Picture of You

A/N: I admit to never reading the Daredevil comics, so sorry, but I just finished binging the Netflix series and when the Muse calls, I'd be silly not to take heed. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I lifted dialogue from the episode for this expanded Foggy POV from "World on Fire" (Episode 1.5). It's kind of my thing... I hope you enjoy this extended look at Foggy and Karen's "date."

Foggy likes to think it's a date. A real one, that is, and not a joke even though Karen laughed when he asked what it was. Not an obligatory pity dinner, either, or hungry necessity or determined senior-citizen coercion. He knows Karen didn't intend for it to be a date, but he can tell she's enjoying herself. She makes quite the picture, leaned towards him at the small table in the flickering candlelight. He pretends it's romantic ambiance, not the ugly result of a bullying slumlord. He wants the flush on her cheeks to mirror his hopeful yet nervous anticipation rather than reflect the exotic spices in the food or her embarrassment because she has questions she's nervous about asking.

Because they always have questions about Matt.

Foggy doesn't blame her. He was curious too, once upon a time. Slipping on the smoked glasses and closing his eyes, trying to walk around their small room without tripping over anything. Running his fingertips over Matt's braille textbooks and trying to feel how on earth he could distinguish all those little bumps that felt more like zits than words. Covertly following him around the grocery store to see how he knew which toothpaste to buy, which beer. Opening his wallet to see the way the different bills were folded so Matt could tell them apart.

The first time they went out, about 10 minutes after they met, Foggy reached for Matt's arm to help him down the stairs outside their building. That was before Foggy learned to stay half a step ahead on Matt's left side so he could hold the cane in his right.

"Being with the Blind, 101," Matt had said with an easy smile that didn't make Foggy feel stupid. "It works better if I take your arm." Matt positioned Foggy's arm the way he wanted it, patting it softly when it was right before putting his hand around Foggy's elbow.

"How will you know I've offered it?" he'd asked.

"I guess I'll just have to trust you," Matt'd said.

Karen's easy to be with. To talk to, although she's as skillful at deflecting his questions as Matt has always been. But he agrees to tell her some of their stories because he's quite used to being the side-kick who's friends with the hot blind guy.

His first impression when Matt walked into their room all those years ago wasn't wrong. Matt was incredible lady-bait, attractive enough just sitting at the bar or in the library to turn the girls' heads, before they realized he was blind and inevitably treated him like a novelty. Not that Matt ever seemed to mind when they wanted to know what it's like to kiss a blind man more than they wanted to know him.

But Foggy doesn't get that vibe from Karen. She's different. And he doesn't feel like he's betraying Matt by telling her about him. That, and he knows he can make her laugh. Comic relief: it's what he has to offer. He's the funny one. It's the only weapon in his arsenal, well that and minor home-repairs, and he's not afraid to use it.

"And then Matt bangs his cane around and says, 'Am I in the right room?'"

She does laugh, as he knew she would. It's good she feels safe even though the building was torn up by shady men and is full of dark corners and lurking danger. He pretends he's made her feel secure enough to let go and enjoy herself.

"Where did you put his furniture?" Karen asks.

"Dorm room across the hall."

He listens to her laugh again instead of telling her he was worried, after he muscled all of Matt's things out of their room while he was in Spanish class. It was early on, after all. They hadn't known each other very long. But Matt said he appreciated that Foggy didn't walk on eggshells around him.

Matt was always so cheerful. Charming. All those different smiles people reacted to even though he couldn't see them do it. Quick to laugh, especially at himself. Matt was nice to everyone. Friendly. But Foggy knew, even back then, Matt didn't have friends. He never let anyone get too close to him or stick around too long. Foggy didn't know why he was different, but he knew he liked it. He liked being the guy Matt Murdock trusted. Foggy didn't want him to think he was making fun or being mean. And as he stood there, sweating and huffing just a little bit from the mad scramble to lug the sturdy institutional furniture across the hall, he worried he'd gone too far and would ruin everything.

"It could have been worse," Matt had finally said, when Foggy asked if he was mad and he'd stopped laughing long enough to answer. He eased down onto the floor and looked up, so Foggy could see his long eyelashes and eyes that don't focus through the top of his glasses. "Next time, if you want to be truly diabolical, just shift everything over six inches. That would be a lot easier, not to mention hell on the shins."

"Oh God," Karen laughs. "Oh, I really wish I knew you guys back then."

Even though she always says she's the same age, Foggy knows she's not. When he and Matt were in school together, she was just a kid. Back then, during their glory days, they could have been her babysitters, not that anyone would leave their kid in the care of a blind man.

