It all went down about two days ago.

A big, high profile fight in the streets of Hell's Kitchen. Daredevil versues about two dozen hit men of some big gang. Matt had spoken to Foggy about them briefly a couple weeks ago when he'd come into the office with a angry bruise on his jaw. He'd been trying to take them down for a few months, apparently, and it all led to that shit show two nights ago.

The fight was messy. No one died, as per Matt's personal code, but half the guys ended up in the hospital, a few more arrested, a handful in the wind... And Matt's been gone ever since. Karen asked about him when he didn't show up to the office and Foggy had to lie, like always. Said Matt hadn't been feeling well so he told him to stay home and take it easy. She bought it, or at least he thinks she did.

But now another day has gone by and Matt is two hours late for work. Karen hasn't mentioned it yet but she seems busy this morning. She's at her desk shuffling papers, pouring over another grand mystery. Foggy is supposed to be doing the same, going over the file of a new client. Instead he's sitting at his desk, hunched over the glowing screen of his laptop, watching a clip of the fight on the local news channel's website.

The image is fuzzy, zoomed real close since the camera crew didn't dare get anywhere near the fight, but Foggy can make out the form of Daredevil wailing on an armed thug. Matt throws his baton and it knocks another guy flat, clattering away to somewhere off the screen.

There's a gunshot and the reporter beside the cameraman screams. The camera jerks and for a split second, all he can see is the ground, then the sky, then what looks like a car tire, maybe.

Foggy smashes the pause button just as the camera whips up again. And there, just as he's seen four dozen times already this morning, is the blown-out, blurry form of Daredevil hunched over, clutching his side, staggering...

The video ends there.

That's the last Foggy has seen of his best friend since two nights ago. Sixteen phone calls, four trips to Matt's apartment, a visit to Claire, even a quick peek in Josie's and...nothing. For all intents and purposes, Matt is just...gone.

Foggy sighs, leans his forehead in his hand and closes his eyes. His head is killing him, his stomach is churning, and he's been so jittery that his first and only cup of coffee lays untouched on the corner of his desk. He only got it in the first place to put on a good show for Karen. The only reason he showed up to work at all was for Karen.

Well, that and the desperate, pointless hope that Matt would show up.

Rubbing his temples with his eyes still closed, Foggy closes the laptop and leans his head on the cool surface of the desk.

"Aspirin?"

His head snaps up, his heart giving a jerk he would have been embarassed for Matt to hear. Seeing that it's only Karen, smiling thinly at him from the doorway of his office, Foggy exhales shakily.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you..." she murmurs, breathing a little laugh.

"It's alright. At least I'm definitely awake now." He forces a smile and Karen returns the gesture. It's only then he realizes she's wearing a rain coat and has her purse in her hand. "Goin' out?"

"Uh, yeah. Got some...things to check up on."

Foggy nods. He has no idea what lead she might be chasing now but he knows better than to pry. "Okay, uh, see you. Be careful."

She nods, stepping into the office to lay a white pill bottle on the corner of his desk. He raises an eyebrow but Karen just gives him that sympathetic look that makes her gentle, blue eyes shimmer. "I know things are kinda hard right now...but...we always make it through."

Fog can't quite manage another smile so he just nods, gives her a thumbs up, and makes a show of downing an aspirin with a swig of this morning's cold coffee.

Karen disappears out the door a moment later. Foggy waits a decent amount of time before following her lead, flipping the sign on the door to 'closed' before making his way to the stairwell. He doesn't know where he's going, just that he has to go.

He has to get out of this office.

Away from the compulsion to stare at the laptop screen some more, trying desperately to convince himself Matt might still be alive out there.

Traffic plows on as usual, an intense rain blurring the street with mist and the glow of street lamps, even though it's the middle of the day. Foggy stands on the sidewalk, just a handful of feet from where Matt stood two nights ago in that fight. There's no blood anywhere, but then again there wouldn't be. Not with the rain. Hands shoved in his pockets, head down, trying to simultaneously protect himself from the downpour and also look inconspicious amid the constant flow of pedestrians moving around him, Foggy surveys his surroundings, trying to think like Matt.

