try to make it.”

He spends the next day convincing himself that he's definitely not going. He knows Josie's, introduced Matt to it back in the day as somewhere his father went before he got respectable, and he doesn't know what it means that they're meeting there. Maybe nothing. Maybe Karen or Ben found it on their own.

Foggy really doesn't believe in coincidences these days.

Matt and Karen are the only ones there when Foggy arrives at Josie's, probably because they're the only two who are unemployed. Foggy almost turns right around and leaves, or at least that's what he tells himself.

But Matt's head is tilted in a way that makes Foggy remember that he can definitely hear Foggy dithering at the door, and he refuses to be a coward, so he goes over. “Karen, Matt—I hope you don't mind me crashing, Matt? Karen invited me.”

Matt's smile is tight, but it doesn't look completely fake, anyway. “Not at all. Ben and Jessica are both on their way, they were busy today—and so was Karen.” His smile gets a lot more real at that. “Karen, tell him, he'll be happy for you.”

Karen smiles, blushing a little, and it's weird seeing her relax, seeing her not paranoid and looking over her shoulder. “Ben's editor, Ellison, he hired me today for some research, things like that—hopes to get me on the writing team at some point, but I need to take some classes and maybe some lessons with Ben before that starts happening. Ben said good things about my ability to get information.”

“Well then, this meeting is definitely off the record,” says Foggy, with the biggest smile he can muster, and he knows he's going to end up liking Karen Page even outside of this whole mess because she grins right back at him. He's always had a fondness for women who don't take any of his bullshit. “And since you're gainfully employed again, does that mean drinks are on you?”

“I'm not gainfully employed yet, and the Bulletin doesn't pay that well for people without official job titles.”

Foggy sighs. “I suppose it's on the wealthy lawyer to do the job, then.” He waves at Josie, who squints at him like she maybe recognizes him and then waits, unimpressed, for his order. “Another round of whatever they're drinking, bottle of beer for me.” He thinks about Matt and Karen's introduction to the whole situation. “Unopened, if you don't mind.”

Josie gives him a suspicious glare, but she also goes off to take care of their drink order, so he'll live with it. “Thanks,” says Matt. “I'll grab you a round sometime tonight, if you like.”

“It's a work night, so I probably shouldn't do indefinite rounds, but thanks. Also, don't expect me to pay all night, you should see Jones's drinking habits, she would drink me out of house and home in one night.”

Both of them laugh, and that gets them through the first awkwardness of the night and into a safe conversation about what's good to drink at Josie's (nothing, but also everything, in the way that only real dive bars can manage) until Ben Urich arrives, looking around the room with distaste but smiling when Karen waves him over. “Nelson, good to see you again,” he says, with a handshake for Foggy.

“You too. You've scooped every big story in this city for weeks now. Planning on a Pulitzer?”

“Maybe with Karen's help,” says Ben, in a way that definitely means “yes,” and Ben gets his drink ordered and the four of them manage some polite conversation.

Jessica strolls in from the back, where there is definitely not a door that is open to clientele, with rips in her jeans that look fresh and not fashionable. Matt's head jerks up as soon as she walks in, because he's anything but subtle when you know what to look for, but Jessica doesn't seem too concerned as she walks over to the bar. She orders whiskey (garnering a mildly impressed look from Josie as she does) and drinks two good gulps of it without flinching before she turns to the rest of them. “I was being followed—total amateurs, I lost them pretty fast, but I had to go over some roofs and I hope you guys were subtle about showing up here.”

Foggy really wasn't, and now he's going to have a heart attack. Judging by the discomfort on everyone else's faces, they might have been keeping an eye out for spies but didn't think to take evasive measures either way, other than Matt, whose smugness speaks for itself.

“I always wanted to live in a Bond movie,” he says when nobody else seems likely to speak up, “but I always kind of thought I would be Bond.”

Jessica snorts. “In your dreams, Nelson. Decided it's safe to hang out with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys over here?”

“Ouch, demoted from super spy to kids' detective sidekick in two seconds flat. What does that make you? Not to mention me?”

“Jessica is James Bond, of course,” says Matt, and he's got his big bright smile on, the one Foggy thinks is honest and hasn't seen since the day Stick showed up and dragged Matt away. “As for you ...”

“In the interests of peace, I'll say Foggy can be the other Hardy boy,” says Ben, toasting Foggy before he takes a drink. “I don't want to solve too many more mysteries, it's bad for the heart and I have a wife to take care of.” Karen's smile falls a little at that, like she knows more than the rest of them do about it, but Ben seems okay, so Foggy is going to leave it alone. “Jessica, did you see anyone else watching before you came in?”

“If I had, I wouldn't be in here, and I would have texted you all to get out.”

Foggy is starting to get way too clear a picture of what their past few weeks have been like, because Matt is still somehow managing to smile when they're talking about people coming after them. Even Karen just nods before going back to her drink, and a second later she's smiling again. “I got the job at the Bulletin, Jessica—forgot to tell you.”

