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: It was report card week, so I was writing comments instead of chapters. But this weekend was very productive: this chapter, and my epilogue. We Were Both Disappointed will be finished this week, and then it's back to Just In Case and hopefully some projects for Jessica Jones!

Okay, so there's a conversation about love in this chapter. With Stick. I tried to keep it from entering OOC territory, but I did want to give Foggy the opportunity for a confrontation.

Readers, I so appreciate your kind support, your lovely comments. There's one last disgusting scene here – enjoy! The last chapter is all Matt's perspective, so the grotesqueries will all be experiential.

Thank you, Readers. Thank you! Enjoy.


Chapter Eight: Maybe Your Old Man Fought for You, Maybe He Did it for Himself

Foggy isn't about to up and leave Matt with Stick again, but pissing the bed is not an option. He maintains a normal pace to the washroom, pees faster than he ever has before in his life, and then waltzes back to Matt's side like nothing's the matter.

Stick is still on the couch. Sitting. Got his feelers out, as always, and Foggy can tell he's been spied on by the impossible way Stick tracks him through the room. The old man's head tilts imperceptibly in Foggy's wake, or maybe it's a trick of the lights at play through the windows.

He sinks back onto the bed next to Matt and checks the clock. Claire must be getting off work soon. Then Stick can be on his way. Foggy texts her that his special request won't be necessary; Matt's being a better patient than ever before.

No sooner is the message sent than guilt makes an appearance though, and in a big way. Not about the drugs: Foggy is the reason Stick's involved after all. The old man wouldn't be in the city if he hadn't made thousands of dollars in long distance calls. And while Foggy is convinced that Stick is the reason Matt is still alive, or at the very least that Matt got found, he can't shake Matt's fear. Being afraid of helplessness is one thing, but Matt specifically said he didn't want to be helpless around Stick.

Foggy glances up for a second. His heart skips a beat and gives him away. Yet there Stick sits, silent, inert, like he's not really there at all. He blend perfectly into Stick's peripheral vision. If the scariest monsters are the ones no one can see, than Stick is the most terrifying monster of all. He's got invisible strings wrapped round Matt's head, and he is exactly the type to give them a tug when things need doing.

Like what, Foggy doesn't want to know. Thirteen-year-old Matt, fresh from his father's murder, would do a lot for a guy like Stick's approval; thirty-year-old Matt might not be itching for approval, but he still falls in line when he's called. Hand on his chest, a few patient slogans, and then he's calmed down from a panic attack. Not exactly troubling, until Foggy thinks about it from Matt's perspective: the man who abused and abandoned him is the only one who can bring him comfort. That goes all the way up to eleven on Foggy's Awful Shit-o-meter. Can only imagine where it goes for Matt, who's expected to rest easy when the man who wound him up into a warrior is sitting pretty in the same apartment.

Anxiety gets the better of him. Foggy stands up and moves around the bed.

"Hard part's over," Stick tells him.

"I know."

"So what's the problem?"

"Nothing."

Stick laughs. He leans back on the couch, "It's something."

Human lie detectors. "What gave me away? My heartbeat? The fact that I hold my breath before I talk?"

"No, you try not to do that, which only makes it more obvious that you're doing it."

"Good for me."

"You want to say something. Say it."

Where has he heard those word before? Like murderous pseudo-father, like emotionally-damaged surrogate son. Foggy marches back to the bedroom doorway, "What happened between you and Matt?"

Stick shrugs, "Depends on who you ask."

"I'm asking you," Foggy declares. "He says you started his training, but you left before you could teach him about knives. That's not your usual MO."

"And what do you know about my MO?"

He hasn't moved, but Stick's gotten closer, or maybe he's gotten better prepared to pounce. All show, at this point, since Foggy is pretty confident Stick isn't going to kill him. Hurt him plenty, sure, but the old man isn't about to burn his bridge to Matt completely by offing his best friend.

Foggy doesn't want to play his hand; what he knows about Stick's reputation is irrelevant to their conversation. "I know that you don't ditch the kids you train before they can handle a knife," he leans against the doorway and gets a feel for the atmosphere in the living room. Stick continues to give off I'm-going-to-kill-you vibes, but that's Stick. "So what happened?"

Stick's mouth falls into a harder line, something Foggy didn't think was possible. His hand twitches above his folded cane. "A case of mistaken identity," Stick states, "on both our parts."

"Who did you think Matt was?" Foggy asks.

"Doesn't matter."

"Who did you think he was?"

Stick groans, "I said it was a case of mistaken identity: means he wasn't who I thought he was, so why does it matter?"

Foggy isn't about to drop the subject. He is in the conversation for the long haul, and waging a battle of words is a hell of a lot better than spending the next hour worrying himself sick over Matt, "Is it because he won't kill?"

"That's part of it," Stick says.

"You expected a kid to kill," it shouldn't surprise Foggy, but it does. Fucking Stick.

