Fic: Like a Handprint on My Heart (Part Two)
Title: Like a Handprint on My Heart
Fandom: Daredevil (TV)
Rating: PG-13
Part One
Foggy meets Karen for drinks after work the next day, because it’s that or go home to an apartment that’s always been too small, but seems especially so now that Elektra’s in it. Karen’s been hard to pin down lately, always off chasing this lead or that. Foggy never realized what workaholics everyone at Nelson and Murdock was until the firm collapsed; it was easy enough to see his friends when they often spent fourteen hours a day together.
Well, he and Karen did. Matt was...otherwise occupied.
Karen looks good - tired, and a little distracted by her phone, but less stressed than Foggy’s used to. She doesn’t have the slightly frayed edges he’s become accustomed to seeing. Apparently escaping Nelson and Murdock’s swirling vortex of debt and unrequited emotional complications has been good for her.
“So I read your piece on the comptroller,” Foggy says. “Getting city officials fired for corruption? Don’t fuck with Karen Page, sleazebags of New York!”
He raises his glass to her and she laughs, ducking her head. “I’m just glad all that digging paid off,” she says. “And that hopefully now a chunk of the city’s revenue won’t be disappearing into offshore accounts in the Bahamas. At least, not as large a chunk.” She pauses, chewing on her lip. “I had help on that story, actually.”
Something about the way she says it makes Foggy sit up a bit. She’s being cagey. That usually means a bombshell. “Yeah? You got a snitch in City Hall now?”
“No! Well, yes, actually,” she admits, “but that’s not who I meant. Uh. Some of the forged invoices I referred to were obtained by. Um. Daredevil.”
“...Oh.” The last bit of playfulness in the conversation evaporates. “You, uh. You work with him a lot?”
“Here and there,” she says. “We pass information on to each other, when it’s helpful. And he looks out for me. There’ve been a couple of times where...well, it’s nice to have backup, sometimes.”
“Karen, you gotta be careful,” Foggy says, though he knows it won’t do any good.
“I carry a gun.”
“Karen!”
“Foggy!” Karen’s got that stubborn set to her jaw that tells Foggy he’ll get nowhere fast with this. Not that he didn’t already know that. “I know what I’m doing. And it’s not like I’m running into dangerous situations for a cheap thrill. The work I’m doing - it’s important.”
God, she sounds like Matt. “I’m not trying to patronize you,” he says. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I care about you, Karen.”
“I know,” she says, and reaches out to squeeze his hand. “I appreciate it. But doing this...it feels right. It feels like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Foggy swallows past the lump in his throat. He remembers that feeling: grateful clients pushing casserole dishes into his hands and kissing his cheek when he got cases settled in their favor; Matt’s fond smile; the feeling of rightness when he knew he’d made the world, or at least their little corner of it, just a little bit more fair. He can’t begrudge Karen that satisfaction, even if it’s out of his reach these days.
He clears his throat and takes a sip of his drink. “So you, uh...you and Matt are talking again?”
“No,” she says, a little too loud, then glances around and lowers her voice. “No. I’m working with Daredevil. Matt and I...I’m not ready to be his friend again. Not yet.”
“His friend?” Foggy repeats, eyebrows raised.
“Baby steps,” she says. “I don’t...look, I love Matt. At the end of the day, regardless of what he’s done, I love him. Like a friend, like...something else, it doesn’t matter. But it’s going to take a long time for me to trust him again with…” She looks at her nails, picks at one that’s chipping. “I think I wanted someone who didn’t exist, and I think he did too. We were both looking for something safe.”
Foggy tilts his nearly-empty glass, pretending he’s fascinated by the way the ice cubes fall against each other as he angles it. “So...not expecting a mark to appear any time soon, then?” he asks, trying for levity and falling way, way short.
Karen’s silent, and when he cuts his eyes across at her she’s staring at him, eyebrows raised. “Um...that’s kind of a weird question.”
“Sorry,” he says, putting his glass down to hold his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, sorry, it’s none of my business, it’s…”
“Invasive? Yeah, a little bit.”
“Right, sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…”
“I mean it’s not like I’m asking you if you have Matt’s name on your ass or something.” His face must do something at that because her already naturally huge eyes go even wider. “Holy shit. You do.”
Foggy looks away. “It’s not...on my ass.”
“But you have one.”
Foggy sighs, then unbuttons his cuff and pushes up his sleeve. Karen’s silent for a moment, staring at it.
“But you aren’t...I mean, it’s one of those platonic ones, right? You guys aren’t…”
Foggy pulls his sleeve back down and concentrates very hard on the cuff as he buttons it again. “If Matt had one, which he doesn’t, it would probably be platonic, yes. But if Matt had one, he probably would have come to visit me in the hospital that time I got shot, so…”
“Foggy…”
There’s too much sympathy in Karen’s voice, and Foggy really didn’t come here to cry into his whiskey. “It’s fine. You’re right, it was inappropriate for me to bring it up.”
Karen puts her hand back on his. “Hey. I know Matt’s…Matt, but I also know how much he adores you. Believe me, it’s painfully obvious from...well, basically from the moment I met you guys. If he’s not showing it well these days, that’s because of something going on with him, not anything to do with you.”
“Karen, I can’t…”
“I’m not saying you should...go back to him, or start Nelson and Murdock back up again, or, or anything, really,” she says quickly. “I know he hurt you. I want you to take care of yourself first.” She tilts her head; soft, careful. “I just don’t want you to think that you aren’t loved. By Matt or by anyone else.”
Foggy chuckles, and if it’s suspiciously wet Karen doesn’t call him on it. “That’s right,” he says. “Foggy Nelson, universally beloved.”
“That’s right,” she says, and she’s so fierce about it that he really does cry, just a little. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
*
Matt stops by around midnight the evening after that, tapping on Foggy’s bedroom window. “No one followed me,” he assures Foggy as he climbs through and tugs the helmet off. “I made sure. Is Elektra awake?”
“Hello, Foggy, nice to see you,” Foggy drawls, although honestly, what did he expect.
At least Matt has the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. I know none of this is...ideal. I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for us, Foggy.”
Foggy rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Come on, let’s go wake Sleeping Beauty.”
Elektra’s already up, it turns out. She tucks her knees up to her chin and Matt sits on the couch in the space vacated by her legs, while Foggy takes an awkward seat in one of his uncle’s hand-me-down armchairs, feeling oddly like a guest in his own home.
“I found it,” Matt says. “The Hand’s stronghold. I haven’t sensed Nobu, Stick said he finished him for good before he left town and I think that was true, but there’s still a lot of them. I’ll have to draw them off, see if I can lure them out for the cops a few at a time. I’ll explain to Brett about their abilities so that he can come up with some way of - ”
“Leave Brett out of this craziness,” Foggy says just as Elektra snaps, “You’re not facing the Hand by yourself, Matthew!”
“I’m not taking you anywhere near them,” Matt tells her. “That’s just what they want, they’ll just try to use you again and I refuse…”
“Isn’t this my fight?” she asks. “Don’t I have the right to it, after what they did to me?”
“What they did to you is exactly why I’m not going to let you - ”
“Let me?” and Matt’s a braver man than Foggy if he’s not cowed by that tone in her voice.
Well. Foggy supposes they all always knew Matt was braver than him.
“Look,” he says, even though he should probably just let them fight it out. What does he know about confronting ninjas anyway? “It doesn’t have to be just Matt, or even just both of you. I specialize in vigilante law, remember? Let me call Jones tomorrow, see if she’s willing to throw in on this.” Elektra snorts dismissively. “She can lift a car, Natchios, you want her on your side. And I’ve been hearing about this other guy up in Harlem - never met the man, but I might be able to get a number. And…” He runs a hand through his hair, sighs. “I don’t like Brett being mixed up in this, but if you must, at least bring him in at the planning stage and not the ‘hey detective, watch out for the undead ninjas I’m sending your way’ stage, okay? There’s a way to do this that doesn’t involve just running at the Hand with your little sticks and hoping for the best.”
“They’re called billy clubs,” Matt says sulkily, and Foggy rolls his eyes.
“I think we can manage this fight without help from your drinking buddies, Franklin,” Elektra says.
Matt hesitates. “Backup might not be the worst idea…” he starts, which is quite frankly a landmark of personal growth from Matt “Don’t Help Me, I Can Do It Myself” Murdock.
“I don’t know these people,” Elektra says.
“We could try to find Stick,” Matt suggests.
“No,” Elektra and Foggy snap at the same time, and glare at each other.
“Do you think I could meet with Jones?” Matt asks Foggy. “I’m not saying that I’ll bring her in, necessarily, but if I could talk with her…”
“You’re going to listen to him?” Elektra says, sweeping her hand in Foggy’s direction. “This terrified little rabbit of a man who’s done nothing more dangerous than cross Broadway at rush hour? You’re letting him strategize?”
“Watch it,” Matt says, sharp.
“I’m letting a murderer who’s being hunted by other murderers sleep on my couch, how’s that for dangerous?” Foggy asks.
“Oh yes, I’m sorry,” Elektra says. “You’ve suffered so much, filing your little papers and waiting by the window for Matthew to come back to you to play Happy Little Bureaucrat. I’d forgotten.”
“Elektra…” Matt warns.
“Okay, fine, you got me!” Foggy says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I haven’t died. I haven’t been gutted like a fish by a ninja. I have no interest in putting on a weird leather bondage suit and punching criminals in the face. And yet somehow I’m still the one who keeps ending up in the hospital - not that present company gives a shit.” That last is directed at Matt, who looks stricken. Too bad. “But fine, whatever, leave me out of it. I didn’t realize being reckless to the point of stupidity was the only way to get a say in this decision making process. Just try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, would you? It is my city too, after all, and when you two finish your suicide run it’s us Happy Little Bureaucrats who are going to have to pick up the pieces.”
“It’s not a suicide run, Foggy,” Matt says. “I know what I’m doing.”
Foggy snorts. “You’re going to get yourself killed! She’s going to get you killed.”
“Oh, this again,” Elektra says.
“Yeah, forgive me if it’s kind of a pressing concern for me!”
“It’s not your concern!” Elektra snaps. “He’s not your partner anymore, and he makes his own choices. Blame me all you want, but just because you have a mark doesn’t mean you own him.”
Foggy feels abruptly nauseous. Matt gives them a blank-eyed stare.
“What?” he says. “He doesn’t...Foggy doesn’t have a mark. Foggy, you don’t…” He tilts his head, and Foggy knows, he knows Matt’s listening to how Foggy’s heart is suddenly hammering. “When did you get a mark?”
“Does it matter?” Foggy asks, suddenly exhausted.
“What? Foggy, of course it matters.” Matt’s face is soft, coaxing, and suddenly Foggy hates him, hates Elektra, hates himself, hates this whole stupid situation.
“Really?” he asks. “Because I had your name before, Matt. I had it on the lease for our office space. I had it on the loans we co-signed. I had it on our door, and anywhere I had to write down an emergency contact, and...and freaking joint birthday cards for my parents! It didn’t stop you from walking out on me, so why would it make any fucking difference if it’s on my skin?”
“Walking - I didn't walk out on you!” Matt says, looking genuinely stunned. “You took the job at HC&B. You left Nelson and Murdock.”
“Oh please, like there was anything left to leave,” Foggy snarls. “You weren't showing up for cases, you were lying to me and Karen about her - ” He makes the sweep of his arm wide as he indicates Elektra to be sure Matt picks it up. “You had one foot out the door long before Marci floated my name to Hogarth. You might not have quit, but you left me just the same.” His voice breaks at the end. He wishes he was a better liar.
Matt turns to Elektra, who's been watching Foggy's humiliation like it’s a tennis match. “Elektra, could you give us a minute, please?”
Elektra’s flippancy is less convincing than usual. “Oh, don't pause your little marital spat on my account - ”
“Elektra,” Matt snaps. “Give us a minute.”
Elektra glares daggers at him, then storms off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Foggy's neighbors are going to start complaining if they keep up with all the late night door-slamming.
“I don't know why you bothered,” Foggy says. “I have nothing to say to you.” He doesn't care that Matt can tell it's a lie.
“Foggy.” Matt sounds broken. “How long?” Foggy hesitates. “Foggy, please.”
Foggy sighs, and pushes past Matt to get to the kitchen. If they're going to have this conversation, he needs a drink.
“Since the day I started at HC&B,” he says after taking a long pull of a beer. It’s too cold; it makes his teeth ache.
“What does that mean?” Matt asks. “Why would that, why wouldn’t it show up earlier, why would it take ten years to - I don’t understand.”
