Archive of Our Own

There are times, after Matt tells him about Daredevil, when Foggy forgets that Matt is real-world blind in addition to being super-senses blind. Because sure, Matt can fight ninjas and take down drug cartels with nothing but a couple of sticks, but he also needs Foggy to read him the crossword clues in the Times on a Friday morning.

Foggy is still struggling with the whole Daredevil thing. It's one thing to understand that your boyfriend needs your help finding the mute button on his new cell phone, and quite another to be helping Matt take his stitches out when Claire is away visiting her cousin upstate.

As a prank in college, before they got together, Foggy bought several novelty ties and put them in Matt's wardrobe alongside his regular ties. He's pretty sure now that Matt knew precisely which was which by the feel of the fibres or something crazy weird like that. He'd had to wait a good few months for the payoff, but when Matt showed up to their formal dinner wearing a tie covered in dinosaurs, Foggy had very nearly died of laughter.

Yeah, it's a bit of an adjustment, but he's working on it. He's also got pretty good at first aid. Give Foggy Nelson any scrap of fabric and he can whip up a sling or a bandage in no time at all.

It's a Tuesday, and they're sitting at Karen's desk playing chequers. Matt's pieces have little dots of bluetac on them, but he's spent less time playing and more time making the bluetac into tiny pellets and throwing it at Foggy.

"You have a child's mind." Foggy tells him when another pellet of bluetac hits him in the forehead. "And unerring aim - shit."

Matt grins as Foggy digs the bluetac out of his ear. He turns his attention back to the board, hand hovering over the pieces.

"Ha, now you're screwed, you don't know which pieces are yours." Foggy grins. Matt picks one at random and Foggy glares at him as he takes three of Foggy's pieces at once.

"Would you believe me if I told you that was my piece?" Foggy asks hopefully. Matt gives him a look, or rather, the place over his left shoulder receives a look.

"Karen," Matt says as she walks into the room. "Want to watch Foggy lose at chequers?"

"No but I'd be up for watching you boys do some actual work." She says with a smile in her voice as she dumps a stack of freshly photocopied papers on the desk beside them.

"She's right, I can't believe I let you sucker me into this, Murdock."

"This is your board." Matt grins.

Foggy waves a hand dismissively. "I just waved my hand dismissively." He says when he catches Karen looking at him, even though by now he knows he doesn't have to.

"Matt, I'm surprised you can play." Karen says, and then makes a face when she realises what she's just said.

Matt laughs as he pushes the chair back.

"Chequers I can do." He says. "Scrabble, on the other hand..."

"Is a team effort." Foggy supplies. "In our first year of college I made him spell out the word 'anal' in front of a girl he had a crush on."

"Freud would have a field day with you two." Karen tells them flatly.

When she walks away to make coffee, Foggy throws a chequer piece at Matt's head and Matt catches it out of the air with a raised eyebrow.

A few days later when Matt eases himself through his apartment window at two in the morning, he finds Foggy spread out on his sofa watching reruns of bad sitcoms and eating Lucky Charms out of the box. He jumps up when Matt throws the rest of his body through the window with a grunt and lands on the floor in a weird half crouch, clutching his leg.

"Do I need to call Claire?" is the first thing Foggy says as he puts an arm around Matt's waist and helps him to stand. Foggy's had Claire's number for a few months now. Sometimes he texts her non-Daredevil related things like dirty jokes and cat memes. She doesn't text back very often, but they do have a three day Snapchat streak going. Mostly Foggy sends her unflattering photos of his double chin, or pictures of Matt's ass for their mutual appreciation. She sends him pictures of cool looking dogs. He likes her.

Matt shakes his head at his offer, fingers curling around Foggy's shoulder as he puts his weight on him.

Foggy leads him over to the sofa and they flop down with a collective sigh.

"Long night?" Foggy says after a moment. Matt rolls his head towards him. They look at one another, or Foggy does. Matt starts to laugh, burying his face in Foggy's neck. As their laughter subsides, Foggy turns his face towards Matt and they end up kissing, slow at first, settling into one another.

Matt pulls Foggy towards him by his tie, making soft, eager noises.

"Jesus, fighting crime really makes you horny." Foggy mutters, almost to himself, and feels Matt grinning in between kisses. The mask is making it slightly uncomfortable, but Foggy is just realising that he has a major kink for Matt in costume so he tries his best to avoid the horns. They're almost horizontal now, but when Foggy moves Matt's leg to position Matt under him, Matt yelps and head-butts him in the face as he sits up.

"Shit, shit, I'm sorry, are you OK?"

Matt nods sharply, one hand clutching his leg. Then he shakes his head, easing himself out from under Foggy and pulling the mask off.

"Are you OK?" Matt asks, because, of course he does. Foggy's just hurt him and Matt wants to know if he's OK.

"I'm going to call Claire." Foggy sighs, grabbing his mobile. "Lois Lane doesn't have this problem."

"One of these days I'm going to run out of ways to call you stupid." Claire is saying as she wraps the support tighter around Matt's thigh.

"I'll chip in." Foggy says, his mouth a thin line as he paces the room.

