Warnings: Mentions of sexual assault on a minor, blood, language...this chapter is NOT like the first one...author's notes at the bottom
Disclaimer: Again, the characters mentioned within are not mine, and I am not seeing a profit for doing this
(Italics-thoughts)
Delicate Sensibilities
Chapter 2
It was a typical Nelson get-together: big, loud, and boisterous. Foggy's mother had insisted on throwing a belated post post-graduation party to celebrate her darling boy setting up his own practice and had invited the entire family and roughly 2/3 of the neighborhood. She'd been disappointed her adopted son (typical Mama Bear Nelson, always taking wounded little ducks into her care, especially those of the Matt Murdock variety) couldn't be there, but had accepted Foggy's explanation—he'd seen the dark circles under his friend's eyes and knew it wasn't just from stress, and thought it best to let Matt rest. She'd simply huffed and promised to set aside enough cake and other goodies for her other 'son' (which, knowing her, would be enough to feed Matt for a week), before plowing back into the sea of well-wishers.
It was closing in on midnight now, and the party was starting to slowly wind down, and Foggy was just about to start up on his fifth bottle of the night when a certain Kenny Loggins' song came from his back pocket. He fumbled with his phone for a moment before managing to hit the 'accept' button.
"Buddy! Change your mind about coming? We've still got plenty of cake if you want it!"
Silence was the only answer Foggy got, and the sudden spike of worry started to sober him up.
"Matt?" Foggy pulled away from the crowd and headed for the only quiet place in the house. "Matt, you there…?"
"…Foggy?"
He heaved a quick sigh and shut the bathroom door behind him. "Yeah, I'm here…what's wrong?"
A shuddery breath filled Foggy's ear, "I think- I think I'm about to do something incredibly crazy or stupid or both…"
Foggy would have normally made a crack about Matt's behavior, but the bleakness in his friend's tone caught his attention. "Matt… What's. Wrong?"
"Remember that little girl I told you about…?"
"Yeah," Foggy muttered, furrowing his brow, "you called CPS on that sicko—"
"They let him go Foggy—they couldn't find any evidence and the mother didn't believe it… They let him go… And- And he hasn't stopped…"
Foggy buried his face in his free hand and sagged against the bathroom counter. "Ah, shit… Couldn't- Couldn't you call them again? Make them take a closer look at this asshole?"
"And tell them what, Fog? That the blind guy two blocks away can hear him assaulting his own daughter? No, the law failed her, and this has to end. Now."
The emptiness had disappeared from Matt's voice, only to be replaced by a harsh coldness, something Foggy had never heard from him and it scared him for a moment. "Matt. What are you doing?"
"…I'm looking right at him, Foggy. I'm looking right at that son of a bitch…"
"Matt-!" The drunken haze was quickly being burned away as Foggy yelled into his phone. "What the fuck are you doing?!"
"I'm sorry, Foggy, but…but I can stop him…I have to stop him…I'm sorry…"
"Matt? Matt?! MATT!"
Too late—Matt had already hung up. Foggy nearly ripped the door off its hinges in his rush to escape the bathroom and narrowly missed colliding with the remaining guests as he barreled straight for the door, only to be stopped by his mother.
"Franklin…?"
"I'm sorry Mom, but something's come up with Matt… I gotta get to him…"
"What's wrong with Matthew? Do you need me to drive you to his place?"
Whatever crap Matt had decided to get himself involved in, Foggy knew he didn't want his mother anywhere near it. "No. No, I'll catch a cab. I'm sure it's nothing, Mom—he's probably had too much to drink or something…" Or he's getting himself killed right now…
"Well, all right…" She stepped aside, but not before shoving a large Tupperware container into Foggy's hands. "Go take care of him, Franklin."
