Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel's "Daredevil", wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Inspired by a prompt on the Daredevil kink meme which asked for: Matt/Foggy: Foggy is a 'late bloomer' superhero. Foggy is not amused.

Warnings: This fic takes an au view of how Foggy finds out that Matt is Daredevil, but is more or less canon compliant up to "Nelson vs Murdock." Contains: spoilers up to episode ten, adult language, angst, drama, hilarity, mild violence/blood, humor, and mild sexual content.

Hieroglyphics (or you are under arrest for being attractive & ruining my life)

Chapter One

As far as randomly acquired superhero powers go, he is going to admit right now that his are kind of lame. Okay, lots lame. Sort of. But considering Matt is a complete and utter dingus with about the same self-preservation instincts as a mosquito flying full tilt into a bug zapper, he figures an extra edge - as fucking weird and annoying as it is – is probably worth the headache.

He called in and gave zero fucks about it. Leaving a message on Karen's phone was easy. She didn't answer calls before 9am and was still slightly homicidal by 9:30am. So, not getting an earful first thing on a Monday morning when it felt like Satan was operating a power drill inside his skull was an unexpected plus.

Matt however was a different story.

Matt was like pulling teeth.

"Sorry man, I think last night's take-out got the better of me," he explained, looking up at the peeling, discolored flecks of his ceiling. Not having to try very hard at sounding miserable as he toed off his socks and vaguely considered the idea of never stepping foot outside of his apartment again.

"Do you want me to come over? You sound terrible, Foggy," Matt replied, the connection static-strewn and muffled as the clear sounds of the text to talk system reminded him he needed to leave in less than five minutes to catch the next train to the office.

"Dude, no. I am doing you a solid here, believe me. Love yourself buddy. Look, remember that time in the dorms when you were trying to figure out what was rotting in the fridge and I projectile barfed like, half a meter away and then you barfed - because reasons - then I barfed again and it was just fifty shades of awful and we promised not to speak of it again? Yeah, on a Richter scale of terrible this ranks right in. I will text you later, okay?"

The lie was white and small and while part of him told himself that considering the circumstances he shouldn't care, he still felt guilty about it. He didn't like lying to Matt. It makes him feel itchy. It's like, cursing in front of a nun or something. He'd never really figured it out.

He spent the next two days not so quietly freaking out. Alternating between people watching from the safety of his bedroom window to hiding under his covers with re-runs of The Walking Dead and Star Trek, because he hates his life okay?

Everything in his life happened so much and he was pretty fucking tired of it by this point if he was being honest. He didn't just have to go to college, he had to go to law school. He didn't just have a roommate, he had to have a blind roommate who turned into a blind best friend, then a blind crush and then into dangerous territory that included years of pining and more romantic failures with other people trying to get past this thing for his best bro than actually getting anywhere on either front. And now he didn't even get to be normal Foggy Nelson – no. Now he was mind reading Foggy Nelson.

Jesus, this was his life?

What even?

Truth was he didn't know how it happened or why. There were no radioactive spiders or withered old crones cornering him in dark alleys. Whispering creepy words in Pig Latin and tossing glittering powder in his face. His life was just, well, life. Not exactly boring, but not exactly out there either. He hadn't come face to face with anything more intimidating than a couple of state attorneys with chips on their shoulders deep enough to scoop ice cream out of in the last month and a half - so, frankly, he was pretty stumped.

All he knew was he woke up one morning and nearly pissed himself walking out the door when Mr. Henderman from apartment 304 came stomping out of the elevator with storm clouds roiling through the air around his head.

And, just for clarification, he wasn't talking metaphorical thunderclouds or euphemisms here. He was talking about an actual full out thunder cloud disco-strobing with lightning and thunder. Spreading out like a mushroom cloud on either side of the hall until the shitty ceiling squashed it back down. Spitting rain and hail that seemed to evaporate as soon as it hit the carpet. Sending wind gusts howling down the elevator shaft and back into his room. Feeling the raindrop-splatter across his skin only to mist right through. Leaving him with the sensation trickling down his skin but none of the evidence.