"It was wet, I fell. Can you both stop acting like I tried to pick a fight?"

"Matt, you have a fractured femur, forgive us for being concerned." Claire replies.

Foggy shakes his head. "Wow. The power of boners truly is amazing."

"I'm starting to see why you don't cook." Foggy says, his head buried in the back of Matt's fridge where he had found half a can of pineapple chunks and a carton of expired milk. "There're practically cobwebs in here."

Matt smiles, easing himself off the sofa and hobbling over to Foggy with the aid of a crutch Claire had stolen from the hospital.

"The most nutritious thing in here is the six-pack of beer we got in last week."

Matt leans the crutch against the counter and pulls Foggy out of the fridge. "If you're so determined to mother me, you could make me an omelette. There are eggs in the cupboard." He says, trying to rest his forehead against Foggy's, missing, and bumping their noses instead.

"Jesus you're a mess. Claire must have you on some pretty strong painkillers. You don't even like eggs." Foggy murmurs.

"You wouldn't take advantage of me, would you?" Matt says, untucking Foggy's shirt from his trousers and sneaking a hand against his skin.

"Your libido will be the death of me..." Foggy grunts, tugging Matt towards the sofa. "Sit. Stay."

Matt turns his head towards him with a fond smile.

"I'm a genius." Foggy says, arms outstretched.

"I wouldn't go that far." Karen tells him, examining the broken coffee machine. Foggy's brow furrows.

"But I turned it off and on again!" He protests.

Karen just rolls her eyes and begins fiddling with the buttons. The door bangs in the hall and Matt calls out hello to them.

"Morning, Bud. Karen broke the coffee machine."

"I did not!"

"Better take a look at that microwave too, I think someone accidentally left curry in there last week." Foggy says sweetly.

"That was you."

"Objection!"

Karen begins to laugh, but stops abruptly when Matt walks into the room.

"What's this about the microwave?" Matt asks, shrugging off his jacket and placing it over the back of a chair.

"Wow, Matty." Foggy says. "That is a bold choice."

Matt frowns at him. "What?"

"Foggy, shush. It's very flattering, Matt." Karen says hurriedly.

"What's flattering? What's going on, guys?"

"No, she's right." Foggy says, patting Matt on the shoulder. "Suits you."

"Foggy..." Matt says, grabbing Foggy's arm as he tries to walk away. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your shirt?" Foggy says slowly.

Matt's face drops. "What?"  

"It's pink, Matt." Karen says, a little worried. "Did... did you not know it's pink?"

Matt groans loudly and rubs a hand over his mouth. They gape at him.

"Oh shit," Foggy manages through his laughter. "Did you chuck a red sock in with a white wash?"

Matt's eyes widen a little behind the lenses of his glasses and Foggy quickly shuts up. "Something like that." He says.

"The last time he did this was in college. Turned all his t-shirts turquoise." Foggy grins, covering the silence quickly.

"Yeah, thanks again for telling me about that one."

"I thought you were trying out a new look."

Matt glares in his direction. Foggy smoothes Matt's collar down fondly.

"This is why I don't wear bright colours." He mutters.

"I had a boyfriend once that was colour blind." Karen muses. "Used to get me to check his outfit before he left the house. He'd go out with a green t-shirt, red shorts and yellow socks. Nightmare."

They stare at her dumbly. "There are worse things, of course." She says quickly.

"I'm going home to change." Matt says tiredly.

"Don't," Foggy says, too quickly. "I mean, you're already late, dude. We're due in court in like..." he fakes checking his watch. "Soon."  

"Smooth." Karen says under her breath.

"You never told me the suit was machine washable." Foggy murmurs to Matt as they walk out of the office, Matt holding his elbow as usual.

"Just the gloves. I mean, I hope it was the gloves."

"Can you imagine if it was the mask? Good thing it can't shrink in the wash; that thing would be squeezing your brain more than normal." Foggy says, voice still low. Matt still looks annoyed.

"Dude, chill out, it's just a shirt." Foggy tells him.

"Not so much. I now have seven pairs of pink socks, a pink t-shirt and three pairs of pink boxers."

"Pink boxers?" Foggy asks, because of course that is the part he focuses on.

"Foggy, I can actually smell you getting turned on by that." Matt says in a kind of 'FYI' tone.

"Ew." Foggy says under his breath. 

"Seven-thirty. Seven-thirty. Seven-thirty. Seven-thir-" Matt hits the talking clock with the heel of his hand and pushes back under Foggy's arm with a grunt of disapproval.

"Why did you get me that monstrosity again?" Matt asks, with his face shoved into the space between Foggy's neck and shoulder.

"You kept missing meetings at L and Z." Foggy says, half asleep. He slides an arm around Matt's bare waist and Matt winces. "Sorry." Foggy mumbles. He withdraws his arm and rests a hand on Matt's chest. Matt makes an unhappy noise and Foggy pulls away. He gives up and tucks himself around Matt's body, stroking a hand over his arm. Matt grunts.

"Christ, where can I touch you?" Foggy asks, Matt's breath warm on his neck.

