Work Text:
«Are you even really blind?»
They have been trying to move forward. Walking home together, going to Josie’s (not often: New York needs its guardian), joking around in the office with Karen. Matt knows that Foggy is trying to look past the vigilante thing—past all the things Matt never told him before that awful night. They’re trying.
The silence gets him, though.
Since the first few days of college, Foggy took to narrating everything with an ease that filled Matt with warmth. He filled the quiet moments as if it was the most natural thing to do, made sure his friend didn’t miss any visual cue.
Ever since that night, he’s stopped doing it.
It’s not that he’s being mean on purpose to punish Matt; he’s pretty sure Foggy now honestly thinks his help isn’t needed, that all of Matt’s struggles as a blind man are included in his lies—as if being able to fight negates the very real fact that his eyes have no light perception—and that hurts him a lot more than a petty attempt at punishment might have.
He tried to explain how his senses work, how he can do all he does even though he’s blind, but he clearly didn’t manage to get through to Foggy, not really. It’s frustrating, but Matt doesn’t know what to do about it. He can’t imagine starting that conversation back.
I wouldn’t have kept this from you, Matt. Not from you.
And it’s not like he can’t manage. Having to focus his senses all the time is tiring, sure, but far from impossible. Stick would deem pathetic the way he’s come to rely on Foggy’s narration and lead, tell him how he’d be better off living alone in a desert rather than depending on his friends.
So when Foggy doesn’t offer his arm nor warns him about curbs and other obstacles while they walk, Matt doesn’t say anything. He knows he’s lucky Foggy came back, that they still have their firm despite their friendship being on shaky ground.
He can manage just fine, and if his focus slips at times and he stumbles, it’s not a problem. If every day he drops himself down on the couch as soon as he gets home and stays there until it’s time for Daredevil to go out, that’s fine too.
There’s more than one reason he doesn’t go around explaining his senses to people—sure, he can fight and hear heartbeats, but he still needs braille to read and someone to describe facial expressions or complicated gestures. He knows not everyone might get it.
He used to imagine telling Foggy, being finally seen by his best friend the way only Elektra ever did. Maybe it would have been different, if he'd shared his secret in a normal conversation instead of being interrogated after nearly bleeding out. Maybe it wouldn’t have.
Matt sighs, exhausted. He can hear the city calling for him; he gets up.
«Are you even really blind?»
Yes.