Fic: How Your Heart Pounds Inside Me [2/2]
Title: How Your Heart Pounds Inside Me
Fandom: Daredevil (TV)
Rating: NC-17
Chapter One
Two weeks later Matt’s still catching phantom wisps of Foggy’s scent when he turns his head. He’s almost positive they’re not really there, not after two weeks of showering, of changing clothes, of going out in his Daredevil suit and sweating out his anger. It’s psychosomatic, something triggered by his omega hindbrain rather than his olfactory sense. He’s already started suppressants, though, and he’s confident the phantom scents will vanish completely once the suppressants are working at full strength.
He catches one as he follows Karen through the glass doors of the building downtown into a lobby that echoes cavernously around them, all smooth shimmering surfaces for sound to bounce freely off of. “It looks like a place in a movie where you’d buy a clone,” she says, her voice simultaneously amused and impressed. “Or a robot baby. Or a clone of a robot baby.”
“Which is exactly why I started my own firm after law school,” Matt says. “No robot baby clones for me.”
She laughs and gives their names at the front desk. An assistant leads them into an elevator and up - Matt doesn’t catch the floor number, but from the pressure in his ears and the speed of the car it must be pretty high.
“Your meeting room is just down here, Mr. Murdock, Ms. Page,” the assistant says, leading them down the hall. Matt catches another whiff of Foggy and tries to exhale firmly but discreetly through his nose to clear it away. He doesn’t have time for this now.
The assistant opens the door to their meeting room. Matt takes a breath and his heart plunges to his knees. Not phantom smells, then. Not phantom at all.
“Mr. Murdock, this is Franklin Nelson and Marci Stahl,” the assistant says. “They’ll be representing Mr. Tully in this matter. Can I get you something to drink?”
Matt swallows hard. His mouth is certainly dry, but he’s not sure he can speak. That’s Foggy - it’s definitely Foggy standing on the other side of the conference table, all mild beta scent and familiar shampoo and a heartbeat that’s starting to race. He definitely recognizes Matt - aside from the heartbeat, Matt catches a hint of sweat beginning to form on his upper lip and his palms.
“Matt?” Karen asks, sounding concerned. How long has it been since the assistant asked Matt a question? Has he just been standing here gaping? He feels hot - is he blushing?
“I,” he says. It comes out rusty. “Sorry. Yes. Water would be lovely.”
What is Foggy doing here? He’s a surrogate, not a lawyer. Sure, a surrogate can be a part-time job - is, for most surrogates, since they can’t necessarily count on a sufficient amount of omegas needing alphas in any given month - but if Foggy’s a lawyer, and at a place like this no less, he should be making more than enough money to live on. Though he did say his family was having financial troubles…
Matt lets Karen lead him to a chair and gratefully accepts the glass of water the assistant hands him. “Sorry about that,” he says. There’s only the faintest quaver in his voice. “Just a little dust in my throat. Shall we begin?”
“Of course,” the female lawyer says, and there’s a scrape of chairs as everyone else sits. “Franklin, do you want to start…?”
“Oh! Right. Yes. Right. I’ll just…” There’s a rustle of papers. Foggy’s fumbling with them, jumpy and nervous. Is it just because he’s afraid Matt will reveal his side job to his coworkers, or is he as shaken by being in the same room as Matt as Matt is by being so close to him?
“Right. Your client, a Mrs. Elena Cardenas, claims that our client, Mr. Tully, is trying to force her out of her apartment. However, Mr. Tully offered Mrs. Cardenas a sizeable payout to vacate her apartment, far more than the monthly rent, and - ”
“And she turned it down,” Matt says, trying to wrest control of this situation back. “At which point Mr. Tully sent men who damaged her apartment, and others, in an attempt to drive her and her neighbors out of the building.”
“Those were workmen making requested repairs,” Foggy says - but his heart skips. Not quite enough of a jump for Matt to be sure it’s a lie, but a definite flutter. So Foggy doesn’t actually believe Tully’s bullshit. Interesting.