“Damn, I was really looking forward to firing Malcolm and inviting you into Alias,” says Jessica, dripping with sarcasm that Karen seems to actually take kind of seriously.

Foggy mostly sits back and listens after that, because it turns out there's a lot to listen to. Partly it's that there's a lot that hasn't made it into the papers, waiting on arrests and substantive sources and potential lawsuits. Partly it's seeing Matt when he's not in prison, with a yellowing bruise on his cheek and some real smiles, even if they're not quite as bright as they once were. Jessica notices him twitching at some point and asks if he's smelling something weird, and neither Karen nor Ben seems surprised, so they know about those secrets, and it's … Foggy is glad that Matt has people now. He just doesn't know if he counts as one of those people, or wants to.

Most of the attention is on Karen, who seems all fired up with excitement about her new job and everywhere it can take her, the classes she's going to register for as soon as her bank account recovers from recent expenses. They toast her a few times, until all of them are pleasantly drunk (or as pleasant as Jessica Jones ever gets, in one case), and Karen finally stands up, groaning. “I need to go outside and get some fresh air, too many smells in here, Matt, how can you deal with it?”

Matt laughs, standing up and offering her an arm. “I could use some air too. Anyone else?”

Jessica just looks up briefly from her conversation with Ben. It looks like they're plotting something, but Foggy does not have the courage to ask what it is, especially if he might need to end up defending one of them in court for it. “Careful out there. Keep an ear open, Murdock.”

Foggy looks between Matt and Karen, bright and laughing and dangerous in one way, and Jessica and Ben, plotting and dangerous in a completely different way. Predictably, he makes the choice that's most likely to end in him bemoaning his life choices on Marci's couch on the weekend and stands up too. “I could use some air too, I'll keep an eye out.”

“That'll be effective,” Jessica says, dripping with sarcasm, but she waves them off and doesn't seem too bothered by the thought of the three of them out there, so Foggy feels at least sort of safe going out.

Karen quiets down once they're outside, looking up at the sky like maybe some stars might make it through both clouds and light pollution and shivering a little, since it's not the warmest night. Matt is still smiling, sometimes tilting his head in Foggy's direction like he's listening for something. Foggy has no idea what he's listening for, and he's definitely not going to ask. “This is not what I thought my life would look like a month ago,” Karen says at last.

“I don't think anyone was expecting what's been happening for the last couple weeks,” says Foggy. “My life has sure never been this exciting.”

“Mine hasn't been this public before,” Matt allows, but he doesn't say anything about it being exciting or not, which is probably smart. Foggy has no idea how much of the ninja stuff Karen knows about, even if she knows about the radar senses, and he hardly knows anything about it himself. Sometimes, he wants to ask. Sometimes, he really doesn't.

“Yes it has,” Foggy says, after dredging his memory a little. “You were in all the city papers after—after your accident.”

“Yeah. I guess I was. That didn't make national news, though.”

Karen laughs a little, not like she thinks anything is funny, and when Foggy looks at her, confused, she looks a little teary.

He's about to ask when Matt inhales, sudden and sharp, and then says “Get down” just as Foggy hears a noise, a silenced gun. Matt's already in motion, shoving both of them out of the way, pushing Karen, but she's already crying out, red blooming on the sleeve of her white blouse. Foggy, when he ducks, has some cover, and he reaches out until he can grab Karen, pull her awkwardly towards him, since she's on the ground but out in the open.

There's a second shot, but it misses, and by the time the third comes, Karen's behind cover with Foggy and Matt is crouching nearby. “Jesus Christ,” says Foggy, scrambling to use his tie as a tourniquet for Karen because he has some vague idea that he's supposed to do that with bullet wounds. It got her in the arm, but it definitely wouldn't have been the arm if Matt hadn't pushed her. “The cat is already out of the bag, assassinating you guys isn't going to do shit.”

“They can kill us to send a message,” Matt says, and there's a dangerous kind of calm in his voice. “Can you get her inside?”

“Whoa, hold on, you may be able to defend against a lot of things, but bullets? Not so much.”

“I need to find them. Ask who's paying them, since all of Fisk's accounts are frozen.”

Foggy shakes his head. “We need to call the police, right?”

“They won't catch him. I will.” Matt squeezes Foggy's shoulder. “Take care of Karen. Get her inside. Call the police. Tell Jones what happened.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Matt straightens up, mouth a flat line, and suddenly he doesn't look familiar at all. He looks like the person Stick said he was eight years ago. He looks like Stark does on the news whenever he's been in another fight as Iron Man that left him hurting. “You don't want to know, and I won't tell you. Take care of Karen. I have to go, he's stopped shooting and that means he's started running.”

“Be safe, okay?” says Foggy, and that makes Matt look like himself again, not smiling but tender. It makes Foggy snap into motion, helping Karen into a more comfortable position, and add “I'll take care of things here.”

