Work Text:
Foggy weighed the loan agreement in his hand as he made his way to Matt's office. After too many years spent leasing a tiny office space right down the hall from an accounting firm, Nelson & Murdock were finally getting their own place, a place that they'd own, that would be theirs, that nobody could take from them… except the bank if they defaulted on the loan repayments, which wasn't totally outside of the realm of possibility.
The bank manager had obviously been weighing that possibility, Foggy reflected. The guy had angry little turtle eyes, but he said yes anyway. Loan approved. This was a big day for him, and for Matt. Matt's response to the news had been fairly restrained, all things considered, but maybe that was just the effect of an attempted poisoning by the Hand. That would take energy out of anyone, and Matt wasn't just anyone.
It felt like he'd been with him for a long time now, or maybe that was just what came of being in a relationship with Daredevil. Within the walls of this office, Matt had something of a reputation. Maintaining a friendship with him was a chore at times, and dating him was a matter of mortal peril. That was Matt's own opinion, and sometimes Foggy couldn't help but agree. That was just the way of it. Matt was a complicated guy, but loving him wasn't.
Foggy leaned in the doorway of his boyfriend's office for a moment, pausing to watch him, to enjoy him, really. Within the bounds of Hell's Kitchen, Daredevil was seen as something ferocious and primal, like a creature of the deep, deep ocean. But Matt wasn't. In his gray suit and tie, he looked quite unremarkable, if unfairly hot.
"So," Foggy said, pushing away from the door. "It's Halloween this Friday."
Matt didn't even raise his head. "Nope."
"Yeah, it is. I checked the calendar," Foggy informed him, detecting a slight twitch at the corner of Matt's mouth that almost betrayed him.
"Still no," the Devil of Hell's Kitchen insisted.
Foggy huffed, annoyed. "You don't even know what I was going to ask!"
Matt raised his head then, his red tinted lenses shining like scales in the glare of his tablet screen. It was hard to read him sometimes, but there was a firm set to the line of Matt's mouth that said he knew what Foggy was thinking, and he'd already made up his mind to refuse him. That sucked.
"You were going to ask me to come out with you on Halloween — probably to Josie's — in some variety of humiliating costume," Matt declared and, okay, wow, A plus for accuracy, and all that.
"Who says it has to be humiliating?" Foggy asked when he had composed himself in the wake of Matt's impressive guesswork.
"I don't wear costumes," his boyfriend stated flatly.
Foggy gaped at him, struggling to articulate his disbelief. Matt Murdock didn't wear costumes? Matt? Freaking Daredevil? The Masked Man? That guy didn't wear costumes? It was just about the most bold faced lie that Foggy had ever heard and he fully intended to tell him so.
"You totally wear— most nights of the week, you're out there dressed in— HOW is that not a costume?" he exclaimed incredulously.
Matt straightened in his seat. "That is a tactical wardrobe —"
"Costume," Foggy interjected.
"Designed to conceal my identity —" Matt continued as if Foggy hadn't spoken.
"Still a costume," he insisted.
"And to create an aura of — "
"Fear?" Foggy guessed when Matt stalled, seeming at a loss as to what was the appropriate noun.
"Authority," Matt supplied at last, folding his arms over his chest, and leaning back in his chair.
"Auth—" Foggy spluttered and choked back a laugh. "Matt, that is a costume. Any way you try to swing it, it's a costume. It is an outfit that you put on to project a different identity— a character! It's a costume!"
"It's not!" Matt argued. "As I said, it's a tact—"
Foggy groaned. "If you say tactical wardrobe one more time, I swear to GOD — "
He left the threat unuttered in the end. Matt couldn't be reasoned with, which was a bad trait in an attorney. There was simply no way to get around him when he'd made up his mind about something, and that would have annoyed Foggy if it wasn't so obvious that Matt was still feeling the effects of the Hand's poison. His face was way past pasty; it would have been a compliment to say that he was as white as a sheet. Matt was whiter than eggs right now.
"Agree to disagree?" his boyfriend offered.
Foggy sighed. "With one stipulation —"
"No costume, Foggy," Matt said firmly, not budging on that point, not that Foggy had really expected him to.