Matt forces down an idiotic moment of disappointment that the sweet, steady alpha he spent a heat with apparently has no professional ethics to speak of. He has no claim on Foggy, moral or otherwise.
“Repairs which were never completed,” Matt points out.
The female attorney jumps in with something about the workmen fearing for their safety, but the minute she starts talking again Matt stops listening, stuck on a memory. Marci, the assistant said her name was Marci, and hadn't Foggy said he had an alpha ex by that name? This woman’s an alpha, Matt can smell it. She must be the ex in question.
“Mr. Murdock?” she says, apparently noticing him spacing out, and he actually growls at her before he can stop himself. Shit.
“Matt!” Foggy says sharply, his tone all warning alpha. Matt bares his throat immediately, an apology, before fighting the instinct and forcing his chin down. Shit, shit, shit. Apparently the omega in him wants to submit to Foggy as badly as it wants to fight off any competitors, even alpha competitors.
Not that Foggy has the right to order him, not when they’re not bonded. He glares in Foggy’s direction, even as his hindbrain screams at him to be good, dammit, or he’ll never get those teeth in his neck.
Marci’s turning her head back and forth between them. “Do you...know each other?” she asks, and Matt’s stomach sinks as he realizes what they’ve just given away. Even setting aside the possessive behavior, opposing counsel who’d just met him wouldn’t be likely to call him by a nickname. Plus, Matt’s definitely bright red by now, and he’s pretty sure Foggy is, too.
“Uh,” Foggy says.
“Oh my God,” Marci says.
“Matt?” Karen’s hand lands on his forearm, gentle and too hot. “What’s going on?”
There’s too many alphas in this room. Matt can’t breathe. “I need...restroom,” he says. “Not feeling well.”
He lurches to his feet, barely remembering to use his cane as he makes for the door they came in by. “Second door on your right!” Marci calls after him, and then hisses in a whisper that Karen probably can’t hear, but Matt can even from out in the hall, “I can’t believe you fucked the opposing counsel, Foggy.”
“I didn’t...that’s not exactly…” Matt slips into the bathroom, but he can still hear Foggy sigh and stand up. “I’m just going to make sure he found the bathroom okay. Jane, can you please get Ms. Page some fresh coffee?”
Matt braces himself against a sink and waits. The porcelain is cool and soothing under his hands. He’d be able to hear Foggy’s footsteps coming closer even with normal senses.
The door swings open. “Hi,” Foggy says.
Matt doesn’t turn. His embarrassment is turning to something hot and indignant under his skin, the kind of heat that sends him into the streets at night in a mask. “You never said you were a lawyer.”
“I didn’t see how it was relevant.” Foggy takes a step closer. “I kind of had other things on my mind.”
“Why would you be working as a surrogate when you’re making the kind of salary a place like this pays?” Matt asks, releasing his death grip on the sink to wave a hand at their surroundings. True, they’re in a bathroom, but it’s a pretty nice bathroom.
“Not sure why you think that’s your business,” Foggy says - steady, not a hint of anger in his tone. It just makes Matt want to needle him more.
“It’s less the occupation and more the firm,” Matt says, finally turning to face him. “I try to avoid sleeping with sharks.”
“What - ”
“You know perfectly well what Tully’s trying to do to Mrs. Cardenas. You can fuck me or you can fuck my clients, not both.”
“Hey.” Most alphas would be in Matt’s space by now, looming over him - or trying to, Foggy’s almost exactly his height - and breathing their scent down on him, trying to get him to back off. Matt’s never been the kind of omega that works on. He kind of wishes Foggy would try it anyway.
But no, Foggy keeps his distance, though his voice is brittle and cold. “You hired me to perform a service and I did. You have a problem with my freelance job? Then don’t use that kind of agency again. You have a problem with this job? Then we’ll have it out in that conference room, where you will treat me and my colleague with respect. Anything else, and I’d be happy to find someone to show you and your assistant out.”
