Chapter Text
Gimme a ticket to ride that train
Wind in my hair
Nothing in my brain
It starts, as all of their good ideas do, sat around a table at Josie’s. They’re not drunk but they’re well on their way, somehow finding themselves getting increasingly heated arguing about whether dawn or dusk is the better time of day. Foggy’s trying to drag together some semblance of well-formed argument regarding the pain of getting up early when Karen’s informed, to her genuine surprise, that Matt’s absolutely terrible at waking up in the morning.
“Why do you think he’s always last in the office?” Foggy asks, incredulous. He'd thought Matt’s near comic inability to get out of bed in the morning was common knowledge between them. It’d certainly been a constant throughout his life; half his creative ability had developed from inventing ways to drag Matt out of bed for 9am lectures.
“Because he’s a superhero half the night?” Karen retorts from inside her glass.
“Wrong. It’s because he sleeps through his alarms” Foggy replies, ignoring Matt’s usual protests about being categorised as a superhero. ‘You’ve got a costume Matt, c’mon.'
“Are you kidding me?” Karen says, laughing in disbelief. “You can hear the blood moving in our veins but you can’t hear your alarm?”
Matt shrugs, smirking. It's a fair point.
“When I sleep, I really sleep.”
“You should've seen him in college” Foggy interjects wistfully, revisiting memories of bleary eyes and pissed off retorts coming from a half-conscious pile on the floor.
“I just can’t imagine it,” Karen continues, disbelief still heavy in her voice. “You’re so well put together in the mornings.”
Foggy chokes on his drink. Matt thumps him on the back, laughing sweetly. He's glad to hear he comes across that way.
“Head wounds aside” Karen acknowledges, gesturing with her glass.
Matt's attention drifts as they continue riffing, Foggy beginning to regale Karen with a few particularly memorable anecdotes from their time at Columbia. He lets the grainy bar music wash over him, alcohol and sweat swirling in the air, the echoes of yelling and chattering and clinking of glass reverberating around the room. It's not jarring him like it used to though, this chaotic soundscape. He's content and happy and grateful to be here, to be able to take steady breaths and tone down his senses to something manageable, to be able to sit and grin inanely as his friends share teasing barbs beside him. They're finally healing from the pain and the misery and the aching, aching loss of their recent pasts, the dust settling on the new life they're building together now. Matt's heart feels full and his face aches from smiling. It's a nice change of pace.
“No but seriously, you've never seen Matt freshly awake?”
He can't believe Karen's never had the honour of witnessing Matt's bed head, never had the joy of seeing Matt glaring out at nothing in particular from underneath a duvet, grumpy and irritable and very fucking amusing.
“Trust me, it wasn't for lack of trying.”
“That’s settled then,” Foggy declares triumphantly as Matt snorts in amusement, “we’re having a sleepover.”
A groan escapes from Matt but Karen’s eyes all but light up, a decidedly sly grin pulling at her mouth. An idea is forming.
“What about a holiday?” she proposes, thinking quick.
“A company retreat!” Foggy agrees, keen for the prospect of some work free recovery time. Inebriated and excited, he's oblivious to the air of mischief coming over Karen.
They spend the rest of the night talking about where they might want to go, what they want to do. They talk about how nice it'll be to get away, to relax. Karen nods along, agreeing amicably. She casually offers to take over the organising duties, because she’s office manager and it just makes sense, really. Her suggestion is met with wholehearted agreement. Good.
Because really, she’s sick to death of the sickening pining ever present between Matt and Foggy now. The forlorn looks and weighted words, the walking too close with shoulders bumping and hands brushing, both of them pretending not to notice. It's infuriating, and it doesn't seem to be coming to an end anytime soon.
So, she makes a plan.