He's just wrapped up a fight with a bunch of a-holes, he's injured, tired, looking to get away before the cops arrive...where does he go?

A narrow alleyway to his left seems plausible. A good starting place, at least.

Foggy shrugs past the foot traffic all around him, breaking into the gloomy corridor. It's a dead end, leading to a blank concrete wall, but for a pratically superhuman vigilante daredevil, that means almost nothing. Looking up, Foggy squints into the falling rain, smiling at his own cleverness when he spots the fire escape halfway up the wall to his right. And the open dumpster beneath it.

He steals a quick glance at the people walking by. No one seems to notice him, and if they do, they don't show it. So he steps closer to the dumpster, swings its heavy plastic lid shut and climbs on top. The bottom step of the fire escape comes up to his mid section so it's a bit of a struggle...a very ungraceful, noisy, grunting kind of struggle, to get himself up onto it but once he does, he's streaked with rusty mud and soaked all down the front of his suit...but he's feeling kind of badass. He climbs the steps two at a time and heads up as high as he can go.

He jimmies the handle of the door on the top platform, hoping to get inside but it's locked. Rubbing his neck, Fog descends one platform and this time the door opens. Dripping wet, he steps inside and glances around, heart fluttering because even though this technically isn't breaking and entering, it's also probably a little illegal.

There's a 'roof access' sign at the end of the hall above a black door and Foggy makes a beeline for it. Thankfully it isn't locked and he jogs up the steps, panting by the time he reaches the top. Pushing out the heavy door onto the roof, he's assaulted by rain again but persists out into the open anyway, laying his briefcase in the crack of the door just to be sure it won't lock behind him.

The roof is bare except for a few clothes lines, some whirring vents, and a couple peaked skylights. Foggy does his best to ignore the sudden wave of deja vu he feels when he realizes how similar this all is to the time Punisher shot Matt in the head. The wave of anger that strangles his throat and mists his eyes, he doesn't resist however. Damn right he's mad. He should be.

Using his anger as fuel for adrenaline, Foggy runs across the roof, crossing it in a few seconds. Shading his eyes against the downpour, he scans the surrounding rooftops, searching for a speck of red or black. He sees nothing. Just a lot of washed out gray.

Stepping back, Foggy rubs his neck, grimacing. "Where the hell are you, Matt?" Digging out his cell phone, he tries his friend's number again. It rings eight times before going to voice mail.

"This is Matt Murdock. I'm not available right now. Leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." At the shrill beep, Foggy opens his mouth, takes a sharp breath and says,

"Matt, it's Foggy. Just, uh, call...call me back when you get this, buddy... Okay? I'm, uh, I'm kinda worried about you. Karen is too. Uh...bye." Swallowing the lump in his throat, Foggy heads back into the stairwell with his head hanging low. The next number he jabs out mechanically, without really thinking about it. It rings twice before there's an answer.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Claire, it's Foggy."

"Oh, hey. Have you heard from Matt yet?"

"Uh, no... I was, um, actually hoping you had."

"No, I'm sorry. I could check the computers again, if you'd like. See if he's checked in at any of the other hospitals around the Kitchen."

"Uh, yeah, that'd be great." Foggy heads out the same door he came in, climbing down onto the dumpter and into the alleyway. He doesn't go anywhere from there, though, just stands under the meager shelter of the fire escape listening to the sound of Claire's fingers on the keyboard. Typing out Matt's name.

"Foggy? You still there?"

"Yeah. Any luck?"

Claire sighs. "No, I'm sorry. He's not registered at any of the hospitals, there's no record of him coming into the ER either."

Foggy rubs his eyes. "Thanks for checking, Claire. I'll give you a call if I hear from him..."

"Thanks, Foggy. I'm sure he'll turn up."