Matt takes a deep breath and unclenches his fists. Foggy’s not going to give him the kind of fight he wants - which is probably for the best, really. Matt doing something dumb to shake off his own embarrassment won’t help Mrs. Cardenas. “I apologize for insulting you,” he grits out. “And you’re right. Your financial matters are none of my business.”
“Thank you. Apology accepted.”
“But I am right about Tully.”
Foggy takes a step back. “I can’t have this conversation with you, Matt. Not here.”
“Come on.” Matt’s banking on the guilty flinch in Foggy’s heartbeat when he defended the workmen who tore up Mrs. Cardenas’s apartment, and the hope that Foggy’s heat-sweetness carries through to Franklin Nelson, Attorney-at-Law. “He’s strong-arming a little old lady out of her home to turn a profit, and you know it.”
Foggy’s silent for half a minute; then he sighs and leans against the wall. “I know,” he says. “She and my mom have a mutual friend. The Hell’s Kitchen coffee klatch, you know?” Matt nods - he does know, actually. Half of them go to his church and are forever trying to set him up with their alpha kids. “Anyway, my mom actually asked me if Mrs. Cardenas could come to me for some legal advice, but when I realized we represented the reason she needed the advice in the first place…”
He straightens up. “Look, you and I both know that Tully has a lot more weight to throw around than Mrs. Cardenas does. He can drag this case out indefinitely, and in the meantime she’s living in a trashed apartment. But...no one high up is looking all that closely at this case. I can at least make a lot of noise about Mrs. Cardenas possibly going to the media, and get those repairs made sooner while we work out the rest of the settlement.”
“You won’t get in trouble for that?” Matt asks, surprised.
Foggy shrugs. “Like I said, no one’s looking too closely at this case. And I can handle a little yelling, if it comes to that, and if it means a little old lady has running water and a working stove.”
His heart is steady, but Matt’s wary, after the unpleasant shock of finding Foggy here in the first place. “If this is...some kind of bribe or something, no deal. I’m not going to encourage Mrs. Cardenas to sell if she doesn’t want to, just because…”
“It’s not a bribe,” Foggy interrupts, sounding halfway between amused and annoyed. “I’m just trying to do the decent thing here. That happens sometimes, even with us sharks.”
Matt bites his lip. He wants to apologize. He wants to pick a fight. He wants to ask if Foggy thinks about the heat they shared as often as he does.
“...Thank you,” he says finally.
“I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for her,” Foggy says. “As far as I’m concerned, what happened between us...it doesn’t have anything to do with this, okay? It’s over. It has to be over now, or one of us is gonna have to recuse himself.”
Matt closes his eyes behind his glasses and remembers a gentle kiss on his forehead. You can definitely call me for your next heat. Not that Matt’s going to have another one, not on suppressants, but it felt good to know that someday, maybe…
But no, Foggy’s right. They can’t oppose each other in court and still keep the option open for…
For nothing, Matt reminds himself. Foggy was just doing his job.
“Don’t worry,” he says, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “I’m not the clingy kind of omega.”
“Good, because I’m not the possessive kind of alpha,” Foggy replies, equally sarcastic, and Matt bites back his snarl that yes, Foggy’s proven that already. “So we’re good?”
Matt straightens up and taps his cane on the ground. “Somewhat. I’m still gonna make Armin Tully sorry he ever fucked with my client.”
Foggy’s laugh is a surprise - and an unpleasant one, because it brings a wave of stupid, useless wanting with it. “God, I hope you do. I hate that guy,” he says, and opens the bathroom door. “After you, Mr. Murdock.”
*
The world lurches beneath Matt’s feet. Everything tastes like river water and blood, and he can’t get his bearings. He knows he needs to get to Claire, or get home and call her, or the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is going to bleed out in the street, but he can’t even begin to guess which direction home is.
Looks like Fisk might have managed to kill him after all.
He staggers to the nearest wall and props himself up against it, trying to shake the foul Hudson water out of his nose and ears so that he can figure out where he is. But then there are no familiar scents, nothing to place him, nothing like home…
Wait.
