In a Dark, Dark Room

By: Mytay

Rating: T

Summary: Foggy has a lot of feelings about Matt and Daredevil. They are confusing, conflicting, and sometimes terrifying, but he knows one thing for certain: he can't walk away from them. More specifically, he can't walk away from Matt.

Notes: I wrote this before season two premiered — and I haven't actually started watching season two yet because I haven't had too much time and because I really wanted to finish this one-shot before all my ideas were blown out of the water.

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Daredevil.

If Foggy could see more than an inch in front of his face right now, he would take his hand, form a fist, and put that fist in Matt Murdock's face with a great deal of force.

As it was, he had to settle for stumbling around in the near pitch-blackness, hoping like hell that Matt's superior senses would save the day. And then Foggy would punch him in the face.

"I wanted to call the police," Foggy said for the seventh time, and he was absolutely counting, because he knew Matt was counting, and Foggy wanted all his facts straight for when he retold this story at some later point when it would be funny.

It wasn't funny right now. At all.

"What the hell was the point of cleaning up the police force if you're still not going to call them."

"I can deal with this one," Matt said, far too patiently for Foggy's liking. "You didn't have to come along. You shouldn't have come along."

"Okay, one, you didn't tell me that — you just suddenly took off running. Two, since you didn't say anything, I followed you because that's just what a best buddy is gonna do in that kind of situation, and three, I grabbed your cane for you — your insurance only covers a certain amount of canes a year, you wasteful idiot."

He whipped out the cane in question. Matt just kept right on walking. "I think it's this way. Foggy, if I tell you to hide —"

"Really? This is what we're doing now? Wait, no, tell me exactly what it is we're doing. Then I'll decide if I'm going to be curled up in the fetal position somewhere."

Matt slowed his walk through the tunnel (access tunnels, a maze under Hell's Kitchen — things Foggy hadn't ever expected to need to know). "Madame Gao left a hole in the drug underworld here. A new group has moved in. I think they're part of Los Lobos del Diablo."

"Right. And who are these people, these, uh, wolves?"

"They're a smaller branch of a bigger cartel. The week they rolled in was the same week those three dealers were found."

A gruesome headline from earlier that month flashed in Foggy's mind. His stomach dropped. "The ones that got chopped up? Christ."

"Yeah. That was their way of establishing themselves. Those guys were small time, no competition. It was an announcement, a warning." Matt paused, and Foggy almost ran into his back. "Claire read me the coroner's report. I'll spare you the details, but understand that inflicting pain for these people is no more than a hard day's work — and some of them really love their jobs."

Foggy swallowed hard. "Fetal position it is. How do you know they might be down here? Why are we here now?"

"Because they're smart. They move, constantly. They switch up messengers and this is first time I've caught the scent —"

"Like a bloodhound?" Foggy had to try for a joke because his heart was hammering in his chest.

Matt turned to face him, close enough that Foggy could just make out his features in the dim lighting. His shades prevented Foggy from seeing exactly where his eyes were looking, but he could feel the stare all the same — he always had been able to sense when Matt's focus zeroed in on him. "My bloodhound nose tells me that even though it's chilly down here, you're sweating. And you probably know that I know your heart is racing."

"We've established that you get me all weak-kneed, Murdock, no need to rub it in," Foggy protested, not willing to stop joking around, to get serious and fully accept the danger.

"Foggy," Matt said softly. He stepped in closer. Foggy leaned in to hear his next words. "You should stay back, but I know you won't. So I need you to listen to me. I need you to duck, hide, run, if I tell you to. Please."

Foggy reached up and removed Matt's sunglasses. Those warm brown eyes darted back and forth, not quite catching Foggy's own affection-filled stare, but close enough. Foggy folded the glasses and tucked them into his suit's inner pocket. He reached over to grab Matt's upper arm, squeezing gently. "Buddy, I will absolutely save my own life if you need that from me. But you need to, y'know, not die, in case you need to be the one saving me. Just sayin'."

Matt closed the distance between them faster than Foggy could register it. He realized the lack of space when Matt's lips had been resting on his own for a time. Foggy closed his eyes and wrapped his other arm around Matt's back.

This was still new, still awkward — but simultaneously, this was easy, it was comfortable. Matt tended to hesitate a little with Foggy. He wasn't sure if this was what Matt was always like with his paramours, or just when making out with his best friend, but that slight start-stop edge to their kisses was somehow endearing.