Matt thinks something happened before she moved here. Something terrible before the incident with Union Allied she won't or can't talk about, at least not yet. As if waking up to a dead guy in your apartment isn't awful enough. If Matt's right, and Foggy knows better than to think he's not because Matt is always right, it aged her, whatever it was that happened. She's seen too much, been to hell and back, and it changed her. Which makes her a perfect fit for them.

"Much better off knowing us now," he says with a grin, keeping their conversation light and easy because there is enough darkness right now in their world. "We have our own practice. And I'm a hell of a lot more dashing than I was in my awkward college days."

"Oh yeah?" she taunts. "I'm going to need photographic proof of that, counselor."

"I have dug myself another hole, haven't I?" he asks.

"Well," she teases. "It's been about five minutes. You were due."

"Yeah, yeah. I see that."

"You know, there is something I just gotta know. It's killing me."

Here it comes, he thinks.

"No, I do not kiss on the first date," Foggy says before she can ask her Matt-centric question.

She laughs, which is exactly what Foggy intended.

Honestly, Foggy can't tell her whatever it is she wants to know because doesn't know how Matt doesn't get hit by taxis or cheated at the coffee shop or keeps from slicing off all his fingertips every time he cooks. He doesn't understand how Matt's fingers read faster than Foggy's eyes or how he always knows exactly how much booze to pour into a glass or how he separates his whites and colors when he does his laundry. Foggy has no idea what happened to his mother or if she left before or after the accident or why he always smiles when he tells stories about his dad when he obviously feels somehow responsible for his death or whatever possessed boy-Matt to throw himself bettwen a random stranger and danger.

Foggy's heard the "hope for the best" hair-combing line more times than he can count, because of course girls always want to know about things like that, and it's always worked to make Matt seem endearingly vulnerable without asking for pity and disarms whoever asked how he combs his hair. But even though he lived with Matt for years, Foggy has no clue how he actually pulls it off.

The question no one ever asks, but Foggy would if he only got one, is how does a blind guy always manage to see what's most important more than everyone else who's actually able too look?

"Sorry," he continues, waving his hands as if he has to defend his virtue from her advances. He wishes. "Not going to happen."

"No! No." She takes a deep breath, and blushing surely to the tips of her toes, she asks, "What's the deal with that meat grinder in the pencil skirt?"

Foggy knows he's made a face because she scrambles.

"No! No," she says again. She reaches out to touch his arm but stops just before making contact. "She just." Karen shrugs. "She doesn't seem like your type."

"Marci?" he asks, having difficulty believing her 'it's killing me' question was about him, not Matt. "Yeah. She was different. Back when I knew her."

He shrugs, still not able to understand why someone like Marci, someone hot and rich and spoiled and smart, a girl who expected to get her own way because she always had before, stooped to his level and stayed there for as long as she did. She was not one of the many Matt-admirers who hung around Foggy to get closer to him. She was never interested in Matt except to wonder why Foggy didn't mind living with the blind guy. Because she was blunt and not always politically correct, especially when she'd been drinking, and somehow that made Foggy like her even more. He learned to appreciate Marci's odd brand of clarity.

"Or maybe she wasn't. I don't know." Foggy shrugs again. "Matt's always getting involved with the wrong girl, so maybe he just rubbed off on me."

"Huh." He notices Karen sit up straighter and how she fails to look casual and uninterested. "So Matt dates a lot?"

"Date?" he scoffs. "I wouldn't exactly call it that. He hasn't really been with anyone for more than a month or two."

Their phone was always ringing for Matt, back when they shared the landline in their room, and girls slipped Foggy their numbers with the unspoken understanding he would dial, not that Matt needed help with things like that.

Matt couldn't see him do it, but Foggy was unabashed about studying his moves, the blind Casanova. Foggy watched the way the women acted around Matt. They confided in him more quickly than other men, trusted him. Didn't see Matt as a threat. Foggy watched as women begged for Matt's fingers to softy explore far more than a sighted man would be allowed to touch. He once saw a woman nearly brought to orgasm by Matt touching the palm of her hand. It was one of the craziest and most erotic things he'd ever seen. He felt like such a lech for watching.

He saw the different, but inevitably beautiful, women reflected in Matt's dark glasses and wondered if they thought it was weird to watch themselves move close enough to kiss him when he couldn't see them.

"You know you could have any one of these hotties as your girlfriend, don't you?" Foggy had asked after more than a semester of bearing witness to the revolving door that was Matt's love-life. "How do you always know they're so damned good looking?"

"It's a gift."

"No. Seriously."

They'd been drinking, Foggy more than Matt, as usual, but he'd learned that was when Matt was most likely to actually answer questions.

