Chapter Text
Because Foggy counts them like the lovestruck fool he is and he’s actually made a list of all the moments he’s fallen in love with Matt. It goes like this:
The first time, it’s the shy smile, the hero shining through the cracks in his roommate’s façade of ‘poor, blind orphan’, of ‘lady-killer Matt’, of ‘cool blind guy’.
Then, it’s the shark’s smile, the passion, the killer instinct in mock court; the sleepy smile after a good day’s worth of obsessive studying; the smirk whenever Foggy tells him all about his latest failure with the cruel female population; the amused laugh when he insists on telling him all about the pigeon turf war going on in Central Park, including his failed attempt of breaking it off by trying (and failing spectacularly, he’s so fucking sure they shat on him on purpose, those bloody rats with wings) to shoo them away.
And then it’s the sloppy drunk smile, the one Matt wears when he is truly happy, the rarest one of them all, the one Foggy thinks he’s the only one to see.
He treasures them like others hoard gold, treating them like the precious and rare gems he thought them to be back then, hiding them away jealously, because surely, they are his to keep? Because, yeah, he’ll never have the deeply catholic man, but he’ll still be his best friend, he’ll still be the man Matt tells his secrets to, who relies on him to experience the world in colour, to lead him where he can’t go, to always have his back, right?
But then Elektra happens, and Foggy learns the hard way that maybe he never cracked the façade; maybe he was only seeing what Matt wanted him to see.
He gets it, at first. People often dedicate a lot of time to their lovers when they first get together, and it’s an unspoken rule for their friends not to get angry about it. He can’t say he isn’t jealous, but he can say he understands it. Obviously, he doesn’t like her, but the sentiment is very reciprocal, so he has a good excuse.
Later on, when Matt starts missing classes, when he sees bruises on his face, when he barely ever sees his face at all because Matt isn’t sleeping in their dorm anymore but, presumably, with her (don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it), he starts to worry. And when he finally gathers up the courage to corner Matt into asking him about it all, adamant to get more than a dismissive “don’t worry Foggy, I’m fine”, it all goes to hell. Elektra leaves.
He’s never seen Matt like that and he hopes he’ll never have to again. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t go to class. He just lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling. Foggy is so afraid, he’s desperate, and one day, one moment, he finally loses it and instead of begging him to “please get out of bed today “again, he yells at him, and it goes something like this:
“Matthew Michael Murdock, that’s it. I don’t care anymore, I just don’t, and I’m done with the kid gloves. You might think she was the love of your life, your soulmate, your one true love or whatever, but I call bullshit on that. Someone who loves you doesn’t leave. You get into fights, you disagree and you sometimes even break up, but you stay in each other’s lives, because you can’t imagine going through it without the other. Because being there for each other is more important than any fight that’s going on between you, because no matter what, in the end you just want them to be happy. And you love them for who they are, not for who you want them to be, despite all of their faults. I fucking refuse to believe that she truly loved you, because if she did, she would be here yelling at you right beside me, buddy. So I’m going to do what best friends do, and kick you out of bed to go get a long-overdue post-breakup drink at Josie’s, whether you want it or not.”
He takes one step into the direction of Matt’s bed, when he notices him trembling, trying to cover his face with his hands, and oh god, he’s made Matt cry, he’s the worst friend ever, he’s…
But it turns out Matt is laughing. He’s also crying, but mostly laughing, a 60 to 40 ratio, he’d say. And between gasps and hiccups, finally, Matt quips:
“A true friend wouldn’t try to poison me with Josie’s swill, you know?”
And Foggy laughs too, and they actually do make it to Josie’s that night. It’s there with Matt’s drunken laugh fading into a sorrowful smile that Foggy first hears about Matt’s dad; about the devil in the Murdock men, the anger in his heart, the desire to be and do more. (He’ll learn about the rage and the need much, much later.) He forces himself not to flinch when Matt tells him that Elektra was the only person who truly understood him, who he’d ever been able to truly be himself with, and how he tried his very best but couldn’t keep her from leaving him.
Foggy’s heart breaks a little on that night, but he does his best to mask it, because he’s not the one hurting the most, and he doesn’t know how not to be selfless, how not to love Matt even more for the cross he chooses to bear.
“It’s not the same, but Matt, I know you, and I’m still here aren’t I?”
“…Yeah, you’re still here.”
He’ll only realize later that Matt merely agreed to that last bit.