Fog scours the surrounding area for the next two hours, until he's so thoroughly hopeless and soaked to the skin that he can't stand to be outside one more second. Trudging back to the office, dripping water behind him as he goes, he finds that Karen still isn't back. Which is good since she would definitely have a few questions as to why he's so drenched and where he's been for two hours.

Peeling off his wet clothes, Foggy tosses them into the corner and wriggles into his emergency suit he keeps stored in the cardboard box behind the filing cabinet. A precaution on his part after a few too many meetings with clients spent trying to hide coffee stains, sweaty arm pits, moth holes and the like. Matt laughed when he found out... Said it was kind of clever.

Foggy collapses into his office chair. Elbows on his knees, hunched over, he buries his face in his hands.

God.

It's been two days.

If Matt really was shot, he could be dead by now. Bled out in some smelly alleyway...

Tears spring to his eyes at that thought. At how utterly unfair it is.

Matt may not be exactly the man Foggy always thought him to be, he may not agree with his methods but dammit, Matt's a good man. It's not fair that he should have to do this alone. And it's doubley unfair that Foggy might never know what happened to him!

His cell phone buzzes in his pocket. For a few seconds, he doesn't feel it. He's so wrapped up in desperate plans to find his friend that it's likely the fifth or sixth ring before he fishes the phone out of his pocket, glancing dully at the screen, frowning at the number. He doesn't know it.

Probably a prospective client. Which he really isn't in the mood to talk to.

Sighing, Foggy tosses his phone onto the desk and gets up to pace away. Coffee isn't a good idea but if he remembers right, there should be a bottle of orange juice or something in the fridge. The phone stops ringing and Foggy drops onto the couch, letting his head lull back against the wall. He shuts his eyes. He didn't sleep well last night with the whole 'missing best friend thing' and his eyelids are getting heavy all of a sudden.

He's just slipping away into a light doze when Karen returns, jolting him awake with a gentle touch and a mildly concerned smile. "Sorry," she says. "Your phone's ringing."

Foggy groans, blinking to get the sleep out of his eyes. He yawns and asks Karen if she'd answer it for him while he gets that cup of coffee he's been avoiding.

"Sure," she says. She disappears into his office with the click of heels on tile. Foggy rubs his forehead and turns the coffee machine on, listening to the growling and bubbling coming from inside. He can't hear what Karen is saying but she sounds light and friendly. A client then.

She strolls around the corner, the phone held between her shoulder and her ear, her hands occupied with a thick folder full of pages. He doesn't recognize it so it must be from whatever lead she was just chasing. "Well I'm glad to hear you're feeling better, the office has been too quiet without you."

Foggy almost drops the mug in his hand, whipping around to stare at Karen, though she doesn't notice. Gaping, heart racing, he hustles over and grabs her by the crook of the elbow. "Is that Matt?"

He must look as spooked as he feels because Karen stares for a second before nodding.

"Here-let me-" Foggy grabs the phone from her and immediately shuts himself into his office. Hands shaking, he fumbles to hold the device up to his ear. "Matt?!"

The voice on the other end is raspy and tired. "Hey, buddy."

"Oh christ..." Foggy deflates. Like every nerve ending in his body suddenly relaxes. "Where...where the hell have you been?! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!"

"I know...I know, I'm sorry I was..." Matt sighs. Something in the sound of it doesn't sound right. Kind of...wet. Gurgle-y. "Busy."

"Busy," Foggy repeats stiffly.

"Y...yeah."

"Well, are you okay, at least? You were on the news. Looked bad." He isn't sure what he hopes the answer will be. He feels bad hoping Matt is hurt but a little part of him does. At least that would explain why he's been gone, why he hasn't called. It's better than knowing he was just too busy doing whatever it is he does to give his friends a call, let them know he's okay.

Still, he feels terrible when Matt responds. "Actually, uh...I could...I could use a little...help. I'm kinda..." He trails off and Foggy frowns.

"Matt?"

