The Late Night Star Wars Story
-Winter 2011-
3 months into first year of law school
He's been up for 22 hours straight. Maybe that's why he's so damn worried and filled with angst. Oh, he also has 394 pages to read before lecture starts at eight forty five, which is in… apparently 6 hours! Damn civil law, damn these lecture notes and damn Matt Murdock for not answering his texts! Where the hell is he? He's known for a while that Matt doesn't need to read Thurgood Marshall's arguments since they're basically his second bible. But seeing as they have a test tomorrow and how much Matt usually studies, he really should be back. He checks his watch. Matt's been gone 7 hours, which would have been fine by him if he hadn't said he was just going out to check on that Greek chick and 'be back in a bit'. It's been more than a month with her, must be some kind of record. He returns to aggressively flipping at the pages of "A Uniform System of Citation" just as set keys turn in the lock.
Foggy spots a flash of white cane and sunglasses and that all the recognition he needs to start his rant. "Where have you been? We have a test in a few hours, you don't answer my texts and I keep worrying you've gotten yourself hit by a falling ladder!" He begins when he spots something in Matt's demeanor that makes him stop. Matt Murdock has a great sense of humor, but he's usually pretty stoic. Tall, quietly handsome with women practically falling at his feet in a way he's never quite understood, Matt has a tendency to retreat and bury himself in his own thoughts around others. He saved a man from being hit by a truck when he was nine, an accident that blinded him. On the first day they met, Matt told Foggy that he hated how people usually treated him like he was fragile. Maybe that's part of the reason why he is the way he is. But he's never, ever been that way with Foggy. Looking at the way he slouches over on his cane, shoulders hunched and stumbling through the door, Foggy knows something's wrong.
"Matt, are you actually drunk for once? Jesus." Matt hardly ever drinks, and never gets drunk. It's serious. He rushes over to help him in.
Matt plunks down on the bed and pats Foggy's hands away. "It's not as bad as you think. It's the alcohol, gets to my balance. It's bad for me because everything's off kilter and I can't correct my balance the way you can." said Matt.
"What by seeing things?" asked Foggy.
"Yeah. That. You use your eyes to find equilibrium when you body can't." Matt answers. He keeps swallowing hard, which means he's at least slightly trashed.
"Well, there's the answer to why you won't get drunk with me." He waits and lowers his voice a little before saying, "that bad, huh? Want to talk about it?" Matt just shakes his head and turns his glasses over and over, and then drops them on the ground. Foggy goes to the kitchen, thank god they don't live in a dorm room anymore, which is really expensive and has none of utilities that they're shithole apartment (which is what you get when you can pay a thousand dollars rent on 119th in New York) has, such as an actual fridge, hell yeah, and bathrooms without six other co-eds.
He returns from the kitchen with a glass of water for Matt and finds him with his head in his hands. Okay Nelson, think. He's quite unsure of what to do because he's never seen his best friend like this and in his nervousness and panic of his workload and the stupid quiz tomorrow he's not sure if he's dreaming. "Here, drink this then get some sleep." He takes Matt's hand and places the glass in it. Matt's eyes are wide when he says simply, "Can't sleep." Trying to distract him and enlighten with a sudden idea, Foggy asks, "How many movies have you seen? Actually seen." Matt barely has time to look confused you says "Hmph?" before Foggy goes on, "You know, when I threw up all over that hot Italian chick that other time, what you helped do was completely ignoring my problems until I could reflect on it without banging my head on the counter in embarrassment. That's what we're doing here. I need answers Murdock."
"What was her name? The Italian girl. Alexandra? She had a nice voice."
"It was Alessandra, and yes, she did."
"You shouldn't have run off immediately, she wasn't that offended."
"How would you know? You couldn't see her face."
"I have my ways of telling."
"Okay, don't share your mojo with women and don't change the subject" said Foggy.
"Uh, I don't watch movies." said Matt, looking at Foggy like he's lost his mind.
"No! I meant before the car accident!" said Foggy.
"Couldn't have been many. I was eight. I'd say around 10 or so?" said Matt.
"And out of those, which do you remember the most clearly? Something you enjoyed the most. Where you told yourself your eight year old mind was blown to dust. Its Ghostbusters isn't it. Please let it be Ghostbusters."
"I don't think eight year olds watch Ghostbusters."
"Fine, give me something to work with then. Don't say Snow White because there is no way in hell I'm watching that with you no matter how drunk you are."
"Unfortunately Snow White was one of the movies I watched and I'm imagining your eyes widening in horror. So probably… Star Wars? The first one."
"Your dad let you watch Star Wars when you were eight?"
"Seven actually."
"Dang, you dad was awesome." Foggy sees a hint of a smile on the corners of Matt's mouth.
"And lucky for you, even when it's not on Netflix, I still have Star Wars Episode IV on my laptop. Which is what we are going to do, right now. Not thinking and talking about it."
"I second that." Matt touches his wristwatch with its cover taken off, he feels the hands and says. " But it's late, and we have a quiz during civil law. You should go to sleep, I'll go through some of the readings and watch it later."
"What and let you wallow in a pit of self-hatred? Not gonna happen, man. Plus, how are you even going to know what's happening on screen?" retorted Foggy.
"Fine." said Matt.
The opening credits scroll up on the screen and Foggy reads them out to Matt. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…" "STAR WARS!" He bellows and Matt practically falls off the bed.
"Foggy, you're going to wake up the neighbors." whispered Matt moving his hand up and down in the air trying to get him to lower his voice, but he's choking back laughter at the same time.
"What, Robin and Reuben? Those psycho twins probably love Star Wars, they'll be thanking me in the morning with banana bread." He says.
"Poisoned banana bread laced with crack probably, going by the way they taste." Matt says.
"Nah, they would never do that to you, chuckie doll Robin loves your cute blind ass too much."
"Alright, shut up. We're missing the opening." Matt laughs.
He reads the last of it at lightning speed before the words disappear from the screen. "Oh right, crap, Leia-races-home-aboard-the-starship-custodian-of-the-stolen-plans-that-can- save-her- people-and-restore-freedom-to-the-galaxy. Sorry." He begins to narrate the film, leaving out some parts because Matt listens to the dialogue, but there's still a lot to say. He closes his eyes ever few minutes to get a sense of what Matt can't see. "Leia is giving the plans to R2D2 to take to Obi-wan Kenobi while C-3PO watches. Oh, I'm giving away spoilers. Shouldn't have said Obi-wan." He says.
"Its okay, I know what happens. C-3PO is amazing, he is such a dork." Matt says as R2D2 and C-3PO escape. Foggy goes on, "here comes my goddess Leia, with her huge laser gun ready to take down some stormtroopers. She shoots, she scores! They taser her or something with a blue ray gun and she's down though."
"Enter Darth Vader! You remember what he looks like?" he asks.
"Yeah, dressed all in black, cape and all, has some sort of gas mask on." Matt gestures his hands in a shape of a ball, which Foggy assumes to mean Vader's helmet. "He scared me a little, I used to have nightmares where I heard him breathing down my back. said Matt.
"Hey, you and me both man. They probably did that to induce fear." replied Foggy.
"Did they?" asked Matt.
"Yeah, there's an aura of eeriness and mysterious quality when you can't see a man's face in the darkness." Foggy proceeds to make ghostly sounds at Matt. Matt pretends to be scared but goes quiet for a bit, listening to Foggy's narration, along with the dialogue and soundtrack of the movie. "Huh, I never noticed how good Vader's voice is in the movie." Matt says, "guess, you miss things like that when you're overwhelmed by laser guns and stormtroopers." Foggy closes his eyes to listen, and it does sound different, the accents and tones of the voice stand out much more.
They reach the scene where Luke begins his Jedi training with Obi-wan aboard the Millenium Falcon. He's practicing defending himself using his light saber and Obi-wan advises Luke to feel the force within him, letting it control him to a certain extent. Han counters that he's never seen evidence that the force exists, choosing to believe he controls his own destiny. Obi-wan hands Luke a pilot helmet with the blast shield down urging him to use the force to defend himself. Matt starts tapping Foggy on the shoulder.
"He gives him the blocked out helmet so he can't see anything, hey, just like you! What?" asked Foggy.
"Ha-ha very funny. No. Don't say anything for a minute. I remember this scene."
Foggy turned and saw the brightest smile on Matt's face. For a while, it was like seeing that eight year old kid that watched Star Wars with his dad, same as everyone else. Well, ignoring for the fact that his eyes weren't actually focused on the screen. Matt kept his hand on Foggy's shoulder, and Foggy didn't say anything for a good half an hour. Leia, Luke, Han escape the trash compacter. Matt reaches across, searches the laptop keyboard and presses the space bar to pause the movie.
"What's the matter?" asked Foggy, "there's still forty minutes left."
"You hardly slept last night. You need to get as much as you can before we leave for civil law in... 4 hours." said Matt. He leans back down on the beds with his hands crossed behind his head still smiling and said, "I know what you mean now, and you were right. It was almost like seeing again." He didn't have to say anything more. Foggy knew he had his best friend back.
-End-
Author's Notes: They had a hard time getting up the next day but they both ace the test because they had already studied more than 40 hours that week and read so much, cum laude nerds.
P.S
Okay timelines. I've been reading up lot on law school. Coming from the two flashback scenes we see in the show, the first being in their dorm room and the second not far from their graduation from law school since Foggy mentions Matt graduating summa cum laude. Seven years of school, apparently since being freshman at Columbia to going to grad school at Columbia (which is justified since Columbia law is Top 5 in the world?!) But they didn't spend all that time together though. I looked back at the first scene from Nelson vs. Murdock and the computer screen says "Fall 2010". They were living in a dorm room, which is highly unlikely for grad students, which is when I actually assumed they met.
So, first season of Daredevil. If its begins closer to real time in early 2015 – later the better for the timeline of how long Matt and Foggy know each other – and we are taking into consideration a summer of associate program interning at Landman and Zach so there is a higher chance that they might be offered jobs at the end of the internship, they probably graduated after spring 2014 which means they were accepted into law school Fall 2011. Which puts Matt and Foggy meeting in on the first day of senior year during undergraduate years. Kinda underwhelming. I guess strength of friendship isn't based on how long you've known each other and I doubt Matt seriously got along with anyone pre-Foggy... because angst… However, the list of courses Foggy chooses looks like mainly law, which is weird since undergraduates usually choose a variety of different degrees not pertaining to law pre-law school eg. Philosophy, Economics, English... so I need some answers from DD. I'm ignoring this because if they meet in law school, that's really late.