And then whenever Matt appeared to accept that Foggy was not backing away, his lips would press insistently, his mouth would part, and Foggy would just hang on for the ride because Matt was scary good at the kissing thing. Case in point — Foggy forgot completely that they were in the middle of a creepy underground maze and that potentially crazed drug lords were just around the corner.

Matt pulled back and Foggy did not whine, because he was not a puppy, and he did not need to beg for Matt's affection. He may have made a small noise to protest since the kissing had been so very, very nice, but that was all.

"We good?" Matt asked, not sounding even slightly fazed. Bastard.

"Yeah," Foggy said, his voice cracking a bit. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, we're good. Me sidekick, you superhero."

"No, Foggy, we're partners. Equals."

"Except in the ass-kicking part of our partnership — that's all you, buddy, I defer to your expertise." He patted Matt's shoulders and disentangled himself from the embrace. He registered the fact that he still had Matt's cane, the wrist strap wrapped around his forearm. He folded the cane as small at it would go and tied the strap to his belt.

Matt visibly stilled, taking a few even, deep breaths. Before Foggy's eyes, Matt Murdock shifted from clumsy, blind, righteous lawyer to Daredevil.

Even as Matt stripped down to the red leather beneath, there was no costume needed; it was all there in the stern line of his jaw, in the regular, timed breaths, in the clenching and unclenching of his fists. He no longer walked the sewers so much as gracefully prowled them, his strides measured and careful, his head occasionally tilting as if to catch the slightest sound.

It was both disconcerting and stupidly hot.

Foggy was terrified, but apparently his libido needed a more immediate threat in order to be cowed.

Foggy was never going to feel any arousal ever again.

"Mierda, just find the bag!"

Foggy had the bag. He had the bag of drugs that the evil drug lords wanted. The bag that they were willing to eviscerate him to get. He also had a flimsy locked door keeping them away from his internal organs.

More importantly, Foggy also had his best friend/boyfriend, the Daredevil.

Foggy had never, since he found Matt nearly dead on his apartment's floor, been particularly crazy about this side of his friend (even if watching Matt get all this is my city was pretty damn attractive). His first and most visceral reaction to the discovery had been a raw, angry pain — the lying, the hypocrisy, but mostly the risks involved had made Foggy almost walk away from Matt and all that was Nelson and Murdock, Avocados at Law.

But these Lobos del Diablo — someone had to stop them.

And right now there was no one here other then Daredevil and his sidekick, the wannabe-butcher (of beef and pork, and most definitely not, never people).

God, the sounds.

When Foggy had volunteered to lure the small patrol towards an unlit service area, Matt had firmly said no. But Foggy suggested, rather logically, that if Matt wanted the element of surprise and to not be immediately mowed down in a hail of bullets by the incredibly massive guns they were holding (Foggy may have peed a little upon the sight of weapons he'd only ever seen in Call of Duty games), then he was going to need a little help.

Matt ninja'd a bag of cocaine away, Foggy used his best cop voice, and thus ensued a merry chase wherein Matt subtly kept Foggy alive while the pursuing patrol of sadistic drug dealers seemed almost amused . . . until the pitch-blackness and the beating Foggy was hearing.

The wet crunch of bones breaking had Foggy throwing up into a corner.

Someone began cursing in Spanish, furious and out of control. "¿No me importa un carajo, me escuchas, pendejo? Se que sos cobarde, cabrón, no sabes como terminar lo que empiezas —"

And then an ominous, meaty thud as the last man standing was finally rendered unconscious — at least Foggy prayed fervently that was the case.

Eerie silence for several minutes.

"It's done."

For whatever reason, those words spurned a fierce anger in Foggy, one that he couldn't explain, but one that had him slamming that door open, a door he'd been cowering behind just moments before.

He stared at the carnage. There was no light, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, and he could make out irregular shapes; the rounded lines of dislocated shoulders, the jutting out of broken legs, and the chests that start-stopped with wheezing breaths through cracked ribs.

"Christ," Foggy breathed out.

"Drop the bag. We move out, head topside, and call the cops."

"And?" Foggy said, following behind Daredevil automatically, stepping over murderers and torturers without thought. Without conscious thought — later, he knew, there would be nightmares.

"And we've taken out a good portion of their forces. These men are arrested, some are deported. The cops will have hard proof that Los Lobos del Diablo are here. That will get them on the case and, hopefully, help them find the rest."

They were back by the sewer entrance and Daredevil pulled his cowl off. Matt emerged as the lawyer suit slowly came back on. Foggy had never seen a better representation of the duality of Matt Murdock until that moment — Matt with red leather peeking from between the buttons of his cleanly pressed white oxford shirt, and his hands bruised from throwing punches even as he adjusted his tie and smoothed his hair back into some semblance of order.