"Uh...s...sorry..." He sounds...off all of a sudden. Or maybe he has the entire time and Foggy just now noticed. "I'm calling on a pay phone...cell's dead...could...could use a little help if you're in the area..."

"Uh, sure, buddy." Foggy glances over his shoulder at Karen through the window. She's standing behind her desk, arms crosses, occasionally stealing peeks his way. She's wondering what's up. "Where are you?"

Matt coughs. Even over the phone it sounds wet and really, really bad.

"Matt?"

His friend wheezes a little when he speaks. "Kinda near...Josie's, I think. Can't tell."

Can't tell? Since when can't Matt tell where he is? Foggy kind of got the impression he sees more than a normal person, even though he's technically blind. Needless to say a chill crawls down his spine. "Okay, okay, I'll find you. I'll be right there."

It takes a few more tactical lies to get Karen to stay at the office but Foggy is too worried to feel guilty right now. By the time he heads out again, the rain has all but let up, a light drizzle misting his face as he sprints down the sidewalk, waving at any taxi that goes by. Luckily, one of the first ones takes mercy on him and pulls over. Foggy piles in and breathlessly gasps out the name of Josie's bar and the street number.

They arrive minutes later, passing the only pay phone on the block a few yards back. Foggy shoves a handful of dollars at the cabbie and takes off to the phone booth. A wave of bile rises in his throat at the sight of the glass booth smeared with blood on the inside. His voice is high and strained when he calls out his friend's name. He doesn't get a response that makes it even worse.

"Matt!" Foggy shoves past the handful of stragglers on the sidewalk, mindless to their dirty looks. The narrow alley between the bar and the run down tenement beside it seems to be calling to him. He sprints down to where it opens into a crumbling back road, only wide enough for bikes and foot traffic, a maze of fire escapes and ladders overhead and an obstacle course of metal trash cans, dumpsters, and abandoned furniture. And there, sitting with his back to a wall and his head drooped against his chest, is Daredevil. "Shit...oh shit..." Foggy drops his jacket and briefcase and stumbles to Matt's side. "Shit...shit...Matt? Matt, are you okay?"

In the misting rain, streams of diluted blood run off the red devil suit, though it's hard to tell where it's coming from. Matt groans softly under the mask, but Foggy can't tell if he's awake or not. Glancing from side to side, making sure they're alone, Foggy pulls the head piece off. Matt's eyes are open, but just barely. He stares, unseeing, at the ground, his hair twisted with dried blood, an angry welt below his left eye.

"Matt? Come on, wake up, buddy...wake up." He lightly smacks his friend's cheeks, trying to rouse some kind of intelligent reaction. Matt moans again and his hand twitches, like he tried to lift it but gave up. "That's it, Matt. Wake up."

Daredevil squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head slightly, like he's trying to clear his head. Blind eyes flutter open, staring sightlessly just past Foggy's shoulder. He coughs weakly and it still sounds wet and painful. "Thanks for coming..." Matt whispers. His voice sounds like an eighty year old smoker.

Foggy decidedly doesn't acknowledge the thanks. His stomach is hot, the all too familiar rage seeping back into his blood stream. "Can you get up?"

Matt nods. Foggy hooks one of his friend's arms over his shoulder and between the two of them, they manage to stagger to their feet. Blood seeps into Foggy's white shirt from somewhere near the vigilante's ribs. Matt's face pales considerably once they're standing and his eyes roll up, his knees sagging beneath him.

"No, no, no-" Foggy gasps, struggling to keep him on his feet. "Come on, Matt, work with me!"

"Sorry," he grinds out. "Dizzy."

Josie's bar is about five blocks from Matt's apartment. From the breathless, unbalanced way his friend is swaying, he doubts they could make it even one block. A taxi would be easier but try explaining to some random cabbie why Daredevil is bleeding on his backseat. He's pretty sure Karen has a car but that would take some explaining too...

Matt leans heavily on him as they start down the alley in the general direction of his apartment. While Foggy half-drags his bleeding best friend, he asks Matt for that burner he always carries.

