Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: Matt's MIA, so Foggy calls in reinforcements. Unfortunately, the only person good enough to find Matt is the man who trained him.
Author's Notes: I have a feeling it isn't this easy to access the New York City sewer system. I do hope your willful suspensions of disbelief are up to the task of accommodating this fic!
Readers, I am so indebted to you for your patience and your kind support. Infection and grotesqueries await in the next installment, which I'm hoping to get started on this weekend (I have a brief holiday here in Canada). Please enjoy this chapter! Cheers!
Chapter Two: Ride With Me Tonight
Marci meets Foggy at the Starbucks near Matt's apartment, her intention being to drop off the car, grab an expensive coffee, and whatever. Foggy doesn't ask. He doesn't care where she goes or what she does afterwards. He has a Matt to find.
"Where's your partner in crime-fighting?" she scans Foggy's personal space for a sign of Matt, convinced he's hiding instead of absent. Her eyes hold the spot on Foggy's biceps that Matt usually grabs to be led. When Matt doesn't appear, Marci's posture slumps exhaustedly. "Tell me you two haven't broken up again. The whole Ross-and-Rachel thing was a bad look on you, Foggy Bear."
"He's out of town," though Foggy can't remember the location he gave Karen. Thankfully, he doesn't have to provide Marci with further explanation. She's at the front of the line and is delivering her massive order to the barista. Foggy holds out his hand while she taps her Mastercard to pay. "Now, if you'll just give me the keys-"
"Not so fast," they drift over to a massive congregation of waiting customers stand in limbo for their beverages. Marci plants an arm down on the counter and shifts her weight into the sternest, authoritarian pose she can think of. "I have a few questions: who the hell is this cousin you said ran away?"
Foggy realizes, in that moment, why he is a terrible liar: he spends no time thinking up backstories. "Uh, my cousin?"
"Which cousin?" Marci, unlike Karen, knows the Nelson brood pretty well, having been invited to family events, and while she does the whole shallow-blonde thing like a pro, Foggy knows there's a massive brain hidden under all that platinum hair. "None of your cousins had a problem with running away when I knew them."
He can't remember any of his cousins' names at the moment. There are too many of them. Also, "Look, Marci, fun as playing twenty questions is, I have a game of hide-and-seek to get to. Give me the keys. Please."
She folds her arms across her chest and purses her lips sternly, "What is this really about? You wouldn't promise me those things unless this was a real emergency. I know you don't care about your cousins that much. So which is it: your mom or Matt?"
Foggy almost ganks the keys from her by force. All these people waiting for charred coffee while his friend is out there dying or dead or worse (this is Matt: he's capable of finding worse than death). He draws a shuddering breath and gets himself under control, "It's Matt. He's in some trouble, wouldn't say what, only that I need to come pick him up."
Marci's brow furrows, "Matt Murdock in trouble. I don't buy it, Foggy Bear." She accepts her latte-mocha-low-fat-with-eight-extra-shots from the barista when he calls her name and sets about loading it with as much vanilla topping as she can. "Of course, I wouldn't buy it if you said your mom needed help either."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Marci, because Matt is in trouble. And he does need me to come pick him up," and before she can get another word in edgewise, "And I will do everything I promised you – and more – if you give me your car keys."
She finally sees him. Not the outward composure or the thinly controlled anger in his voice. Marci stares in sudden revelation, "You're really worried."
Foggy is too relieved to lie, "Yes. Yes, now, may I please have your keys? Please?"
Marci removes her heavy key ring from her pocket. She hangs onto it even when Foggy tries to grab it from her hand, forcing him to endure what feels like an eternity of standing there when he should be finding Matt. "You explain all of this to me later?"
"Sure, anything," she releases her keys and Foggy tears off. He intends to concoct an excellent lie about all this well before they see each other next.
As if in response, Foggy backtracks. He places a kiss on Marci's cheek, thanks her, and heads out the door.
The furniture store is a pile of ashes behind a wide perimeter of police tape and police officers. Foggy circles the block, surveying the scene, cursing under his breath about Stick and his stupid you-should-have-gone-to-the-crime-scene B.S. The only officer Foggy has any kind of sway with is nowhere to be seen. These are all grizzled old-timers working their third shift, the leftovers from Fisk's arrest who weren't important enough to fire. He's not getting past the tape, let alone close enough to wherever Matt's managed to escape to.