"Okay," he reluctantly relented. "What about just a t-shirt that says Happy Halloween or something? Just to get in the spirit?"
"I don't have one," Matt said almost before Foggy got all the words out of his mouth.
"I'll buy you one!" he offered immediately.
"Fine," Matt agreed. "But you have to wear one too."
"Oh, I will," Foggy promised.
The discussion about Halloween was allowed to drop then, a compromise having been reached. Whether Matt realized it or not, he'd just given Foggy permission to choose the costumes t-shirts himself, and that was a power that he planned to enjoy using.
It was well after closing time on Friday night before Foggy was able to see off his last client of the day, who needed a simple Power of Attorney document drafted for her father. She'd have it by Monday morning, but Foggy wasn't going to spend his Friday night writing it, not when he had plans with his boyfriend.
Opening the shopping bag he'd brought to the office, he withdrew a brand new white t-shirt and spread it over his desk, just to admire the design one more time. Shrugging out of his suit jacket and unbuttoning his dress shirt, he changed quickly into the new t-shirt, smiling to himself as he picked up the shopping bag and carried it to Matt's office.
His boyfriend was asleep at his desk, looking so soft that Foggy decided not to wake him. However, Matt stirred anyway, and Foggy couldn't help smiling; it was like watching a kindle of kittens or a brood of chicks stir awake. Matt stretched and straightened, sitting as stiffly upright as if he'd just been yelled at by a posture coach.
Foggy frowned slightly, clearing his throat to announce his presence, and then setting the shopping bag in Matt's hand. "Here. For tonight. Unless you'd rather go home and sleep?"
Matt ignored the suggestion and drew a t-shirt out of the bag. "This does not say Happy Halloween."
"How can you tell?" Foggy asked innocently.
"Your heartbeat picked up when you gave it to me," Matt informed him, spreading the t-shirt over his desk. "What's on it?"
"Nothing," Foggy lied, and Matt gave him a quelling look. "Nothing embarrassing. It's adorable actually!" Then he faltered, reading something in Matt's expression. "You're about to say no on principle."
"I might," Matt admitted.
His fingers traced the design on the t-shirt, but if his expression was anything to go by, he couldn't make it out. After all, it wasn't like it was Braille. Foggy hesitated to describe it for him, afraid that Matt would change his mind about coming out tonight or about wearing the t-shirt.
But honesty and respect compelled him to speak. "It's an avocado. Half an avocado. I have one too. It's— mine says Better, and yours says Together, it's like a matching— forget it," he mumbled, his cheeks heating. "It's stupid. Dorky."
"No," Matt said quietly, his expression loaded with conflicting emotions.
"There it is," Foggy sighed, wondering if he dared to snatch the t-shirt back.
"Not no," Matt said quickly. "No as in no, I don't want to not wear it — "
"For a lawyer, that was so not clear," Foggy observed, shaking his head.
"Let me be clear then," Matt replied, pushing his chair back and standing up.
His fingers fumbled with the buttons of his dress shirt as he unfastened them, and Foggy almost twitched with his eagerness to help. His patience was not improving in his third decade, but when it was rewarded with the sight of Matt's bare, muscled torso, he could wait with the practiced restraint of a python.
Matt pulled the t-shirt over his head and smoothed it over his abdomen. "What do you think?" he asked, tilting his head like a parrot.
"Well," Foggy said slowly, surveying his boyfriend and congratulating himself on having guessed Matt's size correctly. "It's not a costume, but —"
"It'll do?" Matt asked with a small smile.
"Yeah. Yeah, it'll do," Foggy agreed, smiling proudly.
It was impossible not to feel pleased when Matt left his cane at his desk, taking Foggy's arm instead, and allowing himself to be guided with all the grace of the belle of the ball, right to Josie's, which was decorated in fluorescent shades of orange that even a vision impaired person would find eye watering. It didn't matter because Matt came.
It didn't even matter that other people were in costume or that Foggy had too many drinks. Too many was too many, but way too many was just right when he got to share the experience with Matt. They were 'better together,' after all.