Slow, clumsy, almost drunken hands unzip the pocket of his thigh and out comes the black flip phone. Foggy takes it and snaps open the screen. There are only two contacts in the whole thing. His number and Claire's.

Somehow, that manages to piss him off even more. Knowing that, until a few months ago, there was only one number in there. One ER nurse being his entire support system, the only thing standing between Matt and an untimely death.

Foggy jabs out Claire's number, squinting through the rain as Matt's weight bears down heavier and heavier with every passing second.

"Hello?"

"Claire, it's Foggy." He can hear the hustle and bustle of the ER behind her voice. Beeping machines, crying babies, shouting.

"...shit. What happened."

"Our, uh, mutual friend needs your help again." Foggy thinks he feels Matt shiver, but looking down he finds an out of place grin on his friend's lips.

Claire sighs. "How bad is he?"

"Bad enough to call you." He doesn't want to say over the phone and Claire seems to understand.

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thanks, Claire." She hangs up and Foggy puts the phone in his pocket.

"Mutual friend?" Matt whispers, chuckling weakly.

"Do not make fun of me. I'm trying to cover for your ass."

"I know..."

They arrive at the apartment only seconds before Claire.

By the time they get up the fire escape and into the bedroom, Matt is practically unconscious. Skin pale, suit dripping blood.

"Lay him on the bed," Claire says urgently. She snaps on a pair of plastic gloves and helps Foggy peel off the battered Daredevil suit, tossing it to the floor. What they reveal makes Foggy's stomach turn.

He'd known getting shot with a shotgun is bad news, but he never imagined this.

The flesh over Matt's left side is mangled. Torn to shreds, oozing blood, and full of chunks of lead.

Claire swears under her breath, going still for a moment, her hands hovering over the injury. It's not the first time the gravity of Matt's various wounds has startled her...but this is the first time one has made her feel useless.

She can feel Foggy staring at her, wondering why she isn't doing anything while his best friend bleeds out on his bed.

Thing is, there really is nothing she can do.

She's just a nurse, dammit. What Matt needs is emergency surgery. A whole team of trained surgeons, bags of anesthesia, morphine, blood transfusions. Not one nurse, a lawyer, and an unsantized queen sized bed.

This is officially out of her realm.

"Claire...?" Foggy urges. He's holding Matt's hand. His white shirt is stained red.

"Stitches won't cut it this time," she tells him, startled by the strength of her voice when the rest of her feels like melting down. "There's not much to stitch, his skin is torn to shreds."

"Okay so...what do we do?"

"We'll have to cauterize the wound."

Foggy swallows. "How do we do that?"

"Good question..." Claire rips off her jacket, lays it over Matt's side and tells Foggy to press down as hard as he can. He obeys and Matt squirms underneath him, hissing in pain.

Sprinting out into the kitchen, Claire throws open every cabinet, every drawer, looking for something that will work. Finally, she settles on a large steak knife in the drawer beside the oven, which she cranks on to the highest temperature.

"Claire!"

Shit, what now! She runs back to the bedroom to find Foggy leaning over Matt's face. When he sits up, his eyes are watering.

"He's not breathing..."

No.

"Move." Claire scrambles onto the bed as Foggy moves aside. Straddling Matt's hips, she leans her cheek over his mouth and nose. She feels nothing. Foggy was right.

"What's happening..." Foggy asks, his voice shaking.

"He's going into cardiac arrest." It's been a long time since Claire's done CPR on anyone but a training dummy. Usually, there are defibrillators for this. And doctors are usually the ones to use them.

She has her certification though so she starts pumping his chest, pinching his nose, and blowing into his mouth, which tastes like blood. Over and over and over, pausing only long enough to feel for a pulse.

His heart hasn't stopped yet but he refuses to breathe.

The oven goes off, beeping shrilly.

"Foggy, listen to me," she gasps out between breaths. "Get the steak knife on the counter and heat it in the oven. Bring it back when it's red hot."

