Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: You know you've got problems when Frank Castle is lecturing you on the importance of friendship.

Or: how Matt's broken leg becomes the least of his concerns.

Warnings: Spoilers for season 2.

Author's Notes: I'm in the throes of report cards here, but I desperately wanted to get this chapter posted before I get lost in the end-of-year festivities at the school for the next week. Unfortunately, this chapter refused to come together neatly or swiftly. It was one of those installments I poured through with a fine-tooth comb, which seems to be a grand tradition of this fic. But this one…this one was different, because I've wanted to write Foggy again forever only to realize, again, that post-s2 Foggy is a different character. It was uncanny putting him and Matt in the same room.

The song for this chapter was a no-brainer. I had it picked out since the album was released, my brain demarcating it immediately as Foggy and Matt's theme.

Readers, sweet Readers, you are the best. Thank you so much for your kind support! I hope that this chapter works for you.

"And if you say something that you might even mean,
It's hard to even fathom which parts I should believe.
'Cuz you're giving me a million reasons, about a million reasons…
When I bow down to pray and try to make the worst seem better,
Lord, show me the way to cut through all this worn out leather.
I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away,
But…Baby, I just need one good one to stay."

~Lady Gaga, "A Million Reasons"

Chapter Thirty-Three

Matt shifts down the pew a little, dragging his crutches with him, to make room. Foggy takes a seat as close to the arm rest as possible, lest someone think he's there to see Matt. He's wearing another new outfit, the tags taken off this time. New cologne too, something exponentially more expensive than the aerosol stuff he would bathe in at Columbia.

He is still carrying his old satchel. Graduation gift from Mama Nelson. Foggy wouldn't part with that for the world.

"Thanks for coming," Matt says by way of a greeting.

"I wasn't gonna," Foggy replies.

"What changed your mind?"

Foggy hasn't finished saying her name when Matt joins him: "Karen."

"She said you were sick." And Foggy's heart cares even if his tone doesn't.

Matt dismisses his concern: "I'm fine."

A sigh. A heavy one. "Here we go again."

"Foggy –" They have more important things to deal with.

"We're not friends anymore, Matt!" Foggy says in a harsh whisper. "You have no reason to lie to me. Although why you'd lie to your friends makes no sense. So knock it off!"

He stops, taking a minute to calm himself. Matt can hear the rising pulse of the old woman to their left; she must be shooting Foggy one hell of a stare.

Foggy gets back on track. "You told Karen the truth." He adds the next part wistfully, "You told Karen everything."

Matt hears it again: that angry rush of adrenaline, that righteous march of Foggy's heartbeat. "Is that what this is about?"
"What what's about?"

"Why are you so pissed off?"

Foggy unleashes a sharp sound in response to his language. "We are in a church, Matt!"

The old woman shushes them harshly.

"Sorry," Foggy replies quickly.

"Sorry," Matt adds afterwards.

The old woman's heart settles back down.

Matt tries again, without the profanity: "Why are you so angry?"

Foggy is still shifting uncomfortably in his seat from being chastised. "I'm wasting a perfectly good evening. What did you want to say to me?"

"I want to know why you're angry."

"Your text said you had something to tell me."

To be fair, his text message also said, "Please," and, "This is important," but Foggy didn't respond to those. Matt finally gave up and simply gave Foggy the time he would be at the church. Thank goodness Foggy told Karen so she could enforce the meeting. Matt anticipated waiting for nothing.

Foggy continues, "I know why I'm angry. Tell me what I'm doing here."

"So you are angry," Matt says, vindicated.

Foggy groans – loudly this time. He reaches for his bag. "I'm leaving."

"It's Fisk." Matt waits until Foggy is settled back on the pew before continuing. "He's mobilizing in Hell's Kitchen."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. Way to tell me something I already know."

The next part comes too quickly for what Matt assumed would be the hard part. "He's planning on coming after us."

There's a long pause where Foggy is thoroughly unreadable. His pulse rises and then dips back to normal. He draws several breaths without speaking, and then, on an inhale, says, "Okay."

Matt waits for more and nothing comes. "Okay?"

"Is that all?"

"Is that…? Foggy, are you even listening?"

Barely. Boredom turns his usually expressive voice into a detached monotone. Matt listens carefully to Foggy's head shifting back and forth under the collar of his shirt as he looks around for the exit. The conversation is over, and he fell for it. Again. "You think a guy we put in prison is planning on coming after us."
"Not think," and now, Matt falters, having finally hit the hard part. He forces the next words out of his mouth, "I know."