There, threading warm and homey through the miasma of New York City’s night air. He knows that scent. He needs that scent. It’s safety and security and a roaring fire on a winter’s night. He’ll be okay once he reaches it. He just needs to get there.
He follows it through the streets, away from the water. By the time he’s fighting his way up the fire escape, he has a name for it: alpha. His alpha. Foggy.
Foggy lives on...Matt’s lost count. The fifth floor, or maybe the sixth, but he’s here. The window’s open a crack and Matt can slide his fingers under it and push it up, up, open. There’s a reason he shouldn’t be here, a reason his alpha can’t be his alpha, not really, but he can’t remember it right now, and anyway it doesn’t matter. He’s hurting. His alpha will make it better. That’s what alphas do.
He crawls through the open window, slips, falls to the floor with a thud. A heart starts to race in the next room.
“Hello?” Foggy. “Is someone there?”
Matt wants to tell him it’s okay, it’s just him, but his mouth won’t cooperate. He’s trying to push himself into a seated position when Foggy walks in, holding something - a baseball bat, maybe?
“Holy shit!” Foggy says, holding the bat at the ready. “Holy shit, you’re the - you - what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
“Foggy,” Matt manages.
Foggy’s heart gets even faster, somehow. “How do you know my name?”
It doesn’t make any sense until Matt remembers his mask. “It...I’m…” he says, and tries to reach up to pluck at it, but the world is swimming and even the sound of his alpha’s heartbeat is fading and he can’t...quite…
*
Matt wakes in a bed that feels unfamiliar but smells like home. Everything hurts.
“Where…?” he manages to groan, trying to sit up. His stomach screams a warning and he freezes, reaches down to feel a large bandage taped to his skin. When he starts to peel it back the scent of blood fills the air.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a familiar voice says, walking into the bedroom.
It’s the alpha lawyer. Foggy Nelson.
Oh, fuck.
“What happened?” he croaks, and Foggy steps forward and feeds him - oh God, it’s another one of those little juice boxes. Matt would blush if he hadn’t lost so much blood.
“Hell if I know,” Foggy says. He's got that brittle tone in his voice again. “I was just trying to make ends meet, and this omega I serviced once turned out to be my opponent on a case at my day job, and then he also turned out to be the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Who else are you secretly, Matt? My dentist? The mayor? My second grade teacher?”
Matt pokes at his bandage again and winces. “You patched me up?”
Foggy shakes his head. “No. That was your nurse friend.”
“Claire?” That doesn't make any sense, how would Foggy even know Claire…
“You had me call her after you took a swing at me for trying to call 911.”
Matt’s stomach roils. He attacked his alpha - no. Not his alpha. Besides, it's bad enough that he apparently tried to hit an innocent civilian. Still, he can't deny that his dismay over that is mingled with the sickening wrongness of offering violence to someone who could have been his bonded mate.
But isn't, he reminds himself. Isn't.
“I'm sorry,” he manages.
“For which part?” Foggy asks. “Giving me a heart attack when you crawled in my window last night half dead? Implicating me in whatever criminal activity you've got going on? Or blowing up the city and sending me to the hospital?”
“What?” Matt breathes, punched-out.
“Yeah, asshole, I live in Hell’s Kitchen too, remember? Those bombs took out my parents’ kitchen window, they pulled three inches of glass out of my side at Metro-Gen.”
Matt's stomach rebels harder. It must show, because Foggy says, “Wait, whoa,” and grabs for something - a bucket, a bowl, Matt can't tell, but he's heaving into it, the juice he just drank and river water and bile until he's dry heaving and Foggy's rubbing the back of his neck and saying, “Shh, shh, you're okay.”
“I didn't...it wasn't me,” Matt says. His throat burns. “I would never.”
Foggy gives him water to rinse and spit with and then takes the bucket away. Matt's grateful; it smells foul and makes him want to heave again. “Sleep,” Foggy says, and though his voice is still angry, his hands, when they push Matt back down against the mattress, are gentle. “You can explain when you wake up. And don't you leave a damn thing out.”