"How do I know they're good looking?" Matt had asked.

"Why don't you ever keep one of them around longer than a few weeks if they're very good and lucky?"

"It's." Matt had swallowed and smiled. Not his easy, open smile that makes people want to tell him all their secrets or his private, half smile because he seemed legitimately amused by the world around him. That time, it was the tight smile that meant he was hurt and didn't want people to know. "Complicated," he finally finished.

"Why?"

Matt tapped Foggy's ankle with the tip of his cane.

"That?" Foggy'd asked, seeing his blurry face reflected back at him in Matt's lenses. "That's stupid, man. You think you'd be a burden? You're a catch. And you get along just fine."

Better than fine, actually. Matt was smart and strong and took care of himself. Foggy, wondering where he disappeared to and wanting to make sure he was safe, had followed him to the gym and seen him beating the shit out of a punching bag. Sure, it wasn't exactly a moving target, but he hit it hard enough to make it tilt and spin and shift. He was light on his feet and ferocious as kept his balance and kept hitting long after Foggy got tired just watching him. If someone tried to mug him on the street, Matt wouldn't be an easy victim. He wouldn't go down without a fight, if he went down at all.

Plus, Matt knew things. Felt things more clearly than other people. Seemed to understand in a way most people didn't. It seemed like a cliche to say the blind guy was a good listener, but he really did hear differently, closely and better, than people who distracted by the glittery world around them.

"It's asking a lot of someone," Matt had replied. "To be with me."

"I'm with you," Foggy had quietly stated.

"Well," Matt had smiled. "You're special. And obviously a glutton for punishment."

"Hmm," Karen replies. "That's kind of sad."

"On the plus side, he gets to touch a lot of pretty girls." Foggy watches Karen's eyes widen in shock. "On their faces," he quickly adds, not wanting her to think Matt is some kind of perv. "Um, that's, you know, how he tells what people look like? Or at least that's what he tells the ladies. Although he always seems to know which ones are hot before he puts his grubby little mitts on them," Foggy says so Karen will smile. Anything to break the sudden tension choking the air between them.

"Does he know what you look like?" she asks.

"He's got a rough idea," Foggy hedges. "I only ever let him put her hands on my face once. 'Cause. You know, weird."

"You know you don't have to turn your back when you take off your clothes," Matt had said. He was laying on his bed with a book. "Modesty's a virtue and all, but I can't see you anyway."

"How do I know you haven't been faking this whole blind-thing just to see me naked?" Foggy teased.

"Foggy."

"Yeah. Bad joke. You are definitely a ladies' man. Just." Foggy sighed. "Habit, I guess." Foggy was grateful, not for the first time, Matt couldn't see him blush. He had no desire to relive the humiliating horrors of high school locker rooms ever ever again. "Besides, how do you know?"

"Your voice," he'd quietly said, his fingers still on the page. "It changes direction."

"You're a freak show, man. Kind of creepy sometimes, to tell you the truth."

Matt had only shrugged.

"Do you ever wonder?" Foggy had asked. "What I look like?"

"I have a picture of you in my head."

"You don't. I mean you haven't." Foggy cleared his throat because this was weird. "You always do the face thing with girls. Ask if you can touch their faces? Crazy awesome pick-up line, I might add. They melt for it. You've just never asked me."

"I didn't think you wanted me to."

"I didn't."

"But you do now?"

"Maybe."

No one had ever touched him as much as Matt did. It was easy to get into the habit of it, putting his arm out for Matt when they were walking. He was used to the soft pressure of Matt's fingers on the inside of his elbow. It had become such an ingrained habit that Foggy sometimes didn't even feel it anymore because Matt didn't grip onto him like Foggy originally thought he would. Then again, Matt didn't need to.

Foggy watched as Matt put aside his book and walked over to Foggy's bed. He didn't use his cane inside the room, long ago having memorized exactly where everything was. After a couple of early incidents that left Matt bruised and Foggy apologizing, Foggy learned to push in his desk chair, to not leave books or wet towels on the floor, to make sure things stayed in their place or to give Matt notice if they didn't.

Matt sat down next to Foggy. He wished now he hadn't told Matt he didn't need to wear his glasses in their room after Matt once confided he wore them more for other people than himself. Because those eyes not-looking at him felt too intimate suddenly. Too close.

"May I?" he'd quietly asked.

Foggy nodded once. Matt didn't move, just sat there, waiting.

"I nodded," he'd said. "Which was stupid of me, really. To nod. When you're about to touch my face because you can't see."

"You're not stupid," Matt had said. "But close your eyes. No sense in both of us being blinded."