"Everywhere except my ribs neck, hip, shoulder and left knee."

"I'm spoiled for choice." Foggy mutters. Matt just smiles against his skin.

Foggy lays still for a while, but Matt has started to fidget and it's awakening some other part of him that needs some urgent attention. Foggy slides a hand between them and Matt sighs happily as Foggy gets a hand inside his (unfortunately not-pink) boxers.

Foggy wriggles out from Matt's arms and ducks under the sheet, and soon he's got Matt making some pretty happy noises. At least under the sheet Foggy can't see the bruises on Matt's torso any more.

He knows that Matt needs to do what he does. Because Matt is the son of a fighter. Because sometimes, book smarts don't land the right guy in prison. Because Matt is the hero type. Foggy is finally starting to accept that he can't love that out of him.

He's got a serious thing for Matt's ass. It's not much of a secret. Especially since he's pretty sure Matt can hear a phone camera shutter from fifty feet away. Foggy doesn't really help himself when he forgets to put the phone on silent, either.

Foggy's sat at Matt's kitchen table, watching him make coffee and mix pancake batter in a glass bowl. They made a rule that once a week they try to eat breakfast together. A proper breakfast too, with at least more nutritional value than the donuts and pastries Foggy usually buys on his way to the office. At least the pancakes will have banana on them, Foggy thinks, eyeing the slightly brown fruit on Matt's kitchen counter. Matt leans the whisk up in the pancake batter (courtesy of Aunt Jemima, but hey, they're trying), and stirs milk into the coffee. Foggy sighs to himself, rubbing the corners of his eyes. Matt scratches at a mosquito bite on his side, and Foggy admires the way that his worn pyjama bottoms shift on his hips as he moves.

Matt pauses and Foggy can see him take a deep breath.

"You think these bananas are past ripe?" Matt asks. It's such a beautifully mundane question that Foggy gets a bit lost in the moment before he remembers to reply.

"They're good, bit brown but edible." Foggy tells him sleepily.

Matt nods at him, as he turns around he knocks the teaspoon off of the counter that he forgot was there. It clatters to the floor and Matt starts to bend down. Foggy sneaks his phone out and snaps a picture. The phone clicks. Matt stiffens.

"Did you just..?"

"No."

Matt narrows his eyes in Foggy's direction and Foggy uses his index finger to draw a heart around Matt's ass with the pencil tool on Snapchat before sending the picture to Claire. He hears the spoon clatter on the counter and before he even has time to look up, Matt has swung a leg over him and is straddling Foggy's lap.

"You objectifying me, Mr Nelson?" Matt whispers in his ear as Foggy's hands instinctively drift towards his ass.

"Guilty."

Foggy's neck deep in paperwork on a hot Thursday afternoon, barricaded in his office by stacks of files as he slowly sweats through his second clean shirt of the day. Even Karen is wiping her forehead with a Kleenex as Foggy peeks around the doorframe. Matt is pacing in his office with the door ajar. The only sign that Matt is suffering with the heat is his loosened tie. As Foggy watches, Matt catches a stack of papers with his foot mid-stride and sends them scattering across the room. He grunts and bends down, feeling his way around the room to the papers. Foggy grins and digs his mobile out of his pocket.

Matt's phone begins to ring and Karen looks towards his office in alarm.

"Foggy!" Matt shouts when he picks up the phone, "Stop setting my ringtone to 'Baby Got Back'!" Foggy just laughs as Matt storms out of his office.

Matt whips off his glasses and appears to be looking almost in the right direction. "I'm glaring at you." Matt informs Foggy. "Karen," he says sharply, "point me in the right direction."

Karen dutifully stands up and swivels Matt a fraction to the left and tilts his chin up with her finger until he's pretty much got Foggy in his eye line.

"I'm feeling the full force of the Murdock glare." Foggy tells him reassuringly. Karen covers her smirk with her hand.

"Fuck!" Foggy shrieks as something heavy lands on him and traps his limbs to his sides. "What are you, a freaking chimpanzee?!"

Matt just laughs and rolls off of him. He's got that soft 8am bed head and pillow marks on his face, and Foggy falls just a tiny bit more in love with him around the eyes.

There's a cut across the bridge of Matt's nose and his knuckles are the sick colour of blue and green three day old bruises, and Foggy presses them against his lips.

"I'm making toast." Matt tells him, his face in Foggy's hair. Then he scrambles up and starts to walk away again.

"Matt?"

"Yeah?"

He's got that far away expression on his face, and his eyes aren't quite looking in the right place, but Foggy's right shoulder is really enjoying that look. And Foggy is really enjoying Matt and his 8am bed head and his slow smile and the burnt toast smell from the kitchen, and the sunlight, pale and soft on Matt's face.

"I love you." Foggy says. In the same way that one might say 'you have food on your face'. I love you, you missed a crumb. I love you, it's warm out. I love you. Nothing weighted or heavy, just a simple fact, something he thinks Matt needs to know today.

Matt smiles, and it's all Foggy needs. Then Matt turns around and walks into the door frame with a thunk.