Expansion of Columbia drinking flashback in 1X10.
Disclaimer: I do not own Daredevil or any of the characters in this story. Everything belongs to Marvel; I just bring these guys into my headspace every once in a while.
Matt hurries across the street to his apartment, pulling his light jacket more tightly around his chest in a reflexive response to the cold. It's all he's heard about all day: the cold. It's one of the few "safe" conversations Matt finds himself having with strangers (and even acquaintances) again and again and again. After all, you can't ask a blind man if he caught the latest episode of Lost, or if he saw the score of last night's Knicks game, or if he wants to join your rec soccer league, right? But you can ask him how he feels about the fact that it's 45 freaking degrees in April. Because everyone can agree that freezing cold weather on the last day of classes is pretty much the end of the world.
Right?
Honestly, cold weather-or, more accurately, extreme weather of any kind-is not Matt's thing. In the winter, icy blasts prick at his skin like thousands of tiny needles. In the summer, Matt constantly feels like he's swimming, parting the microscopic drops of sweat and humidity in the air every time he moves. Foggy may think that Matt's a "delicate flower" for insisting that their apartment remains, at all times, at a precise 74 degrees. But for Matt, it's the only way he can keep from clawing his way out of his own skin.
But tonight… tonight Matt doesn't mind the cold. Or at least, he doesn't mind it as much. Tonight, the cold is armor-just like time and distance and anything unfamiliar that Matt can wrap around himself and use to separate himself from that night, thirteen years ago. That night when he ran through the muggy alleys of his neighborhood, not bothering for once to mask his skillful navigation of the myriad obstacles in his path, wiping moisture that could have been fog or sweat or tears from his face as he barreled through the darkness. All the while chanting, not him, not him, not him despite the sirens and the muffled voices and, eventually, the blood that told him otherwise.
Which is all to say that it was hot that night, but tonight it's cold. And Matt thinks that helps a little.
He enters his apartment and pauses in the doorway, listening to see if Foggy's home. Matt sighs when he hears the familiar thudthud of his friend's heartbeat, and briefly considers turning back out into the cold. But before he can make up his mind, Foggy rounds the corner from his bedroom to the living room, wrapped in the delicately balanced and uniquely-Foggy scent of Pert Plus, denim, and Febreze. Trapped, Matt closes the door and begins removing his jacket.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whaddya think you're doing?"
Matt hangs his jacket on the hook by the door. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Ehhhhh, wrong answer. I think what you meant to say is, 'Checking to make sure I have my wallet so we can go out and get outrageously drunk to celebrate the end of classes.' Unless of course you were planning to pre-game here. Do you want to pre-game here?"
Matt walks past Foggy into the living room, and sits wearily on the armrest of their couch. He'd hoped Foggy would be out with other friends by now. In fact, he'd been counting on it. He'd been dropping not-so-subtle hints all week that Foggy shouldn't wait for him to get back from his (fictional) Friday night study group before going out to bars. He thought these hints had worked when Foggy had stopped mentioning his last-day-of-class plans a few days ago. Clearly he'd underestimated the depth of his friend's desire-need-to commemorate every milestone, no matter how large or how small, with a healthy dose of alcohol.
Matt runs his fingers through his hair and decides to try another approach. "Sorry, man. Not tonight. I'm tired and I should really start studying… Maybe after exams are over, but-"
"Fuck that." Matt lifts his eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah, forgive me, Father," Foggy mutters sarcastically, and Matt feels the air around him move as he makes the sign of the cross in front of his face. "But seriously, fuck that, dude. This is the last day of our last semester. You and your hangover can study all weekend while my hangover and I cuddle in bed. But tonight, we're going out. No excuses."
Matt shakes his head. "Blasphemy aside, the answer's still no. Not tonight."
"Fine," Foggy growls as he turns and walks into the kitchen. Matt closes his eyes in a mixture of guilt and relief, promising himself that he'll make it up to Foggy. Tomorrow.
Matt hears Foggy open a bottle, and as soon Foggy gets the top off, Matt can smell its contents. It's peat and citrus and sea air fermented and aged, and it is both the last thing and the only thing that Matt wants to smell tonight.