“What the fuck does it matter, Matt?” Foggy explodes. “I could’ve have it stamped across my forehead since birth! It doesn’t change the fact that we’re done. We already knew that.”
Matt actually has the nerve to look wounded. “So, what, you were just never going to tell me? You always wanted a mark, and now that it’s me, you just...you don’t care?”
Foggy laughs bitterly. “Oh, are we really going to start talking about what we were never going to tell each other? Because your list is a lot longer than mine, buddy.”
Only Matt can look so guilty it makes Foggy feel guilty. “I know I haven’t always been truthful with you,” Matt says, ignoring the incredulous huff Foggy lets out. “But you were always the better of the two of us. I didn’t think...was it just that it was me? You’re that angry at me that you’d ignore…” He waves a hand, vaguely indicating the two of them, or fate, or whatever.
“Are you actually shitting me right now?” Foggy asks disbelievingly. “All that’s happened and you want me to stand here and stroke your ego? Of course I wanted it to be you!” Matt’s jaw hangs open. Foggy doesn’t care. If Matt wants to pretend to be stunned that’s his business; Elektra’s already given Foggy’s secret away. “I looked for your name for years, Matt! Years and years of wishing that I had proof that you and me were...that I meant something to - ”
“Foggy - ” Matt starts, choked, and Foggy holds up his free hand, cutting him off.
“No,” he says. “No, I’m not doing this. Following you around for a decade like some pathetic lapdog, fine. Building my life around you, fine. I was even okay with this charade where we both pretend like you haven’t been listening to my heart this whole time and haven’t always known exactly how I feel.” He shakes his head. “But don’t make me stand here and tell you how much I wanted you to be my soulmate, not when you couldn’t give two shits about me. Leave me that much dignity.”
He pushes past Matt again, back to the living room, and Matt follows. “Foggy, what are you - of course I care about you!”
“Oh, really?” Foggy asks. “I guess you were trying to show me by lying to me the entire time we’ve known each other. Or making me an accessory to your criminal activities. Or pushing me to take a case I never wanted to take defending a mass murderer and then leaving me high and dry when we got to court. Or lying to me again. Or - ”
“Foggy - ”
“Or choosing everyone in the world over me!” Foggy shouts over Matt’s protests. “Elektra’s ninja…whatever instead of the case! Fucking Frank Castle’s safety over mine! Even when we were being shot at you went for Karen instead of me, and Jesus Christ, Matt, I’m glad she’s alive but you could have stayed!” His voice breaks again. He’s weeping. “I was so scared and you left me there on the street with a hole in my shoulder and you never, you never came to see me so don’t...don’t lie to me again, Matt. Don’t tell me you care. It’s not about fucking soul marks. If you cared, you’d have come to the hospital.” He grinds the heel of his hand into his eye socket as if it’ll dam the tears. “I don’t need my name on you. I just needed you to be my friend.”
Matt stands there, chin trembling, for a long moment.
Then he unzips his fly.
“What - what the fuck, Matt?” Foggy says, taking a couple stumbling steps back, which is not how he ever thought he’d react to Matt taking his pants off.
“You’re right. I haven’t been a very good friend to you.” Matt walks over to the couch, shoves his pants down past his knees, and sits. His legs fall open, and he yanks the legs of his boxers up, pushing the fabric out of the way until his thighs show all the way to the seam of his pelvis. “But I have your mark.”
Foggy stares. Curving around Matt’s thighs, so high up he feels scandalous just looking at them, are two names. On the left thigh: Elektra.
And on the right thigh: Foggy.
“What…” Foggy’s voice is a ghost of a sound. “How...what...when did...that’s my name.”
“So I’m told.” Matt’s smile is more of a grimace. “I’ve never actually seen it.”
“Why do you have two?” The only person Foggy knows with two is his grandmother on his mother’s side, who had his step-grandfather’s name appear on the back of her hand a year after Foggy’s grandfather died. And sure, Elektra did die that one time, but it’s not like Matt didn’t already know Foggy by then.
“I don’t know,” Matt says.
“I...that’s…” Foggy drifts closer to the couch. That’s his name, written indelibly on Matt’s skin, tying them together. He wants to touch it. “How long has it been there?”
Matt’s hands tighten into fists, and that - Foggy knows what it looks like when Matt’s bracing himself. “I’m not sure exactly,” he says, “but they both showed up sometime during freshman year.”
“What?” It's barely a question; it's the air punched out of him.
Matt spreads his hands. “There's about six months in there that...I don't know. But they weren't there when I had my last checkup before starting college, and then when Elektra and I...the first time we…” He shrugs. “She told me. I don't know if they showed up when I met you, or when I met her, or not even at the same time, but…”
“She told you. About both of them?” Foggy asks, trying to get this straight.
“Yes.”
“So you've always known.” Foggy's shock is coalescing into something cold and hard and angry, deep in the pit of his stomach. “You've both always known.”
“Foggy, I…”
“Get out.” Foggy's ice, unyielding and likely to shatter at any minute. “Get out of my house.”
“Foggy, please…”
“No.” Foggy backs away from him, finger pointed at the window. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses. Ten years and you never told me? You lied to my face, because I asked you and you, you just, you - ” He’s so angry he’s sputtering, like an overheated engine. “And you have the gall to ask why I didn’t tell you about mine? Fuck you, Matt!”
Matt stands and pulls his pants back up. Foggy thought he’d feel marginally more sane with Matt’s inner thighs and the names scrawled across them safely tucked away, but no such luck. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Foggy.”
Foggy wants Matt to stop saying his name. “What part of any of this did you think wouldn’t hurt me?” he demands.
“I - ”
“Get. OUT.” Foggy points again. His finger’s shaking. “Now, Matt, I swear to God, or I’ll, I’ll call the fucking police on you.”
Matt actually looks betrayed as well as hangdog. Foggy tells himself the sudden nausea he feels is anger, not guilt. “All right. I’m sorry. I’m going.” He pulls the mask on. It’s easier to look at him with most of his expression hidden. “I’ll get this Hand business resolved as quickly as I can, and then...you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”
Foggy closes his eyes. He’s got Matt’s mark on him. He’ll have to deal with him forever.
When he opens them, Matt’s gone.
Foggy shuts the window, wipes the last few angry tears from his cheeks, and yanks his bedroom door open. Elektra’s sitting on the edge of the bed, tense. She definitely heard all of that, but that’s the least of Foggy’s worries, now that Matt’s poured gasoline on the last shred of Foggy’s heart and set it on fire.
“I’m going to sleep,” Foggy tells her. “Give me back my bed.” He’s tempted to kick her out of his apartment entirely, but that might mean signing her death warrant, and he’ll never be angry enough for that. Besides, he may not like her, but it’s Matt he’s really angry at.
She stands up. “Franklin…”
“I would not recommend starting with me,” he snaps. Her jaw goes tight, but she nods, and pushes past him out of the room. He shuts the door behind her.
All this time. All this goddamn time he’d been longing for Matt and Matt had known, Matt had known that the universe was trying to tell them...God, whatever it was that the universe was trying to say with soul marks. That they fit, that they matched, that they belonged to each other.
But Matt had Elektra’s name, too.
Foggy collapses onto his tangled sheets and stares up at the ceiling. What does that mean, that Matt has two? That Matt has two, and Foggy only has Matt, and Elektra doesn’t have anyone? His little sister, the consummate romantic, would say it means that Matt loves them both, and a year ago Foggy might have hoped… But Matt’s a better liar than Foggy ever suspected, and nothing about the way he’s treated Foggy over the past year has been consistent with love. If he ever wanted Foggy, he knew Foggy was his for the asking.
Which means he doesn’t want Foggy.
Foggy rolls over and prays that unconsciousness will come quickly. This isn’t news. He’s always known, really, that Matt didn’t feel for Foggy what Foggy felt for Matt. But to know that Matt has had Foggy’s name scrawled on his skin for a decade really hammers it home - that Matt cares so little about Foggy that he’ll ignore a soul mark telling him they’re meant to be connected. That he’ll let Foggy walk out of their firm without asking him to stay.
He realizes belatedly that he’s got his left hand curved over his own mark again, and balls his hands up into fists. He thought he’d made his peace with Matt not loving him back - he’d thought it years ago, when he realized how he felt, and again when he and Matt split up. It seems like Matt still has the ability to crack him open at will, though.
Maybe that’s what having a mark means: that Foggy’s heart will always be exposed and bleeding, right there for Matt do with as he pleases. He’d think his name on Matt would mean it goes both ways, but maybe it’s different for superheroes.
Or maybe it’s just different for Foggy.
*
He sleepwalks through work the next morning. When his mom texts around eleven to say she’s in the city running errands and does he want to grab lunch, he thumbs back “k” and forgets about it until he’s running 20 minutes late to their agreed-upon time.
The minute he walks into the bistro across the street from his office, though, his mother takes one look at him, stands up, and cups his face in her hands. “Oh, my poor baby. What’s wrong?”
He’s proud to say he doesn’t cry. He does, however, take several shuddering breaths that his mother pretends not to notice as they sit down and hide behind their menus.
It’s not until they’re halfway through their meal and have firmly established that work, Foggy’s father, and his sister Candace are all fine that his mother says, “It’s Matt, isn’t it? That’s got you so upset?”
Foggy stabs his fork viciously into the side salad he’s been ignoring in favor of his steak sandwich. “What makes you say that?”
“Sweetheart. Give me a little credit. I’ve known how you felt about that boy since you brought him home for Christmas when you were eighteen.” She gives him a wry look. “I wanted to stick a bow on him and put him under the tree for you, since I knew nothing I’d gotten you was going to come close.”
“Mom…” How can he still be embarrassed by this?
“Foggy.” She puts her hand on his. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But it might help.”
Foggy sighs, put his fork down, and tells her.
Not everything, of course. He leaves out the part where Matt’s a vigilante, and exactly why Nelson and Murdock fell apart. But everything else - Foggy’s reluctance to take the Castle case, the way Matt left him high and dry on it, how utterly forgotten he felt when Matt and Karen started dating, Matt’s wild and frankly dangerous ex-girlfriend coming back into their lives, Matt’s lies - comes spilling out of him. He tells her about finding Matt’s name on him, and he tells her about Matt’s marks, both of them, and how long he’s had them.
Then he drains his water glass and wishes he’d ordered a beer.
His mom studies him for a minute, then says, “What do you think it means, you not getting a mark until you and Matt weren’t speaking anymore?”
Foggy raises his eyebrows and makes a bitter noise. “That the universe is an incomprehensible vortex of pointless bullshit? Or it just hates me in particular.”
“Mm,” his mom says. She breaks off a piece of the crust of her quiche and pops it into her mouth. “You know I don’t have a mark.”
Foggy swallows. “I know. Mom, you know I never meant…”
“It was fourteen, fifteen years ago, sweetheart. I know you didn’t.”
The thing is, Anna Nelson isn’t Foggy’s biological mother. His birth mother, Rosalind, walked out on Foggy and his father before Foggy’s first birthday - when Foggy was still Frankie - and has had very little contact with them since. Edward Nelson met Anna Everett when Foggy was three, and Foggy was raised to call her “Mom.” To think of her as his mom.
And he does. But as a teenager, insecure and angry at the world, he’d spent a lot of time fantasizing that a life with Rosalind would be somehow immeasurably better, and he had a habit of throwing that in Anna’s face. He can still remember standing at the top of the stairs that led from Nelson’s Hardware to their apartment, screaming, “You’re not my mother! You’re barely even part of this family! If you were, you’d have Dad’s name on you, but you don’t!”
He can still remember the look on her face when he said it.
He’d apologized that night, the two of them hugging and crying on the couch, but the guilt never went away completely. But that doesn’t seem to be what she’s referring to now.
“It never bothered me, not at first, because your father didn’t have one either,” she says. “Not me and not Rosalind. It wasn’t even there when we got married. Do you know when my mark showed up on him?”
“No.” When Foggy pictures his father the mark is always there in his memories, “Anna” on the inside of his wrist when he reached out to pick Foggy up or take the book Foggy wanted him to read or hand Foggy a tool and show him how to use it.
“Candace’s first birthday,” she says. “We were putting her to bed, and he reached out to take her from me to give her a good night kiss, and - there it was.”
Foggy frowns. “That late? That...I was eight, you’d been married five years by then…”
She nods. “I don’t know why it took that long. I mean, no one really does, and watch out for the ones who say they do, because they’re trying to sell you something. But do you want to know my theory?”