*
Matt explains when he wakes up: about his senses, about Stick, about hearing sirens at night and knowing he could help. About the little girl.
Foggy listens. He mutters comments under his breath, too, appalled and sympathetic and sarcastic by turns, and sometimes he needs to get up and pace the bedroom in furious silence, but he listens. It’s a better gift than Matt deserves.
It’s only when Matt mentions the name of the man behind the curtain that Foggy stops him.
“No,” he says, holding his hands up. “Wilson Fisk is a client of Landman and Zack’s, I can’t be party to any speculation about...about conspiracies to - ”
“It’s not speculation!” Matt snaps. “Who do you think did this to me?”
Foggy’s pacing comes to a halt. “Fisk did this?” he asks, and Matt’s heard Foggy when he’s angry and Foggy when he’s commanding, but he’s never heard him dangerous before. He's not sure what it means.
He nods. “Him and a guy named Nobu. I think he’s...some kind of ninja.”
“A ninja.” Foggy lets out a puff of air too bitter to be a laugh and sits on the edge of the bed by Matt’s hip.
“I went by Elena Cardenas’s apartment when the repairmen were scheduled to work on her apartment. She was jumpy after what happened last time. I didn’t want her to be alone,” Matt explains. “When the doorbell rang, she opened the door to let the workmen in, but it wasn’t them - it was a junkie with a knife. I managed to disarm him by pretending to stumble into him, but by the time I got Mrs. Cardenas to safety, he was gone.”
Matt shifts, trying to find a position to lie in that doesn’t hurt. He’s not sure there is one. “I changed into…” He nods at the chair where the bloody scraps of his working clothes are piled. “...and tracked him down. Found out he was hired to kill Mrs. Cardenas, all because she refused to move.”
“Fuck,” Foggy breathes.
“I got a lead on where Fisk would be, but it was a trap. Nobu was...I wasn’t expecting someone so strong. So fast. And then…” His aching bones throb. His memories throb. He still can’t believe he’s not dead. “Fisk showed up. He’s...I was already injured, and…” He waves a helpless hand in the air, even though it hurts to. “I jumped out the window. We were right on the water, but when I got back to land I was disoriented, and you...you smelled familiar, and I guess I just…”
Foggy’s close enough that Matt can sense his hands twitching. He’s quiet for a long time, and then he says, “The scars. Fuck, I should have guessed. Or at least questioned it.”
“What?”
“Your scars.” Foggy shakes his head. “I saw them, but I was so rut-stupid I didn’t think to wonder where they came from.” Matt only has a second for a burst of inappropriate triumph - his heat left Foggy too addled with lust to think - before Foggy’s talking again. “And Mrs. Cardenas is safe?”
“I brought her to a police officer I know is clean and trustworthy. Brett Mahoney.”
Foggy makes another one of those not-laugh sounds. “Yeah. I grew up with Brett. He’s good people.” He tilts his head. “Hell’s Kitchen boys, both lawyers...how did we not know each other, Matt?”
Matt’s not sure what to say in response. He suddenly desperately wishes he’d known Foggy for years, had the right to impose on him the way he can’t seem to stop doing now.
“I never meant to get you involved in any of this,” he says instead.
Foggy stands up. “Get some more rest,” he says. “I...I need to think about this.”
Matt misses his warmth immediately, but all he does is nod. “I really am sorry,” he says again. “I should never have come here.”
Foggy pauses in the doorway. “Yeah, well, if you didn’t, you’d probably be dead by now, so I’m glad you did.”
He steps out of the room before Matt can figure out how to parse that.
*
A few hours later Foggy helps him to the bathroom - Matt’s too exhausted to be ashamed - tucks him back into bed, and feeds him juice and crackers with peanut butter. Foggy sits back down on the edge of the bed and just breathes for a few minutes. It's...nice. Steadying.
“You're gonna get yourself killed,” he says finally. “You know that, right?”
“I’m being careful.”