And then, yes, then Foggy believes he knows who Matt is. He is so grateful for the moments when Matt chooses to share his shortcomings with him, when he’ll actually tell him he’s having a bad day, or when he’ll let himself get truly angry about the world and doesn’t try to hide it behind a mask of politeness. He loves being allowed to coddle him when he’s sick, to sit with him when the world gets too much, to hug him in those moments he knows Matt just needs someone to hold him together, to tell him how awesome he is in Foggy’s eyes and be rewarded with that little smile he practically lives for.
(He tries to move on, but in the end, he respects, and fears, Marci too much to keep on deceiving her, and he tells her so. He should have known that she knew all along. He can’t stop falling in love with Matt, over and over again.)
And so life goes on, giving Foggy new moments to love (or not).
He loves that the same prestigious law firm accepts them. He loves that they share an office. He loves being able to work beside Matt every day, doing something they both had always dreamed of.
He doesn’t precisely love their clientele. He doesn’t love being blown off for after-work drinks by Matt. He doesn’t love the distance starting to grow between them. (He absolutely hates going to sleep without knowing Matt is safe and sound in the adjoining room.)
But then Matt’s leaving Landman & Zack, as if Foggy didn’t already know it would happen, and of course he follows him. And then they’re their own avocados at law, Nelson & Murdock, and Foggy doesn’t think it gets better than that (well, except in his dreams), and the beam on Matt’s face when they first open the doors to their new office makes him close his eyes ruefully at feeling his heart flutter like the very first time Matt ever smiled at him.
Shortly after, Karen happens. For one moment Foggy thinks maybe he’s found the person who’ll finally replace Matt, but then he sees how she looks at Matt and fears maybe Matt will finally find the person who’ll replace him.
And while that may hurt, nothing hurts more than finding his best friend lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor and learning that he never really knew him at all, that Matt never intended for Foggy to truly know him.
He’s so, so angry. He just wants to get drunk and cry, but he makes himself listen until he can’t. He wants Matt to break his heart into as many pieces as he can, because maybe then he’ll stop feeling so hollow, like everything that is good in the world just died, like the most important relationship in his life hasn’t just been revealed as nothing but a front for a fucking superpowered vigilante to hide behind. He needs Matt to tell him exactly how little he knew him, so he can finally stop loving the lying, manipulative bastard.
When he leaves, he has no intention of ever going back. The moment he catches himself thinking about calling Matt to check in, he calls Marci instead. It turns out to be a mistake. As the only person he ever confided in about his feelings for Matt, she knows the moment she looks at him what, or rather who, the problem is. He tries to tell her it’s over this time, he’s done, but she knows him better, she always did. She lets him cry, get drunk, pass out on her couch and never even asks him for details. Until she kicks him out to go ”make-up with your husband, Foggy, stop lying to yourself, you’ll never be able to let him go”.
He still tries, though. Seeing Matt’s kicked puppy face doesn’t help. Having Karen tell him how miserable he is doesn’t either. So he thinks, maybe, well, maybe he can restore Matt’s belief in the justice system? If they can take Fisk down without the Devil, maybe he won’t have to be the Devil anymore. Foggy makes himself believe it and gets to work.
When he finally makes it to the gym to talk to Matt, he doesn’t quite know what to expect. He’s known about the gym for a long time, since back when he thought the rage was just anger and the bruises were from walking into lampposts or other such shit he now can’t believe he ever bought.
What he finds is a man torturing himself over things he cannot control. He sees how Matt has built the guards back up, the ones that took Foggy years to tear down. Or maybe Matt simply got better at hiding them? Foggy doesn’t know what to think anymore except that he wants Matt and himself to stop hurting so much. So he puts up a good front, and he makes the jokes, and grits his teeth so he won’t scream, so he won’t cry for the man that he desperately wishes to get back.
They actually do it; they get Fisk behind bars, though not entirely the way he wanted. Foggy learns a couple of things in the process: Matt might have lied to him for years, but he genuinely cares for him. Matt can’t and probably doesn’t want to stop being the Devil. Matt will die protecting the city in the mask. Matt isn’t Foggy’s, will never be Foggy’s and he better start putting some distance between them so when the time comes, he won’t die along with Matt.
He can’t help the way his breath catches when he sees Matt touch their sign, trace the letters of his name and start beaming this beautiful smile at him, but he intends to catalogue it as the last moment he falls in love with Matt Murdock.