aworldonfire | rp | all the hurt that brought me here

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rp | all the hurt that brought me here

It's a miracle, he thinks, that he got away from Nobu, from Fisk. It's a miracle that he made it back to his apartment, as beaten as he is. It's a miracle, but singing the praises of God doesn't follow him much past the door, not because he doesn't want to but because, while he's still alive, still fighting, he's rapidly devolving into hysterical thought thanks to the blood loss, and what he's stricken by, standing in the doorway of the rooftop access, is that he remembers what red looks like, would swear he could see it.

It's in the taste of his own blood in his mouth, after all, the wash of pain in his stomach and chest that rushes over him whenever he draws breath, the smell of metal (not his own, not copper, so much blood, oh, God), clinging to his wounds, where he was stabbed again and again and again. It all permeates as much as Clint's cover's body spray did, the red, making it hard to think, hard to see beyond his absent sight, and he takes a drunken step forward, presses his fingers to the wall that runs alongside the steps that come down into his apartment, hoping it will help, praying for a touchstone. He makes it down a handful of stairs, something like wild optimism rising in his chest, alongside the pain (he can make it, if he can just make it to the phone, make it to Claire), before it all goes to hell.

His foot catches on something, something likely broken by him, by Stick, less than a handful of days ago, and he trips. He hits the remaining steps face-first, so fast it takes him a moment to register what just happened, to grunt, no more winded that he already was (is his lung punctured? he can't tell. it hurts. father forgive him -- both of them), and try to sit up. All he manages is to slide the rest of the way down the steps to the ground and for black to join the red, a memory of tunnel vision closing in on the edges of his mind's eye, as what little he can get from his other senses slips, stutters, unconsciousness creeping up on him. He doesn't try to get up again, after that, just lays there, panting. He doesn't even hear the door opening again above him, practically miles away.

He doesn't know how many minutes pass, him laying there, but eventually and what seems to him suddenly, something occurs to him. He shifts again, not trying to get up this time but to press his shaking fingers to the comm at his ear, always worn, just in case, but rarely used outside of his team ups with Clint and Natasha. It takes him three tries to actually get there, actually find his ear, and when he manages, it takes a moment more of false starts to fight past the black and find the breath for his words. It never occurs to him to think that the Avengers, if they're listening, already know what's going on, if only to a certain degree, that the comms are always transmitting, always receiving, that help may already be on the way.

"Little -- little help here?" he chokes out. "I need help. Please."

The red and black catch up to him, after that, as relentless as he's ever been in the same colors, and he slips into something like twilight.

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Even if Matt thinks it fell flat, Foggy chuckles faintly. "You did enough stupid last night." And he's sort of teasing, again. He knows Matt didn't mean to get his ass kicked that badly, but, well. Engaging a ninja is still not the best life choice.

"But okay. Good."

"Yeah, not gonna argue that." It takes an act of will not to touch his fingers to the bandages on his side again. It doesn't help that he's kind of keenly aware of them, but to his credit, he manages, taking another sip of his coffee, instead.

When he lowers the cup again, he's silent for a handful of beats, before, slowly, seriously, and with a gesture between them, he starts, "We're gonna be okay, right?"

Foggy continuing to call him his best friend, present tense, helps, sure, but he wants direct assurances if he can get them.

Foggy hesitates - and it's not because he's not sure, but because he honestly hadn't thought of the possibility of them not being okay. Yeah, this might have thrown him for a loop, and he might still be reeling from it all, but. They've had fights before and got past them.

"Yeah," he answers, finally, when he actually realizes he hasn't. "Of course we will."

He's just on the edge of saying something, of trying to placate Foggy and his silence, somehow, when he answers. He blows out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding all at once, following it, and closes his eyes briefly, head bowing.

"Okay, good," he says when he raises his head again. "Just -- good."

Yeah, that's all he's got.

"I'm not gonna bail on you because of this, Jesus, Murdock." He's pretty sure he's said Matt's his best friend a time or two already in this conversation or he'd be saying it again. "I might kick your ass if you scare the shit out of me again like this, but you're stuck with me."

He pauses a beat. "Though if you've got any other skeletons you wanna let out of the closet, now might be a good time." He's teasing, again, and it's more audible this time.

"It was an honest worry," Matt tells him, apologetically. It's not that he doesn't think Foggy's the sticking around type, mind you, it's more the fact that on the rare occasion he's actually imagined coming out of the vigilante closet, his imagination has been far less kind. Probably because, "I'm not sure I would have handled all this half as gracefully."

Foggy's temper, when he's truly angry, can be bad; his is a thousand times worse. He might hide it better, maybe, but it's still a fact and he knows it. He knew it before he started beating the shit out of assholes for a living.

"But no," he continues, part serious, part teasing himself, now, too, "I'm pretty sure this is the only skeleton I had rattling around." Foggy knows everything else about him.

"If this all hadn't led to Captain frickin' America offering me breakfast this morning, I might not be handling it this well.

"But okay," he continues on an exhale. "I'm holding you to that, but. Good to know."

"That's a definitely plus," he agrees on the heel of a breath of a laugh. If he didn't, you know, already know Steve, and if he actually felt like eating right now, he might actually be a little jealous. Maybe. It's hard to say, considering.

