There was a part of Matt that knew from the very beginning. The first time Foggy made him laugh Matt was distracted by the fact that he hadn't thought laughter could ever come so easy. He was struck by the realization that he hadn't realized that he hadn't really ever laughed. Then living together was so easy. Well it wasn't easy.
Foggy was full of smells and flavors. The kind that had Matt gagging. He was noisy too. Always talking and always processing with everything he took in. Both food wise and intellectually. Maybe that's why…
God knows Matt loves to deprive himself of luxury. Of the things that bring him joy. The more it hurts the harder he holds on to it. So it kind of snuck up on him. How much he really loved his best friend. How much peace he felt when Foggy was in the room. By the time it occurs to him he can't bring himself to run.
He tries to build up walls. Hell, he shows every part of himself to Foggy that he hates in hopes that the man will realize how ugly Matt truly is.
He doesn't tell Foggy about being able to fight. That wasn't something he was ashamed of. He doesn't hide the fact that he boxes. Matt knows that Foggy thinks the only thing he's ever hit is a bag and in the beginning this was true enough.
Matt knew how to fight and he meditated and exercised his skills in quiet. For the most part it was habitual. It kept him in shape and was relaxing. It would be a lie if he said he never fantasized about taking his training and entering the military or something.
He couldn't though. He had to keep it a secret. Stick practically beat that into him. He never really had the desire to become some kind of blind man special anyway. There were too many uncertainties with letting others know. Besides, he never was close enough to anyone who would need to know. At least before Foggy.
Friends were weaknesses. Loved ones dead weight. Or so Stick tried to convince him. Matt never could really follow those ideas. No matter how hard he tried. Though as he entered college he felt he was getting closer to that solitary goal. Foggy blew that out of the water within a week. Matt couldn't say he wasn't aware of it but he was blindsided by it.
So physically Foggy was a nightmare. His disgusting habits and weird smells. Thankfully Matt was able to talk him into using less cologne. Even these things faded in the joy that Foggy could bring him simply by being himself. They understood each other on an intellectual level. Foggy grew on him like a fungus until Matt poked him about what he ate out of familiarity and a genuine concern for his health rather than disgust. Or at least not just disgust.
The feeling of security was the biggest surprise. There was nothing about Foggy that said fighter. Matt could probably bring him down in a fight with his arms tied behind his back and his legs bound together. Yet, Matt felt unbelievably safe around Foggy.
The safer he felt the more he tried to push Foggy away. Foggy wiggled in close despite it. Matt eventually just sighed and let Foggy help him. Foggy always found ways to help. Found ways to be there for Matt that he didn't even know were possible. Matt didn't need any of it and it frightened him how much he feared it would go away.
Everyone always left. Foggy would too. Matt didn't deserve nice things. He deserved everything horrible that happened to him. He felt it deep in his core. God gives and takes. Matt pushed a man out of the way of a truck and God gave him his supper senses at the expense of his sight.
Matt suffered because he questioned too strongly whether or not he'd done the right thing. Matt was selfish, pushing his dad to fight to win when losing kept food on the table. So God took the most important person in his life away for wanting more.
Matt prayed for release. For help with his unbearable senses and God sent him Stick. Matt tried to ask for more, for a father figure, rather than being thankful for the teacher he was sent so Stick left. That's what Matt gets for being ungrateful.
He fell into lust with fire. Her name was Electra and being in her presence burned. Their time together was intense. It brought out the fighter in him. Her antisocial "fuck the rules" attitude scratched at the anger rippling under his skin like barbed wire. Tugged and pulled him so fast the world blurred.
They dangled over the edge of right and wrong laughing in the face of societal respectability. She was an outlet and a drug. Matt's lust grew deep into a burning love. Then she tried to pull him into a yawning chasm and he pulled back. She left and he wasn't sure if it was because he lacked conviction or because he just loved her too much.
He was lonely, even though he didn't know it, till Foggy but God knew. God knew and God made them roommate's.
Matt was so grateful but so scared as they bounded and became "avocados" he couldn't-- wouldn't-- ask for more. Then he saved a little girl and he couldn't ignore the things he heard. He was working on adrenaline when he asked Foggy to leave L and Z with him.
He was pleased and warmed when Foggy said yes. It was so much though. Starting a business. Learning what they had to do to run a business. Hardly affording to even start. While finally finding that he could fight. That he could answer the cries for help that God let him hear.
Things got crazy really fast and it became the ultimate balancing act. He found himself the topic of conversation in the office a lot. Though Foggy and their new office manager Karen didn't know it. Matt was torn between the idea that good deeds don't need to be bragged about and wanting to at least set the record straight.
Foggy didn't like the masked man and though Matt trusted Foggy enough not to turn him in. (He was mostly sure he wouldn't.) Matt had long outgrown the desire to have Foggy hate him. In fact his fillings on the matter had swung to the other side completely. Matt valued Foggy's opinion and yet he also greatly feared it.
When things started going up in flames Matt knew something was about to break. Like a death toll every time the Masked Man or The Devil of Hell's Kitchen came up at the office a weight would settle in Matt's chest. He wanted to scream. To tell Foggy that it was Fisk. Everything was Fisk and his fat thumb digging into the soul of the Kitchen. He also wanted to run. Runaway before Foggy figured it out and told him he hated him directly. Knowingly.
That time came and it hurt. The only thing that compared, the only moment that cut deeper, was his father's death. Foggy was so angry. Matt didn't know how to handle it. Still Foggy tried. Tried to understand and tried to help.
He realized he made a mistake with not telling Foggy. Karen was growing close to his heart in the same way Foggy had. Sharper and faster though so he knew he had to tell her. Eventually.
Matt's desire to push Foggy away started to grow with his desire for Foggy to be happy and safe. Matt was neither of those things. Matt was dark and fire. Vicious and angry. Foggy was light and warm. Kindness and everything good in the world.
Electra was sharp and poisonous. Matt was weak. He was pushing but didn't want to think about how much he didn't want to lose his best friend so it was easier than it should have been for her to drag him around. Add in the fact that he still very much loved her. Maybe because she understood the darkest parts of him and smiled. Matt was doomed the moment she came back.
After failing to participate in the Punisher case Matt had pushed for Matt finally reached the end of Foggy's tolerance. When Foggy asked if they were done Matt's chest burned. If the people didn't leave him they died. Electra had just proved that and Matt wanted Foggy to be alive and happy more than he wanted him to be near so he told him that they were. Then he gave Karen the option to chose with all the cards on the table.
Nelson and Murdock were done. Matt had dropped the ball and the scales had tipped. He had asked for too much when suggesting they be partners. When he tried to be everything. Foggy left.
Foggy tentatively reached back to try and help him out and Matt found himself struggling to drown out the sounds of pain and corruption. Hoping he would come back. Maybe not the same but a little bit. If he could just prove that he cared about the law…
Foggy kept his distance though and Matt let the familiar feeling of loneliness settle into him.
Meeting Jessica, Danny, and Luke was a moment of hope that cut. He tries to grasp it and stop it all at once. None of them understood him or each other really… he still thought they could maybe support one another despite that. Or maybe he just had hoped.
Maybe that was too much to ask for. Maybe that desire for a new chance at understanding and support was why the only person who could even remotely understand the physical side of him died.
He was alone. He was always going to be alone. No one would ever love all of him for what he was and if they did they could never stay. God didn't bless devil's, he condemned them. So maybe that was why when everything was crumbling and Matt realized that he and Electra were going to die he felt like he was finally doing the one thing he never tried before. He was going to leave with her. Leave Matt leave the devil. Everyone else had abandoned him. Why shouldn't he do the same?
That night Matt Murdock, Daredevil, had died in mind and soul.
Even Foggy wasn't enough to bring him back. Matt had to crawl out of the grave himself and realize that yes people left but sometimes they came back. That sometimes they even fought their way back. It was Foggy who showed him that too. Foggy seemed to always teach Matt about the good things. So Matt came back and he found, at least for the moment, that he was not alone.
He hoped he wasn't asking too much for Foggy to, if not stay, always come back.