“Sure.” He’s not sure how this relates to him and Matt. His mark hardly appeared while tucking their child into bed - and yeah, that’s a thought he’s not going to linger on because it hurts with a sudden sharpness he didn’t expect. But he’ll hear her out.
“I don’t think the marks are meant for other people. I don’t think they’re there to tell you who to find. I think they’re there to tell you about yourself,” his mother says. “The mark wasn’t telling your father to love me - he was already doing that. But Rosalind left before your first birthday, and I think...I think even though Edward had intellectually decided to have faith, there was always some small part of him that didn’t believe I wouldn’t do the same thing. Until then.” She smiles, a little misty. “That was when he knew, deep down, that I wouldn’t leave him. The mark wasn’t proof that I’d stay. It was proof that he believed I would.”
Foggy raises an eyebrow and touches his mark through his sleeve. “So this is the universe telling me I know Matt won’t leave me? Because, uh, he did.”
“I think you know what I’m suggesting,” his mother says, fixing him with a knowing gaze that makes him feel all of fifteen again. “As long as you were with Matt, there was no need to tell you that you needed to be. Maybe this is the universe course-correcting.”
“Then why has he always had two?”
“I don’t know.” She gives a little shrug. “I don’t know him as well as I know you. He has his own things to figure out.”
Foggy looks down at his plate. “Why would the universe want me to go back to someone who made me feel…” Betrayed. Unwanted. Lonely standing right next to him. “...so unhappy? Why would you?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t.” She reaches out and squeezes his hands in both of hers. “Believe me, the next time I see that boy I’m going to smack him right upside the head. I love Matt, but no one treats my son like that. I just want to make sure…” She shrugs again. “Things with you and Matt have always been easy. Right now they’re not. Does he have a lot to answer for? I’m sure he does. But I wonder if maybe you’re not…”
“Not what?”
“You’re so good with people, Foggy. My little social butterfly.” She smiles. “Even when you were tiny. If I was sad, you’d come sit in my lap and tell me you loved me. You could always make your father laugh, or get Candace to stop throwing a tantrum. You understand people so well, especially the people you love. But I think sometimes…” She reaches over to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I think sometimes you’re so sure you know what someone’s thinking that you forget to listen to what they’re saying. When you ask Matt why he does these things, do you listen to his answers?”
Foggy glances away. His mother raises her eyebrows.
“Have you even asked Matt why he does these things?”
“What’s there to ask?” Foggy says, pulling away. “Fine, maybe I haven’t been the world’s greatest listener lately, but what kind of answer am I get to ‘why did you lie to me for a decade’ or ‘why didn’t you come see me in the hospital?’ What can Matt say that will possibly make me feel better? It’s just going to boil down to him not…” He cuts off with a frustrated noise.
“Not what?”
Foggy stares very hard at his plate. “Not loving me back.”
“Well, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” his mother says, and Foggy blinks, startled. “Have you seen the look on that boy’s face when you talk?”
“Sure?” Foggy kind of minored in Looking At Matt in undergrad. And life.
“It’s like he’s remembered that good things exist in the world. Every time,” she says. She reaches for his hands again. “I’m not saying you should be with someone who makes you unhappy. I would never want that for you. I’m saying...ask him what he wants, and why he lied, and really listen to the answers.” She gives him a crooked smile. “And if you don’t like what he has to say, let me know and I’ll give that little shit a piece of my mind myself.”
Foggy laughs, a little choked. “I love you, Mom.”
“I know, sweetie.” She leans in and kisses his forehead. “I love you too.”
*
He works late and orders takeout at his desk. He realizes it’s childish to avoid Elektra like this, but, well, so be it.
Not that it matters, because she’s not in the apartment when he gets back. He frowns and checks the whole place again, like she could somehow be hiding in a one bedroom apartment too tiny for more than three people to stand in the living room without bumping into each other. “Elektra?”
No answer, of course. He tries not to panic. There’s no sign of a disturbance, so she must have left of her own volition. She’s been stuck in his apartment for the past few days, and a literal coffin for months before that - she probably just wanted to stretch her legs.
That, or she and Matt have decided to go after the Hand after all. Foggy loosens his tie and pulls out his phone to call Matt’s burner. He doesn’t really want to talk to Matt right now, not until he figures out what he wants to say, but he feels responsible for Elektra, grown-ass ninja that she may be. He needs to make sure she’s okay.
He’s just about to dial when he hears a rustle behind him. “Elektra?” he says, turning around -
- and hands grab him, yanking him backwards and to his knees and covering his mouth so he can’t scream.
Foggy tries to gasp and chokes on the hand muffling him. He struggles and the hands holding his arms yank them back harder, twisting painfully tight. A figure steps in front of him: a ninja, masked, but large and male. Definitely not Elektra.
“Good evening, Mr. Nelson,” the ninja says. His voice is light and incongruously pleasant. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Foggy makes a strangled noise. The hands holding him tighten again.
“To that end, of course, we will need to uncover your mouth,” the head ninja or whatever his title is says. “I am going to have to ask you not to scream. If you do, we will be very unhappy, and you will pay the price. Is that understood?”
Foggy nods. Of course he’s not going to scream. That would just make his neighbors come running, and they’re completely unequipped to deal with ninjas. Foggy’s not going to have any more deaths on his conscience.
The hand over his mouth is removed. Foggy shakes his head and then looks around the room. There’s at least half a dozen men in there, shrouded in dark clothing, all looking extremely dangerous. How did he not hear them come in? Or have they been there all this time, waiting for Foggy?
“Very good, Mr. Nelson,” says the head ninja. “Now. This is very important. Where is the Black Sky?”
So they don't have Elektra already. Good. “The what?” Foggy asks.
The head ninja strikes him across the face.
“I am not a patient man, Mr. Nelson,” he says. “We know you are former partners with Daredevil. We know Elektra Natchios has been staying with you. Your suffering is unnecessary. Tell us where they are.”
Foggy works his lower jaw around in a circle. He feels dazed, and wow, yeah, those really are stars sparking in his vision. He's never been hit like that before. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he says.
The head ninja hits him again. Foggy cuts his bottom lip on his teeth and feels his mouth fill with blood. “I am not going to stop,” the head ninja says. His voice is still very pleasant. “I will hurt you until you tell me.”
“There's nothing to tell,” Foggy insists. “I don't know Daredevil, I have no idea who this other person is, and I can't tell you where to find them.”
The head ninja punches him so hard his ears ring. Foggy cries out, then sags in the grip of the man holding him. He's dizzy.
“Tell me.”
“I don't know anything!” Foggy’s head is swimming, but one thing’s clear: he’ll die before he gives up Matt and Elektra.
“I will be honest with you, Mr. Nelson,” the head ninja says. “Our surveillance showed that you are essentially a weak man, and so we did not expect resistance. I have not brought any of the implements I would normally use to make someone talk. Of course, I can be very creative, but I need you to understand that the pain you are feeling right now is nothing compared to what I am capable of doing to you if you do not give me the information I need.”
“No...no information to give you,” Foggy manages. “You want legal rep? That I can do. But no...I don’t know...anything.” It’s not his best stab at humor, but to be fair to him he’s under a lot of strain right now.
“You do, Mr. Nelson, and you will share it with us,” the head ninja says, and pulls out a small, elegant knife, its blade gleaming in the light from the street. “The only thing you have control of is how likely you are to survive the telling of it.”
He reaches forward - and drops facedown on the floor, the knife skittering away.
Foggy only has a split second to stare in confusion before Elektra’s there - and then he’s still staring, because it’s one thing to know that some snotty debutante he knew casually in college is a secret ninja, and another thing entirely to see it in action. She’s in constant motion, spinning as she kicks one guy in the face, steals his sword, and runs him through, then whirling to face the others, the sword making glittering arcs through the air.
The guy holding Foggy lets go to join the fight and Foggy scrambles for shelter behind the couch. Elektra slices one ninja across the stomach and another across the throat. Foggy winces, but Matt did say these guys are undead. Still, it’s going to be a while before he stops seeing this every time he closes his eyes.
The last two ninjas flee out the window, and Foggy peeks cautiously over the couch. Elektra’s standing facing the window, chest heaving, sword dripping with blood. “Are you okay?” he asks.
She gives him a startled look. “Am I okay?” Shaking her head, she huffs an incredulous laugh. “Oh, Franklin. I’m starting to understand what Matthew sees in you.”
*
Elektra still has resources, it turns out. She makes a phone call and four very efficient women show up and quietly remove the bodies she’s dropped, then scrub Foggy’s apartment of blood. Foggy doesn’t see most of it; Elektra takes him to the bathroom and bathes his face in vinegar and water. He wrinkles his nose against the smell, but his bruised face does feel better afterwards.
“You didn’t give me up,” she says, sweeping the washcloth over his blackening eye.
He’d stare bewilderedly at her if he was willing to risk opening his eye and getting vinegar in it. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Hm.” She finishes what she’s doing, tosses the wet washcloth in the sink, and hands him a towel. “I always hated you, you know,” she says conversationally. “I mean, I never really saw the point of you to begin with, but from the first time I got Matthew out of those dreadful clothes and saw your name on his thigh I absolutely loathed you.”
Foggy pats his face dry gingerly and looks up at her from his perch on the closed toilet seat. “Uh...sorry?” He doesn’t want another fight. He doesn’t even have the energy for the usual swoop of jealousy that accompanies thinking about Matt in bed with other people.
“You know he never talked about you?” she says. “I mean, aside from ‘Oh, I have to go, I’m meeting Foggy,’ or ‘I can’t go to St. Tropez with you for Easter break, I already told Foggy I’d stay with his family that week.’” She tosses out the impressions of Matt blowing her off breezily, but Foggy’s startled nonetheless. Considering how little he saw Matt during his relationship with Elektra, he would never have imagined that Matt ever ditched Elektra for Foggy.
“He never talked about you either,” he admits.
“It drove me wild,” Elektra says. “He told me about everything else. His senses, his father, Stick. Of course I already knew about Stick, but…” She puts cool fingers on Foggy’s chin and tilts his head up, surveying the damage. “What was so special about you that he had to keep it secret? He and I were in love, so what were you doing on his thigh? And I didn’t have a mark of my own, so I couldn’t even lay that claim to him.” She shakes her head. “I was so jealous of you. I still am.”
Foggy raises his eyebrows, then winces when it hurts his bruised eye socket. “You’re jealous of me? Has...has no one told you you’re a beautiful millionaire ninja?”
She lets him go and leans against the sink. “He made a life with you. He chose to make a life with you.” She tilts her head at him. “And it’s a life that he treasures, even if it would bore me to tears.”
Foggy huffs through his nose. He thinks he’s starting to get her sense of humor. “Not enough not to go running off with you the first chance he got.”
“Do you think he honestly could have stayed away from New York? From you?” she asks. She shakes her head again. “He doesn’t know what he wants.”
Foggy looks at her, this maddening, brilliant, foolhardy, fearless...terrified, lonely woman. “Maybe that’s not the problem,” he says slowly. “Maybe he just wants too much.”
Elektra looks at him, then arches an eyebrow. “I’m not very good at sharing.”
Foggy snorts, then winces again. All his best facial expressions seem to be out of commission until he heals. “Who says I even want him back?”
She takes the towel from him to hang it back on the rack, and touches his cheek to angle his face again. “Oh, Franklin. You may not be pointless, but you are an absolutely shitty liar.” She smiles. “Now, do you want to call Matthew and give him a heart attack when you tell him what happened, or shall I?”
*
Matt arrives breathless and frantic, yanking first his helmet, then his gloves off as soon as he’s through the window. “They must have tracked one of us, I thought I’d shaken them off but they must have managed to follow me anyway and find you, I should never have brought you into this,” he says, words tripping over each other as he reaches for Foggy. His fingers actually brush Foggy’s cheek before he seems to realize that he doesn’t have that right anymore, and snatches them back like a guilty child. “Are. Are you all right?”
“It’s okay, Matt,” Foggy says. “I’m a bit worse for wear, but I’ll heal. See for yourself.”
Matt hesitates, then puts his hands on Foggy’s face again, working over it to check the extent of the damage. His touch is so light it barely hurts, even on the worst injuries, and Foggy can’t even bring himself to be heartbroken over how intimate it feels. Somewhere between letting go of his resentment of Elektra and now, the rage in his heart gave way to resignation. It’s only a little bittersweet.
“You’re okay,” Matt concludes finally, and pulls back, curling his hands into fists like he’s trying to control them.
“Thanks to Elektra,” Foggy says, and looks over to where she’s watching them, face expressionless.