He doesn't move, eyes fixated on Matt's face.

"Move!" she barks.

Foggy jumps and then sprints out of the room.

"Come on, you stubborn son of a bitch..." Matt's ribs creak under the pressure and she's just waiting for them to snap. Still, his heart keeps going so that's all that matters.

Foggy returns a moment later, holding out the sizzling knife at arm's length. "What do I do with this?"

"Move my jacket, press it to his injury and keep it there. Might as well do it while he can't feel it."

Foggy obeys with trembling hands.

Matt's skin sizzles upon contact and his body jerks, his face screwing up in pain...and then he sucks in a shocked gasp and screams. Claire jumps back, feeling the strangest sense of relief upon hearing him shrieking in agony.

At least he's breathing.

But Foggy on the other hand looks like he's about to faint. Claire gets off the bed and moves to his side, taking the knife from him so he can stumble away and sit on the floor.

The knife cools down startlingly fast and the wound is only half-sealed before it's too cool to use. Still, it's better than nothing. Claire tosses the bloody knife aside and places her jacket back over the injury.

Somehow, Matt is awake. But not for long, by the looks of it. She can only hope he's lucid enough to answer the one question that matters before he passes out again.

"Matt? Matt, can you hear me?"

He groans in response.

"Listen, this is really important...I need to know what blood type you are."

His mouth moves as if he's trying to speak but all that comes out is garbled whimpers of pain and ragged wheezing.

"Come on, Matt, I can't do any more to help you unless I know your blood type."

Finally, he grinds it out. "A...A positive..."

Shit. She's B positive, she can't donate to him. Turning, Claire sees Foggy trying very hard not to hyperventilate.

"Foggy? Hey, you okay?"

He looks up, wide eyed. "Yeah..."

"What blood type are you?"

He frowns, confused. "Uh...O positive...I think?"

"You have to be sure! Are you O positive or not?"

"Uhh..." Suddenly, he rolls to his knees, pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. "I have it on my driver's license...yeah! O positive. Is that good?"

"That's perfect. Come here." He stands, edging closer. Claire packs her jacket tighter against the wound and then snatches her bag off the floor. "You ever give blood before?"

"Uh, once."

"How'd it go?"

"I fainted."

She blinks at him. "How much did you give?"

"Uh, fssh, I don't know. Like, a couple of those little vial-thingys?"

Christ. "Then have a seat. You're gonna give a lot more than that."

Foggy visibly pales. "To-to Matt? Are you sure we're compatible?"

"Assuming he's A positive and you're O positive, then yes." She takes out syringes, tubing, bandages... Most of this stuff she keeps on her in case she needs to make a makeshift IV drip. At least this is a...similar concept.

Foggy sits and holds out his arm but he still looks nervous. "Are you sure that's safe?"

"You don't have kind of blood-born illnesses, right?"

"Not that I know of!"

"Then it's fine." She swabs his arm with alcohol. "You're gonna feel a pinch."

Foggy winces when she inserts the needle, attaches the tubing, and then turns to Matt.

"Look, I know this is kinda crazy and I would probably lose my nursing licence if anyone found out I was doing this but we both know he can't go to a hospital and, honestly, I don't have time to run down, check out a bag of blood, and bring it all the way back here. If he doesn't get some blood in him right now, we're gonna lose him."

Foggy swallows, looking over at his friend, whose eyes are closed again and breathing rapidly. "Take as much as he needs."

Things have settled down over the last hour.

Claire pads into the bedroom, carrying a glass of orange juice and a plate of crackers, offering them to Foggy. He's pale and probably weak and dizzy but refuses to let Claire unhook the drip, even though she's warned him three times he's getting close to the limit he can give before it gets dangerous.

"Thanks," he says, sipping the juice. "This is pretty thirsty work, huh?"

