Work Text:
Foggy first notices the slight discoloration of the sign a few weeks after they put it up.
He’s not upset, not really, but he is puzzled.
The letters reading “Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law”, which stand out in all-caps from the flat background of the sign, used to be coated with a thin, darkening layer of patina. The website Foggy ordered it from had offered a few different aesthetics, and he’d liked the way the intentional weathering made them look settled in, reliable, less brand new we-don’t-know-what-we’re-doing.
That intentional weathered look is now being lost, the true metal underneath shining through. It’s the names “Nelson and Murdock” that are lightening the most, becoming a pale gold that stands out sharply against the off-black backdrop. It reminds Foggy of a bronze statue of a dog he’d once seen a photo of online, its nose and ears adorably gold from the petting of hundreds, thousands of people.
Foggy doesn’t initially realize that maybe their sign, probably lesser in quality, might not require hundreds, thousands of hands to wear it into vivid relief. Pieces only click into place one morning when he catches the culprit smooth-handed.
It turns out the polishing only needs the touch of one person, a one Matt Murdock who runs his fingers along it intimately with a tiny half-smile on his face and pulls away like he’s done something wrong when Foggy turns the corner and spots him.
Foggy doesn’t chastise him, or make a comment acknowledging it at all. Matt doesn’t need to stop, not when the very thing that makes the sign real to him renders it pretty, worn bright in a way Foggy hadn’t expected to like. He thinks, with a smile of his own, that maybe he prefers the golden, finger-shined glow after all.