Foggy pushed a breath out from between pursed lips, trying to get his heart rate to settle, and trying to tell himself that he and Matt could keep going the way they'd been going; that Foggy could live with his best friend being the violent vigilante that spilled blood on the streets they had both played on as children.

But as he and Matt climbed out of the sewers and Foggy watched Matt take his stick back and roll his shoulders, hunching down and appearing so much smaller than he really was . . . Foggy could only stare at the knuckles covered with scars and callouses, freshly bruised.

"Doctor said my mother's lungs are spotless, apparently — no thanks to you," Brett said. He toasted Foggy's beer bottle a little harder than was necessary.

"Listen, dude, Bess is some kind of magical ethereal being, sent to gift the world with cinnamon buns and vicious verbal ass-kickings," Foggy proclaimed. "That woman is immune to that which would effect us mere mortals."

Brett stared at him. "Right. Drink the beer, Nelson, you are far too sober for my tastes."

Foggy nodded, and then proceeded to chug the entire bottle, slamming it down and demanding another from Josie. The bartender slid one down to him without even glancing his way. Ah, Josie: another miraculous creation of the universe.

"We got a few guys in lock-up — freakin' scare the shit out of me, man, I'm glad I didn't have to take them down," Brett said, out of nowhere. "And guess who delivered them?"

"Delivered? He wraps thugs up and mails them, now?" Foggy said, and wow, did his voice really need to come out that bitter?

"Nah, man, it's just . . . when a bunch of terrifying cartel members are found knocked out in a sewer, there's pretty much only one person that could be, right?" Brett sighed. "Half the force wants to track him down, but I know . . . I know he's our best shot at taking these streets back. Fisk did more damage than people realize."

Foggy could not dispute this, and moreover had front row seats to the Wilson Fisk aftermath: the police force had been hollowed out and distrust ran rampant amongst its ranks; the hearings involving the politicians were being broadcast almost twenty-four seven; and all of this was reminding everyone that their leaders and protection were available for purchase to the highest bidder, no matter how dangerous and psychotic said bidder may be.

The media took special delight in reporting on Fisk's ability to decapitate someone by brute force alone.

And lastly, even as petty crime dropped dramatically, people like those Lobos saw Daredevil as nothing to be worried over, at best, and a challenge, at worst.

"You're tryin' to tell me that half of your problems don't come from having a vigilante out there, no oversight, accountable to no authority? Even the big green dude has someone trying to keep him in check." Foggy chugged another beer.

Brett caught the next bottle Josie slid over, preventing Foggy from reaching for it — not that his hand-eye coordination was at its best right now.

"Foggy, you got . . . you got something going on with you?" Brett asked, awkwardness lacing every syllable. He and Brett were drinking buddies, occasionally, rivals, often, and fighting the good fight, always. Personal concern wasn't something they did.

"Man, lemme drink and wallow in peace, c'mon," Foggy complained, reaching for the beer Brett was holding hostage. The bottle seemed to be in front of him one minute, then high over Brett's head a split second later. Foggy blinked at the empty air, his hand grasping at nothing.

"I really don't want to have to call your blind boyfriend to come and get your drunk ass, because I'm for sure not carrying you up to your apartment."

Foggy stared. That sounded sincere. That sound like Brett knew. "When . . . when did you find out about me and Matt?"

It hadn't been that long, and they weren't obvious. At all. Well, Karen had figured it out, but she worked with them; she had been so happy that Foggy wondered if she was putting up a front because he had been so sure she had thing for Matt. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that losing out to a dude might hurt less than losing out to another woman?

His head was starting to hurt — he realized too late he should have played it cool and lied. What kind of attorney was he if he couldn't be drunk and still be a good lawyer?

"My mom figured it out last time you were over at her place having dinner." Brett started drinking Foggy's beer, the jerk. "And she's been waiting ever since for you two to 'fess up."

Foggy took in the fact that Bess had known about them since the first day, and briefly considered having Bess hired on as a consultant or something — the woman had downright freaky powers of observation.

Then he remembered that Matt was his boyfriend, and his boyfriend was the Daredevil, and the Daredevil was a vigilante that brutally assaulted people and sometimes, sometimes it seemed like he was holding himself back, just itching to . . .

Foggy stopped reaching for the beer and sat at the bar, staring down at the counter, his mind whirring to a halt. "You know what? I'm gonna need you to call Matt, dude. Don't think I can walk in a straight line."