“I know you will,” says Matt, and then he's off running, no hesitation at all about where he should be going.

Foggy turns to Karen, helping her to her feet, and it's only a few seconds before Jessica is running out the door. “What happened? Where did Murdock go?”

“They shot at me,” says Karen, sounding like she's only just realized it. “Making it public was supposed to make me safe.”

“That's a great fantasy,” says Jessica. “Nelson?”

“I don't know much more than that. Matt went to take care of it.”

“Alone? Like hell.” Jessica inspects Karen's arm for a few seconds. “You'll live, Page, but don't piss anybody off while I'm not around. Go get Urich, get to a hospital, hospitals are at least kind of safe. I have to go make sure Murdock doesn't get himself killed.”

“Be safe. Make sure he doesn't die.”

“Yeah, yeah. Same with you and Page.” And then she's off after Matt, bending her knees and jumping and somehow ending up on a rooftop because that is what Foggy's life is right now, his ninja ex-boyfriend and the superpowered PI he barely knows going to probably punch someone extra-legally for shooting at a new friend.

“Holy shit,” says Karen, and right, she's still bleeding out. “Did you just—”

“We can talk about all of that later. For now, Matt would be very right to be mad at me if I didn't get you to a hospital. Let's get a taxi to the ER, call the police on the way.” He shrugs off his jacket and gives it to her. “Put this on and please try not to get it bloody, stay under cover, I'm going to get Ben and we're going to get out of here.”

Ben is already standing, wallet out to pay Josie even though he's the only one who didn't promise to buy a round, and he looks at Foggy like he's waiting for the worst news. When Foggy says they need to go to the hospital, he actually looks relieved.

Foggy calls Brett from the back of the cab instead of calling an actual on-duty officer, and the whole time he thinks about Matt and Jessica, out there chasing someone down, out there to get answers and wreak vengeance and maybe get hurt.

“God, they're brave,” says Karen, calmer now that they're on their way to the hospital, wincing as she moves her arm. “They just … went after him. I wish I could do that.”

“I really don't,” says Foggy, but his brain is spinning. He feels like finally, eight years down the road, he knows who Matt is. Maybe he's a laughing college kid, pinning Foggy down in bed and talking about the future. Maybe he's a fighter who can radar sense everything around him. Either way, he's the kind of person who goes running towards a man with a gun to protect his friends.

And he's the kind of person who trusts Foggy to keep them safe until he comes back.

Foggy has no idea what the fuck to do with that.

The nurse—Claire, she says her name is—lets Ben and Foggy stay with Karen, once she knows who they all are and once she overhears them talking about where Matt and Jessica are, like maybe she knows those names. Foggy doesn't ask, because even if she lets them stay she's brisk about it, doesn't linger around.

Karen isn't hurt as bad as Foggy feared at first—she has a hole in her arm, but it missed anything major and now she's asleep in a hospital bed, looking pale and worn out, and Ben, sitting across the bed from Foggy, looks the same.

“Matt talks a lot about protecting you. Karen, too. Even me,” Ben finally says. “He doesn't talk much about why he thinks he can do it, but I think you know.”

Talking to anyone else, Foggy might play it off, let himself be the bitter ex, talk about not knowing as much as he thought he did, maybe. But Ben is watching him and he looks so tired and so scared, and Foggy knows why Matt thinks he can protect them. “I can't talk about it. It's off the record—way off the record.”

“I understand that. Can he do what he thinks he can?”

“I honestly don't know. I heard a conversation about it—got told in no uncertain terms—but it's not like I ever saw evidence. Not even tonight. But ...” He thinks about Matt's face, the expression of stone before he took off, like he didn't have an instant's doubt that he could find and take down a man with a gun. Multiple men, even. “Yeah. I don't think we'll necessarily like the way it's taken care of, but between he and Jones, I wouldn't want to be whoever attacked us tonight, much less who hired them.”

“You knew him before.”

“In college, before he had to drop out.” Foggy looks at Karen on the bed, still sleeping, because he trusts her, but she's blazed through all of this looking for information, reckless with where it gets her. It should be Matt's choice if he wants to risk that. It should probably be Matt's choice to confide or not confide in Ben, too, but if Foggy tells him and it's off the record, it's better than him researching and finding out without anyone to tell him not to publish. “We were roommates. And then we dated. And then we didn't.”

“Because you found out he's some kind of superhero?”

“No. Because his old mentor showed up and told him I wasn't worth his time and told him he had something for him to do and to pack up his shit and leave, and he went. The finding out he's a superhero was kind of incidental.”

Ben is probably not stunned into silence at that, but he does let a few moments pass before he answers. “And yet somehow you ended up as his defense lawyer?”

“Yeah. Somehow I did. Long story, but it's mostly worked out.” There's a silence, as silent as things ever are in the hospital. Karen should probably be waking up soon, getting information about when she's going to be released, although the police guard outside her room probably says they'll be keeping her at least overnight for “observation,” and maybe a little longer. “I really wasn't ever expecting to see him again,” he finally admits.