"The killing didn't come up until later," he sounds like a kid in trouble, like everything's bad when Foggy puts it that way.

"So, what? He didn't want to fight your war? Didn't want to be a vigilante?"

The fight drains out of Stick. Foggy can't believe he's finally won.

Until he realizes that he hasn't. Stick doesn't need to throw a punch when his words are busting the air out of Foggy's chest. Which they do, impressively.

"Wanted it? No. He needed it. You think I showed up, roughed him around a little-"

"A lot," Foggy corrects him.

Stick tosses his head, not disputing it, "-until he decided he wanted to bash some skulls in?"

"His dad told him not to fight."

"His dad's dead," Stick snaps, and Foggy gets the strange vision of Battlin' Jack dying anew with the way the old man's said it. There's a little less of Matt's father in the world now. Stick doesn't care one bit. The less of the dead, the better. "Fighting or not-fighting: neither was gonna bring Battlin' Jack back. But fighting is going to make life a little more liveable, a little more bearable, and Matt knew it. I showed him how to throw a punch and take a hit."

Foggy gets back on track, reminding himself what this conversation is really about. Yes, Jack's dead, but Matt's alive and unwell and Stick's partly to blame. Foggy wants to know how much, "By throwing punches at him and making him take hits."

Stick shakes his head, exasperated, "He was already taking hits. Blind orphan in Hell's Kitchen, senses out of control. He was going to end up in an institution, shackled to a bed, muttering about the voices or the noises or the smells. Not graduating Magna Cum Laude, having his own apartment-"

He wants to stay calm, needs to stay calm, can't stay calm because, "You didn't do any of this! Matt did all this on his own!"

At least Stick loses his cool too, "Because I taught him how!"

It makes it easier to get back on track, knowing the old man is all fired up. Foggy sees the mistake in front of him and avoids it the way a good lawyer should, "So why'd you leave? He would have been the perfect warrior."

"Perfect warriors don't have daddy issues."

"Uh, not true."

"You said perfect warrior, wise ass. We're not talking about some half-cocked, trigger-happy, adolescent grunt who's seen one too many action movies. We're talking warriors, and warriors don't have family, they don't have friends, and they definitely don't have daddy issues."

Alright, that Foggy can buy, but how that amounts to abandonment makes no sense to him. Until…oh, crap. There it is. Sitting right in front of him. Stick the Dick, failed father-figure of the frigging century, who sees his precious warrior engaging in hero-worship, freaks, and skips town. Foggy's heart shrivels up in his chest, "You left because he loved you?"

Stick makes a face, because it's not enough for him to be who he is. He actually has to demonstrate how little he believes in love, how little he thinks of love. "I needed him tough."

Foggy can't find the right words. He knows too many ways to call a person an asshole, and none of them cover the magnitude of Stick's assholery. And yet, something's not right. "You left because he loved you," Foggy says it again, "but that's not the whole story. Guy like you can make it so that somebody doesn't love you. I hated you before I met you."

"If you're about to say-"

Foggy cuts him off. He walks away from the doorframe, getting his lawyer on good. He is about to tear this asshole apart through cross-examination. "But there's not a person on the planet who doesn't love Matt Murdock. And, really, what's not to love? He's smart, he's kind, he's funny, he has less-than-zero self-esteem; he's obedient and eager to please self-righteous, murderous bastards who only want to see him hurt."

"I didn't love him."

"You traffic in orphans. Matt wouldn't have been the first who saw you like a father."

"No, but he was the first who wouldn't have given it up."

"He wouldn't, or you wouldn't?"

"He wouldn't. He still hasn't. You see the way he listens to me?"

"I see you: still here. Sitting vigil," and listening to Foggy ramble about stuff Stick insists is patently untrue. That's dedication. That's proof. With that, Foggy heads into his closing statement, "You didn't leave because Matt loved you. You didn't stay here out of necessity."

"Definitely didn't stay for this," Stick picks up his cane, his satchel. He stands, readying himself for travel. "He'd be dead tonight if it wasn't for me."

"I know," Foggy agrees. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Stick isn't just talking about saving Matt's life. He heads for the stairs.

Foggy doesn't stop him. Well, almost doesn't, "You're wrong about Matt by the way."

Stick hesitates more than stops. One foot stays one step ahead. "Never am, but go on."

"Love makes him better," is all Foggy says.

He anticipates a snarky variation of, "Love is stupid and useless and I'm a super tough badass murderer/child-abuser." What he gets a simple scoff followed by, "Better counts for shit." He mounts a few more steps before adding, "Your nurse friend is here."

Foggy checks the clock. Holy hell, Claire must have flown to the apartment, and gotten someone to cover for her because there's at least fifteen minutes left on her shift.

The door to the roof slams shut.

Stick's gone.


"I'm impressed," Claire notes, laying the covers back over the maggot-sack. "At least, I think I'm impressed. I've never used maggot-therapy before."

"Can you pretend to be an expert on it, then? Tell me I didn't screw it up royally?"