“You crawled in a near-stranger’s window after pouring half your blood into the Hudson, Matt. That doesn’t sound like careful to me.”
Matt suspects his expression is mulish, but he can’t help it. “Fisk needs to be stopped. I can’t let him keep hurting people like this. I can’t let him keep hurting my home. If it means my life...well, I’ve made my peace with that.”
Foggy makes a noise, a sharp hiss of air through his teeth like he’s stubbed his toe or cut himself shaving. But he doesn’t say anything, until...
“So how do we stop him? Preferably without you dying in the process.”
Matt drops his cracker. “We?”
“You’ve slept for like twenty hours combined. I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Foggy says. “I've only been at Landman and Zack a little over a year, but there's already been all sorts of things that didn't smell right. I let it go because it was a good job, with a good salary, but…” He sighs. “If I make it out of this alive I’ll probably get disbarred for it, but Hell’s Kitchen is my home too.”
Matt swallows. His throat feels raw. “What if I’m lying?” he asks. “What if I set those bombs? What if I killed those cops?”
“Then I’ve just made a very serious mistake,” Foggy says. He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair off of Matt’s forehead. Matt’s breath catches. “But I don’t think I have.”
Matt snatches at Foggy’s hand as he starts to withdraw it, holds it close to his chest even though curling his fingers hurts. “You said if you make it out of this alive. I won’t let you get hurt again because of this, Foggy, I promise. I’ll keep you safe.”
He feels Foggy’s thumb stroke his swollen knuckles. “I believe you,” he says. And his heart beats true.
*
Matt tries to give Foggy his bed back after that but Foggy insists on sleeping on the couch for another night despite Matt’s best and most logical arguments. Early the next morning, before the sun’s quite up, he lends Matt a too-big hoodie and pajama pants and Matt makes his careful, achey way home, with his own clothing bundled inside of a shopping bag and a promise to wash Foggy’s and return it.
(The clothing smells like Foggy, even clean, and Matt already knows he’ll put off washing that smell off of it for as long as possible.)
He lies low for a few days, takes it easy. Karen visits and fusses over him. He knows she doesn’t believe his thin cover story about being hit by a car, but she doesn’t press him - much - and he’s grateful.
He’ll tell her everything. Someday.
A few days after he’s well enough to go back to work, Foggy comes over in the evening, with a briefcase full of files he’s smuggled out of Landman and Zack. Matt feels a hot flush crawling up the back of his neck as he opens the door to let Foggy in, remembering the last time Foggy walked over that threshold, and from the way Foggy’s heart speeds up he thinks Foggy might be remembering it too.
That, or he’s thinking about how dangerous what they’re doing is. It’s possible the heat they spent together is barely worth remembering, to Foggy. Matt has no idea how frequently Foggy gets calls from his side gig. He could have been with half a dozen other omegas since Matt.
The thought makes Matt grind his teeth, but he smiles instead, and offers Foggy a beer.
The files are a nightmare, secret after secret buried in offshore account after hostile takeover after dummy corporation. After the first night Matt gives up and loops Karen in. He’s doing the best he can with the internet and his screen reader, but they need more than one working pair of eyes, and he knows she’s been digging into the case when she thinks he’s not paying attention. He doesn’t tell her about his work in the mask, but the hope of taking down Fisk is enough to pique her interest.
When she gets to Matt’s apartment to find Foggy there she goes stiff, hand drifting towards the purse where Matt can smell pepper spray. “Matt, isn’t this Fisk’s lawyer?” she asks, her voice wary.
“Not once he finds out I’m helping you with this,” Foggy says cheerfully.
“Foggy’s where I’ve been getting a lot of my information from,” Matt explains. “We can trust him, Karen.”
She clearly doesn’t, and it’s just as clear that that bothers Foggy, because he spends the rest of the evening working on charming her - poking fun at himself, complimenting her detective work, and generally lightening the tension in the room like he’s hauling it upwards with both hands. It works. A couple hours in and Karen’s giggling behind her hand, her posture relaxing as she sinks into the couch, closer to Foggy. It reminds Matt a bit of the day he and Foggy met, the way Foggy managed to keep the intensity of the heat easy and playful when Matt was so clearly in distress. But of course, Karen’s an alpha, so it’s not the same.