"Then we stay and drink here," Foggy announces, walking back into the living room, two glasses in hand.
"This, my friend, is the good shit," he says, tapping one of the glasses against the back of Matt's hand. Matt clutches at it instinctively. "It's older'n we are, and I swear to God it was bottled in the Motherland itself. I know you usually take the cheap stuff, but I figured-what the hell-you only graduate once, right?"
Foggy's heartbeat picks up as he watches Matt expectantly. Matt frowns and says the first thing that comes to his mind. "We haven't graduated yet, Fog."
Foggy snorts. "Close enough." He reaches out and touches his glass to Matt's. "Cheers, buddy!"
The clink of the two glasses sends a vibration fluttering through Matt's fingers. And at that, all of his colddistancetime armor melts away, and a familiar ghost calls his name.
It's for you. You think I want your hands shaking like last time?
Matt drinks. Ugh, it burns.
He grips the couch more tightly, bracing himself for the pain. For the past thirteen years he's spent this night alone doing everything in his power to forget. Get out of the City. Run until his body is so tired that all he can think about is how tired he is, and all he can hear is the protest of his own muscles beneath his skin. Put on headphones and listen to music so loudly that he can't hear anything at all. Can't even think.
It never works. Matt's armor always crumbles eventually, and when it does, the night always ends the same way: with Matt sobbing as he relives that night in every painful detail-the smells and the sounds and the tastes of it disfiguring his better-than-perfect senses like scars.
But tonight is different. Matt still feels the pain, but it's distilled: sadness instead of anguish; a whisper instead of a scream. And he doesn't understand why this night is different, but he also doesn't really care. His armor's gone and Foggy bought some really good scotch and somehow Matt's holding it together. That's enough for now.
"Ready for another?" Foggy grabs the glass from Matt's hand and walks back toward the kitchen, already confident in his friend's answer.
A smile tugs at Matt's lips. "Maybe just one more."
One more turns into three more (or was it four?) and at some point Foggy convinces Matt to take a "victory lap" around campus. They stumble past familiar buildings and monuments, Matt's senses allowing him to navigate fairly well until Foggy has him take another hit from his flask. And then Matt's reflexes don't keep up with his senses anymore, and so he has to rely on Foggy to guide him (which Matt finds amusing since Foggy is maybe the least coordinated person he knows).
They talk, they laugh, like two normal college kids, and for brief moments, Matt forgets that he's supposed to be sad. At one point, Foggy even has Matt recall the story of the first time he had alcohol. Somehow Matt doesn't flinch as he talks about the scotch and the stitches, even though the retelling conjures up a vivid image of his father-one of the last true images he can remember. And when Foggy tells him that his dad would be proud of him, Matt thinks-hopes-that maybe it's true.
When they finally stagger back to their apartment at 3:00 in the morning, Foggy flops down on the couch while Matt pours himself a drink-of water this time. At one point during the night he'd accidentally nearly said something to Foggy about his heightened senses, which is a sure sign that he's had too much to drink. He's pouring a glass for Foggy as well (mostly in an attempt to mitigate the raging hangover his friend is sure to have in the morning) when Foggy slams his hand down on the couch.
"Oosa… newisa… la-ee paraiti… si!" Foggy slurs, triumphantly.
Matt hands Foggy his water and then sinks down onto the couch next to him. "Come again?"
"That's 'she was so hot' in Punjabi. I told you I'd remember!"
Matt smirks. "Did you just Google that?"
Foggy scoffs. "Shit, man. What's the use of having a blind roommate if he knows everything you do?"
The water seems to be sobering Matt up a little, because he is more easily able to refrain from telling Foggy that he heard his fingers typing into his phone from across the room. Instead he just laughs quietly as Foggy picks up the remote and turns on the TV.
Foggy has a habit of doing this: using meaningless sound-such as music or early morning infomercials-to diffuse silence. Matt had to get used to this when he first met Foggy. The constant noise tended to muffle the softer sounds he used to navigate spaces, distance, and emotions. But he adapted, and now the sounds Foggy carries with him virtually everywhere he goes are comforting to Matt, nearly as familiar as his own heartbeat. When Matt is alone in their apartment, he often finds himself playing music or switching on the TV when the comparative silence around him seems too loud.