She blinks, then tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve never gone that long without fighting, I was simply indulging myself.”
Foggy bites back a smile. Yeah, he understands her a bit better now. “Well, glad I could help.”
Matt frowns, head tilting back and forth between them as he follows the conversation. “The question is, what do we do now that they know about Foggy, and this apartment? I can try to find a safehouse for the two of you…”
“Until when?” Foggy asks. “Until you defeat the Hand? We just sit in a basement somewhere while you try to figure out how to take down a centuries-old cult of undead master fighters?”
Matt gives him a fretful look. “Well, I don’t know how else to keep you two safe, and I can’t - ”
“I’m leaving the city,” Elektra announces.
Matt gives her his equivalent of a stare. “What?”
“I’m leaving New York,” she says. “I’m the Black Sky. The Hand will never stop trying to control me. The longer I stay in one place, the less safe it is for that place.” She nods towards Foggy. “And for the people in it.”
“Elektra, you don’t have to…” Foggy starts, not sure how he’s going to end that sentence, but she shakes her head, cutting him off.
“I wasn’t made for this,” she says. “Hiding? Waiting? Putting down roots? I’m losing my mind here. You know I am.” She turns towards Matt on that last bit. “I can’t just lie low. That is not who I am. That is not how I was taught. ‘If you would win the battle, choose the field yourself.’” She’s quoting someone - Stick, probably. “This is your battlefield, Matthew. It’s not mine.”
“London?” Matt asks. There’s a quirk to his lips like a smile, but he doesn’t look happy. “Madrid, Tunisia?”
“No,” she says. “You’re not listening to me. This is your battlefield.”
“You’re leaving me again?” he asks, his voice small, and Foggy turns away, walks quickly to the kitchen so that he can at least pretend to be doing something. This isn’t a conversation for him - and besides, even if he and Elektra have arrived at some sort of truce, he doesn’t need her seeing how much it still hurts that Elektra’s potential absence wounds Matt in a way that Foggy’s never will.
“Matthew,” she says. Foggy hears her cross the floor to Matt, pictures her reaching for him. “You were right, last summer. There’s no place for me in your world.”
“I could come with you,” Matt says.
“Could you?” she asks.
There’s silence, and then footsteps again, and the bedroom door closing. Foggy still jumps when he hears Matt’s voice behind him. “Foggy.”
He turns around and forces a smile. Matt won’t be able to see it, but he could probably have heard the lack of it in Foggy’s voice. “You’ll love Madrid,” Foggy says. “I mean, I’ve never been there but it sounds like a place people would love. Plus you speak Spanish, so…”
“Foggy.”
“It’s okay if you go with her.” Foggy has to say this now, because if Matt does something stupid like ask for permission, Foggy might not be able to get it out. “Really, the city will be okay. There’s Jones now, and her friends, and Stark still lives here, doesn’t he? We don’t need you, Murdock.”
He tries to nudge Matt playfully with his arm, but Matt catches his wrist and holds Foggy’s hand loosely in his own. “Then why do you have my name on you?” he asks softly.
“Dirty pool, Matt,” Foggy says, and tries to pull away, but Matt won’t let him.
“Elektra was right when she said that I couldn’t leave New York,” he says. “But it’s not just because I love this city.” His brows are knit together, fretful, and Foggy fights the instinctive urge to try to soothe him. “I’m not making a joke here, Foggy, and I’m not trying to be cruel. I can’t figure it out - why I’ve always had both of your names, and why it’s only now that you’ve got mine.”
Foggy leans back against the counter and gives up on trying to take his hand back from Matt. Matt turns it over and traces the lines of his palm. “I don’t know, Matt. Okay? I don’t know any more about this than anyone else. I...my mom says it’s not for other people, but to tell us something about ourselves. That...that I didn’t need your name on me when I was with you, because I knew where I was supposed to be.”
Matt’s fingers tighten on his hand and then relax. “Do you think she’s right?”
“I don’t know,” Foggy says again, helplessly. “What would that mean for you, when you have two? You’ve barely ever even let me and Elektra be in the same room together, how could you be with both of us at once? It’d be like living two entirely separate lives.” He catches himself and has to laugh, a little bitter. “Which you were.”
Matt’s tracing his palm again. “Maybe...maybe that’s why,” he says slowly. “Elektra...she fell in love with Daredevil. Even if he didn’t have a name yet, that’s what she saw. That’s who she wanted. She doesn’t want Matt Murdock. And you...you don’t want Daredevil.”
Foggy stares at him. “You realize they’re both you, right? I would’ve felt pretty differently towards Daredevil if you’d let me know he was there from the beginning. I mean, jeez, Matt, maybe it just means you’re supposed to stop compartmentalizing.”
Matt lets him go. Foggy wants his hands back immediately, and hates himself for being so predictable. “Maybe I don’t know how.”
“It starts with telling the truth,” Foggy says, harsher than he means to. “Sorry. But, I mean...yeah.”
“Like you did?” Matt asks.
Foggy breathes through his nose, lets the anger go. “Okay, fine. I’ll give you that one. You want to know about the mark?” He rolls his sleeve up, high enough to expose the whole thing, and picks up Matt’s hand again, uses Matt’s forefinger to trace out the shape of it. “Right there. It’s black,” he adds, probably unnecessarily. Marks usually are.
Matt’s expression is wondering. “I can’t feel anything different,” he says, but when Foggy lets go of his hand, he traces the mark again without assistance, almost perfectly.
“Well, it’s there,” Foggy says.
“I believe you,” Matt says, his voice very soft. His finger is still on the last T of his name. “All those years of wondering why you didn’t have one…”
Foggy moves away. He can’t bear the wistfulness on Matt’s face right now; it makes him sharp. “You could have told me about yours.”
“How?” Matt asks. “When I found out about it, I was with Elektra. What was I supposed to do, tell you you were my soulmate when I was in a relationship with someone else?”
“We could have worked something out,” Foggy says, knowing he’s being unfair. “There are platonic soulmates.”
“Well, you weren’t one!” Matt snaps. “I wanted you and I was with her and I couldn’t have both!”
Foggy stares. “...What?”
Matt stalks away, but he doesn’t go far - just to the window, like he wants to slip out through it but knows he can’t get out of the conversation that easily. “I love you, Foggy,” he says. Foggy can’t hear his heart, but the truth of it echoes in its very simplicity. “I always have. But I loved Elektra, and she was my soulmate, and she left. If I told you the truth, it was no guarantee you’d stay. You didn’t even have my mark.”
Through Foggy’s stunned daze - Matt loves him, Matt loves him - a memory floats back to him. Matt, ten years ago, drunk and solemn: “Having someone's name written on you doesn't mean you're meant to be together forever.”
He takes a step towards Matt. Matt loves him. “I stayed anyway,” he points out. “Until you told me to go.”
Matt’s chin drops. He’s still facing away from Foggy. “You were better off without me. I still believe that.”
“Yeah? Well, I got a mark on my arm says otherwise,” Foggy says.
The sensible part of him thinks that he should just let Matt go; that he should smile and nod at all of Matt’s self-sacrificing bullshit and let him and Elektra walk out the door to Europe or Africa or wherever-the-fuck. He has a good job without Matt, and no one shooting at him, and no one making him cry.
He’s always been good at shutting up the sensible part of him when Matt’s around.
And Matt loves him.
Matt shakes like a leaf when Foggy lays the flat of his hand on Matt’s back. “I’m not going to stop being Daredevil,” he says. “I can’t.”
“I know,” Foggy says. Maybe his mom was right - maybe that’s what Matt’s marks meant all along. He’s not just the too-serious, soft-eyed boy Foggy fell in love with, but he’s not just the reckless, avenging thrillseeker Elektra loves either. Maybe all Matt needs is someone who can love both.
Maybe that’s who Foggy can be.
“I know the mark doesn’t mean I won’t leave you, Matt,” he says. Matt’s ribcage expands beneath his hand. “But do you think you could try to believe that I’ll stay anyway?”
Matt’s shoulders roll forward. “What if I tell you to leave again?” he asks.
“Then I’ll leave,” Foggy says. “I mean, not from here I’m not leaving, this is my apartment. But I’ll stay with you, Matt, until you don’t want me anymore.”
Matt turns around, then, and with his glasses somewhere back at his place it’s easy to see the tears in his eyes. “I’ll always want you,” he says. “No matter what else happens, Foggy, I know that for sure.”
And when he finally, finally kisses Foggy, Foggy believes him.
*
They make their way to the tiny airstrip at four a.m., when the sky is just beginning to lighten over the harbor.
“There’s nothing I can do to talk you into staying?” Matt asks.
Elektra shakes her head. She’s wearing a hat with a massive brim and a silk scarf that shrouds her face. She looks less like an undead vigilante fleeing ninja assassins and more like a movie star who doesn’t want to be recognized. Foggy supposes that’s sort of the point.
“New York’s not safe with me here,” she says. “Don’t worry, Matthew, I’ll lead them on a merry chase. This is a hunt the Hand will not enjoy, I promise you that.”
He sighs and pulls her into his arms. Foggy glances away when Matt kisses her, more to give them privacy than out of passive aggression. He’s not going to pretend to himself that he doesn’t feel a twinge of jealousy at the sight, but it’s faint. In time it’ll fade entirely.
“I love you,” Matt says.
“I love you too,” Elektra replies.
“Be careful.”
She grins. “Never.”
He lets her go, and she turns to Foggy, who holds out a hand. “Give ‘em hell, Natchios,” he says.
He’s surprised when Elektra bypasses his hand to hug him. “Take care of Matthew, Franklin,” she says. “But don’t be too nice to him. He likes it when you’re a little mean.”
Foggy glances at Matt, whose ears are red. “Yeah, that’s not an enormous surprise,” Foggy says, and Elektra laughs.
“Do you think you can manage it?” she asks.
Foggy grins. “I’ll be the meanest little rabbit you ever saw.”
She grins back. It’s ferocious and beautiful. “And I’ll be the most reckless idiot.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Foggy replies.
She steps back, squeezes Matt’s hand once more, and makes her way up the ramp stairs to the door of the tiny plane, where the pilot she’s paid an obscene amount of money to ask as few questions as possible is waiting. As she turns, the wind catches her hair and her scarf, and the faint pink light of morning renders her absolutely breathtaking.
Foggy’s hand slips into Matt’s. “She’s beautiful, Matty,” he murmurs.
“I know,” Matt says.
Elektra tosses her hair. She’s clearly posing. Last year it would have annoyed Foggy; now it just makes him smile. “This is not the end,” she says, and Matt’s hand tightens in Foggy’s.
“I know that too,” he says.
Elektra walks onto the plane, and the pilot waves Matt and Foggy off the runway. They back up towards the tiny hangar but don’t go in, despite the noise of the engines as the plane starts up and the chill of the early morning air.
“I’m sorry you had to say goodbye to her again,” Foggy says, and means it.
“Considering the other goodbyes we’ve had, I’m not sure I have the right to complain about this one,” Matt says. He presses closer to Foggy, and Foggy watches the plane move down the runway, gathering speed as it gets further away.
“She’ll be fine,” he says. “Death couldn’t stop her, what are a handful of measly old ninjas gonna do?”
“I know,” Matt says, and it doesn’t sound like he’s just humoring Foggy.
Elektra’s plane lifts into the sky. Matt lays his head on Foggy’s shoulder.
“Do you want to go home?” Foggy asks.
“Home” is Foggy’s place, for the moment. Matt has barely left his side in the three days it’s taken them to arrange Elektra’s falsified papers and travel plans, and Foggy, shaken from being attacked in his own home, hasn’t complained. Or maybe he just missed having Matt around.
They haven’t really talked about how permanent an arrangement that will be, or if Foggy’s going to come back to Nelson and Murdock, or even what to call what they are to each other now. Elektra was the priority, and besides, it seemed callous to talk about a life with Matt when Elektra didn’t have one, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Now the world seems open with possibility, and Foggy’s a little terrified, but mostly exhilarated. Matt could have gotten on that plane, and Foggy knows that part of him wanted to - but he’s here on the ground with Foggy instead, holding his hand. Because he chose to be.
Matt was right, it turns out, all those years ago. Who cares about soul marks? Fate’s got nothing on choice.
“In a little while,” Matt says, his breath warm against Foggy’s cheek. “Can we just stay here for a bit? It’s quieter.”
“Of course, Matty,” Foggy says, and turns to kiss the top of Matt’s head before glancing to the east. “Sun’s coming up,” he says. “You want me to tell you about the sunrise?”
“Please,” Matt says, voice soft and hand strong in Foggy’s.