Foggy smiled and was relieved to follow Matt's instructions. He knew he would've watched, and it was better not to. Part of him needed to shut out the deceptively innocent gaze he knew wasn't seeing him but somehow always saw him more clearly than anyone else ever had.

Matt put one hand on Foggy's cheek, the touch softer than a whisper that sent shivers through his arms. His fingertips brushed against the tips of Foggy's eyelashes, traced the line of his nose down to his lips. As if Matt knew Foggy was about to stand up, to get away from this strangely invasive examination, Matt brought his other hand up to his cheek to hold his head in place. His touch was still gentle enough it would be easy to break free, but Foggy suddenly didn't want to. This was Matt, after all. His best friend. His only friend, really. He wanted him to have an accurate picture.

Foggy sat very still and tried not to breathe through his mouth because he hadn't brushed his teeth since that morning. Matt's hands grazed the stubble he hadn't shaved in a couple of days down his neck, finally coming to rest where Foggy's neck met his chest. Matt's thumb pressed softly against the pulse point in Foggy's throat.

"You don't need to be embarrassed," Matt had said as he stood up and went back to his side of the room.

"How do you know?" Foggy began.

"Your cheeks are flushed." Matt drew the book back into his lap and turned his gaze to the pages he couldn't see, surely as a kindness to Foggy. "Thank you." He politely bowed his head, as if Foggy had given him a gift. "You have a good face. It's nice to finally see you."

"Are you going to finish that?" he asks Karen, nodding towards her plate. Not that he's actually hungry, but it's something to do with his hands. And he likes the idea of eating off of the plate she's been using.

"No," Karen shakes her head, distracted, as if she somehow was imaging Matt touching Foggy like that. "No, please." She hands him her plate. "You ever." She quietly clears her throat, and Foggy thinks she'd be toeing the ground if they were standing. "Tell him what I look like?"

"No," Foggy replies around his mouthful of food. "He doesn't need me to tell him..."

He lets his voice trail off before he can finish and tell Karen Matt knows she's beautiful without Foggy telling him. Matt knows how fine and fair her skin is by the way her lotion smells or something crazy like that. He learns more about a woman when he shakes her hand than Foggy would know after a date and spending the night in her bed.

"He's probably got a picture of you in his head," he tells her. Knowing Matt as he does, Foggy's quite sure it's detailed and accurate, right down to how her eyes are so blue they remind him of a summer sky. "I don't like to mess with those."

"Sure," Karen nods. "Hey Foggy." She looks away as she takes a breath, but when she looks back, he can see that she's resolved. "I want you to touch my face."

No. She didn't. She wanted Matt to touch her face.

"But I can see you," Foggy says. "So."

"No. Of course," Karen stumbles. "I know. I just. I, um. I want to know how someone who's blind would see me."

She wants to pretend she's eating dinner with Matt. She wants to pretend they're Matt's fingers on her face. She wants to know if Matt would think she's pretty.

Foggy has always enjoyed being the blind guy's funny, sighted side-kick. Reveled in his role, really. Taken advantage of all the ways he benefits. But not this time. Not with Karen. He doesn't want to be the also-ran. Not with her. But he wants to touch her so badly his fingers twitch. He wants permission, just this once, to do what Matt gets to do all the time: feel her eyelashes and the tips of her ears and trace his thumb over her bottom lip.

"Look," she says. "You do me. Then I'll do you." She brushes her hair behind her ears, but it immediately slips back down, framing her face. She looks so young and so pretty and so very very sweet.

"Yeah," he quietly says. "Okay."

But he can't actually do it. Can't close the small gulf between them and touch her the way she's asked, the way he wants to. So she takes both his hands in hers and leads the way.

"You have to close your eyes," she says with a nervous smile.

"Oh! Right!" Foggy squeezes his eyes shut so he isn't tempted to cheat and peek. He will let his fingers do the seeing this time. Maybe, like Matt's, they will be able to see more than his above-average eyes can.

His hands tremble, just a bit, until he cradles her face in them. She sighs, relaxing into his touch. Her skin feels even finer than it looks. Soft and so so smooth. Her cheeks are warm even though it's chilly in the apartment, and he can feel her heartbeat fluttering in her neck. He wants to lean in and kiss her, feel her lips against his, and just maybe he will, but for now, he's content to run his finger against her bottom lip. It's still there when her tongue sneaks out to moisten it, only she gets more of him than her.

"Just tell me what you feel," she asks him.

He wants to tell her it's nice to finally see her, but he feels too stupid using Matt's line as well as his signature move.

"I feel," he begins, wondering if she can hear the galloping beat of his heart as he tries to find words to describe the picture he's feeling.

Only then the world explodes.