“Are you glad you did?”

“That's the million-dollar question.” At first, no, even though he'd thought he'd get some sense of vindication over seeing Matt brought low when he got that call from Brett. Now, maybe yes, when they're somewhere between uneasy peace and friendship. But again no, because Foggy remembers being friends with Matt, and knows that it doesn't stay friendship for long. He doesn't think he'll be any smarter in his twenties than he was as an asshole teenager. “I guess it depends on how things work out.”

Ben looks like he might have more to say, but Claire the nurse bustles in with extra blankets and pillows, telling them that considering what she's been seeing in the papers, they should be under police guard as much as Karen, and Karen wakes up at the noise, and Foggy is relieved to have the excuse to change the subject.

Foggy goes to work the next morning exhausted, and Marci frowns at him between appointments until she pounces at lunchtime. At least her pouncing includes paninis, which is good because he barely had a chance to change at home after a night in the hospital waiting for word from Matt and Jessica, let alone eat breakfast.

“Benny in HR thinks you had a one night stand last night,” she says. “Actually, he tried to imply that we slept together, and then he changed his mind. But you look much happier when you've been laid.”

“Please don't wave what I'm missing in my face.”

“Hey, I gave you the chance, and you turned me down because you're confused about your ex, so don't use your sad dog eyes to try to get out of this.” She eats a few bites of her lunch. “So, I'm betting this has something to do with him, otherwise you would be whining about whatever it is. Which means you can keep trying to pretend it's not happening and we have a really frustrating lunch, or you can actually be honest and I'll try to make it better.”

For a minute, Foggy fantasizes about laying the whole thing out for her, Matt and his superpowers and Jones and hers and how he still hasn't heard from either of them and how he spent the night in the hospital while Karen grumbled about feeling well enough to leave because apparently she hates hospitals. The first part he definitely can't mention. The last part … “I met up with Karen and Ben and the others last night. Someone shot at Karen.”

“Jesus.” Marci can't even find anything sarcastic to say about that. “I'm assuming if she died you wouldn't be here.”

“Yeah, we ducked in time, it got her in the arm, though. As you can imagine, I'm kind of freaking out.”

“I didn't think your hero complex would actually get killed. Who did it? You must have spent the night giving your statement.”

“Yeah, and with Karen and Ben in the hospital, with a guard.”

“Uh-huh.” She crosses her arms. “And Murdock and Jones? I know they're both involved in this whole mess. Murdock is the reason you're in it at all. Where were they?”

“Am I my ex-boyfriend's keeper? They're both fine, didn't get hit or anything, but they weren't in the hospital all night like we were.”

Marci doesn't look at all satisfied, which makes sense. Foggy is ashamed at how badly he's evading her questioning. Law school taught him better. “Getting back together with your exes is a bad idea,” she finally says. “Everyone knows it. Don't be a dumbass.”

“You're my ex,” Foggy points out, in the interests of fairness.

She raises her eyebrows. “I don't think anyone would call us a good idea. Come on. Even Jones would be a better idea, and I'm pretty sure she would kill you within a month.”

“Not a week? I'm flattered.” Foggy sighs when she just looks at him. “I know it's a bad idea, I remember what happened better than you do, considering you weren't there. And I am definitely not on a mission of self-sabotage.”

Marci takes another few bites of her panini. “You realize, of course, that none of that was you saying 'no, Marci, I'm not a complete idiot and I would never date Matt Murdock,' right?”

“Yeah, I definitely realize that.”

When Foggy gets to the hospital that night, Matt is there, sitting next to Karen's bed and saying something quietly too her. Foggy almost backpedals right back out the door, but Matt's probably known he was there since he entered the building and Karen definitely sees him through the window in the door, so he squares his shoulders and goes in.

“Everything okay?” he asks Matt, because he can't pretend not to be worried.

“He's taken care of.”

Foggy looks between Karen, pale and red-eyed but not hooked up to a plethora of machines, and Matt, whose stubble has grown out past the attractively scruffy point and whose knuckles definitely look bruised. “Is this one of those things you shouldn't tell me about because I don't want to be disbarred before I make enough money to retire on?”

Matt's smile is a shadow of itself, but it's still a smile. “It is.”

“Great. Glad about that. Where's Jones?”

“Said she had to stop by her office, but mostly I think she didn't want to be here.”

“Yeah, I can't blame her, the art sucks.” Foggy smiles at Karen. “You feeling any better today?”

“Still freaked out, but better now that Matt and Jessica took care of it. Ben's at work, he keeps texting to check on me.” She smiles back at him. “I'm being released in a few hours, I think, the guy who did it mysteriously showed up tied up in front of the precinct this morning so they don't need to babysit me anymore.”