So Foggy does.
Fandom: Daredevil (TV)
Rating: PG-13
Part One
Foggy meets Karen for drinks after work the next day, because it’s that or go home to an apartment that’s always been too small, but seems especially so now that Elektra’s in it. Karen’s been hard to pin down lately, always off chasing this lead or that. Foggy never realized what workaholics everyone at Nelson and Murdock was until the firm collapsed; it was easy enough to see his friends when they often spent fourteen hours a day together.
Well, he and Karen did. Matt was...otherwise occupied.
Karen looks good - tired, and a little distracted by her phone, but less stressed than Foggy’s used to. She doesn’t have the slightly frayed edges he’s become accustomed to seeing. Apparently escaping Nelson and Murdock’s swirling vortex of debt and unrequited emotional complications has been good for her.
“So I read your piece on the comptroller,” Foggy says. “Getting city officials fired for corruption? Don’t fuck with Karen Page, sleazebags of New York!”
He raises his glass to her and she laughs, ducking her head. “I’m just glad all that digging paid off,” she says. “And that hopefully now a chunk of the city’s revenue won’t be disappearing into offshore accounts in the Bahamas. At least, not as large a chunk.” She pauses, chewing on her lip. “I had help on that story, actually.”
Something about the way she says it makes Foggy sit up a bit. She’s being cagey. That usually means a bombshell. “Yeah? You got a snitch in City Hall now?”
“No! Well, yes, actually,” she admits, “but that’s not who I meant. Uh. Some of the forged invoices I referred to were obtained by. Um. Daredevil.”
“...Oh.” The last bit of playfulness in the conversation evaporates. “You, uh. You work with him a lot?”
“Here and there,” she says. “We pass information on to each other, when it’s helpful. And he looks out for me. There’ve been a couple of times where...well, it’s nice to have backup, sometimes.”
“Karen, you gotta be careful,” Foggy says, though he knows it won’t do any good.
“I carry a gun.”
“Karen!”
“Foggy!” Karen’s got that stubborn set to her jaw that tells Foggy he’ll get nowhere fast with this. Not that he didn’t already know that. “I know what I’m doing. And it’s not like I’m running into dangerous situations for a cheap thrill. The work I’m doing - it’s important.”
God, she sounds like Matt. “I’m not trying to patronize you,” he says. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I care about you, Karen.”
“I know,” she says, and reaches out to squeeze his hand. “I appreciate it. But doing this...it feels right. It feels like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Foggy swallows past the lump in his throat. He remembers that feeling: grateful clients pushing casserole dishes into his hands and kissing his cheek when he got cases settled in their favor; Matt’s fond smile; the feeling of rightness when he knew he’d made the world, or at least their little corner of it, just a little bit more fair. He can’t begrudge Karen that satisfaction, even if it’s out of his reach these days.
He clears his throat and takes a sip of his drink. “So you, uh...you and Matt are talking again?”
“No,” she says, a little too loud, then glances around and lowers her voice. “No. I’m working with Daredevil. Matt and I...I’m not ready to be his friend again. Not yet.”
“His friend?” Foggy repeats, eyebrows raised.
“Baby steps,” she says. “I don’t...look, I love Matt. At the end of the day, regardless of what he’s done, I love him. Like a friend, like...something else, it doesn’t matter. But it’s going to take a long time for me to trust him again with…” She looks at her nails, picks at one that’s chipping. “I think I wanted someone who didn’t exist, and I think he did too. We were both looking for something safe.”
Foggy tilts his nearly-empty glass, pretending he’s fascinated by the way the ice cubes fall against each other as he angles it. “So...not expecting a mark to appear any time soon, then?” he asks, trying for levity and falling way, way short.
Karen’s silent, and when he cuts his eyes across at her she’s staring at him, eyebrows raised. “Um...that’s kind of a weird question.”
“Sorry,” he says, putting his glass down to hold his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, sorry, it’s none of my business, it’s…”
“Invasive? Yeah, a little bit.”
“Right, sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…”
“I mean it’s not like I’m asking you if you have Matt’s name on your ass or something.” His face must do something at that because her already naturally huge eyes go even wider. “Holy shit. You do.”
Foggy looks away. “It’s not...on my ass.”
“But you have one.”
Foggy sighs, then unbuttons his cuff and pushes up his sleeve. Karen’s silent for a moment, staring at it.
“But you aren’t...I mean, it’s one of those platonic ones, right? You guys aren’t…”
Foggy pulls his sleeve back down and concentrates very hard on the cuff as he buttons it again. “If Matt had one, which he doesn’t, it would probably be platonic, yes. But if Matt had one, he probably would have come to visit me in the hospital that time I got shot, so…”
“Foggy…”
There’s too much sympathy in Karen’s voice, and Foggy really didn’t come here to cry into his whiskey. “It’s fine. You’re right, it was inappropriate for me to bring it up.”
Karen puts her hand back on his. “Hey. I know Matt’s…Matt, but I also know how much he adores you. Believe me, it’s painfully obvious from...well, basically from the moment I met you guys. If he’s not showing it well these days, that’s because of something going on with him, not anything to do with you.”
“Karen, I can’t…”
“I’m not saying you should...go back to him, or start Nelson and Murdock back up again, or, or anything, really,” she says quickly. “I know he hurt you. I want you to take care of yourself first.” She tilts her head; soft, careful. “I just don’t want you to think that you aren’t loved. By Matt or by anyone else.”
Foggy chuckles, and if it’s suspiciously wet Karen doesn’t call him on it. “That’s right,” he says. “Foggy Nelson, universally beloved.”
“That’s right,” she says, and she’s so fierce about it that he really does cry, just a little. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
*
Matt stops by around midnight the evening after that, tapping on Foggy’s bedroom window. “No one followed me,” he assures Foggy as he climbs through and tugs the helmet off. “I made sure. Is Elektra awake?”
“Hello, Foggy, nice to see you,” Foggy drawls, although honestly, what did he expect.
At least Matt has the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. I know none of this is...ideal. I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for us, Foggy.”
Foggy rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Come on, let’s go wake Sleeping Beauty.”
Elektra’s already up, it turns out. She tucks her knees up to her chin and Matt sits on the couch in the space vacated by her legs, while Foggy takes an awkward seat in one of his uncle’s hand-me-down armchairs, feeling oddly like a guest in his own home.
“I found it,” Matt says. “The Hand’s stronghold. I haven’t sensed Nobu, Stick said he finished him for good before he left town and I think that was true, but there’s still a lot of them. I’ll have to draw them off, see if I can lure them out for the cops a few at a time. I’ll explain to Brett about their abilities so that he can come up with some way of - ”
“Leave Brett out of this craziness,” Foggy says just as Elektra snaps, “You’re not facing the Hand by yourself, Matthew!”
“I’m not taking you anywhere near them,” Matt tells her. “That’s just what they want, they’ll just try to use you again and I refuse…”
“Isn’t this my fight?” she asks. “Don’t I have the right to it, after what they did to me?”
“What they did to you is exactly why I’m not going to let you - ”
“Let me?” and Matt’s a braver man than Foggy if he’s not cowed by that tone in her voice.
Well. Foggy supposes they all always knew Matt was braver than him.
“Look,” he says, even though he should probably just let them fight it out. What does he know about confronting ninjas anyway? “It doesn’t have to be just Matt, or even just both of you. I specialize in vigilante law, remember? Let me call Jones tomorrow, see if she’s willing to throw in on this.” Elektra snorts dismissively. “She can lift a car, Natchios, you want her on your side. And I’ve been hearing about this other guy up in Harlem - never met the man, but I might be able to get a number. And…” He runs a hand through his hair, sighs. “I don’t like Brett being mixed up in this, but if you must, at least bring him in at the planning stage and not the ‘hey detective, watch out for the undead ninjas I’m sending your way’ stage, okay? There’s a way to do this that doesn’t involve just running at the Hand with your little sticks and hoping for the best.”
“They’re called billy clubs,” Matt says sulkily, and Foggy rolls his eyes.
“I think we can manage this fight without help from your drinking buddies, Franklin,” Elektra says.
Matt hesitates. “Backup might not be the worst idea…” he starts, which is quite frankly a landmark of personal growth from Matt “Don’t Help Me, I Can Do It Myself” Murdock.
“I don’t know these people,” Elektra says.
“We could try to find Stick,” Matt suggests.
“No,” Elektra and Foggy snap at the same time, and glare at each other.
“Do you think I could meet with Jones?” Matt asks Foggy. “I’m not saying that I’ll bring her in, necessarily, but if I could talk with her…”
“You’re going to listen to him?” Elektra says, sweeping her hand in Foggy’s direction. “This terrified little rabbit of a man who’s done nothing more dangerous than cross Broadway at rush hour? You’re letting him strategize?”
“Watch it,” Matt says, sharp.
“I’m letting a murderer who’s being hunted by other murderers sleep on my couch, how’s that for dangerous?” Foggy asks.
“Oh yes, I’m sorry,” Elektra says. “You’ve suffered so much, filing your little papers and waiting by the window for Matthew to come back to you to play Happy Little Bureaucrat. I’d forgotten.”
“Elektra…” Matt warns.
“Okay, fine, you got me!” Foggy says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I haven’t died. I haven’t been gutted like a fish by a ninja. I have no interest in putting on a weird leather bondage suit and punching criminals in the face. And yet somehow I’m still the one who keeps ending up in the hospital - not that present company gives a shit.” That last is directed at Matt, who looks stricken. Too bad. “But fine, whatever, leave me out of it. I didn’t realize being reckless to the point of stupidity was the only way to get a say in this decision making process. Just try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, would you? It is my city too, after all, and when you two finish your suicide run it’s us Happy Little Bureaucrats who are going to have to pick up the pieces.”
“It’s not a suicide run, Foggy,” Matt says. “I know what I’m doing.”
Foggy snorts. “You’re going to get yourself killed! She’s going to get you killed.”
“Oh, this again,” Elektra says.
“Yeah, forgive me if it’s kind of a pressing concern for me!”
“It’s not your concern!” Elektra snaps. “He’s not your partner anymore, and he makes his own choices. Blame me all you want, but just because you have a mark doesn’t mean you own him.”
Foggy feels abruptly nauseous. Matt gives them a blank-eyed stare.
“What?” he says. “He doesn’t...Foggy doesn’t have a mark. Foggy, you don’t…” He tilts his head, and Foggy knows, he knows Matt’s listening to how Foggy’s heart is suddenly hammering. “When did you get a mark?”
“Does it matter?” Foggy asks, suddenly exhausted.
“What? Foggy, of course it matters.” Matt’s face is soft, coaxing, and suddenly Foggy hates him, hates Elektra, hates himself, hates this whole stupid situation.
“Really?” he asks. “Because I had your name before, Matt. I had it on the lease for our office space. I had it on the loans we co-signed. I had it on our door, and anywhere I had to write down an emergency contact, and...and freaking joint birthday cards for my parents! It didn’t stop you from walking out on me, so why would it make any fucking difference if it’s on my skin?”
“Walking - I didn't walk out on you!” Matt says, looking genuinely stunned. “You took the job at HC&B. You left Nelson and Murdock.”
“Oh please, like there was anything left to leave,” Foggy snarls. “You weren't showing up for cases, you were lying to me and Karen about her - ” He makes the sweep of his arm wide as he indicates Elektra to be sure Matt picks it up. “You had one foot out the door long before Marci floated my name to Hogarth. You might not have quit, but you left me just the same.” His voice breaks at the end. He wishes he was a better liar.
Matt turns to Elektra, who's been watching Foggy's humiliation like it’s a tennis match. “Elektra, could you give us a minute, please?”
Elektra’s flippancy is less convincing than usual. “Oh, don't pause your little marital spat on my account - ”
“Elektra,” Matt snaps. “Give us a minute.”
Elektra glares daggers at him, then storms off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Foggy's neighbors are going to start complaining if they keep up with all the late night door-slamming.
“I don't know why you bothered,” Foggy says. “I have nothing to say to you.” He doesn't care that Matt can tell it's a lie.
“Foggy.” Matt sounds broken. “How long?” Foggy hesitates. “Foggy, please.”
Foggy sighs, and pushes past Matt to get to the kitchen. If they're going to have this conversation, he needs a drink.
“Since the day I started at HC&B,” he says after taking a long pull of a beer. It’s too cold; it makes his teeth ache.
“What does that mean?” Matt asks. “Why would that, why wouldn’t it show up earlier, why would it take ten years to - I don’t understand.”