"You sure? I was just bitching for the sake of bitching, Foggy — I can get you home."

"Yeah?" Foggy traced over the many carved initials on the bar, layers and layers of lonely, pathetic people, drinking and wasting away. "Okay. Yeah. But take me to Matt's."

It was easy to fall into Matt's door, pretending to laugh a bit as he pushed past him, letting Brett explain that Foggy was a little drunk. Matt chuckled and thanked him, but Foggy could hear the undercurrent in Matt's voice, that he was most likely aware that Foggy was buzzed, a little tipsy, but that it was wearing off.

He hadn't really spoken to Matt since the whole sewer adventure.

Foggy walked to Matt's fridge, pulled out a water bottle, swallowed it down quickly.

He heard Matt shut the door after saying good-bye to Brett, and then he heard his confident walk — the walk Matt used when not pretending to be completely blind and klutzy. Matt stood at a distance behind Foggy, by the couch, and nothing was said for a time.

Foggy threw the water bottle away and turned to face him at last. "You got the devil's wolves off the streets, but you still got the devil in you, Murdock."

Matt's jaw clenched. "You've always known that."

"Nah, man, don't think that just because I knew about your little boxing habit that it compares," Foggy said, leaning into the kitchen island that separated the two of them. "I've been trying, but this isn't something I can just learn to be okay with."

"Why?" Matt asked, his tone plaintive. "And why haven't you said anything since . . ."

"Because it's easy to forget when it's just you and me, when you disappear and come back and I can't tell if you've just been at the gym or kicking some thug's ass." Foggy gripped the counter with both hands. "But when I see the bruises, Matt, when Claire calls to let me know that you've crashed on her couch, too stitched up to move, and when . . . when I heard you take down an entire room of armed drug dealers . . ."

He didn't know how, exactly, to articulate what he was feeling, but Matt didn't give him the chance to figure it out, taking a few steps so that he was also pressed against the kitchen island, speaking fast and angry, "You know I can't ignore the cries for help, Foggy. I can't."

"You can't let people escape through the loopholes of the law — the same ones we exploit as lawyers for the poor and oppressed." Foggy's head dropped. "Right. I get it. There's a whole lot of pain out there, but damn it, Matt, you have to understand that this thing you do, it's not just that it's illegal, right? You have to feel that it's wrong on other levels, that it makes you . . ."

"Makes me what?" Matt snapped. His hands were curling around the edge of the counter, knuckles white.

"Makes you more like the devil and less like the man," Foggy finished. "And I don't care how fucking corny that is, it's how I feel. I'm fucking losing you to that damn suit, and when I hear how damn hard you push yourself, how you punish yourself for almost slipping off the edge, and then you go right back to walking that fine line . . . Holy shit, Matt, can't you see that this is going to destroy you?"

Matt inhaled sharply. "You hate it. You hate Daredevil, still."

"No, I don't hate it, but I can't fully accept it. Because it's wrong, but you get shit done. Because I see you fight and it's like poetry in, uh, really violent motion. And then I hear it, and it's the worst sounds I've ever heard in my life. I wish I didn't know the noise of someone deliberately snapping another person's arm, but guess what? Now I do."

Matt pushed away from the counter, his voice dropping even lower, that hint of the vigilante in it. "What do you want me to do, give it up?"

"No," Foggy said immediately. "I can't ask you to do that. It has to come from you. I can't ask. Because I know what the answer would be, Matt. I'm not stupid. This isn't a 'me or the mask' situation." Because he knew what would happen, and that was fine. That was the reality. Matt existed in two forms, and to deny one was to deny the other. But that careful balance — that need of Matt's to shed blood for the sake of justice while keeping justice from slipping into brutal vengeance?

"Foggy . . ."

"Fuck, forget it," he said, breathing out harshly. "Damn, I love you too much for this. Just stay alive and out of jail for me, and I'll deal with my own morality crisis, okay?"

Matt apparently waited for Foggy to try and get by him in attempt to lie down on the couch before he finally tried to touch him. Matt grabbed him with one hand, reeling him in slowly. Foggy let him.

"I . . ." Matt stopped, didn't seem to know what he wanted to say, and then just pulled Foggy in even closer.

Foggy fell into the kiss. Matt was soft, gentle without urgency taking over. They both pulled back at the same time, and Matt asked, in a whisper, "You don't have to sleep out here, if you don't want to?"

Foggy didn't want to sleep out in full view of the giant, glowing billboard. He admitted to himself that he hadn't wanted to lie down with Matt either. But the lure of a large, soft bed with blackout curtains to cover the worst of the lurid light of the city — it was too strong.

