Ch 3: Compensatory Damages

University days. In which Foggy becomes intimately acquainted with Matt's apparent clumsiness.

The First Time

"How did you do this to yourself, Murdock?"

Foggy is sitting across from Matt in their dorm room, their knees knocking together as they face each other on their rickety desk chairs. There's a disused first aid kit open beside them on Foggy's desk, half of its contents expired, the other half on Foggy's lap. The desk lamp is turned on its side, spotlighting the nasty gash on Matt's eyebrow.

"I told you how I did it," Matt replies evenly, holding himself very still. "I slipped on the ice."

"Right. And then you punched it."

Matt flexes his bloody knuckles.

Gingerly, Foggy dabs blood away from his roommate's face, carefully skirting the edge of the wound with the gauze. "So…?"

"Grazed them on something," Matt supplies. "The stairs, maybe. I'm not sure."

Foggy has to give him that. The dude's blind. He couldn't have seen what he whacked with his hand if he tried. On the other hand, though - and mind you, Foggy's no expert - but on the other hand, he knows that when a person falls, they usually throw their arms out to catch themselves. So why are Matt's knuckles banged up and not his palms? "Well, I gotta tell you, buddy, from where I'm sitting, it kinda looks like you've been in a fight."

Matt laughs heartily. "Yeah! You should see the other guy."

"Right," Foggy chuckles. But inwardly, he can't help wondering if somebody jumped Matt or something, and he's too embarrassed to say. He's not sure, he hasn't known the guy that long. But he has his watch and his wallet - you'd have to be a real dick to go and beat up a blind guy for no reason. "Okay," he says, dropping the subject entirely. "This… is gonna hurt." He rips open an alcohol pad, the smell wafting up between them. He hears Matt swallow. "Ready?"

"I don't know if that's necessary."

"You kidding me? You hit your face on the ground outside of the Fine Arts building. There could be all kinds of shit in there. You could end up with chlamydia of the face."

"I don't think that's a thing, Fog - ouch!'

"I was trying to distract you," Foggy says sadly. "I did not succeed. Hold still." As quickly and as gently as possible, Foggy swipes the alcohol pad over the wound, ignoring for the most part Matt's hisses of pain. That done, he opens a second pad and does the same for the skinned knuckles. "And… done."

Matt breathes a sigh of relief. He looks slightly green.

Foggy rummages through the first aid supplies arrayed in his lap. "Alright, now for the stitches."

A little more colour drains from Matthew's face. "I don't - "

Foggy almost regrets the joke. Almost. "Dude, I'm kidding! How crazy do you think I am?" He leans forward again, peering at the wound in the light from the overturned lamp. "My esteemed professional opinion is that you don't need stitches, anyway."

"It's not that crazy," says Matt, his eyes locked on a spot over Foggy's shoulder. "I've done it."

"Huh?"

"Before I was blind."

Foggy thinks he probably should have realised that. "Oh. To yourself?" He fishes a couple of butterfly closures out of the pile of first aid stuff.

Matt tenses like he's about to shake his head, but thinks better of it. "Nah, my dad. He was a boxer."

"Really? Surely they had somebody at the... arena thing that could do that for him." He peels the wax paper backing off the closures and carefully applies the first one to the gash bisecting Matt's dark eyebrow. "How old were you?"

"Eight, nine."

"Damn. There's no end in sight to the badassery with you, Murdock!"

The Fourth Time

"Don't you dare pass out on me."

"I won't."

"I mean it, Matt."

"I'm not."

"Because if you do, I swear - "

"Foggy, it's a sprained ankle, not a compound fracture!"

"Ah, I see you've been paying attention in our Medical Malpractice class." Foggy tightens his arm around Matt's waist. They're standing in the stairwell, working their way up at an agonisingly slow pace. The elevator is conveniently out of service. "Why couldn't you fall down the stairs somewhere with a working elevator?"

Beside him, Matt ratchets himself a little more upright. "Because I wouldn't have been on the stairs if the elevator were working."

Okay, that's a good point. Foggy groans and helps Matt haul himself up another half dozen stairs to the landing.

"Stop," Matt pants. "Stop, stop, stop." He frees himself from his friend's grasp and sits on the landing.

"We're almost there," Foggy points out. "Like six more stairs."

"And a hallway."

"And a hallway," Foggy concedes. Their room is at the end of the hall. A rather long hall, he supposes, when you're walking on a twisted ankle. Sighing, Foggy drops down next to his friend on the top stair. "You need a guide dog or something. A guide dog wouldn't let you fall down the stairs."