“What the fuck does it matter, Matt?” Foggy explodes. “I could’ve have it stamped across my forehead since birth! It doesn’t change the fact that we’re done. We already knew that.”
Matt actually has the nerve to look wounded. “So, what, you were just never going to tell me? You always wanted a mark, and now that it’s me, you just...you don’t care?”
Foggy laughs bitterly. “Oh, are we really going to start talking about what we were never going to tell each other? Because your list is a lot longer than mine, buddy.”
Only Matt can look so guilty it makes Foggy feel guilty. “I know I haven’t always been truthful with you,” Matt says, ignoring the incredulous huff Foggy lets out. “But you were always the better of the two of us. I didn’t think...was it just that it was me? You’re that angry at me that you’d ignore…” He waves a hand, vaguely indicating the two of them, or fate, or whatever.
“Are you actually shitting me right now?” Foggy asks disbelievingly. “All that’s happened and you want me to stand here and stroke your ego? Of course I wanted it to be you!” Matt’s jaw hangs open. Foggy doesn’t care. If Matt wants to pretend to be stunned that’s his business; Elektra’s already given Foggy’s secret away. “I looked for your name for years, Matt! Years and years of wishing that I had proof that you and me were...that I meant something to - ”
“Foggy - ” Matt starts, choked, and Foggy holds up his free hand, cutting him off.
“No,” he says. “No, I’m not doing this. Following you around for a decade like some pathetic lapdog, fine. Building my life around you, fine. I was even okay with this charade where we both pretend like you haven’t been listening to my heart this whole time and haven’t always known exactly how I feel.” He shakes his head. “But don’t make me stand here and tell you how much I wanted you to be my soulmate, not when you couldn’t give two shits about me. Leave me that much dignity.”
He pushes past Matt again, back to the living room, and Matt follows. “Foggy, what are you - of course I care about you!”
“Oh, really?” Foggy asks. “I guess you were trying to show me by lying to me the entire time we’ve known each other. Or making me an accessory to your criminal activities. Or pushing me to take a case I never wanted to take defending a mass murderer and then leaving me high and dry when we got to court. Or lying to me again. Or - ”
“Foggy - ”
“Or choosing everyone in the world over me!” Foggy shouts over Matt’s protests. “Elektra’s ninja…whatever instead of the case! Fucking Frank Castle’s safety over mine! Even when we were being shot at you went for Karen instead of me, and Jesus Christ, Matt, I’m glad she’s alive but you could have stayed!” His voice breaks again. He’s weeping. “I was so scared and you left me there on the street with a hole in my shoulder and you never, you never came to see me so don’t...don’t lie to me again, Matt. Don’t tell me you care. It’s not about fucking soul marks. If you cared, you’d have come to the hospital.” He grinds the heel of his hand into his eye socket as if it’ll dam the tears. “I don’t need my name on you. I just needed you to be my friend.”
Matt stands there, chin trembling, for a long moment.
Then he unzips his fly.
“What - what the fuck, Matt?” Foggy says, taking a couple stumbling steps back, which is not how he ever thought he’d react to Matt taking his pants off.
“You’re right. I haven’t been a very good friend to you.” Matt walks over to the couch, shoves his pants down past his knees, and sits. His legs fall open, and he yanks the legs of his boxers up, pushing the fabric out of the way until his thighs show all the way to the seam of his pelvis. “But I have your mark.”
Foggy stares. Curving around Matt’s thighs, so high up he feels scandalous just looking at them, are two names. On the left thigh: Elektra.
And on the right thigh: Foggy.
“What…” Foggy’s voice is a ghost of a sound. “How...what...when did...that’s my name.”
“So I’m told.” Matt’s smile is more of a grimace. “I’ve never actually seen it.”
“Why do you have two?” The only person Foggy knows with two is his grandmother on his mother’s side, who had his step-grandfather’s name appear on the back of her hand a year after Foggy’s grandfather died. And sure, Elektra did die that one time, but it’s not like Matt didn’t already know Foggy by then.
“I don’t know,” Matt says.
“I...that’s…” Foggy drifts closer to the couch. That’s his name, written indelibly on Matt’s skin, tying them together. He wants to touch it. “How long has it been there?”
Matt’s hands tighten into fists, and that - Foggy knows what it looks like when Matt’s bracing himself. “I’m not sure exactly,” he says, “but they both showed up sometime during freshman year.”
“What?” It's barely a question; it's the air punched out of him.
Matt spreads his hands. “There's about six months in there that...I don't know. But they weren't there when I had my last checkup before starting college, and then when Elektra and I...the first time we…” He shrugs. “She told me. I don't know if they showed up when I met you, or when I met her, or not even at the same time, but…”
“She told you. About both of them?” Foggy asks, trying to get this straight.
“Yes.”
“So you've always known.” Foggy's shock is coalescing into something cold and hard and angry, deep in the pit of his stomach. “You've both always known.”
“Foggy, I…”
“Get out.” Foggy's ice, unyielding and likely to shatter at any minute. “Get out of my house.”
“Foggy, please…”
“No.” Foggy backs away from him, finger pointed at the window. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses. Ten years and you never told me? You lied to my face, because I asked you and you, you just, you - ” He’s so angry he’s sputtering, like an overheated engine. “And you have the gall to ask why I didn’t tell you about mine? Fuck you, Matt!”
Matt stands and pulls his pants back up. Foggy thought he’d feel marginally more sane with Matt’s inner thighs and the names scrawled across them safely tucked away, but no such luck. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Foggy.”
Foggy wants Matt to stop saying his name. “What part of any of this did you think wouldn’t hurt me?” he demands.
“I - ”
“Get. OUT.” Foggy points again. His finger’s shaking. “Now, Matt, I swear to God, or I’ll, I’ll call the fucking police on you.”
Matt actually looks betrayed as well as hangdog. Foggy tells himself the sudden nausea he feels is anger, not guilt. “All right. I’m sorry. I’m going.” He pulls the mask on. It’s easier to look at him with most of his expression hidden. “I’ll get this Hand business resolved as quickly as I can, and then...you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”
Foggy closes his eyes. He’s got Matt’s mark on him. He’ll have to deal with him forever.
When he opens them, Matt’s gone.
Foggy shuts the window, wipes the last few angry tears from his cheeks, and yanks his bedroom door open. Elektra’s sitting on the edge of the bed, tense. She definitely heard all of that, but that’s the least of Foggy’s worries, now that Matt’s poured gasoline on the last shred of Foggy’s heart and set it on fire.
“I’m going to sleep,” Foggy tells her. “Give me back my bed.” He’s tempted to kick her out of his apartment entirely, but that might mean signing her death warrant, and he’ll never be angry enough for that. Besides, he may not like her, but it’s Matt he’s really angry at.
She stands up. “Franklin…”
“I would not recommend starting with me,” he snaps. Her jaw goes tight, but she nods, and pushes past him out of the room. He shuts the door behind her.
All this time. All this goddamn time he’d been longing for Matt and Matt had known, Matt had known that the universe was trying to tell them...God, whatever it was that the universe was trying to say with soul marks. That they fit, that they matched, that they belonged to each other.
But Matt had Elektra’s name, too.
Foggy collapses onto his tangled sheets and stares up at the ceiling. What does that mean, that Matt has two? That Matt has two, and Foggy only has Matt, and Elektra doesn’t have anyone? His little sister, the consummate romantic, would say it means that Matt loves them both, and a year ago Foggy might have hoped… But Matt’s a better liar than Foggy ever suspected, and nothing about the way he’s treated Foggy over the past year has been consistent with love. If he ever wanted Foggy, he knew Foggy was his for the asking.
Which means he doesn’t want Foggy.
Foggy rolls over and prays that unconsciousness will come quickly. This isn’t news. He’s always known, really, that Matt didn’t feel for Foggy what Foggy felt for Matt. But to know that Matt has had Foggy’s name scrawled on his skin for a decade really hammers it home - that Matt cares so little about Foggy that he’ll ignore a soul mark telling him they’re meant to be connected. That he’ll let Foggy walk out of their firm without asking him to stay.
He realizes belatedly that he’s got his left hand curved over his own mark again, and balls his hands up into fists. He thought he’d made his peace with Matt not loving him back - he’d thought it years ago, when he realized how he felt, and again when he and Matt split up. It seems like Matt still has the ability to crack him open at will, though.
Maybe that’s what having a mark means: that Foggy’s heart will always be exposed and bleeding, right there for Matt do with as he pleases. He’d think his name on Matt would mean it goes both ways, but maybe it’s different for superheroes.
Or maybe it’s just different for Foggy.
*
He sleepwalks through work the next morning. When his mom texts around eleven to say she’s in the city running errands and does he want to grab lunch, he thumbs back “k” and forgets about it until he’s running 20 minutes late to their agreed-upon time.
The minute he walks into the bistro across the street from his office, though, his mother takes one look at him, stands up, and cups his face in her hands. “Oh, my poor baby. What’s wrong?”
He’s proud to say he doesn’t cry. He does, however, take several shuddering breaths that his mother pretends not to notice as they sit down and hide behind their menus.
It’s not until they’re halfway through their meal and have firmly established that work, Foggy’s father, and his sister Candace are all fine that his mother says, “It’s Matt, isn’t it? That’s got you so upset?”
Foggy stabs his fork viciously into the side salad he’s been ignoring in favor of his steak sandwich. “What makes you say that?”
“Sweetheart. Give me a little credit. I’ve known how you felt about that boy since you brought him home for Christmas when you were eighteen.” She gives him a wry look. “I wanted to stick a bow on him and put him under the tree for you, since I knew nothing I’d gotten you was going to come close.”
“Mom…” How can he still be embarrassed by this?
“Foggy.” She puts her hand on his. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But it might help.”
Foggy sighs, put his fork down, and tells her.
Not everything, of course. He leaves out the part where Matt’s a vigilante, and exactly why Nelson and Murdock fell apart. But everything else - Foggy’s reluctance to take the Castle case, the way Matt left him high and dry on it, how utterly forgotten he felt when Matt and Karen started dating, Matt’s wild and frankly dangerous ex-girlfriend coming back into their lives, Matt’s lies - comes spilling out of him. He tells her about finding Matt’s name on him, and he tells her about Matt’s marks, both of them, and how long he’s had them.
Then he drains his water glass and wishes he’d ordered a beer.
His mom studies him for a minute, then says, “What do you think it means, you not getting a mark until you and Matt weren’t speaking anymore?”
Foggy raises his eyebrows and makes a bitter noise. “That the universe is an incomprehensible vortex of pointless bullshit? Or it just hates me in particular.”
“Mm,” his mom says. She breaks off a piece of the crust of her quiche and pops it into her mouth. “You know I don’t have a mark.”
Foggy swallows. “I know. Mom, you know I never meant…”
“It was fourteen, fifteen years ago, sweetheart. I know you didn’t.”
The thing is, Anna Nelson isn’t Foggy’s biological mother. His birth mother, Rosalind, walked out on Foggy and his father before Foggy’s first birthday - when Foggy was still Frankie - and has had very little contact with them since. Edward Nelson met Anna Everett when Foggy was three, and Foggy was raised to call her “Mom.” To think of her as his mom.
And he does. But as a teenager, insecure and angry at the world, he’d spent a lot of time fantasizing that a life with Rosalind would be somehow immeasurably better, and he had a habit of throwing that in Anna’s face. He can still remember standing at the top of the stairs that led from Nelson’s Hardware to their apartment, screaming, “You’re not my mother! You’re barely even part of this family! If you were, you’d have Dad’s name on you, but you don’t!”
He can still remember the look on her face when he said it.
He’d apologized that night, the two of them hugging and crying on the couch, but the guilt never went away completely. But that doesn’t seem to be what she’s referring to now.
“It never bothered me, not at first, because your father didn’t have one either,” she says. “Not me and not Rosalind. It wasn’t even there when we got married. Do you know when my mark showed up on him?”
“No.” When Foggy pictures his father the mark is always there in his memories, “Anna” on the inside of his wrist when he reached out to pick Foggy up or take the book Foggy wanted him to read or hand Foggy a tool and show him how to use it.
“Candace’s first birthday,” she says. “We were putting her to bed, and he reached out to take her from me to give her a good night kiss, and - there it was.”
Foggy frowns. “That late? That...I was eight, you’d been married five years by then…”
She nods. “I don’t know why it took that long. I mean, no one really does, and watch out for the ones who say they do, because they’re trying to sell you something. But do you want to know my theory?”
“Sure.” He’s not sure how this relates to him and Matt. His mark hardly appeared while tucking their child into bed - and yeah, that’s a thought he’s not going to linger on because it hurts with a sudden sharpness he didn’t expect. But he’ll hear her out.