Either way, he, too, sobers again after a moment and with a breath out. A moment of pause follows, and then, "If there's anything specific you want to know ... "

He can't remember how much he told Foggy last night, everything a little fragmented, between his bouts of unconsciousness and the blood loss. (Hell, he can't remember if he's made this offer already, once, over the course of this conversation, either, though now it's because of the drugs and the emotional ups and downs of this conversation and the one before it, with Clint.) He also doesn't know how much Foggy was told, by someone else, while he was out, and so -- well. Again, if it makes Foggy feel better, if it keeps him from calling him out on something related to all of this, later, claiming he didn't know, he'll talk. And he'll keep making that offer, until Foggy is honestly comfortable with all of this, until he is, with him knowing.

"Offer's open," he finishes, that in mind.

Foggy nods. "I don't know how with it you were last night, but you answered a lot of it then. As for the rest... give me a second." He's had plenty of things come to mind to ask, but now that Matt's reopened the offer, most of them have fled.

"I can remember bits and pieces," Matt admits, making a face, "but not much else."

He's really not thrilled by those gaps in his memory. Still, he lets it go there and nods in response to Foggy, shifting to lean back into the couch. He can wait on him to decide what he wants to ask -- or to decide he'll come back to it later. Either way.

"I found you at the bottom of the stairs," Foggy begins, because he figures that face means he's bothered by it. "About the time I was ready to call the cops, Rogers showed up and then called Banner in, and he patched you up. They told me about your deal with the Avengers and how Fisk is actually a complete asshole. You told me how the whole... your other senses making up for your eyes thing works, and about your life being a kung-fu movie."

He pauses a beat, trying to think if there was anything else, before he adds, "Oh, right. And, uh. Karen thinks you got hit by a car, by the way, so she'll probably freak out at you at some point."

"Is that verbatim, counselor?" The part about his life being a kung-fu movie, he means. Not that that's not accurate (or not amusing, which along with Foggy going through it for him, takes some of the edge off of his inability to remember it all), it's just -- well, he can't help but ask.

Whatever light he actually managed there evaporates at the mention of Karen, however, and he winces. Not that it's not a good lie. "Well, I definitely felt like I got hit by one, last night, so ... "

Foggy grins. "I asked if the Stick guy made you paint a fence." So, close enough.

"You definitely looked like it last night, and you're only losing a little of it, now." He definitely sees already what Matt means about healing quickly - most people would still have needed to go to the hospital, even with Bruce's work.

"Not so much, unfortunately." That would have been kinder than what Stick put him through. He dismisses the thought quickly, before it tanks his mood again.

"Banner did a good job," he says instead. Sure, he heals fast, but if he moves right (and he does, mostly for his own benefit, testing the stitches as much as he can without risking tearing them), he can feel the work Bruce put into them, and that matters just as much. If he'd been the one doing the stitches, he doubt he'd look as -- well, not good, but not as bad as he did last night.

"Yeah, he did. But, I guess he gets a lot of practice being the Avengers' medic." Seriously, being a superhero is overrated if it means getting your ass kicked as much as it seems to, based on what he's seen on the news and what he's put together of how much damage Matt takes on average.

"Not as much as you'd think." Not as much as Claire, at least. She might not be stitching up superheroes on the regular, but she's an ER nurse -- she probably deals with stitching up plenty of people with more mundane injuries. "Usually, he's out there with them."

And while he's never seen the Hulk up close and personal, he at least understands on an intellectual level that it wears him out. He's probably not stitching up too many people, afterwards. Matt figures he just falls into bed.

"Wait, what? Really?" He's just confused, now, because he can't put Bruce together with anything he's seen on the news - and he would assume Matt just means Bruce doesn't just wait at Stark Tower for them to finish the fight, but that doesn't fit, and just. What?

Matt joins him in looking baffled. "You don't -- he's the Hulk, Foggy."

Did he not know that? Belatedly, it occurs to Matt that, no, he probably didn't, given how careful Tony's been about preserving Bruce's identity, and -- well, shit. He didn't mean to out him.

No, Foggy definitely didn't know that, and he's glad he hadn't just taken a drink of his coffee because he would have choked on it. "Their doctor is the big green smashy guy. Holy shit."

He seriously never would have guessed that.

"Not that I think you would," Matt starts, looking a little guilty, albeit more for giving away Bruce's secrets than for what he's about to ask Foggy, "but try not to spread that around? He's got his reasons for wanting to hold onto the whole secret identity thing, and Stark's put a lot of effort into helping with that."

A beat. "They all have."

"I get it," Foggy returns, "after all that down in Virginia and over in Harlem." Yeah, he can get why Bruce might not want people finding out what he does in his spare time. "And what's one more secret identity to keep to myself?"

That actually comes out lightly - he's really not bitter. Really.

"Pretty much." Though, to hear Tony tell it, most of what happened there wasn't his fault. Knowing Bruce personally, now, and his own terrible relationship with the press, he's inclined to believe it, too. "And thanks."

He wouldn't doubt it - especially now that he knows how badly the media misrepresented the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "Yeah, you're welcome."

He pauses a beat. "Should I tell him I know?"

"I wouldn't lead with that, but," Matt starts, one corner of his mouth turning up into a crooked smile. It fades almost as quickly as it comes. "As long as you don't decide you're gonna run screaming from him, I think it'll be okay if you do."

If Bruce really has a problem, Foggy can throw the blame on him. He did tell him, after all.

"Uh," Foggy begins, "He seemed like he had everything under control, and he works with them, so I don't plan on it." He pauses a beat. "And I do sometimes have some tact, Murdock."

He just loses some of the filter with Matt, because come on. It's Matt.

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