"Okay, you need to calm down."

Foggy only realizes then that he is having a hard time thinking straight, that he's breathing too quickly and too shallowly. Where the hell has this panic been? He accosts a killer for having a heart at great risk to life and limb, and he stays completely calm. Claire shows up with life-saving saline and all of a sudden, he can't get his shit together. All of a sudden, he's going to learn that he did something wrong, and that knowledge is obviously what will determine whether Matt lives or dies.

Claire snaps on a pair of gloves and pulls a sterile IV port out of her first aid kit. "He looks a hell of a lot better than you made it sound over the phone, which means you were either exaggeration, or the infection is clearing up. You did good, Foggy."

He takes a deep breath, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," he agrees.

She goes through her motions: wraps a band around Matt's arm, finds a vein, sticks it. He twitches a little from the intrusion, but he stays asleep. Claire unravels some tubing and connects it to the sack of saline. "Thought you said his mentor was here."

"He left," Foggy said. "So many people to kill, so little time."

"I don't want to know," Claire crushes the bag in her hands to get it flowing faster before dangling it over the headboard. Matt's arm twitches again, probably from the chill, and he starts micro-fussing. Weak moans and mumbling, that sort of thing. Claire pats his shoulder, but it's when she lays her wrist on his forehead that he calms down. "His fever's not bad. When was his last dose on antibiotics?"

"About…six? Seven hours ago?"

She pulls a new syringe out of her kit and pops a needle on the end. She delivers the injection through the IV port. Foggy resets his mental timer for Matt's next dose. Claire makes a face, wipes her mouth and nose on the back of her forearm. "The maggots must be doing their job," she winces.

"Hanging out on an all-you-can-eat buffet of rancid flesh? Oh, yeah, they're having a great day," Foggy folds his arms, gives himself a hug. He doesn't want to think about it.

Claire doesn't either. She adopts the same posture as Foggy, "What did you give him?"

"Oxycontin."

"Wow. Aspirin's a stretch most days for him."

"Yeah, I know. Maggots hurt, apparently."

"It's good that he can sleep through it then," Claire admits. She loosens her posture a little, relieved, "You're going to have to get him to the washroom now, with the saline, unless you want to use the bed pads I brought from the hospital."

"Matt'll kill me if I let him piss the bed."

"He might kill you for trying to help him piss too."

"It's in the Bro Code somewhere. One of the appendices for special circumstances," though Foggy is starting to consider hauling Matt, the two-tonne ninja, to and from his bathroom. His back is doing the math for him, aching the whole time. "I'm hoping he remembers none of this."

"He'll know."

"He usually does," Foggy sighs.

Claire puts a smile on her face: a wry one, because she doesn't have to help Matt to the toilet but she has to talk about it. "What are friends for?"

Foggy almost tells her not that, but he doesn't. Everything that's happened tonight is an answer to that question.


The bathroom is the least of his concerns, as it turns out. Claire works magic, and she gets Matt semi-mobile before they have to heave him out of bed. He's not awake, but his feet carry some of his weight. That saves Foggy's back, though their list of Stuff We're Never Speaking Of Again gets a few notable points longer.

Removing the maggots. That's the most of his concerns. He doesn't think about it between finally sleeping and eating, having a companion who isn't a murderer. But then, all of a sudden, a full twenty-four hours after strapping them into place, Claire says it's time to take them off. The wound, she claims, should be better.

Foggy occupies himself with menial tasks. He lays out garbage bags over the mattress to catch all the creepers when they fall off his friend's hip. He gets the sterile solution to rinse the wound. He wanders through the apartment and stares hard out the window.

"You ready for this?" Claire asks, pinching the edges of the package. It doesn't move; why doesn't it move? Aren't the maggots full yet?

He shakes his head, "No, I am so not ready for this." Getting gloves on is a shaky process. He gets them on and it's a celebration, which Claire ruins by tearing off the dressings.

Cotton and maggots spill out over the garbage bags, while a smell that chokes the life from Foggy's lungs floods the room. He gags. He gags and nearly vomits over Matt enthusiastically. There's room in the Bro Code for puking on your bestie when the smell is as bad as maggots and day-old, fever-sweat, mostly-digested flesh-stink.

"I need you here. Now," Claire says. "I'll touch it, but I need you to wash it. Sterile solution. Please."

Foggy shakes his head, "I'm going to puke."

"Well, puke later. Help now."

She's right. Foggy pulls himself together, grabs the saline, and douses the wound until the whole room tastes like stink and saline. Better? Not much. Wetter. That's about it.

"Stop, stop, stop," Claire runs a gloved hand over the wound, checking the seams and pockets of each gash. She plucks the maggots out and drops them into the pile. After a good washing, the wound has lost the clear gloss of maggot secretions. The ribbons of Matt's exposed flesh is pink, healthy as wounds go. The black and purple is gone; the maggots are fat with it. They writhe, happy and fed, on the garbage bags.


Happy reading!