“I don’t think the marks are meant for other people. I don’t think they’re there to tell you who to find. I think they’re there to tell you about yourself,” his mother says. “The mark wasn’t telling your father to love me - he was already doing that. But Rosalind left before your first birthday, and I think...I think even though Edward had intellectually decided to have faith, there was always some small part of him that didn’t believe I wouldn’t do the same thing. Until then.” She smiles, a little misty. “That was when he knew, deep down, that I wouldn’t leave him. The mark wasn’t proof that I’d stay. It was proof that he believed I would.”
Foggy raises an eyebrow and touches his mark through his sleeve. “So this is the universe telling me I know Matt won’t leave me? Because, uh, he did.”
“I think you know what I’m suggesting,” his mother says, fixing him with a knowing gaze that makes him feel all of fifteen again. “As long as you were with Matt, there was no need to tell you that you needed to be. Maybe this is the universe course-correcting.”
“Then why has he always had two?”
“I don’t know.” She gives a little shrug. “I don’t know him as well as I know you. He has his own things to figure out.”
Foggy looks down at his plate. “Why would the universe want me to go back to someone who made me feel…” Betrayed. Unwanted. Lonely standing right next to him. “...so unhappy? Why would you?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t.” She reaches out and squeezes his hands in both of hers. “Believe me, the next time I see that boy I’m going to smack him right upside the head. I love Matt, but no one treats my son like that. I just want to make sure…” She shrugs again. “Things with you and Matt have always been easy. Right now they’re not. Does he have a lot to answer for? I’m sure he does. But I wonder if maybe you’re not…”
“Not what?”
“You’re so good with people, Foggy. My little social butterfly.” She smiles. “Even when you were tiny. If I was sad, you’d come sit in my lap and tell me you loved me. You could always make your father laugh, or get Candace to stop throwing a tantrum. You understand people so well, especially the people you love. But I think sometimes…” She reaches over to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I think sometimes you’re so sure you know what someone’s thinking that you forget to listen to what they’re saying. When you ask Matt why he does these things, do you listen to his answers?”
Foggy glances away. His mother raises her eyebrows.
“Have you even asked Matt why he does these things?”
“What’s there to ask?” Foggy says, pulling away. “Fine, maybe I haven’t been the world’s greatest listener lately, but what kind of answer am I get to ‘why did you lie to me for a decade’ or ‘why didn’t you come see me in the hospital?’ What can Matt say that will possibly make me feel better? It’s just going to boil down to him not…” He cuts off with a frustrated noise.
“Not what?”
Foggy stares very hard at his plate. “Not loving me back.”
“Well, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” his mother says, and Foggy blinks, startled. “Have you seen the look on that boy’s face when you talk?”
“Sure?” Foggy kind of minored in Looking At Matt in undergrad. And life.
“It’s like he’s remembered that good things exist in the world. Every time,” she says. She reaches for his hands again. “I’m not saying you should be with someone who makes you unhappy. I would never want that for you. I’m saying...ask him what he wants, and why he lied, and really listen to the answers.” She gives him a crooked smile. “And if you don’t like what he has to say, let me know and I’ll give that little shit a piece of my mind myself.”
Foggy laughs, a little choked. “I love you, Mom.”
“I know, sweetie.” She leans in and kisses his forehead. “I love you too.”
*
He works late and orders takeout at his desk. He realizes it’s childish to avoid Elektra like this, but, well, so be it.
Not that it matters, because she’s not in the apartment when he gets back. He frowns and checks the whole place again, like she could somehow be hiding in a one bedroom apartment too tiny for more than three people to stand in the living room without bumping into each other. “Elektra?”
No answer, of course. He tries not to panic. There’s no sign of a disturbance, so she must have left of her own volition. She’s been stuck in his apartment for the past few days, and a literal coffin for months before that - she probably just wanted to stretch her legs.
That, or she and Matt have decided to go after the Hand after all. Foggy loosens his tie and pulls out his phone to call Matt’s burner. He doesn’t really want to talk to Matt right now, not until he figures out what he wants to say, but he feels responsible for Elektra, grown-ass ninja that she may be. He needs to make sure she’s okay.
He’s just about to dial when he hears a rustle behind him. “Elektra?” he says, turning around -
- and hands grab him, yanking him backwards and to his knees and covering his mouth so he can’t scream.
Foggy tries to gasp and chokes on the hand muffling him. He struggles and the hands holding his arms yank them back harder, twisting painfully tight. A figure steps in front of him: a ninja, masked, but large and male. Definitely not Elektra.
“Good evening, Mr. Nelson,” the ninja says. His voice is light and incongruously pleasant. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Foggy makes a strangled noise. The hands holding him tighten again.
“To that end, of course, we will need to uncover your mouth,” the head ninja or whatever his title is says. “I am going to have to ask you not to scream. If you do, we will be very unhappy, and you will pay the price. Is that understood?”
Foggy nods. Of course he’s not going to scream. That would just make his neighbors come running, and they’re completely unequipped to deal with ninjas. Foggy’s not going to have any more deaths on his conscience.
The hand over his mouth is removed. Foggy shakes his head and then looks around the room. There’s at least half a dozen men in there, shrouded in dark clothing, all looking extremely dangerous. How did he not hear them come in? Or have they been there all this time, waiting for Foggy?
“Very good, Mr. Nelson,” says the head ninja. “Now. This is very important. Where is the Black Sky?”
So they don't have Elektra already. Good. “The what?” Foggy asks.
The head ninja strikes him across the face.
“I am not a patient man, Mr. Nelson,” he says. “We know you are former partners with Daredevil. We know Elektra Natchios has been staying with you. Your suffering is unnecessary. Tell us where they are.”
Foggy works his lower jaw around in a circle. He feels dazed, and wow, yeah, those really are stars sparking in his vision. He's never been hit like that before. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he says.
The head ninja hits him again. Foggy cuts his bottom lip on his teeth and feels his mouth fill with blood. “I am not going to stop,” the head ninja says. His voice is still very pleasant. “I will hurt you until you tell me.”
“There's nothing to tell,” Foggy insists. “I don't know Daredevil, I have no idea who this other person is, and I can't tell you where to find them.”
The head ninja punches him so hard his ears ring. Foggy cries out, then sags in the grip of the man holding him. He's dizzy.
“Tell me.”
“I don't know anything!” Foggy’s head is swimming, but one thing’s clear: he’ll die before he gives up Matt and Elektra.
“I will be honest with you, Mr. Nelson,” the head ninja says. “Our surveillance showed that you are essentially a weak man, and so we did not expect resistance. I have not brought any of the implements I would normally use to make someone talk. Of course, I can be very creative, but I need you to understand that the pain you are feeling right now is nothing compared to what I am capable of doing to you if you do not give me the information I need.”
“No...no information to give you,” Foggy manages. “You want legal rep? That I can do. But no...I don’t know...anything.” It’s not his best stab at humor, but to be fair to him he’s under a lot of strain right now.
“You do, Mr. Nelson, and you will share it with us,” the head ninja says, and pulls out a small, elegant knife, its blade gleaming in the light from the street. “The only thing you have control of is how likely you are to survive the telling of it.”
He reaches forward - and drops facedown on the floor, the knife skittering away.
Foggy only has a split second to stare in confusion before Elektra’s there - and then he’s still staring, because it’s one thing to know that some snotty debutante he knew casually in college is a secret ninja, and another thing entirely to see it in action. She’s in constant motion, spinning as she kicks one guy in the face, steals his sword, and runs him through, then whirling to face the others, the sword making glittering arcs through the air.
The guy holding Foggy lets go to join the fight and Foggy scrambles for shelter behind the couch. Elektra slices one ninja across the stomach and another across the throat. Foggy winces, but Matt did say these guys are undead. Still, it’s going to be a while before he stops seeing this every time he closes his eyes.
The last two ninjas flee out the window, and Foggy peeks cautiously over the couch. Elektra’s standing facing the window, chest heaving, sword dripping with blood. “Are you okay?” he asks.
She gives him a startled look. “Am I okay?” Shaking her head, she huffs an incredulous laugh. “Oh, Franklin. I’m starting to understand what Matthew sees in you.”
*
Elektra still has resources, it turns out. She makes a phone call and four very efficient women show up and quietly remove the bodies she’s dropped, then scrub Foggy’s apartment of blood. Foggy doesn’t see most of it; Elektra takes him to the bathroom and bathes his face in vinegar and water. He wrinkles his nose against the smell, but his bruised face does feel better afterwards.
“You didn’t give me up,” she says, sweeping the washcloth over his blackening eye.
He’d stare bewilderedly at her if he was willing to risk opening his eye and getting vinegar in it. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Hm.” She finishes what she’s doing, tosses the wet washcloth in the sink, and hands him a towel. “I always hated you, you know,” she says conversationally. “I mean, I never really saw the point of you to begin with, but from the first time I got Matthew out of those dreadful clothes and saw your name on his thigh I absolutely loathed you.”
Foggy pats his face dry gingerly and looks up at her from his perch on the closed toilet seat. “Uh...sorry?” He doesn’t want another fight. He doesn’t even have the energy for the usual swoop of jealousy that accompanies thinking about Matt in bed with other people.
“You know he never talked about you?” she says. “I mean, aside from ‘Oh, I have to go, I’m meeting Foggy,’ or ‘I can’t go to St. Tropez with you for Easter break, I already told Foggy I’d stay with his family that week.’” She tosses out the impressions of Matt blowing her off breezily, but Foggy’s startled nonetheless. Considering how little he saw Matt during his relationship with Elektra, he would never have imagined that Matt ever ditched Elektra for Foggy.
“He never talked about you either,” he admits.
“It drove me wild,” Elektra says. “He told me about everything else. His senses, his father, Stick. Of course I already knew about Stick, but…” She puts cool fingers on Foggy’s chin and tilts his head up, surveying the damage. “What was so special about you that he had to keep it secret? He and I were in love, so what were you doing on his thigh? And I didn’t have a mark of my own, so I couldn’t even lay that claim to him.” She shakes her head. “I was so jealous of you. I still am.”
Foggy raises his eyebrows, then winces when it hurts his bruised eye socket. “You’re jealous of me? Has...has no one told you you’re a beautiful millionaire ninja?”
She lets him go and leans against the sink. “He made a life with you. He chose to make a life with you.” She tilts her head at him. “And it’s a life that he treasures, even if it would bore me to tears.”
Foggy huffs through his nose. He thinks he’s starting to get her sense of humor. “Not enough not to go running off with you the first chance he got.”
“Do you think he honestly could have stayed away from New York? From you?” she asks. She shakes her head again. “He doesn’t know what he wants.”
Foggy looks at her, this maddening, brilliant, foolhardy, fearless...terrified, lonely woman. “Maybe that’s not the problem,” he says slowly. “Maybe he just wants too much.”
Elektra looks at him, then arches an eyebrow. “I’m not very good at sharing.”
Foggy snorts, then winces again. All his best facial expressions seem to be out of commission until he heals. “Who says I even want him back?”
She takes the towel from him to hang it back on the rack, and touches his cheek to angle his face again. “Oh, Franklin. You may not be pointless, but you are an absolutely shitty liar.” She smiles. “Now, do you want to call Matthew and give him a heart attack when you tell him what happened, or shall I?”
*
Matt arrives breathless and frantic, yanking first his helmet, then his gloves off as soon as he’s through the window. “They must have tracked one of us, I thought I’d shaken them off but they must have managed to follow me anyway and find you, I should never have brought you into this,” he says, words tripping over each other as he reaches for Foggy. His fingers actually brush Foggy’s cheek before he seems to realize that he doesn’t have that right anymore, and snatches them back like a guilty child. “Are. Are you all right?”
“It’s okay, Matt,” Foggy says. “I’m a bit worse for wear, but I’ll heal. See for yourself.”
Matt hesitates, then puts his hands on Foggy’s face again, working over it to check the extent of the damage. His touch is so light it barely hurts, even on the worst injuries, and Foggy can’t even bring himself to be heartbroken over how intimate it feels. Somewhere between letting go of his resentment of Elektra and now, the rage in his heart gave way to resignation. It’s only a little bittersweet.
“You’re okay,” Matt concludes finally, and pulls back, curling his hands into fists like he’s trying to control them.
“Thanks to Elektra,” Foggy says, and looks over to where she’s watching them, face expressionless.
She blinks, then tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve never gone that long without fighting, I was simply indulging myself.”