Matt gives a strained laugh. "I don't need a dog."

"You fell down the stairs."

"Fair point." Matt leans back on his hands and takes a few steadying breaths. "But I don't think they'd let me have a dog in the dorms."

Foggy shrugs. "They might. Reasonable accommodations and all that."

"Braille textbooks are a reasonable accommodation, not dogs. I don't think dogs qualify."

"Then we'd sue 'em." Leaning over, Foggy tugs Matt's trouser leg up to get another quick look at his ankle. Swollen, but not any worse than it was at the bottom of the stairs. There's some bruising. Foggy doesn't think it's broken, though. He lets the fabric fall back down again. "You can sue for anything these days. We could sue for the elevator being out of service and forcing a disabled man to climb the stairs."

Matt laughs again. "That'd be embarrassing. I'd have to admit I fell."

"True." He claps once. "Okay. Ready?"

"Wait."

"No, no more wait. The sooner we get back, the sooner you can have some ice and ibuprofen, won't that be nice? Up and at 'em." Without waiting for an answer, Foggy gets to his feet and helps Matt up too, throwing one arm around his waist again and using the other to drag Matt's arm across his shoulders. Matt clings to him slightly as they steady themselves on the landing. "Okay, bro, six more stairs and a hallway."

The ? Time

Matt has a black eye. A true bar brawl shiner, like Foggy's never seen before. Only this time, he's not really buying the I bumped into a door explanation.

"Tell me again," he demands, his voice betraying some of his irritation as he hands his roommate a bag of frozen peas. The peas are probably like a million years old, but Foggy figures Matt isn't eating them, he's just using them as a cold pack, so they're okay for that.

Matt groans as he accepts the bag. "I already told you three times," he moans. He sits back on his bed, against the wall, sighing as he presses the frozen peas against his face.

"Yeah, you did, and I still don't get it. The laws of physics don't work like that." Foggy is trying to keep his voice light, but he doesn't think he's succeeding. Indeed, Matt's frown confirms that he isn't.

"I walked into an open door after Legal Ethics. Someone was coming through and didn't see me before she opened the door into me."

"Didn't you have your cane?"

"Yes. Like I said before. I swept it to the left, the door opened, by the time my cane found the door, I had already walked into it. Are we finished, Counselor? We have a test tomorrow."

"Tell me why it looks like somebody punched you," Foggy spills out. He grits his teeth as Matt's face goes completely serious, his eyes moving left and right as he tries to read the room. Foggy holds his ground. "That mark doesn't look like it came from a door, Matt; it looks like it came from someone's fist. If you could see it, you would understand what I mean. And… this isn't the first time your story and the injury don't match up, either. Talk to me, man. Nobody is this clumsy."

Matthew holds Foggy's gaze - as much as is possible - and pulls the peas away from his eye. The bag crinkles in his fingers as he drops his hand into his lap. "Foggy. I am totally blind, no light perception, living in an overcrowded world made for sighted people. I am this clumsy."

Guilt flashes through Foggy like a physical pain. He crosses the room and sits on Matt's bed beside him, his voice softening somewhat but not backing down. "I know that. And I'm not trying to be insensitive, but Matt… You look like you've been in a fight. Again. If... " God, this is uncomfortable. Foggy plows onward. "If you're in some kind of University fight club and you can't talk about it, then fine, that's fine, but - if… if someone's targeting you…"

Matt looks slightly affronted, but he keeps his cool, somehow. Matt always does. "I am not in Fight Club. And nobody's 'targeting' me. I'm just… blind, Foggy. It takes me a while to develop spatial awareness for a new place. It's guesswork til then."

"You'd never been in that part of the building before?" Foggy finishes for him.

Matt shakes his head.

That still leaves some unanswered questions. Like, why did this only start happening some six months ago? And why doesn't Foggy ever seem to witness it? But maybe the answer to both is that they have fewer classes together this term. Nobody to help guide Matt across campus between classes. It's not a complete theory, but Foggy doesn't feel like prodding his friend any further - it's embarrassing for both of them. It'll do for now.

Finally, Foggy nods his understanding. He knows Matt can feel the movement through the bedsprings. "Okay. Sorry. I worry, dude, I'm not gonna lie…"

Matt grins. "You know I've been blind a lot longer than I've known you, right?"

Sheepishly, Foggy chuckles. "Yeah. Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Matt says, nodding slightly.

"Was she hot? The girl who hit you with the door?"

With a widening smirk, his roommate shrugs. "She sounded hot, while she was apologising profusely…"

"You always know. It's uncanny."

"It's a gift," replies Matt. "What can I say?"