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 doesn't bother looking up when Foggy enters the gym. Instead, he ignores the momentary interruption and refocuses on the steady rhythm of his fists connecting with the heavy bag. He'd been expecting Foggy to come. The last time Matt was at Foggy's apartment, he'd heard a police scanner in his bedroom. Neither of them had acknowledged it at the time, but Matt knew that Foggy wouldn't have kept it on if he didn't want Matt to know he had it. He was telling Matt he had his back, like always. At the time, Matt thought it was harmless at worst, and maybe even kind of touching.

Now he's not so sure. He desperately wants to be alone. But after all that has happened-after all Foggy has grown to accept, if not fully understand-Matt can't bring himself to tell his friend to leave. A part of him is still worried that if he pushes Foggy away again, even if it's for his own good, he might never come back.

So tonight Matt settles for not speaking. If Foggy wants to be here, that's fine, but Matt isn't ready for anyone to try and convince him that everything is okay.

He vaguely registers the rustling of canvas against polyester as Foggy removes his messenger bag and sets it on the floor. He remains silent, and Matt can't tell from the beating of his heart if it's because he doesn't know what to say, or because he knows enough not to say anything at all. Matt guesses it's the latter. He's learned a lot about his friend in the past few months; or rather, he has grown to appreciate more the qualities he's taken for granted since the beginning of their friendship: humor and passionate adherence to the law, yes; but also loyalty, patience, and an almost unnatural ability to read people. Matt has to rely on heartbeats and breaths and best guesses to understand what other people are thinking, what other people need. But somehow, Foggy just seems to know.

Case and point: the fact that it took less than twenty minutes from when the police showed up and Matt left the scene for Foggy to find Matt here.

Usually, on nights when he's been out, Matt ends up at the Church. If Father Lantom is awake, he'll listen to his story and give him absolution. He's creative with his penance, which is one of the reasons Matt likes him. Once he told Matt he had to defend the (innocent) relative of a man Matt had put behind bars pro bono. Another time, he'd had Matt volunteer in a homeless shelter after several poor families-who had been living in a building illegally-lost their homes as a result of a criminal businessman being sent to jail (thanks to Matt) and all of his assets being seized. Sometimes, though, if he's tired, Father Lantom just tells Matt to say the rosary and sends him on his way.

Foggy has known all this since the night he burst through the church doors at 4:00 one morning, frantically searching for Matt after he'd been unable to reach him on his phone. (Where exactly do you think I'd keep a phone in this suit? Matt had asked, trying to lighten the mood. Foggy-half awake and trembling with fear and worry and exhaustion-had been decidedly unimpressed.)

Yet tonight, despite the knowledge that had been seared into his brain in that moment of panic, Foggy had known that Matt would be here. Even as a non-Catholic, Foggy had guessed that sometimes there aren't enough Aves or Our Fathers to absolve every sin.

Matt shuffles his feet as his knuckles connect with the bag in front of him, trying to find a spot that isn't already slippery with sweat (and in places, blood). He almost wishes he'd bothered to wrap his hands, but then his fists connect evenly with a dry patch of leather sending pain shooting through his hand and arm, and he remembers why he didn't. The chain holding the bag to the ceiling laughs at him in short, chinking giggles. He grits his teeth and hits the bag again. Harder.

Foggy stands by the ring behind Matt, watching him silently, his rapid heartbeat the only indication of his concern. Matt tries to tune it out, but the more he tries, the louder and more insistent it becomes. Finally, he hears Foggy unbutton the cuffs of his shirt and roll his sleeves up to his elbows. Still without speaking, Foggy moves forward and circles around Matt until the heavy bag stands between them. When Matt hits the bag again, it doesn't swing; the laughing chain is muffled. Matt throws another cross, harder this time, and still the bag doesn't move. He hears Foggy adjust his footing on the other side of the bag, preparing for the next blow. Matt strikes at it again.

And again.

It's harder this way, and Foggy must know that. But the blood pounding through Matt's heart and seeping out through cracked knuckles and ringing loudly in his ears blocks out almost everything else, and he doesn't have to think anymore. He strikes again and again and again, throwing his full weight into every blow.

"It's not your fault," Foggy offers eventually, tentatively.

Matt uses his shoulder to shove the bag into Foggy's chest in warning. Aside from the clacking of Foggy's teeth when the bag hits him, he goes silent. But his words have already done their damage. Matt's concentration is broken, and no matter how hard he strikes at the bag, or how hard he listens to each individual grain of sand shifting beneath the force of his blows, it's not enough to silence the sound of her screams.

And then, the smell of decades' worth of sparring can no longer block out the way the man smelled when Matt found him crouched over the girl, admiring his work. In the salt of his own sweat on his lips he tastes the girl's tears, stained into her eyelashes and cheeks and mouth before she was able to wipe them away. In the sound of his own bones grinding in his hands, he hears the sound of the girl's ribs cracking as he desperately tried to bring her back to life.

As the memories from the night command his senses, Matt's punches slow. With the strength he has left, he slams his fists against the bag and screams in a hoarse, hollow roar.

Foggy holds the bag steady as Matt leans his forehead against the leather. "It's not your fault," he repeats, louder this time.

Matt winces. When he speaks, his voice is gravel grating against his throat. "I should have saved her."

He hears Foggy shake his head. "You couldn't have saved her, Matt. No one could have."