Still, this is where Stick said they'd meet. Where the hell is the old bastard?
Foggy parks as soon as he's able and takes a walk, hoping for a clue. There's still a crowd watching the clean-up, muttering to themselves about the devil and fire, making the obvious – and too-soon – jokes about hell. He can't see a damn thing except for uniforms and ashes. If Matt did escape, and he did because Foggy isn't willing to entertain the alternative, he did so in a way that's not apparent from this distance. He must have climbed to the roof, but then why didn't he come home?
He goes back to the car and drops inside. Waste of fucking-
"Notice anything?"
Foggy sets the car alarm off when he jumps. He drops the keys, fights with the floor to get them back. The car finally stops screaming once it's restarted. He turns on the epic asshole in the passenger seat. "I am cutting you off, Stick! No more sneaking up on me!"
"Sneaking up?" Stick scoffs almost inaudibly: a little puff of breath to remind Foggy who he's dealing with. "You call an old man sitting in the passenger seat of your unlocked car sneaking up? Your eyes must work worse than mine."
"Forgive me for having more important things on my mind than checking to see if ancient douchebags haven't snuck inside my car. Or if the car is locked," Foggy kicks himself mentally for that one. Then again, Stick can probably pick locks with the power of his mind or some other ninja-nonsense.
"See anything interesting out there?" Stick asks about the scene.
"Lots of cops."
"That's not interesting: that's expected. Local vigilante torches an old family business and the whole precinct loses their minds. All of a sudden it's time for a manhunt."
Foggy scrolls through his memory of the scene for an image that would constitute interesting, but everything today seems expected. The cops would be out in full force after a fire like this. They would be scouring the streets for a vigilante.
But Stick's getting at something, Foggy can feel it, and hell if he's going to let the old bastard maintain a low opinion of his intelligence. If the cops and their actions aren't interesting, what is? "This is an awful lot of activity for a furniture store, even if the Daredevil helped burn it down?"
"Bingo," Stick's mouth cocks into a sideways grin. "Any guesses as to why?"
Foggy is not good at this. His brain muddles through the next couple of thoughts before forming coherent sentences, "…they were already investigating this place?" Obviously, if Matt's involved, there are criminals, and the cops these days are better at knowing where criminals are than doing things about them.
Stick is genuinely impressed, "Not bad."
"Doesn't help me find Matt," Foggy laments. He would trade all of Stick's pride to know where his friend is.
"You're not going to start crying, are you?"
"Depends – do you know anything that'll help us find Matt?"
"Fire's a bitch for the senses. Too much ash, smoke, and interference to get a good read."
"Aren't you supposed to be ninja master? Don't you have like eighteen other senses, some of which you invented for yourself?"
Stick sighs. He twists his hands threateningly around his folded cane, silently begging whatever Gods he might have pissed off to stop testing him with this lawyer's bullshit. "I'm going to give you the same advice I gave Matty when I started training him."
"Oh, yeah?" Foggy can't wait to hear this.
"Yeah," Stick turns slightly towards him, "Shut up. You got a question, shut up. You got a smartass remark, you shut up. You have what passes for you as a helpful contribution to this situation, you shut up. Got it?"
"No, I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? I don't think I totally understand your policy of – what did you call it? Shut up?"
More cane twisting. Foggy takes his petty victory and verbally retreats before Stick can starts beating him, "Yeah, I get it. I'll shut up."
"That doesn't sound like shutting up to me," Stick growls.
Foggy snaps his mouth closed and purses his lips. He's rewarded with another sideways smirk and the slow turn of Stick's head back towards the front window. "Good. There's an access to the sewer hidden under the rubble. You want to ask me how I know that?" It's a test, one Foggy passes because no, he doesn't want to ask. The answer has to do with air speed velocity and the stench of sewer gases and ninja-wizardry. He knows he passes when Stick continues speaking, "My guess is Matt headed below ground."
"If he went to the roofs, he would have gone home," Foggy finally ventures speaking again.
"You might not be as dumb as I think you are," Stick replies.