“Huh, wonder how that happened.” Foggy looks between the two of them, Matt verging on smug and Karen smiling at him. Matt's hands are clenched in the sheet on Karen's bed, right next to her arm, and she looks like she's close to reaching out. “I didn't mean to interrupt if you guys were talking about things that may or may not have happened that may or may not be legal.”

Matt straightens up, hands falling away from the bed, and Karen looks disappointed. Foggy is glad for her sake that Matt couldn't see her face, because that would have been weird for everyone, like the situation isn't already weird. It wasn't before the gunshots started, when they were all just outside together, but somehow in the hospital it is. “You aren't interrupting,” says Matt. “Did you come here to talk to Karen about something?”

“No, just to check in, and see if she'd heard from either of you, so your presence here pretty much answers that part of things. I was kind of worried, I have to admit. I'm glad you two are okay.” He eyes Matt's knuckles again. “Though you look kind of rough.”

“I didn't think to put on gloves when I was practicing at the boxing gym this morning,” says Matt blandly, and Foggy closes his eyes for a second and prays with everything he's got that Matt did wear gloves before beating up the dude with the gun, because otherwise he's going to end up right back in jail and Foggy is not going to have as easy a time defending him from that one. “I didn't have time to ask last night if you were hurt,” he finally adds, frowning a little.

“No—got a little rip in my suit, but nothing that can't be fixed, didn't even scrape my knees.”

Karen looks up at him, frowning herself, though he suspects it has more to do with he and Matt than with any worries that he might be injured. For a second, he thinks she's going to ask about it, but while Foggy can explain things and be at least a little bit fair about it when Matt isn't there, he has no faith in his ability to do so when they're both present. Maybe Karen gets that, because after a few seconds she says “I'm glad you're okay, Foggy. I'm sure I would have been hurt worse if you hadn't pulled me out of the line of fire.”

“Hey, anytime, though I hope it's not necessary. Too many people shoot at me and I'm going to become a hermit, just be one of those people who barricade themselves in an apartment and get everything delivered and are eventually found being gnawed on by pigeons after not being heard from for five years.”

That makes Karen laugh and Matt's face pinch up with unhappiness, but Karen is the one who got shot, so Foggy decides to care more about making her happy. “I'm thinking of buying a gun,” she admits. “I learned to shoot when I was growing up, my grandfather taught me for hunting season, and I'd like to be able to protect myself.”

It's probably a smart play, but Foggy knows himself well enough to know that he would hesitate pulling a trigger, and Matt looks grave and not completely on board with that plan, which is rich considering his major extracurricular activity seems to be beating people up. “I can protect you,” Matt finally says, sounding a little offended.

Karen frowns for a second before her face softens, and she reaches out to put her hand on Matt's arm. “It would be nice if you didn't have to, though.”

“You can protect me all you want, buddy, I'm in the courthouse so often that carrying a gun is really not feasible,” says Foggy, deliberately lightening the mood, and if he feels a little bit of relief when Karen drops her hand and Matt turns instantly to smile at him, he's just going to ignore it.

Jessica calls him a few days later, on Friday night, after Karen has been released from the hospital and everything has returned to the sort of uneasy peace that they were at before. The shooting ruined the mood of celebration, even though Ben's articles are still coming, supplemented by others, changing New York from the top to the bottom, dominating the news cycle enough that even Captain Goddamn America holds a press conference about how proud he is of the New York press for exposing corruption and forcing change like it's meant to do.

“Are you going to start paying me, now?” Foggy asks when Jessica lets him into her apartment. Her door sign is actually intact, which seems to be pretty rare. He has no idea how she can afford to replace it. Hogarth's retainer is generous, but not that generous. “Because I have to say, that would be a nice change.”

Her look of disdain is pretty withering, he has to admit. “We're both working for Hogarth, call it a stalemate.”

He has a feeling that means he's not going to get an invoice for the work she did on Matt's case, so he'll take it. “So what are we working on tonight? I'm assuming it's not a Hogarth thing.”

“Hit a wall with some of Fisk's shadier shit, probably drug-related. Figured you might be familiar with some of the laws and know where we might hit paydirt.”

Foggy sighs, because he just worked a full day and more, trying to get back in Hogarth's good graces after making her raise her eyebrows at him for taking Matt's case, but he's not going to turn Jessica down on this one. It's the legal part of the whole situation that he can do, not like Matt going out to use his ninja training or Jessica throwing cars at people, not like publicly exposing allegations like Karen and Ben are doing. “You'd better have beer.”

“Come on, Nelson, who do you think you're talking to?”

That's a very good point, so he rolls up his sleeves and settles down to work. He doesn't do things the way Jessica does, but he researches precedent, tells her what is and isn't admissible evidence depending on what she tells the police when and how bruised potential drug dealers are, and drinks three beers, which put him to sleep after a few hours of small print swimming in front of him.

“... wants to help I'm not going to stop him,” he hears Jessica say sometime later in a surprisingly considerate hiss, and Foggy surfaces into a lighter doze.

