Author's Notes: If you want to dive in without reading the other fics in the series, all you really need to know is this is happening post Nelson v. Murdock, and Matt has issues. For more background, you can check out Hands, An Act of Abandonment, and Forward.
This is going to be the last fic in this series, I think. It's looking like it'll be a few chapters, and hopefully I can wrap up what I wanted to do here. Thanks so much to everyone who's read and commented so far!
Hindsight's 20/20 - Chapter 1
When it comes right down to it, Foggy thinks as the latest sip of whiskey burns down his throat, the world's just not fair.
That's it. That's all there is to it. The one maxim from which all other maxims ought to spring, cause it's the essence of truth, distilled: the world's not fair.
If it was, his best friend wouldn't have a splash of red on his jaw like that, scraped-raw red, like some asshole knocked him into rough brownstone in an alley full of garbage last night. He wouldn't have torn knuckles or the bruise that's fading out to old-paper yellow on his cheekbone. He wouldn't be sitting there in Josie's looking like a PSA for battered children.
Next to them, Karen's upended the bottle, and the last few drops of amber liquid cling to the opening and then slide into her glass. "That went fast," she announces, voice thick with drink, well-pleased.
And Matt says, "Josie, would you mind?" and half-turns toward the bar, smile all charm. He pays when she brings it; Foggy doesn't see the bill he presses into her hand, but Matt says he doesn't need change.
His best friend's hands are on the bottle, then, all long-fingered grace. He's working to open it when he stills, suddenly, and it takes Foggy a second to figure out why.
He can barely hear it, himself. The music's a background hum on the jukebox, something low and slow and not quite blues; under that, there's the mutter of conversation, but Foggy strains his ears harder, trying to catch what Matt's hearing.
He manages just a hint of it, just the tail end – something about the devil, and something else about the cops. The last part's louder, raised in drunken indignation, clear even above the music: "They need to get that asshole off the streets, already."
And Matt's got his head tipped to one side, like he's listening – but it's not the guy in the back he's facing. It's Foggy. Over the top of dark glasses, there's a slight crease between his eyes, like he's in the middle of a particularly involved deposition.
"Hey," says Karen, and slides the bottle from Matt's unresisting fingers. "I got it. Let me."
Matt starts a little, like he forgot he was holding it at all. "Thanks," he says, and while Karen opens the newest round, Matt finds a square of napkin to torture on the tabletop. His fingers run along the edge, picking at it like a scab, leaving white flecks of paper against the wood, and Foggy feels – guilty, almost, for just a second.
Cause sure, he was pissed. Sure, he said some things. Who the hell likes being lied to?
But if the world was fair, Matt wouldn't get that look on his face so often now, the gauging court-room diplomatic look that comes whenever the conversation shifts too close to their last fight.
His best friend wouldn't watch so closely, like maybe he expects Foggy to walk out the door again.
They're half drunk and halfway home – caught Karen a taxi three blocks back and bundled her in, and now it's just the two of them, steps unsteady.
Once, they would have been leaning up against each other, to help keep them both standing. Once, Foggy would've had Matt's arm the whole trip back.
But that's the hell of it. His best friend's never needed the help – not really. He's got super-hearing straight out of the pages of a comic book, vibrations and temperature and a world on fire and probably a hundred other things to help him navigate. He doesn't need Foggy could've-been-a-butcher Nelson to lead the way.
Foggy keeps thinking it right until Matt steps off the sidewalk against a red light and lifts his foot to keep going. It's late enough that there's not a ton of oncoming traffic, but Jesus.
Foggy makes a grab for his arm, closes on the sleeve of Matt's suit. "Curb," he says, urgently, and remembers, through the haze of alcohol and the distance of time, sitting on the steps at Columbia, long ago. He remembers Matt saying he gets the spins, and he counts how many drinks Matt's had tonight. He wonders what that'll do to a precision navigation system, and before he can think it through enough to second-guess, he says, "Do you want –?"
Foggy's hand is cautious; he doesn't clamp down. He just finds Matt's arm and lingers there, a question unfinished.
And Matt? Matt gets this look on his face. It's hard to read, exactly, with the glasses, but his mouth is slack, and he opens and closes it a couple of times, like he can't quite figure out what he wants to say. "Thanks," he manages, finally, like he's trying the word on for size.
Matt follows the seam on Foggy's sleeve with his fingers, traces it up to the crook of an elbow. His hand closes there, wary, and Foggy thinks: maybe not completely unfair.
The next day, Matt winces every time someone speaks above a whisper, and Foggy swears he'll never drink again. Karen downs cup after cup of black coffee, and every one of them skips breakfast, because food has never sounded more unappealing.
But by eleven the hangover's a thing of the past and they're all feeling a bit more human. Foggy's not used to mornings without cereal or waffles or something before noon, so he scrawls an "Out to Lunch" sign for the door and announces they're heading out early. No arguments, or he's going to eat the office equipment, and they really can't afford for him to eat the office equipment, so pancakes. Stat.
As he steps from the front stoop, something from last night stirs at the back of Foggy's brain, surfacing through recollection dimmed by alcohol: the tentative touch of Matt's hand, shaky and grateful.
He circles over to Matt's left like he's on autopilot. Offers his elbow calm and easy, natural as taking a breath.
Matt's saying, "We'll have to take another look through the Larson files when we get back. We must have missed something," and Foggy would have missed something if he didn't know to listen.
But the sentence hitches, just a little there in the middle, right before Matt accepts the offered arm. When his fingers tighten their hold, so very careful, Foggy takes back every nasty thought he ever had about the world.