The stairs are Matt's greatest enemy.

Sure, he knows by now how not to trip, or at least how not to trip too badly, but he hates it when he doesn't know when the stairs end, and stumbles on air, feeling weightless for just a second, or maybe even less. He hates the feeling of falling, of not knowing whether the landing will hurt or come at all.

Lately (ever since Fisk), the notion has been haunting him, this idea that all his suffering and pain has been for nothing, that he will never get a moment's rest, a moment of reprieve, just a moment to breathe.

So, when he wakes up to the sensation of being eaten by a bed and with what feels like cotton balls swimming in his head, his first thought is that someone has finally caught him from his fall.

He should've known better. Life has never been that kind.

His mouth is dry, and there's something plasticky in his nose. He reaches up with a shaking hand to remove it when suddenly someone gasps beside him and there's a hand in his own, pushing it down towards the bed.

"Wha' happened?" he rasps out. There's a tickle at the back of his throat.

"What do you remember?" Karen asks softly, squeezing his hand.

"I don't- I-" The tickle becomes a full on cough. After he stops hacking his lungs out, Karen helps him sit up a little and sip blessedly cool water from a plastic cup. It soothes his throat, but not his mind. What happened?

"You got shot," Karen says.

Oh. Whoops.

"I get mugged?" he asks, brows furrowed.

"No," she says with a little fond laugh. "In court."

That doesn't explain much. "How'd a gun get inside the courtroom?"

"No clue. Foggy's busy chewing out courthouse security." Yes. Go Foggy.

"Did we win?" Matt asks.

"What?"

"The trial. We must've been in the middle of one."

"Well, it was sort of interrupted by the shooting," Karen says, "but I guess we did? Technically?"

"Good," Matt says. He can't entirely remember who they were representing but it must have been worth it. Everything they do everyday is worth it. It has to be.

Except maybe getting shot. He'd rather not repeat this experience.

There is shifting by his other side. Oh, he thought Foggy wasn't here? But then the person says, "You're awake!" and it clicks. Tammy Ramirez, framed for murder and drug distribution by her shit dad, who'd gotten into some debt problems with a gang, of which a member came to court with a gun and apparently shot Matt.

"I'm awake," Matt confirms with a wide smile. Her enthusiasm is infectious.

"I already thanked Mr. Nelson, but I wanted to thank you too," she says, words almost stumbling together at the speed of her speech. "I'm not going to prison, did you know?"

Matt shakes his head. He hadn't. Also, "You don't have to thank me," he says. Foggy, yes. Him? Maybe less so. All he'd done was say a few words and then bleed out on the courtroom floor.

"But thank you anyways," she says, more subdued. "You got shot fighting for my case."

Oh shit. This won't do. "Hey, listen to me," he says quietly. He'd squeeze her hand if he could find it. "It wasn't your fault."

She sniffs a little. How do you comfort a crying teenager? How do you talk to a teenager, period? "You wouldn't have been hurt if it wasn't for me. You wouldn't even have been there."

"And then you'd be in jail," Matt says softly. "I'd take anything over that." He pauses, licks his lips, tries to muster up the right words in his currently foggy brain. "You're free," he continues, "to do anything you want, and I am grateful to have been a small part of that. You said you wanted to go to NYU, study journalism and creative writing, right?" A pause. He assumes she nods. "Well, I believe you can if you just put your mind to it, and I'd love to see where you go next, even if I'd prefer you go to Columbia, 'cause it's obviously the superior school."

She snorts. Matt smirks. Karen slaps him lightly on the shoulder from where she's been sitting, just watching them. "You only say that 'cause you went there, Matt," Karen says with a smile in her voice.

"Well, I wouldn't have gone to a school that wasn't superior," he says with a shrug. Pain flares in his chest, and he immediately smooths out the grimace that wants to bloom on his face.

"Totally biased," Tammy is saying. "Also, I hate to break it to you, but you wouldn't exactly be able to see where I go next." Matt grins. She catches on quick.

Karen groans. "Please don't. His blind jokes are the worst."

Tammy laughs, and the two of them start talking more in depth about journalism and all the different types, and all the while Matt thinks that it was worth it. It was worth it.


"Pretty sure the hospital has a bed with your name on it by now, what with all the times you've been there," Foggy says from beside him.

Matt grins, leaning into his warmth. "Nah, they have a whole ward."

"Uh huh, I'll have to ask Claire 'bout that," Foggy says, lifting up Matt's bags as they ascend the stairs to his apartment.

Matt has to pause halfway up to catch his breath. He presses a hand to his chest, the other one grasped tightly around his cane, and soon enough there's a gentle hand on his shoulder. He's not alone.

"Please don't scare me like that again," Foggy says quietly.

"I'll try not to," Matt says. "But you know I can't promise it."

"I know. I just wish..."

"I know," Matt says, smiling wryly. "I think the universe has something against me."

"Damn right about it," Foggy says.

"You didn't sound scared in the courtroom."

"Weren't you unconscious? How are you supposed to know?" Foggy says with a little laugh.

"You were brave," Matt tells him. "I heard it all, how you talked them down. You're an amazing lawyer, Foggy."

"Thanks," he says, wrapping an arm around Matt's shoulders. "You are too, just so you know. I wouldn't be able to do this without you."

"That's why we're Nelson and Murdock," Matt says as they continue walking up.

"Murdock and Nelson."

"Ew. Sounds wrong."

"Nelson, Murdock and Page."

Matt laughs. "She'd love that. We have to pay her more."

"If she's not a lawyer, are we allowed to put her in our firm name?"

"Who knows? You're the one who suggested it."

"Fuck it. We can break some rules."

Matt laughs again, and then his foot catches on a step, and the breath catches in his throat as he falls, but not to the ground. Foggy catches him around the waist, and Matt gasps, winces, presses a hand to his chest again.

"I've got you," Foggy says. "I've got you." Matt swings an arm around Foggy's shoulder and holds on tight.