Tonight, as always, Matt is grateful for the noise. He and Foggy sit in comfortable quiet, both of them half asleep by the time the infomercial switches from jewelry to the Magic Bullet at 4:00.
Foggy yawns and stands. "Right, I'm going to bed," he says as he makes his way unsteadily behind the couch, his voice slurring more with exhaustion now than liquor. "You owe me, by the way," he continues, placing a hand on Matt's shoulder as he passes him. "For dragging your sorry ass out tonight."
Matt starts to laugh, but the sound dies in his throat, barely escaping his lips. Foggy's right: Matt does owe him for giving him even a few hours of peace tonight. And, whether because of the alcohol or the immense relief he feels at being able to breathe on a night that has suffocated him for years, Matt decides that Foggy deserves to know this too.
"Foggy," he calls, stopping him from walking out of the living room. He hears Foggy turn to face the back of the couch. "There's… there's something I need to tell you-about tonight, I mean."
Matt pauses, sucking all of his courage into one, deep, shuddering breath. "My dad-"
"I know, Matt."
Matt snaps his head up, but doesn't turn to face Foggy. Instead, he just listens to his friend's now-racing heart, and wonders how long it's been beating so quickly.
"How?" Matt chokes out, the growing pressure in his throat causing the word to bend and constrict into a whisper.
Foggy shifts, the wood floors beneath his feet creaking in response. His heart is beating even faster now. But when he speaks, his voice is proud-almost boastful, even-and carries a hint of disbelief, as though Matt should already know the answer to the question he's asked. "Hell's Kitchen, man. Every kid on my block can still tell you exactly where he was the night Battlin' Jack won his last fight."
Matt exhales slowly as Foggy's words swirl in his mind. He knew-this whole time, he knew. And yet somehow, Matt understands that in Foggy's mind, tonight wasn't about pity. Tonight was about celebrating, not-as Foggy had led Matt to believe-impending graduation. But celebrating someone whose life had meant something, not just to Matt, but to an entire generation of underdogs who wanted to believe in something more. Something more than the dirt and corruption and crime and loss into which they were born. Something more than the poverty and pain that they were told-from a young age-was to be their inheritance.
He closes his eyes-a leftover habit from when he could see-and lets the noise from the TV fill the silence in the room. And for the first time, he allows himself to remember beyond that night thirteen years ago. He allows himself to remember all the people who had come up to him at his father's funeral and told him how much they admired him. He allows himself to remember how the newspapers named that fight the Fight of the Century, and called his father a hero. He allows himself to remember how people who met his father still tell Matt how much he looks like him, and mean it, wholeheartedly, as a compliment.
And it's only now that Matt realizes what's so different about this night. He carried his father's ghost with him everywhere tonight, just as he's done for thirteen years. But for the first time, the burden didn't weigh him down. Instead, he'd learned that there are many ways to grieve. Over the years, he'd tried many of them: penance, mourning, vengeance. But he'd never thought to try honoring. He'd never thought to try accepting and letting go.
So tonight, with Foggy and the television as the only witnesses, Matt bows his head and says goodbye to his father's ghost. He shudders slightly as it leaves him; but the space inside him is quickly filled with memories that he hasn't been able to think about in years: his father teaching him how to throw a punch, the two of them wrestling in the grass together when Matt finally punched so hard it knocked him over, his father's smile when Matt made his first Honor Roll (and his second, and his third), Matt waking up in the hospital, blind and terrified with the immutable loudness of the world, his father's voice the one sure thing Matt could latch onto to find comfort in the dark.
Foggy shifts again, drawing Matt back into the present. "Um… are you… okay?" He asks, his voice punctuated with concern.
Matt opens his eyes and smiles. "Yeah, man. I'm good," he says, turning on the couch to face his friend. Foggy studies Matt for a moment, and Matt can almost see Foggy squinting at him, trying to read his expression through Matt's tinted glasses. Before Foggy can reach any conclusions, Matt adds, "And thank you-for tonight."
Foggy snorts. "'Course, man. There's no one else I'd rather share a bottle of scotch-or a hangover-with."
Matt smirks. "Me neither."