He gave her a wan smile, pecked her on the cheek and raced out the door. Once outside, Foggy didn't bother calling for a cab—at this time of night and in this part of the Kitchen, it would take longer than if he simply ran to where he knew he could flag one down. Goddammit Matt! Why do you have to live on the other side of town?! Fifteen minutes later, he was finally catching his breath in the back seat of a cab, and biting down on his cheek to keep himself from telling the cabbie to fuck the speed limit and step on it. Once outside his stop, Foggy nearly shoved the cake at the cabbie before remembering to dig cash out of his wallet and bolted out of the cab, not bothering to get his change back. Inside the building, he cursed the six flights of stairs, and at the top, he ignored 6A and went straight for the roof access door. On the roof, he knew where Matt hid the spare key for his 'back door', dug it out, and rushed back inside, leaving the door open behind him. Now, in Matt's darkened apartment, Foggy gingerly made his way down the steps.
"Matt…?" he called out once he reached the bottom. "You here?" Still clutching onto the Tupperware, Foggy checked the bathroom and bedroom, looking for any signs of his friend, but the only things he found that were out of place were the cane leaning against the wall by the bathroom door, and the doors to the small closet under the stairs that were flung wide open. Beyond that, the apartment was quieter than normal, leaving Foggy at a loss for what to do—try calling Matt again (he'd tried in the cab and got the voice mail), or call the cops? And say what? That my best friend is probably doing something he shouldn't, and oh, by the way, he's blind? He absently set the container down, and pulled his phone back out; he worried at his lower lip as his finger hovered over the bottom button, debating over his options, but a faint creak overhead solved his dilemma. "Jesus, Matt! What hap—" Foggy had hurried to the foot of the steps, but froze when he finally got a good look at his friend in the flashing pink and white light.
Running shoes, sweat pants, a zip-up hoodie with the hood pulled back… Blood trickling from a split lip, and another wound high on his right cheekbone… The blood bothered him, but what really struck Foggy as odd was how Matt seemed to be in a daze, how he seemed to sway as he came down the steps…and then Foggy saw Matt's hands…
"Oh, holy shit! Matt! Is that- Is that blood?!"
Matt paused on the last step and brought his wrapped hands up to his face, as if he could truly see them and Foggy noted how they trembled. "It's… It's not mine. It's not mine…"
"Matt… What did you do?"
"I didn't- I didn't kill him. I'm not a monster…I'm not the monster here…"
"…No, no you're not, Matt…" Slowly reaching out, Foggy lightly took Matt by the elbow—Matt twitched at the sudden contact—and gently guided him to the bathroom. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up…"
Under the soft glow of the bathroom lights, Foggy could finally see the full results of whatever Matt had done: there wasn't just blood on his knuckles—some had spattered onto the sleeves and chest area of the hoodie, and he could see the start of a black eye. As he gently unwrapped Matt's hands and washed them off, Foggy let Matt mumble about how he found the man, followed him, waited till he was alone, and then proceed to beat the ever-living shit out of him ("I let the Devil out, Foggy..."), promising to return if he ever touched his daughter again. At this confession, Foggy cringed, and he wanted to yell and scream at Matt, wanted to demand if he realized how stupid he was, if he understood the legalities of what he had just done, but he could feel the faint tremors still running through Matt's body, and he could see how Matt was still pale from shock.
Yelling could wait.
A/N: Yeah, I know. Total mood whiplash when compared to Chapter 1... TBH, this was actually the 1st scene I envisioned when I came up with this alternate story line, but I didn't want to start the fic off with something I consider rather dark. This whiplash pattern might continue as I (hopefully) add more chapters to this story, with chapters flipping between the more light-hearted, to the more darker realities of Matt's life and its impacts on Foggy. I would've added this earlier, but I've been busy with end of semester stuff (and I really should be studying for my finals this week), but this was something that wanted to be let loose as well. As such, this hasn't been beta'd by anybody else, but I've gone through it a few times and have hopefully caught any errors. I realize the sentence structure tends to ramble and ignore all the rules in spots, but in my head, it fits the tenseness of the chapter (or I'm just coming up with excuses cuz I'm too damn lazy to fix it, but whatever). Thanks for reading, and as always: REVIEWS
(Headcanon: Foggy's ringtone for Matt HAS to be "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins)