"This is a bad idea," Foggy says.

Matt holds a letter in his hands, delivered personally by an off-duty prison guard who works at, well, Fisk's prison. (It isn't actually his, but it might as well be.)

"I know," he says. "But what choice do we have?"

"Ignore it. Tear it into pieces. Don't go in to visit Fisk."

"He threatened you guys," Matt says, voice small. He doesn't know why he ever thought he was free from Fisk and his power.

"And he hurt you," Foggy says, reaching out to clasp onto his hands. They'd started shaking when he'd been reading the letter, which had made the task kinda hard.

Fisk had even had the letter printed in Braille, damn it all.

"I have to go," Matt says. He brings his head up slightly, trying to catch Foggy's eyes but probably failing. "I'll be fine." The lie tastes like ashes on his tongue.

"You're not," Foggy says, squeezing his hands gently. "But you will be," he concedes.

"I'm going," Matt decides. "I'm sorry."

"Please stop apologizing," Foggy says, pulling him into a hug that Matt sinks into. "I just want you to be okay."

"Okay."

"But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Okay."

"Please say something other than 'okay'."

"I'll be safe," Matt says. He has to be.


Matt is not safe. Matt is very far from safe. Matt comes back to his apartment with a broken nose, split lip, and cracked glasses.

Claire sighs. "You get more hurt than most people do in their lives."

"Well, I am blind," Matt says, a sheepish smile on his face.

Claire simply sighs again, pressing gauze to his face and resetting Matt's nose with a crack. Matt grimaces.

"You're also pretty stubborn when it comes to actually going to the hospital."

"Well then it's a good thing I have you," Matt says brightly.

Claire slaps him on the arm. "Not always," she says.

"I'm not that bad about getting hurt and not going to the hospital."

"The last time you got hurt, you only went to the hospital 'cause you were unconscious."

"Point."

"What'd you even do to make him so mad?" Foggy asks, draping one arm around Matt's shoulders and drawing him in close. Matt sighs, sinking into his warmth, such a contrast to the cold, sharp lines of the prison cell.

"I survived," Matt says. "We all survived."

Karen moves to sit down on his other side. "Here," she says, pressing a glass of cool water into his hand. He smiles gratefully, taking a sip, and closes his eyes for a moment, needing to remind himself that her leg's okay, that she's been off her crutches for a few weeks, that Foggy's no longer bleeding out from shrapnel in his body.

"The prison guards should've seen something, done something," Foggy grumbles.

"They weren't there. They didn't see anything," Matt says, suddenly tired. Fisk owns the prison, the guards. They saw everything, they hadn't cared.

"They didn't see him punching you in the face?" Karen asks incredulously.

"Nope," Matt says, which is true. Fisk hadn't punched him in the face, he'd slammed Matt's face into the table, once, twice. They don't need to know that, though.

"I want to tell you never to get hurt again, but I'm pretty sure that's impossible," Claire says wryly, squeezing Matt's hand, then freezing. "Did you punch him?" she asks. He can just hear her raised eyebrows. She probably saw his bruised knuckles.

"Oh," Matt says. He'd forgotten about that. "Yeah, I did. Gave him a split lip, too. Fair's fair. I think he was pretty shocked by it." He'd also called Matt the 'son of a boxer', which had made Matt shiver a little, from the knowledge that Fisk knows more about his life than most people ever do.

Karen snorts. "I would've liked to see his face."

"I would've liked to punch him too," Foggy mutters.

While Matt does appreciate the sentiment, he struggles not to shudder. He doesn't want Foggy or Karen or Claire anywhere near Fisk. He won't let them. They can't get hurt, not again. Fisk can't win.

But he can't help but remember: the metal chair, cold with sharp edges; the freezing bars of the prison cell under his hands, no longer Fisk's but his own; the prison guards, hands wrapped firmly around his arms not to help but to restrain; his own legs, buckling momentarily as he'd walked out of the jail cell; and Fisk himself, voice firm and angry, promising vengeance, promising hurt, promising pain.

And Matt believes him, of course he does. How could he not?


So...I didn't write the actual confrontation, but the events surrounding it? I guess it still counts? I'm not good at writing confrontations, I want everyone to get along, even if they're enemies haha.