Foggy bites back a smile. Yeah, he understands her a bit better now. “Well, glad I could help.”
Matt frowns, head tilting back and forth between them as he follows the conversation. “The question is, what do we do now that they know about Foggy, and this apartment? I can try to find a safehouse for the two of you…”
“Until when?” Foggy asks. “Until you defeat the Hand? We just sit in a basement somewhere while you try to figure out how to take down a centuries-old cult of undead master fighters?”
Matt gives him a fretful look. “Well, I don’t know how else to keep you two safe, and I can’t - ”
“I’m leaving the city,” Elektra announces.
Matt gives her his equivalent of a stare. “What?”
“I’m leaving New York,” she says. “I’m the Black Sky. The Hand will never stop trying to control me. The longer I stay in one place, the less safe it is for that place.” She nods towards Foggy. “And for the people in it.”
“Elektra, you don’t have to…” Foggy starts, not sure how he’s going to end that sentence, but she shakes her head, cutting him off.
“I wasn’t made for this,” she says. “Hiding? Waiting? Putting down roots? I’m losing my mind here. You know I am.” She turns towards Matt on that last bit. “I can’t just lie low. That is not who I am. That is not how I was taught. ‘If you would win the battle, choose the field yourself.’” She’s quoting someone - Stick, probably. “This is your battlefield, Matthew. It’s not mine.”
“London?” Matt asks. There’s a quirk to his lips like a smile, but he doesn’t look happy. “Madrid, Tunisia?”
“No,” she says. “You’re not listening to me. This is your battlefield.”
“You’re leaving me again?” he asks, his voice small, and Foggy turns away, walks quickly to the kitchen so that he can at least pretend to be doing something. This isn’t a conversation for him - and besides, even if he and Elektra have arrived at some sort of truce, he doesn’t need her seeing how much it still hurts that Elektra’s potential absence wounds Matt in a way that Foggy’s never will.
“Matthew,” she says. Foggy hears her cross the floor to Matt, pictures her reaching for him. “You were right, last summer. There’s no place for me in your world.”
“I could come with you,” Matt says.
“Could you?” she asks.
There’s silence, and then footsteps again, and the bedroom door closing. Foggy still jumps when he hears Matt’s voice behind him. “Foggy.”
He turns around and forces a smile. Matt won’t be able to see it, but he could probably have heard the lack of it in Foggy’s voice. “You’ll love Madrid,” Foggy says. “I mean, I’ve never been there but it sounds like a place people would love. Plus you speak Spanish, so…”
“Foggy.”
“It’s okay if you go with her.” Foggy has to say this now, because if Matt does something stupid like ask for permission, Foggy might not be able to get it out. “Really, the city will be okay. There’s Jones now, and her friends, and Stark still lives here, doesn’t he? We don’t need you, Murdock.”
He tries to nudge Matt playfully with his arm, but Matt catches his wrist and holds Foggy’s hand loosely in his own. “Then why do you have my name on you?” he asks softly.
“Dirty pool, Matt,” Foggy says, and tries to pull away, but Matt won’t let him.
“Elektra was right when she said that I couldn’t leave New York,” he says. “But it’s not just because I love this city.” His brows are knit together, fretful, and Foggy fights the instinctive urge to try to soothe him. “I’m not making a joke here, Foggy, and I’m not trying to be cruel. I can’t figure it out - why I’ve always had both of your names, and why it’s only now that you’ve got mine.”
Foggy leans back against the counter and gives up on trying to take his hand back from Matt. Matt turns it over and traces the lines of his palm. “I don’t know, Matt. Okay? I don’t know any more about this than anyone else. I...my mom says it’s not for other people, but to tell us something about ourselves. That...that I didn’t need your name on me when I was with you, because I knew where I was supposed to be.”
Matt’s fingers tighten on his hand and then relax. “Do you think she’s right?”
“I don’t know,” Foggy says again, helplessly. “What would that mean for you, when you have two? You’ve barely ever even let me and Elektra be in the same room together, how could you be with both of us at once? It’d be like living two entirely separate lives.” He catches himself and has to laugh, a little bitter. “Which you were.”
Matt’s tracing his palm again. “Maybe...maybe that’s why,” he says slowly. “Elektra...she fell in love with Daredevil. Even if he didn’t have a name yet, that’s what she saw. That’s who she wanted. She doesn’t want Matt Murdock. And you...you don’t want Daredevil.”
Foggy stares at him. “You realize they’re both you, right? I would’ve felt pretty differently towards Daredevil if you’d let me know he was there from the beginning. I mean, jeez, Matt, maybe it just means you’re supposed to stop compartmentalizing.”
Matt lets him go. Foggy wants his hands back immediately, and hates himself for being so predictable. “Maybe I don’t know how.”
“It starts with telling the truth,” Foggy says, harsher than he means to. “Sorry. But, I mean...yeah.”
“Like you did?” Matt asks.
Foggy breathes through his nose, lets the anger go. “Okay, fine. I’ll give you that one. You want to know about the mark?” He rolls his sleeve up, high enough to expose the whole thing, and picks up Matt’s hand again, uses Matt’s forefinger to trace out the shape of it. “Right there. It’s black,” he adds, probably unnecessarily. Marks usually are.
Matt’s expression is wondering. “I can’t feel anything different,” he says, but when Foggy lets go of his hand, he traces the mark again without assistance, almost perfectly.
“Well, it’s there,” Foggy says.
“I believe you,” Matt says, his voice very soft. His finger is still on the last T of his name. “All those years of wondering why you didn’t have one…”
Foggy moves away. He can’t bear the wistfulness on Matt’s face right now; it makes him sharp. “You could have told me about yours.”
“How?” Matt asks. “When I found out about it, I was with Elektra. What was I supposed to do, tell you you were my soulmate when I was in a relationship with someone else?”
“We could have worked something out,” Foggy says, knowing he’s being unfair. “There are platonic soulmates.”
“Well, you weren’t one!” Matt snaps. “I wanted you and I was with her and I couldn’t have both!”
Foggy stares. “...What?”
Matt stalks away, but he doesn’t go far - just to the window, like he wants to slip out through it but knows he can’t get out of the conversation that easily. “I love you, Foggy,” he says. Foggy can’t hear his heart, but the truth of it echoes in its very simplicity. “I always have. But I loved Elektra, and she was my soulmate, and she left. If I told you the truth, it was no guarantee you’d stay. You didn’t even have my mark.”
Through Foggy’s stunned daze - Matt loves him, Matt loves him - a memory floats back to him. Matt, ten years ago, drunk and solemn: “Having someone's name written on you doesn't mean you're meant to be together forever.”
He takes a step towards Matt. Matt loves him. “I stayed anyway,” he points out. “Until you told me to go.”
Matt’s chin drops. He’s still facing away from Foggy. “You were better off without me. I still believe that.”
“Yeah? Well, I got a mark on my arm says otherwise,” Foggy says.
The sensible part of him thinks that he should just let Matt go; that he should smile and nod at all of Matt’s self-sacrificing bullshit and let him and Elektra walk out the door to Europe or Africa or wherever-the-fuck. He has a good job without Matt, and no one shooting at him, and no one making him cry.
He’s always been good at shutting up the sensible part of him when Matt’s around.
And Matt loves him.
Matt shakes like a leaf when Foggy lays the flat of his hand on Matt’s back. “I’m not going to stop being Daredevil,” he says. “I can’t.”
“I know,” Foggy says. Maybe his mom was right - maybe that’s what Matt’s marks meant all along. He’s not just the too-serious, soft-eyed boy Foggy fell in love with, but he’s not just the reckless, avenging thrillseeker Elektra loves either. Maybe all Matt needs is someone who can love both.
Maybe that’s who Foggy can be.
“I know the mark doesn’t mean I won’t leave you, Matt,” he says. Matt’s ribcage expands beneath his hand. “But do you think you could try to believe that I’ll stay anyway?”
Matt’s shoulders roll forward. “What if I tell you to leave again?” he asks.
“Then I’ll leave,” Foggy says. “I mean, not from here I’m not leaving, this is my apartment. But I’ll stay with you, Matt, until you don’t want me anymore.”
Matt turns around, then, and with his glasses somewhere back at his place it’s easy to see the tears in his eyes. “I’ll always want you,” he says. “No matter what else happens, Foggy, I know that for sure.”
And when he finally, finally kisses Foggy, Foggy believes him.
*
They make their way to the tiny airstrip at four a.m., when the sky is just beginning to lighten over the harbor.
“There’s nothing I can do to talk you into staying?” Matt asks.
Elektra shakes her head. She’s wearing a hat with a massive brim and a silk scarf that shrouds her face. She looks less like an undead vigilante fleeing ninja assassins and more like a movie star who doesn’t want to be recognized. Foggy supposes that’s sort of the point.
“New York’s not safe with me here,” she says. “Don’t worry, Matthew, I’ll lead them on a merry chase. This is a hunt the Hand will not enjoy, I promise you that.”
He sighs and pulls her into his arms. Foggy glances away when Matt kisses her, more to give them privacy than out of passive aggression. He’s not going to pretend to himself that he doesn’t feel a twinge of jealousy at the sight, but it’s faint. In time it’ll fade entirely.
“I love you,” Matt says.
“I love you too,” Elektra replies.
“Be careful.”
She grins. “Never.”
He lets her go, and she turns to Foggy, who holds out a hand. “Give ‘em hell, Natchios,” he says.
He’s surprised when Elektra bypasses his hand to hug him. “Take care of Matthew, Franklin,” she says. “But don’t be too nice to him. He likes it when you’re a little mean.”
Foggy glances at Matt, whose ears are red. “Yeah, that’s not an enormous surprise,” Foggy says, and Elektra laughs.
“Do you think you can manage it?” she asks.
Foggy grins. “I’ll be the meanest little rabbit you ever saw.”
She grins back. It’s ferocious and beautiful. “And I’ll be the most reckless idiot.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Foggy replies.
She steps back, squeezes Matt’s hand once more, and makes her way up the ramp stairs to the door of the tiny plane, where the pilot she’s paid an obscene amount of money to ask as few questions as possible is waiting. As she turns, the wind catches her hair and her scarf, and the faint pink light of morning renders her absolutely breathtaking.
Foggy’s hand slips into Matt’s. “She’s beautiful, Matty,” he murmurs.
“I know,” Matt says.
Elektra tosses her hair. She’s clearly posing. Last year it would have annoyed Foggy; now it just makes him smile. “This is not the end,” she says, and Matt’s hand tightens in Foggy’s.
“I know that too,” he says.
Elektra walks onto the plane, and the pilot waves Matt and Foggy off the runway. They back up towards the tiny hangar but don’t go in, despite the noise of the engines as the plane starts up and the chill of the early morning air.
“I’m sorry you had to say goodbye to her again,” Foggy says, and means it.
“Considering the other goodbyes we’ve had, I’m not sure I have the right to complain about this one,” Matt says. He presses closer to Foggy, and Foggy watches the plane move down the runway, gathering speed as it gets further away.
“She’ll be fine,” he says. “Death couldn’t stop her, what are a handful of measly old ninjas gonna do?”
“I know,” Matt says, and it doesn’t sound like he’s just humoring Foggy.
Elektra’s plane lifts into the sky. Matt lays his head on Foggy’s shoulder.
“Do you want to go home?” Foggy asks.
“Home” is Foggy’s place, for the moment. Matt has barely left his side in the three days it’s taken them to arrange Elektra’s falsified papers and travel plans, and Foggy, shaken from being attacked in his own home, hasn’t complained. Or maybe he just missed having Matt around.
They haven’t really talked about how permanent an arrangement that will be, or if Foggy’s going to come back to Nelson and Murdock, or even what to call what they are to each other now. Elektra was the priority, and besides, it seemed callous to talk about a life with Matt when Elektra didn’t have one, at least not for the foreseeable future.
Now the world seems open with possibility, and Foggy’s a little terrified, but mostly exhilarated. Matt could have gotten on that plane, and Foggy knows that part of him wanted to - but he’s here on the ground with Foggy instead, holding his hand. Because he chose to be.
Matt was right, it turns out, all those years ago. Who cares about soul marks? Fate’s got nothing on choice.
“In a little while,” Matt says, his breath warm against Foggy’s cheek. “Can we just stay here for a bit? It’s quieter.”
“Of course, Matty,” Foggy says, and turns to kiss the top of Matt’s head before glancing to the east. “Sun’s coming up,” he says. “You want me to tell you about the sunrise?”
“Please,” Matt says, voice soft and hand strong in Foggy’s.
So Foggy does.