"You don't know that," Matt growls through gritted teeth. "If I'd gotten there sooner, or if I'd gone down the alley from the other side…"

In his heart, Matt knows it wouldn't have made a difference. The man had already made up his mind about how the night was going to end. This was the fourth girl to be taken in nearly as many months. Each of them had disappeared the same way: heading home, alone, in the early morning hours. No one heard from them again until their bodies turned up in dumpsters or in shipping crates on the docks.

But when Matt heard the scream tonight, he knew that he could end it. The asshole had messed up royally-attacking someone within Matt's hearing. He was six blocks away and Matt could be there in less than three minutes. In the tried and true tradition of every masked vigilante ever to grace the pages of comic books, he'd show up, save the girl, and give the City one less lowlife to worry about.

Except that such endings require heroes, and no hero bothered to show up tonight.

Matt has held death in his hands more times than he cares to count, but he's only witnessed the act of dying once, with Nobu. Then, the man had died slowly-agonizingly so-and systematically: his breathing had stopped, then his limbs ceased their flailing, then his heart stuttered one last time, and then-somewhere beyond the reach of even Matt's senses-his brain had gone silent. The whole thing took four, maybe five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity.

But tonight it happened so fast. When he was five blocks away he heard the girl's screams garble as the man grabbed her throat. At three blocks, he heard vertebrae grinding together, snapping in a quick succession of dry, hollow pops. At two blocks, he heard the girl's body slumping to the ground. And by the time he rounded the corner to the alley, there was only one heart beating in the darkness besides his own.

Seconds. It took seconds for her life to end. Her last breath held within it the memory of countless birthday parties and first dates and graduations and broken hearts and mended hearts and friendships and sorrow and love; her last heartbeat as immense and as insignificant as her first. In the single moment it took Matt to cross 44nd street, a great, gaping hole was bored into the fabric of hundreds of wounded worlds.

Foggy's right-Matt couldn't have made it there in time. Not tonight. By the time the man took her, it was already too late. But I should have been listening harder, Matt tells himself, sliding to his knees and then sitting down with his back against the bag. I should have heard his heart beating in anticipation; I should have noticed the woman walking alone and tracked her more carefully; I should have found him before tonight, before he had a chance to do this again...

"I should have saved her," he says again, dropping his chin to his chest.

Foggy sinks slowly down as well, leaning against the other side of the bag so that it remains motionless between them. "They caught him, right?"

Matt grunts in the affirmative. His fists twitch as they remember the crunching impact they made with the man's skull. He would survive. But only barely.

Foggy nods, but is silent. The traffic outside whirs past. Matt tries to concentrate on it, but it's not nearly loud or insistent enough to do any good. He still feels the smoothness of the girl's leather jacket against the palms of his hands; the scent of her lavender shampoo still curls around his wrists; and behind his own sightless eyelids, he sees the last thing the girl must have seen: darkness, unending.

Foggy clears his throat, and Matt lifts up his head, reflexively. "You couldn't save her," he repeats, his voice strong and clear despite his elevated heartbeat. "But you saved the next girl."

Matt closes his eyes and lets his friend's words hang in the heavy air. Foggy sighs.

"If you're going to do this, that has to be enough, Matt. That has to be enough for…"

Foggy trails off without finishing his sentence. He doesn't need to. Matt finishes it for him in his mind in dozens of ways. For me to be okay with this. For you to protect the people you care about. For you to survive.

Matt leans his head back against the bag. The weight of the girl's body still fills the air within his arms. But if he's being honest-if he lets truth rise above the guilt-he knows that the weight he carries could be much, much heavier. That knowledge will never be enough for him to stop fighting; as long as he can, he will always try to protect the people and the City that need it most. But tonight, it's enough to help him commit this girl to the mausoleum of people he was supposed to protect but didn't-couldn't-and pray that the company she finds there will forgive him, even as he adds to their number.

"I know," Matt sighs, closing his eyes. "It is. It is enough."

He hears Foggy reach for his messenger bag. He rummages through it for a moment, and then pulls out a glass bottle. He reaches around their shared backrest and taps it on Matt's arm. "For the pain."

Matt unscrews the cap slowly, his knuckles aching with every twist. He drinks without bothering to smell it first, taking three long pulls before he even registers the taste of the liquor. It won't solve anything. He will still have been too late when the hangover wears off in the morning. He'll still have to spend the next weeks-months-hearing the details of her death repeated again and again by the media. But the liquid fire burning in his throat and empty stomach, and the weight of his friend propping him up may just get him through tonight. And right now, that's the most he can ask for.

"You don't have to stay, you know," he offers as he passes the bottle back to Foggy. It's more a courtesy than anything else. He knows Foggy is still not 100% on board with what Matt does-hell, he still can't even call Matt's alter-ego by the name the media gave him. And Matt knows his friend doesn't need or deserve to share his guilt or pain. All the same, he doesn't want to be alone with his ghosts anymore.

Foggy drinks from the bottle the same way Matt had, too quickly to even taste the scotch. "I know," he says, exhaling slowly.

For a moment, Matt is afraid he'll leave. He opens his mouth, ready to take back the words and beg his friend to stay. But then he hears Foggy take another drink and settle in against the bag in way that Matt can tell means he's going nowhere.

It's enough, Matt repeats as he takes the bottle back from Foggy and raises it to his lips. For tonight, it's enough.