"Please," Matt said.

Foggy gave in, comfortable in body though not so much in mind. Matt was breathing deeply and evenly at his side, but he could tell that he wasn't completely at ease either.

"Matt." A rustle of sheets was his answer, and the sudden inhale that meant Matt was no longer feigning sleep. Foggy spoke as clearly as he could. "No matter what happens, I'm not walking out on us again."

Silence.

"I mean, on Nelson and Murdock," Foggy amended. "This thing between you and me —"

"I love you," Matt said, faint and tender.

Foggy took that in, bottled up the warm happiness that welled up, and kept going, "Yeah, that. That might take a hit, at some point down the line. But I will always be your best friend. I can't stay away for long, even when I try. Even when I really want to."

Matt's breath hitched, once, and then he breathed out long and low; Foggy felt the air pass over his shoulder. Matt rolled a little closer now — they hadn't been touching at all — to lay his head nearer to Foggy's and to rest a hand over his chest.

"Thank you."

Foggy took in his own deep breath, exhaling very slowly. "Okay. You're welcome. And . . . sorry, for the past few days. Avoiding and such. Making it awkward at the office. Getting Karen on your case."

"She always assumes it's my fault," Matt complained, relaxing into the bed like he hadn't before. He pushed himself even closer to Foggy. "It's getting to be clear who her favourite is."

"She just knows which of us is the more emotionally repressed," Foggy said with a small, sad smile that no one could see. "I mean, dude, I have to talk all my crap out. It's kinda unavoidable. And you just smile and keep calm and carry on. Of course Karen assumes you're being an ass — she sees me all distraught and you cool as a cucumber."

Matt rolled his eyes — Foggy could tell. It was the benefit of knowing Matt as long as he had. "Right, I'll work on being more emotionally available."

"Thanks, my inner child could use that," Foggy said. "How about breaking the office rule about PDA now and again?"

"You're pushing it," Matt warned.

"Like, on holidays? After a big win? When Karen's not there?"

"We don't work on holidays, no, and maybe."

"Ah, that was a definite 'no' last time I asked! I'm so wearing you down," Foggy declared triumphantly.

"Like only you can, Nelson," Matt said, his voice both amused and tired. "We'll see next time Karen's off."

Foggy rested his hand on top of Matt's. "Hm, my desk or yours?"

"Mine. No uneven legs means no wobbling."

"That's half the fun," Foggy said, fading fast in the face of Matt's quiet, rumbling tone.

"Not when it breaks and we have to explain it to Karen when she gets back," Matt pointed out, his voice little more than a breath now.

"Wow, you're assuming a lot," Foggy murmured. "I was thinking some light making-out. You've got a dirty mind for a Catholic boy."

"It's why I go to confession so often," Matt whispered back, trailing off, puffing out a soft, "Love you," as he drifted into sleep.

Matt so rarely got a full night's rest that Foggy concentrated on keeping his own breathing even, his heart as steady as he could. And maybe that was the key to his conflict between Matt and Daredevil — keeping the heart steady and focused on Matt.

Even if it meant a breaking somewhere down the road, when his heart finally couldn't handle the strain.

Foggy brushed a kiss against Matt's forehead and tried to focus on the pulse of Matt's own heart. Because it wasn't just his own at risk. It wasn't just a relationship on the line. Because the world was dark and gritty, and Matt just wanted to clean up one, tiny corner of it, keep one small group of people safe, and Foggy wanted so badly to have it be just Nelson and Murdock against the world, but Daredevil . . .

He was falling asleep holding Matt and Daredevil both, but mostly Matt, because Daredevil . . . he didn't know as well. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He wasn't sure he loved the vigilante. But Matt was his, and he was Matt's, and somehow Daredevil would protect them all, and Foggy was going to try and protect Matt, even from . . .

Forget it, he told himself. And he held Matt close. He ran his fingers over the bruised knuckles, covering that hand with his — Matt's hands were smaller than his own — and finally let go and allowed himself to slip into the welcoming darkness.

Author's Note: And now I will finally start watching second season! Yay!

I'm not really sure what I was trying to accomplish with this story. Probably working out more Nelson v. Murdock feelings, because that episode gave me all the feelings, even a year later.

This was supposed to be a light-hearted sequel to my other one-shot, involving Bess Mahoney, but Foggy just would not cooperate. I'm sorry?

I hope this was at least somewhat enjoyable and thank you so much for reading! I'm slowly figuring out Tumblr (link in my profile), if you'd like to find me on there :)