“I said I'd protect him, and you're putting him right in the middle of this.” That's Matt, and Foggy is suddenly really invested in pretending to be more asleep than he is. Hopefully his heart didn't do anything weird when he heard Matt talking.

“I'd say that's his choice. He knew what he was doing when he said that yes, he'd help me out. He's an adult.” Foggy distinctly remembers his mom saying when he was a kid that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, and he really doesn't want to be proof of that, but he has a feeling it's only going to be more awkward if he yawns himself upright and ask Matt where the hell he gets off, because he was the one to tell Matt he'd appreciate the protection in the first place.

Even if that was mostly about Karen.

“I've always just wanted him safe,” says Matt, and he sounds a little desperate.

“Oh yeah? From what I hear you didn't actually care about him that much.” Foggy knows his body must do something weird at that, but it doesn't seem to matter, because Matt makes a sharp, pained noise. “Some guy shows up and tells you he's dead weight and you drop him, just like that? And he's still generous enough to defend you from going down for murder? Sounds like you're lucky he cared about you so much. You must have been a hell of a lay in college.”

“He was always better at—at all of that than I was. But I wanted to protect him then, too.”

“In my experience, you care about someone, you stick around to protect them and care about them in person. Trying to watch people from afar … that just fucks everything up.”

“Not everything. He's happy now. Safe. Okay. Like I said, I was shitty at being in love, but that doesn't mean that I don't. Didn't.” There's a breathless pause. “Don't. Leaving never meant that I didn't care about him.”

“Sounds to me like you chose that guy over Nelson. Not to mention your whole life. I did the research, Murdock. You were off the grid for four years before you started doing paralegal training.”

“I know you're trying to protect him, but you can't say anything about me that I haven't thought about myself. Do you want me to say I regret it? I do. I did … horrible, necessary things, things I don't know if I can ever tell him about even if he wants to hear them, but the whole time I was thinking about what I could have been doing. Who I could have been with.”

Jessica lets the silence spin out, and it's a crying shame for Brett and the rest of the NYPD that she never decided to go to the police academy, because Jessica Jones would be one hell of an interrogator, even without the superstrength. “I'm not going to make Nelson's choices for him. You aren't either. But Jesus, Murdock, you could at least let him work with all the information he needs.”

“I'm just as bad for him now as I was then.”

“Yeah, I'm not going to debate that. You're lucky he hasn't been shot on top of Karen. Fisk, whatever people he has left, they're looking at all of us, and he's in it because of you. He called me in, he did everything he could, and he's still sticking around. I'm not going to get any deeper in your business, but I'm not going to sit around and watch this shit either.”

Foggy reminds himself that he owes Jessica a drink or two and wonders at the same time how transparent he's been, when he didn't even figure it out himself until he saw Matt in crisis, the way he trusts Foggy now, even if he wants to protect him at the same time. He's not going to pretend he's been loving Matt this whole time, when he hated him for years, but it's been too easy to get there again.

“I should go before he wakes up,” says Matt.

“Get the fuck out of here, beat up whoever you were going to beat up tonight. We'll meet about what he and I have been figuring out some other time.”

“Jessica … thank you.”

Foggy waits for her to eviscerate Matt alive, but instead she just scoffs. “Out, Murdock, I don't have time for this shit.”

There are a few sounds like a window opening and closing, papers rustling on Jessica's desk, and then the creak of a fire escape. Foggy waits a good thirty seconds before cracking his eyes open. Jessica, bottle in hand, is staring at him. “Thanks for sticking up for me,” he offers around a yawn.

“I don't have time for your shit either,” says Jessica. “You get home too. Need a cab?”

“No, I'm fine to get home. I could probably use the fresh air, think a little.”

“If you get shot, I'm going to be really pissed off, I'm just getting you trained,” says Jessica, and forces a cup of coffee on him before he goes anywhere.

Foggy isn't brave enough for big gestures. Instead, he stews over the conversation the whole way home and calls Matt as soon as he gets through the door. The phone goes to voicemail after a few rings, Matt probably leaving it home while he's out doing whatever illegal things he's doing, but that's good. Foggy doesn't know if he could say what he needs to say if he knew Matt were listening right then.

“Did you know I was awake?” he asks first, because the question is burning in him, if Matt was telling him all that on purpose while he was telling Jessica. “I can't believe I just sat there with a crick in my neck while you talked about … all of that. And I can't … look. I'm always going to be a little bit mad at you, maybe, but it's not what you were doing, it's that you left me. That I thought maybe you agreed with Stick.”

He takes a breath or two, but not too many, because he doesn't want to run out of time before he finishes what he has to say.

“But I was wondering too. Not the whole time, I had to stop thinking about it or I would have been a puddle on the floor, probably, but I thought a lot about what it would be like if we were together. And since you came back and I saw you again, I was wondering what it would be like if you'd never left. If we'd have that law firm together, and if there'd be an ampersand or a hyphen between the Murdock and Nelson. Shit, Matt. I really thought I was over my first love, but it's apparently really hard to be over you.”