Foggy knows exactly how to respond, "Shut up."
It's dark, and they're driving. Foggy doesn't know where. He's looking for another access point to the sewers, and being that he knows nothing about city planning or civil engineering, he's doing a terrible job.
Stick, to his credit, is keeping his mouth shut and his window open, drinking the city in silence. Smells, sounds, tastes, and temperature, all the things Foggy takes for granted with sight, give him a stronger sense of direction than his driver. "Pull over," he says suddenly, but gives no indication if it's because he's found Matt or he wants out of the vehicle.
"Is it Matt?" Foggy asks, forgetting the cardinal rule.
"It's something," Stick replies, having forgotten too.
The parking spot can't come fast enough. Stick leaps out of the passenger seat and takes off at a good clip down the sidewalk. He doesn't bother to open his cane on his way. Pretense be damned. Stick has Matt's priorities, or Matt has Stick's priorities. They're both content to abide by their blindness until a life is on the line. Then it's screw the cane: I've got supernaturally heightened senses.
Foggy can't keep up, and he's driven by a more powerful force than super-senses. Fear is the best motivator. Fear has him leave Marci's car – locking it this time, feed the meter, and tear off after Stick before he can disappear down an alley.
Like master, like apprentice. About the only thing Stick does do is toss his cane in the dumpster. Otherwise his posture is almost identical to Matt's. Beyond the light of the streetlamps, Foggy can almost confuse the two, with Stick being a horrifying vision of Matt's future should the vigilante lifestyle become his sole calling.
"Creepy," Foggy comments.
"Gets creepier," Stick reminds him, stooping low. Metal grinds against pavement. Christ, he's strong. Like Matt, he keeps all his power hidden in a wiry frame. Stick opens up the manhole without much difficulty, and he starts to climb down.
For a brief moment, Foggy is struck by the thought, "This is how I die." Crawling into the New York City sewer system at night with a crazy, murdering bastard who has tried to kill him in the past and Foggy beat the ever-living shit out of just a few short months ago. Yes, this is the end of Foggy Nelson's short life. He hopes Matt will vouch for him at the pearly gates when it's all over.
"You coming or not?" Stick demands from underground.
"I'm coming," Foggy puts the idea of his own death out of his mind. He rips his cell phone out of his pocket and turns on the flashlight, advancing on the manhole with a renewed sense of purpose. This isn't about him. This is about Matt, who has to be in serious trouble to not return home after a bad night of Daredeviling. Foggy clings to that thought as he descends into the inky blackness of the sewer.
The smell is indescribably wretched. He caught a whiff of it above ground, but here, in the muggy, swampy darkness, it's worse in ways that Foggy can't find words for. All the awful odours the city has to offer have teamed up to form a Megazord of Stench. Rotting food and excrement and vomit: oh, no, wait, the vomit is splashing in the back of Foggy's throat.
"Matt can't be down here," he forces his stomach contents back where they belong. The last thing they need is more bad smell.
"I told you fire was hell on the senses. He probably didn't have much of a sense of smell to speak of when he crawled down here."
"So he is down here?"
Stick doesn't answer. He moves almost silently through the dark, following his senses wherever they might lead. Foggy trails after him.
The light from his torch extends only a couple feet before shattering into blackness. It's horrifying, the endlessness of it all, the solidity, not just of the dark but of the smell. This is not an atmosphere people were meant to be in. And Foggy's senses are normal. He's missing the subtle nuances of echoes and stench. How the hell is Stick managing this? Better question, how the hell is Matt?
Death makes a lot of things easier, Foggy supposes, and his heart tries to take a nose dive out of his mouth. "There's no way Matt could survive down here," he notes, tracking the mucky ground with his flashlight. "You…you warn me if he's…if he's…"
He almost pukes, and not just from the thought of Matt being dead.
"There's something alive down here," Stick lets him know. "Doesn't smell it…"
The flashlight beam cuts across a lump just ahead of them. Foggy can't make out the shape clearly. Some kind of animal? Looks like a dog. A dead dog. A hairless dead dog. Wearing body armour.
Stick sounds almost happy about it, "There he is."
Foggy's heart sinks deep into his gut and stays there, shivering, "MATT!"
…happy reading?