Foggy's respiration climbs to a frustrated pace. Anger sharpens his consonants. "Your new friend tell you that?"

Matt lets the explanation pour of him before he changes his mind: "I went to go visit him. Fisk. After Castle escaped. And he told me –" The activity on the end of the pew stops him. Foggy's heartbeat springs into action, hammering a series of fuck you-s in his direction. Matt begs, "Foggy."

Foggy's whole body tenses up to hold in an outpouring of obscenity. "I don't know why I'm even surprised!" he hisses in near-silence. "And I don't even get to yell at you for this, because you just had to ask me to meet you in a church!"

"I wanted to tell you. I was…I was going to tell you."

"Stop lying to me, Matt! If you were going to tell me, you would have told me already, or better yet, before! When I could have told you that visiting Fisk was a terrible idea! And you could ignore me like you always do!"

Matt can't believe this: "It's terrible for me to know what he's planning?"

"You know." Foggy folds his arms across his chest, amplifying the sound of his enraged breathing. "I didn't. And still wouldn't, probably! Why didn't you say something when we met at your apartment?"

There are so many reasons, and Foggy won't want to hear any of them. Certainly not, "I hadn't almost died then," or, "Frank didn't tell me to tell you at the time." So Matt sticks to the truth. The universal truth. A truth set in stone the moment he and Foggy became friends. "I was trying to protect you."

"You can't protect people when you're keeping secrets. And if you can, I wouldn't know, because it has literally never happened. You just end up hurting people."

"I'm sorry for that, Foggy." Among other things. So many other things.

His apology registers: Foggy's heart doesn't change gears that quickly for anything except an apology – a genuine apology – from Matt. But then his pulse starts right back up again, the same way it did after Fisk and Nobu, or when Matt owned up to the shit storm Elektra as causing during Frank's trial. Foggy's first instinct might be forgiveness, but he's prepared himself for Matt. "…and I'm the idiot who keeps putting it all on the line without knowing what I'm getting myself into. I trusted you, Matt. I trusted you when you asked me to start up our firm and when I found you bleeding to death in your apartment –"

Matt begs and doesn't care who hears it: "Foggy –"

"- and when you told us to take on the unwinnable case because Frank Castle deserved a defense."

"He did deserve a defense."

But that's not the point for Foggy: "Meanwhile, you're sneaking off to visit Wilson Fisk behind my back, behind Karen's back! While our careers are in the toilet, while we're losing cases, while we're worried about you!"

How many times does he have to say it? Apparently, once more. With feeling. "I never asked for that."

Foggy's voice floods the church all the way to heaven: "Because you didn't have to! That's just what friends do!"

Nobody tells Foggy to shush after that, but he's aware of the irritation buzzing from both sides of the church. Of the distant sound of Lantom's office door opening and the priest emerging for a seemingly benign patrol around the church. Matt sits up straighter in his seat as Lantom enters the nave. He tries to look confident and isn't sure if he's successful. Lantom is impossible to read.

The priest's presence is enough to unnerve Foggy. He adjusts the strap of his satchel angrily on his chest in preparation to move if Lantom approaches but continues, his voice returning to a whisper. "You want to protect me, but you never tell me what you're protecting me from. You never give me a chance to help you or fight back with you."

"Because I know what the answer is gonna be." Matt follows Lantom's footsteps moving towards the alter where they finally stop at the podium, lingering. Looming. "You want me to give up. To stop fighting."

"Stop fighting…this way." A pregnant pause follows. Foggy eventually explains, "I'm pointing at your broken leg."

Matt sighs, silently begging Foggy to see past that. The leg hurts. And it hurts more knowing how much he can't do, how much he has to do to save the city. "The law didn't stop Fisk. He's running Super Max. The inmates, the guards…Castle didn't escape from there. Fisk had him released." The swell of Foggy's respiration threatens to knock Matt off-track. He focuses on the words coming out of his mouth, on the argument, the same way he would in front of a hostile jury. "When he's ready, Fisk will let himself out. And the law won't be able to put him away again."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do."

"You can't –" but Foggy stops himself, biting down on his lower lip to hold back another yell. The futility of the argument dawns on him and he returns to a stronger point: "You should have told me this, Matt."

"I can't…" Matt fumbles for his explanation. "I can't put you at risk."

"But that's what you do! Every time you don't tell me what I'm up against!"

He tries, one last time: "I'm telling you now, Foggy."