He's running low on time, but there are a hundred things he wants to say, wants to list them out in a hundred voicemails if that's what it takes to make Matt understand what it's been like for the past few weeks since they've been in contact.

“Call me if you want to call me,” he says instead. “If you think it's not worth it, if you think it's easier to protect me when we're apart, then just … ignore this, I guess. But if you think it is ...” He clears his throat, and right on cue, the voicemail system beeps.

It asks him if he wants to delete, if he wants to rerecord. He kind of wants to do both, but he's not sure he has the courage to say it all twice, or more coherently. Instead, he confirms it and hangs up.

He thinks he'll be up all night, wired and waiting for news, but he finds it surprisingly easy to fall asleep instead, stretched out on his couch with his phone nearby, waiting for Matt's answer.

Foggy blinks his eyes open in the morning to the sight of Matt Murdock sitting cross-legged on his rug, head bowed, wearing what looks like a cat burglar costume with the bandana carelessly thrown on the coffee table. The second he hears Foggy shift, his head snaps up. He doesn't have his sunglasses on, and without them, he looks vulnerable and young and also tired. These past few weeks have gotten to him too, or maybe he was up all night. Or both.

“If I think it is, then what?” Matt asks in a breathless rush.

“If you think what?” Foggy asks.

“If I think it's worth it. You didn't finish your sentence. If I think it's worth it, what should I do? I'll do it.”

Foggy sits up, because that clears his head like two cups of coffee and a hot shower wouldn't be able to manage. He can't remember every word he blurted out into Matt's voicemail, but he remembers enough. “How long have you been here?” he asks, because he has no idea how to start now that Matt's in front of him.

Matt scoots a few inches forward on the carpet, and Foggy is reminded of Matt sitting on their dorm room floor explaining that he didn't want to fall asleep while meditating and then never managing to meditate because they discovered all sorts of fun things Matt could do while at crotch level. “I got your message when I got home from what I was doing last night and I came right here. Two hours, maybe?”

“Jesus, you need sleep. How did you even get in here?”

“You should lock your windows.” And then, when Foggy has no answer to that: “Foggy. Please.”

“I was going to say you should call me, but this works too.” Foggy takes a few seconds to muster his wits, since he feels like he's probably going to need them. “You told Jones last night that you're always going to put me in danger, that you're not a safe person to be around, but you still want to try?”

“You called even after hearing me tell Jessica that,” Matt parries, and Foggy remembers that from studying with him in college, how Matt will argue anything, sometimes for fun and sometimes just out of being ornery. “I want whatever you'll give me,” he adds after a few seconds. “I regretted leaving with him, I hated it so much, but you were always safer without me.”

“Is he still around?”

“He—the people he works with, they call me when they need me, but it's been quiet this past year or two. I left and walked into a war, and we … we won it in the end.”

“The four missing years?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me what the hell kind of war you were fighting?”

“Not right now. Maybe someday. I don't like to talk about it. And it doesn't really matter right now. When I left with Stick, that was all to keep you safe. None of it was because I thought you were any of the things he said about you.”

That's going to be the hardest thing to deal with in the next few weeks or months or years, Foggy knows. He spent a long time swallowing down all the things Stick said to him, all the things Matt just sat there mutely and didn't refute, because he couldn't explain Matt leaving without maybe putting him in danger. They were poisonous for a while, and he's damn lucky Marci hauled him out of his dorm room and fucked him when he was at his lowest. Sometime, maybe he'll be able to talk about that. “I just wish you'd said that,” he says, because he has to be honest even though it makes Matt flinch. “And we're going to have a long talk at some point about crushing the self-esteem of fragile young pre-law students that we're both going to hate, but for now let's just say I tentatively believe you. The conversation with Jones was pretty illuminating.”

“I was so embarrassed when I got your message and realized that I'd missed you waking up, but if it made you decide that I'm worth giving another chance to ...”

“Would you come up here?” Matt scrambles onto the couch, and Foggy feels a little less weird about the conversation when Matt is sitting next to him instead of in front of him, their knees brushing. “A lot of things helped with that decision. The conversation is what told me that you might be willing to give it a shot. I kind of wondered if Karen ...”

“No. Karen is great, but the second you walked into that police station, I wasn't paying attention to anyone else.”

There are a hundred thousand really excruciating conversations they still need to have, about vigilantism and college and how to make sure their relationship isn't a mess with so much shitty history behind them, but Foggy finds he suddenly isn't interested in any of them. Instead, he says “Jesus, just come here” and grabs Matt by the collar to pull him in for a kiss.

It's their first kiss in years, and Foggy feels like it should be amazing, a kiss to remember, but like any first kiss, they have to figure out how they fit together, mouths and hands fumbling as Matt suddenly decides he wants every inch of himself pressed up against Foggy. It's awkward, and messy, and a little too desperate, and they pull apart with an awkward laugh from Foggy and a sharp sigh from Matt after only a few seconds.