She chuckles. "So I've heard." Moving to the bedside, she presses her fingers to Matt's throat, feeling the steady thumping of his pulse with great relief. The antibiotics and powerful painkillers draining into his other arm keep him asleep and semi-comfortable.

"How's he doing...?"

"Much better. He'll pull through." Still, Foggy looks sad. She isn't sure what, exactly, is going through his head but she's got a vague idea. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Claire unhooks the drip connected to Foggy, silencing him before he can argue. "He's got enough, Foggy. Keep going and all you'll accomplish is landing yourself in the ER."

He goes quiet then, while Claire removes the needle from his arm and wraps a bandage around the entry site. Watches silently as she does the same for Matt, who is out like a light. She throws the needles, tubing, and soiled bandages into the trashcan in the kitchen, then returns to check Matt's wound.

The worst of the injury is taken care of. There's still the matter of the shrapnel to remove but since it's not entirely sealed, that won't be too hard. She'll wait a few days before that though. Long enough for his body to regenerate all the blood he's lost. The only other part to worry about is the half of the injury which didn't burn shut and is still bleeding. Of course, tight enough bandages will solve that problem by tomorrow morning.

Looks like she'll be bunking here for a while...

And using up the rest of her sick days. Dammit.

Claire wraps his wound again and sinks down onto the floor. It's been one hell of a night and she'd love to get some rest... Looks like that won't be for a while though.

Beside her in the arm chair they pulled in from the living room, Foggy sips his orange juice and tries not to think about how close he got to losing his best friend. Instead, to distract himself, he tries to figure out where he might have been for those two days he was missing. Why it took him so long to call.

The only thing he can figure is also probably the worse thing he can imagine.

The gang he was fighting must have had him.

Maybe they were going to torture him. ...maybe they did torture him.

And almost certainly they must know his identity now.

Of course...he was wearing the mask when Foggy found him...

Glancing sideways at Matt, who looks peaceful in his drug-induced sleep, Foggy sighs. He's tired. Tired from the stress of these last two days (three days now, according to the clock), tired from carrying Matt's ass all the way home, tired from giving so much blood... Too tired to be angry for his friend's recklessness and stubbornness.

At this point, he doesn't care if Matt is Daredevil for the rest of his life.

He just wants him to wake up.

"Hey," Claire says suddenly. She's smirking, shadows under her eyes, looking about as exhausted as Foggy feels. "At least you didn't faint again."

The next morning, Foggy wakes up to the sound of slow, uneven footsteps on the hardwood floors. He jolts awake, gaping at the sight of Matt trudging out of his room, pulling his IV drip behind him.

"Woah, woah!" Jumping to his feet, Foggy scrambles past Claire's cot on the floor. She's just rousing as well. "You should not be up! He should not be up!"

"Relax, Foggy, I feel fine..." Matt says, somewhat drowsily.

"Fine my ass! Claire, tell him!"

"He's right, Matt, you shouldn't be moving around yet."

Matt opens his mouth to protest again but Foggy is having none of it. He sternly-gently-steers Matt over to the couch, all but pushing him down onto it. Obviously, Matt winces and rubs his side. Claire pulls his hand away and kneels beside him, lifting the corner of his gauze to check the wound underneath.

"Looks like the worst of the bleeding has stopped," she says. "But keep moving around and you'll tear the clot and start all over again." She stands, inspects his drips and shakes her head. "You're almost out. I'll need to run to the hospital to get more."

"Isn't that illegal or something?" Matt grumbles, struggling to get comfortable.

"A lot of things I've done this past 24 hours have been illegal."

He raises his eyebrows. "Do I want to know what that means?"

"It means we saved your ass. Again." Foggy's voice is stern, verging on angry. "Now, tell us it was worth it. Where the hell have you been the past two days?!"

Matt's brow furrows, a deep frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. "I, uh, don't think you want to-"

"No. I assure you, we want to know."

Matt shifts, licking is lips. "The men I was fighting..."

"Those thugs that shot you?"

"Yeah. They came looking for me. After they, you know..."

"Shot you."