Foggy sighs relentingly. Yes, he supposes that's true. Hell if he wants to admit that though.

They're silent long enough for Lantom to leave his post and retreat to the room behind the alter. The church quiet circles around them, a penance for Foggy's earlier outburst. He finally breaks his silence with, "I need to get on the phone with…everybody in law enforcement. Get Super Max back under control."

"You do that, Fisk'll be out of Super Max tonight, and Frank will turn the city into a warzone looking for him." Foggy inhales sharply; Matt cuts him off before the tirade can begin. They both know that's what is going to happen. "I don't like it anymore than you do, Foggy –"

"I can't do nothing."

Matt swallows hard, the same feeling having solidified in his throat. "The safest place for Fisk to be – to protect the city, to protect you – is on that island." One less threat to deal with, at least until he, Matt, can hold his own in a fight.

Foggy draws and releases several breaths, seething. Angry, uselessly so and unable to deal with it. Matt empathizes.

"What does Fisk have planned?" Foggy asks eventually.

"It's big," Matt says. "He said he's going to destroy us. It'll be strategic."

"Always is with Fisk."

"Yeah. Watch your back, your family, your bank accounts, your job –" things, Matt realizes, he either doesn't have or abandoned since Elektra's supposed death, "- everything."

"You tell Karen?" Foggy's heart patters in suspense. Of what exactly, Matt doesn't know.

Matt puts him at ease, "He isn't threatening Karen."

"Just us."

"Yeah."

Foggy maintains a shaking grip on his satchel, but he doesn't move from the pew. "That's something. That just leaves…everybody else we care about."

The use of the pronoun catches Matt off-guard. He figured Foggy would take the opportunity to point out how he doesn't care some more. Evidently, the threat of death puts things into harsh perspective. They both have at least one person they care about who won't be happy that Fisk is pursuing them, even if she isn't a direct target.

Matt doesn't mention it. Instead, he says, "You need to be careful."

"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what about you?"

Concern bristles him. "I'll be fine."

"Oh, right," Foggy grumbles, "your new friend."

"That's not what I mean."

"What do you mean?"

Matt leaves no room for argument. "I mean I'm going to get back on my feet. I'll take care of it. I'll –" He chokes before he can say more. Or maybe there's nothing to say. This morning he was asking Frank for help because he can't. He can't take care of it. But with Foggy he plays the party line. "I'll be fine."

Foggy takes the bait but comes full circle, back to the point Matt doesn't want made, "Who's to say Fisk isn't going to make a move before then? You heard Karen. His people are going missing." He shudders and offers the next bit as a prayer for the poor bastards: "Getting hacked to pieces."

"Still?" That surprises him. Nothing's come up over the police scanner in Frank's apartment. And Elektra wouldn't continue her crusade against Fisk when she could focus her energies on Frank.

"No," Foggy says, putting Matt's mind at ease before adding, bitterly, "Not since you told your new friend about it."

Matt comes clean about that much, at least. "I didn't tell him."

Exasperation hangs thickly from Foggy's end of the pew. "Whoever it was stopped after that Sunday."

"Yeah, because they found what they were looking for."

Foggy claps a hand on his satchel for emphasis. "You know who they are. Of course you know who they are. You probably knew the whole time and never told us -"

"I didn't know until that night." There's a long, loaded silence that follows where Foggy's respiration bears down on Matt, pushing and pulling at the explanation building between his teeth. Matt lets loose. "It was Elektra, Foggy. She's the one who's behind the mutilations and the missing persons. She was going after Fisk because she thought Fisk had me." He doesn't give Foggy a chance to interrupt. "I know it sounds crazy, and I can't explain it, but she's alive. I was with her."

Just when Matt thinks Foggy can't get any more worked up, his former friend's voice tightens into a sharp whisper, "She's alive?"

"Yes."

The whisper grows ever sharper, "And you went with her?"

"My leg, it…it got infected. Frank tried to get me to the hospital, but Elektra got to us first." Matt leaves it at that, expecting another round of questions to crop up. But Foggy's working at shoving his rage down, down, where it belongs, because what the hell good is it anyways? It's not like he's ever going to know the truth. And Matt holds onto the sound of barely concealed fury, of betrayal. That sound is more than he deserves.

"Why?" Foggy asks at long last. "Why do you keep doing this?" He shakes his head disapprovingly, the scratch of his collar against his neck punctuating every sorry thought he has. "I walked away, Karen walked away…and you…" He struggles to find the words. "You know we wouldn't've known you were gone? If you'd died or just disappeared?