After a breath, Matt leans in again, much slower this time.

The second kiss is everything he could have ever imagined.

Karen suggests that they all try to get together again, at someone's apartment this time, the next night, and Foggy offers his up for the purpose, mostly because he hasn't left it all weekend, and he doesn't relish the thought of going out on a Sunday night. Especially since Matt's been staying with him. He does have to go out to get some snacks for the impromptu gathering, in the end, but that's okay, because Matt goes with him.

Karen and Ben show up together, six-packs in hand, talking about a visit to Ben's wife, who is apparently very proud of him for the work he's been doing on the Fisk case. Karen looks a little startled when she sees how close Matt is sticking to Foggy, the way he's always hovering around not quite touching him unless Foggy touches him first, but after a few seconds she smiles.

Jessica, when she shows up twenty minutes later with a bottle in a paper bag that she's not going to share with anyone else if Foggy knows he at all, frowns at Foggy and Matt for almost a full minute once she's settled in. “Did you two figure your shit out?”

“Yes. Thank you,” says Matt, with a smile so bright that Foggy can't even bring himself to feel embarrassed about it all.

“I'm gonna have to start bringing Trish to these things to make them even slightly bearable,” she grumbles, but Foggy grins because she can't hide that she's at least a little bit happy for them.

Mostly, they don't talk about it, because there are other things to talk about: grand juries and trial dates and a hundred other things that are going to fill the next few months to the brim. Jessica bemoans probably having to show up as a witness for half the trials, and Karen and Ben agree. Foggy reminds them he's there to help them all through it, and gets thanks that swing from grudging to sincere. They toast a few times, to victory and friendship and other things that are mostly an excuse to drink, since they can celebrate without getting shot at this time.

Foggy wasn't exactly unhappy with his life before Matt showed back up in it. Still, it's nice and a little weird to be spending and evening with people he didn't know, barely knew, or hadn't seen in years, all of them talking easily and making plans for making sure Fisk doesn't weasel his way out of a conviction.

“Congratulations,” says Ben on his way out the door at the end of the night, when Matt is busy laughing with Karen and Jessica over something. “I know this hasn't been easy on you.”

“A lot easier than I deserve,” says Foggy, which is true. He and Matt have spent the last two days talking whenever they weren't in bed, having way too many conversations about the past, but he thinks they've found some kind of equilibrium, and that it will only get better as time goes on, even if there are things to grapple with.

“I think you both deserve some happiness,” Ben says, just in time for Karen and Jessica to disengage from Matt, ready to all start heading home together, since they're all still kind of working on the buddy system.

Foggy keeps that in his mind while he and Matt see the other three off—there's no question of Matt staying for at least tonight, though they're going to have to talk about how to split up their time at some point, since Foggy isn't ready to live with him again—and retreat to the couch. “What's next?” Foggy asks eventually.

“For the trials, or me? Or us?”

“I know how trials work. The other two, I guess.”

Matt sighs a little, leans against Foggy's shoulder. “For me, I don't know. I think … it feels right, to be using my skills for things that I think are right, not that Stick thinks are right.”

Foggy can't say he's wild about the idea of Matt creeping through his bedroom window with bruised knuckles and a fierce look in his eyes, but they can talk about legalities and moralities some other time, maybe. Jessica does it, sometimes, and he's heard about some guy in Harlem, and nobody can really say too much about vigilantism when the Avengers are so widely liked in New York. “Okay, so what about a day job? I don't make enough money to support you and your no-doubt astronomical Band-Aid budget.”

“I could find somewhere else to be a paralegal. I've thought about going back to law school, about Nelson and Murdock, a lot since I saw you again, but I don't know if I want to spend the time, and sometimes the law seems too slow anyway. I do have the money, the—Stick's people can be generous.” Matt makes a face. “I don't like to use it too much, but it helps. So I haven't decided about me yet.”

“And the us part?”

“I'm not going anywhere as long as you want me here. I'll do my best to protect you, make sure you won't get tangled up in my problems. I'm in this as long as you want to be in this.”

“That could be quite a while.” They're both beaming like idiots now, but Foggy doesn't really mind. He thinks he's entitled to his delirious happiness after the month he's had. “Have I mentioned lately that I'm really glad Brett called me so I could gloat over my ex being arrested?”

Matt laughs. “We'll have to send him a thank you card,” he says, and pulls Foggy in for a kiss. “But I think that's plenty of talking about what's next. Are you ready to go to bed?”

Foggy grins and stands up, pulling Matt to his feet as well. The first time through this relationship, all they could talk about was the future, about starting a law firm, maybe getting married, debating whether they'd adopt a cat or a dog or maybe a kid someday, talking about meeting families and other important people, ready to do everything. This time, he's happy to let the future take care of itself.

He kisses Matt. “I think I could be persuaded.”