AN: This was meant to be purely a funny little fluff piece and somehow managed to still get a little angsty. These two do so love their angst.


Prompt: Paper Aeroplanes


On Target

The first time he does it, it's purely a bored impulse.

They have been studying for hours that feel like days, and Foggy is starting to go a little bit crazy. And not even the fun sort of crazy he normally is, but a genuine, worrisome, climbing-the-walls kind of crazy. He thinks his brain might've actually melted and is one punctured eardrum away from pouring out his skull like a demented tea kettle. The words on the pages of his textbook keep morphing and blurring together into languages even harder to decipher than Punjabi.

Of course on the room's other bed, Matt is his normal, cool-as-a-cucumber self. He's cross-legged on the mattress in the middle of a ring of textbooks, his laptop, and his refreshable braille reader. An earphone trails from one ear while he runs his finger across the reader, ever the diligent student. The stress of the upcoming finals is completely invisible and if Foggy didn't know better he'd think Matt wasn't worried at all. But of course he is. Matt is inconsolable if he gets anything less than an A on a test. He's just also ridiculously smart, on top of being unnaturally good looking. Bastard.

Foggy glances down at the stacks of handwritten notes around him and as his eyes trace along the creases in one paper that had been shoved rather unceremoniously into his bag, an idea occurs. Grinning, he sets about folding a fresh sheet of paper with clinical precision. When he has the paper folded down to a sharp triangle, he lifts it, aims, and sends it sailing.

The paper aeroplane glides silently across the room, directly on par to hit Matt in the ear. Foggy waits expectantly, smirking, and -

Without taking his attention away from his studying, Matt uses his free hand to bat the aeroplane out of the air a split second before it hits him. The crumpled aircraft dovetails away to settle on the floor dejectedly.

"Ah man, c'mon, that's not fair," Foggy complains loudly. "How do you do that?"

Matt's lips twist up on one side and he tilts his head in Foggy's direction. "I could hear you folding the paper, Fog, you're not exactly subtle."

"Dude, you're like a ninja sometimes," Foggy grouses but he's not actually that bothered. At the very least, Matt's paying attention to him instead of his studying now so he's less bored. "That's a cool trick, actually, we should use it sometime. Might impress the girls."

"I hardly think the girls will flock to the guy who throws things at a blind guy," Matt points out.

"I will concede to that, counselor," Foggy says. "Doesn't matter, I'll get you eventually. You can't be a ninja all the time." Matt smirks but says nothing, already fully invested in his texts again.

After that it becomes something of a game, although his mom would undoubtedly cuff him around the head if she ever heard him refer to throwing things at his blind best friend as a game. Foggy might agree with her if it weren't for the fact that, without fail, Matt always manages to knock the aeroplanes out of the sky or duck out of the way before they can reach him. Foggy's defeated groans are met with a cocky smirk and they return to whatever they were doing before. The game continues through college, through their internship, and into the shabby three-room office they claim as their own. Karen shoots him mildly exasperated looks whenever he does it while the three of them are researching cases together, but Matt always gets that sideways grin each time and so she lets it slide.

Of course then everything happens with the Man in the Mask and Matt nearly dying and Wilson Fisk and Daredevil, and silly games with paper aeroplanes slip to the back of Foggy's mind in the madness that his life has become in just a few short months. His relationship with Matt is strained and the easy, playful banter that was once their primary form of communication has become forced and uncertain. It takes time and effort, and they stumble and falter so many times, but gradually they are rebuilding. Not what they once had - because that Matt-and-Foggy is gone - but on its foundation they are creating something new, something stronger and more solid.

So everything changes one day when Foggy is sitting at his desk, elbows deep in notes and legal books for a case he's currently working. He hears Matt call out a quick, "Hey Fog," and he looks over just in time for something to tap against his forehead and then fall onto his desk. His eyes skate over the delicately folded aeroplane, dark ink bleeding through the white page, and he unfolds it curiously. Printed in the middle, in an unpracticed, childish scrawl, are two words.

I WIN

And as Foggy glances back up at his best friend leaning casually in the doorframe, he bursts out laughing in a genuine, carefree way that he hasn't felt capable of in ages. "You little shit," he complains, crumbling up the paper and hucking it at Matt's chest. (Matt, of course, catches it.) "I will still get you."

Matt's beaming as he pushes up off the doorframe. As he heads back to his office, he throws back over his shoulder a very sarcastic, "Sure you will." And Foggy doesn't mind so much if he ever actually succeeds in their little game, because this is them and this is normal, and that's what really counts.

Although it's sure as hell not going to stop him from trying.