"Yeah." Matt sort of looks uncomfortable every time Foggy mentions the shooting part. Makes him want to say it even more. "I kept my distance for a while but they were...they were everywhere."

"So what'd you do?"

"Couldn't go home, they would have seen me. Couldn't get anywhere near here. So, more or less, I kept moving. Tried to lead them out of the Kitchen so I could lose them."

"For two days?"

"No, just-just the first day...I think. It's hard to remember..." Indeed, Matt's face is screwed up in intense concentration, as if grasping for any fragment of memory he can think of. "It's kind of a blur. The second day, I think I...may have been unconscious for most of it."

"Jesus, Matt..."

"But you obviously lost them," Claire adds, finally jumping into the conversation.

"Yeah. Last I saw, they were still searching for me a few miles south of Hell's Kitchen. I looped back, made it as far as Josie's, and that's when I called."

Foggy exhales deeply, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. A million different responses are running through his mind and it's pretty much a spin of a wheel which one he'll blurt out first. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Claire speaks up first.

She's grabbed one of Matt's hoodies out of the wardrobe is slipping it over her bloodied scrubs. "Look, I'm gonna leave the two of you to hash this thing out. Right now, it's technically still night shift at the ER so if I hurry, I might be able to slip into the room they keep the blood bags in and sneak one out unnoticed. Skeleton crew at night, you know?" She heads out in a hustle, running down the steps and out the front door, leaving Matt and Foggy alone in a heavy silence.

"You're lucky to be alive," Foggy says after a while, sinking onto one of the bar stools in the kitchen.

"You think I don't know that?"

"You stopped breathing for a while. Did you know that?"

Matt doesn't reply to that. And his face reveals very little.

"Look, just..." Foggy stands, hands on his hips, pacing. "Just tell me you have an end game, okay? What...where do you draw the line? Because...the shit that I just went through, that Claire just went through...that's not fair, Matt-"

"The world's not fair, Foggy. It's not fair that-"

"-I need to know that if I lose you, and right now, that's looking like a very good possibility, then it wasn't for nothing."

"-people are dying, Foggy! People are getting killed and I have the ability to stop it-"

"Just what are you trying to accomplish, man?! What's your end game?!"

"-I can stop it, Foggy. I put the right people behind bars and there's gonna be a lot less pain and suffering in Hell's Kitchen."

"What are you trying to prove?!"

"I'm not trying to prove anything!"

"Bullshit, alright! Normal people don't run around in devil costumes beating people up unless they have something to prove!"

"Are you honestly telling me that if you had the abilities I have, you wouldn't try to use them to make a difference?! A real difference!"

"I don't have your abilities, Matt! I can't tell when you're lying, okay?! I can't hear your heartbeat! You say you're alright, you say you're just trying to help. How am I supposed to know you're not lying! How do I know you're not just like the Punisher!"

Matt stops shouting then. His face is hard as stone as he stands up off the couch, eye level with Foggy though his eyes drift to the left. "I am nothing like him."

Foggy scowls at him, even though he knows he can't see it. "I don't know, Matt...Frank Castle didn't know when to stop, either. Now he's locked up in a max security prison...which seems like a nice alternative for what almost happened to you yesterday."

Matt's jaw is clenched tight. He stares into the distance past Foggy's left shoulder, practically seething, fists shaking by his sides. "You want to know my end game? Fine." He leans in real close, voice hard as steel when he says, "There is no line to draw, Foggy. Either I fix this city or I die trying. I appreciate you helping me, but nothing you ever do or say is going to stop me."

Matt stands by, silent, motionless, while Foggy grabs his coat and shoes. He stomps out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

He stalks past Karen on the steps and doesn't stop to deter her from paying Matt a visit. Let him deal with her for once.

Even when she calls out his name, he ignores her.

He is so beyond caring at this point.

A/N: Not as happy an ending for this one... Tbh I got tired of trying to make all of these happy so I figured, what the heck? Misery for everyone!