He fell backwards through the door, lips fishtailing. Managing a garbled handful of syllables that could have been words as he threw his arm over his face, ears ringing with the swan song of dying frequencies as a shattering crack of thunder shook the entire god damned floor.

Problem was he was the only one that noticed it.

In fact, what made it worse was that just like that, as the man turned – alarmed - the thunder cloud spluttered and dispersed. Making way for an image of himself - oh god he so needed to hit the gym - being loaded into a stretcher to flash worriedly in its place.

He'd managed to wave the man and his concern off with something he hoped was at least somewhat convincing and stumble weakly back inside. Closing the door so that he could nurse his impending panic attack in private. Making it approximately 99.9% worse by nearly jamming his eye into the spy hole to watch the man's back retreat down the hall. Faint question marks whirling in wide, looping spirals above his head as he fumbled with his keys and disappeared from view.

He may or may not have slid down the door and stayed there for three hours.

Jury was still out on that one.

He returned to the office on a Wednesday, approaching cautiously like the building itself might be slightly combustible. Trying really hard not to think about how the bum outside was thinking about corn chips and male fashion as he slunk in and tried to plaster his best 'I am totally lying about something huge but please don't question me about it' smile. Taking Matt's ribbing and Karen's slightly neurotic concern with his usual extreme lack of anything approximating grace.

The day was a complete shit-show with a side order of a chronic migraine. Though the look on Karen's face when he snuck out just before lunch and got her that freakin' donut - honey glazed, white chocolate sprinkles with a drizzle of Carmel cavity-inducing sweetness dripping down the sides that she had been fantasizing about all fucking morning - made him feel like a god among men, so there's that.

He wasn't sure if it was because Matt was blind – okay, he was pretty sure that was a part of it - but he also convinced it was how Matt ordered his thoughts that made being able to see what he was thinking an almost religious experience.

Because Matt? Matt was even, calm.

His thoughts were surprisingly level. Controlled and rarely racing even when he stood in front of a grim-faced jury hoping for a long shot. They were a balanced nothing around 80% of the time which was both weird, but also extremely soothing at the same time.

In fact, he'd never been so grateful Matt was blind - and yes he was aware of how bad that sounded. It was just, well, awesome that he could usually be around the dude without being subjected to a constant thought-disco right out of the 50's and not feel like his eyeballs were about to explode.

Though, it probably didn't help in the beginning that he was balls at figuring out what the man was thinking in the first place. From the moment he walked into the office it was all dark swirls and red-sonar outlines of things he couldn't for the life of him recognize.

Matt thought in colors and shapes that unfurled themselves from a blanketing, off-color mist. He thought in weights, measures and trickling sheaths of red. In movie-reel flicker-flecks and base-line hums of sound. Unlike everyone else, Matt's thoughts seemed to be split. Existing in two distinct, but conflicting wave-lengths of tone and rhythm that were both unnerving and intriguing when he let himself think too much about it.

In retrospect, that was probably his first clue.

It took him a stupidly long time. Which ended up being about two days - because anything involving him not knowing something about his best bro, aka the love of his life, was completely unacceptable - to realize that the red-lined shape that flashed overtop Matt's head on the regular was actually him.

Holy shit balls.

It was him.

It was his face.

It was how Matt saw him.

As time went on, he even started to recognize the vague hint of features. The outline of his nose, a cheek dimple, even the crinkle he was becoming intimately acquainted with in the mirror these days when he smiled. Which, actually, was kind of impressive considering he'd only let Matt touch his face that one time and he had no idea how a very embarrassing skim of a face could equal detail on that kind of a scale.

But then again, this was Matt. He'd stopped being surprised at the shit that stupidly attractive duck could do ever since third year when he'd somehow managed to save him from getting run over by a car when they were heading home from bar hopping and that douche-nozzle in a refrigerated truck ran the red when they were already halfway across the intersection.

In other news, once he'd figured that part out, he realized Matt actually thought about him a whole hell of a bunch. Which, to be honest, was a whole other issue in and of itself that he'd get into later.

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. – There will be one more chapter, so stay tuned!