Matt's mouth is too dry to speak, partly from sadness. Mostly from anger. They aren't supposed to care. "Yeah."

Foggy makes a sound – sharp, cutting, a non-verbal equivalent of yeah, right. He turns in his seat and gestures for emphasis. "I really tried to stand by you, Matt. The number of times I covered for you and stitched you back up. I believed in you."

He wants to hear Foggy say it. He wants to hurt. "What made you stop?"

The sounds of Foggy shuffling in his seat tell Matt that he's hurting too. "The fact that you won't. Not for anything. Not even your own life." Foggy pauses, letting his rage fill him again. Seems to be ebbing and flowing with sadness. "I thought you'd come back. That you'd get rid of the suit. But you got shot in the head and kept going. Your friends leave, and you kept going. You broke your leg and it gets infected, your ex-girlfriend comes back from the dead, you're living -" his voice gets extra quiet, "-with Frank Castle –"

"Because this is who I am," Matt states. "With or without the mask. With or without my leg. It's who I am, Foggy." God, why is that so hard to understand? He draws a shuddering breath and centers himself within the hallowed cradle of the church. He un-balls the fist he's drawn, counting. Thinking. Reasoning. He hasn't been asked to apologize lately. He hasn't been asked to explain himself. Frank takes him as a given.

The thought causes Foggy's angry heart to no longer hold much sway. Matt is caught up in a swell of certainty he doesn't dare put into words. "You want to believe in something? Believe that. I will never stop fighting for this city. For you."

"I didn't ask for that," Foggy snaps under his breath.

"You didn't have to." Two can play at this game. "That's what I do."

Foggy's angry heartbeat resists the steady stream to heaven and stays fixed on Matt, hot and furious. An assault from all sides that Matt accepts for as long as Foggy chooses to stand there. Which is a while. He's building up to something, trying to put the words together or determine whether they're worth uttering in the first place.

Uncomfortable as it is, Matt doesn't interrupt. He wants the Schrodinger's silence to last. He wants them to stay in the church forever, frozen in uncertainty and anger but safe. God, Matt can deal with being hated so long as Foggy is safe.

He isn't sure if Foggy feels the same. He can't tell what Foggy's feeling, actually, and is even more confused when his former friend starts speaking again.

"You told Karen everything."

The words leave Matt cold. Chilled to the bone. He can't move or think or speak. They're back to the beginning with nothing. He clings to the tenuous moment after Foggy's spoken, as things suddenly begin to make sense.

Foggy continues: "You might not want her permission, but you wanted her to understand."

"Do you want me to tell you everything?" Matt asks. He isn't sure he can deliver, knowing what Foggy tends to do after confession.

Just as well. Foggy's answer is simply, "I couldn't believe you if you tried."

Matt tries one more time: "Could you ever understand?"

The moment between his question and Foggy's answer is filled with the sweet, sweet sound of a slow heartbeat, the warm glow of proximity, of familiarity. Their fight lies elsewhere, in some other universe with some other people. This time, this place, they're still friends, still partners. Matt recognizes the feeling too late as hope.

The soles of Foggy's shoes creak against the tile floor, itching to be on their way. But he stays to say, "I don't want to understand. I want you to sort your life out, Matt. Stop rooming…" he lowers his voice, inching closer so he can whisper more softly. "Stop rooming with serial killers and zombies. Get better. Get back to your life. You can still…be a lawyer. Stop Fisk legally. Stop Frank Castle legally."

God help him, Matt doesn't even try to imagine what that would look like: Nelson and Murdock back together, a combined front against the storm. But he does struggle under the weight of the choice about where he belongs. It feels new, more real, here in the church with Foggy than it has in the past weeks. He hasn't worn the mask, but he hasn't had to: Elektra and Frank know that the devil's always there.

And they accept that.

Foggy sighs dismissively as if sensing he's lost Matt. "Or don't," he growls, overcompensating. "Hop back down the rabbit hole with your wacko devil costume and your merry band of psychos. But leave me the hell out of it."

Matt draws his arm across his stomach, a clutch for balance against the sudden loss of uncertainty. They could have gone on in silence and allowed the contradictions to exist simultaneously. But they're sitting side-by-side, breathing the same air, hearts beating nearly in tandem, and Matt's never felt more alone.

He listens as Foggy's heartbeat streams skyward into the great abyss above them.

Happy reading!