Then Matt remembers that Foggy’s dated alphas before, and has to stop himself from getting up and unsubtly sitting between them on the couch.
He has to rein himself in. Just because he and Foggy shared a heat together - just because Foggy is turning out to have brains and integrity as well as a sense of humor and a nice dick - is no reason to let his biology run away with him like some stereotype of a nesting omega. He doesn’t want a mate - any mate. He’s been bonded before. He knows how badly it can end.
Still, he knows he smiles at Foggy too easily, and he listens too hard for any change in Foggy’s heartbeat when he does.
One night, when Karen’s off with the reporter, Urich, and it’s just him and Foggy, Foggy puts down his laptop with a groan and stretches. Matt bites the inside of his cheek.
“It would look suspicious if I updated my LinkedIn profile, right?” Foggy asks.
“Huh?” Matt asks intelligently.
“Well, I’m probably gonna be out of a job pretty soon,” Foggy says. “Either I’ll get caught and fired, or we’ll win, in which case I’m going to want ‘shady firm that represented murderous crime boss’ off my resume as quickly as possible.”
Right. Matt had been so busy thinking of all the ways Foggy could wind up getting hurt physically that he hadn’t stopped to consider Foggy getting hurt professionally. “God, I’m sorry. I should never have pulled you into this.”
Foggy waves a hand. “Water under the bridge, Murdock. I just wish there was a way I could put out feelers without making the partners look at me sideways. You’re not hiring at your firm, are you?”
He chuckles a little - it’s clearly a joke - but Matt sits up a bit straighter. “We...could be,” he says slowly. Carefully. “If you were interested.”
“What, really?” Foggy asks.
Matt spreads his hands. “Karen’s amazing, but she doesn’t have a degree, and it’s tough carrying a case in court solo. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have clients beating down the door. And we don’t pay nearly as well as L&Z. Like. At all.” He shakes his head. “Never mind. It was a stupid idea.”
“Not that stupid,” Foggy says. Matt still can’t tell if he’s taking this seriously or not. “At least if I was your minion I wouldn’t feel like I was selling another piece of my soul with every case.”
“Minion nothing. We’d be partners,” Matt says, trying a smile.
Foggy’s heart gives a little flutter. “Murdock and Nelson, huh?”
“Nelson and Murdock,” Matt corrects him. “It sounds better.”
“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and his voice is so soft that Matt can’t stop himself from beaming helplessly at him.
“Yeah,” he insists. “I can’t see worth shit, but my hearing’s spectacular.”
He nudges Foggy’s knee with his own. Foggy’s heart races and for a moment Matt thinks maybe - maybe -
“Well,” Foggy says, “I’ll think about it.”
*
It’s Karen who finds it - the tiny line on the financial report that shows where Owlsley’s hidden Fisk’s pet cop, the one weak link in Fisk’s armor. Matt brings Hoffman in, and suddenly, after months of scrabbling for answers, dominoes start falling into place. Arrests are happening left and right, the Bulletin is trumpeting Fisk’s downfall in every headline, and even Karen has stopped moving like she’s so brittle she might break if she trips. Everything is going right.
And then Fisk escapes.
They put Karen in a cab, and then it’s just Matt and Foggy standing in the street, and Matt can barely hear the sirens everywhere over the sound of Foggy’s heart pounding.
“You’re gonna go find him,” Foggy says, and Matt nods. “Matt, no. You heard what’s going on out there! You can’t go up against that in your black pajamas.”
“I won’t be.” Matt hasn’t picked up his new outfit, hasn’t even had time to tell Foggy about it, but he has faith in Melvin. “I know what I’m doing, Foggy.”
There’s the catch in Foggy’s breath, the one Matt has learned means he’s about to say something. But instead he steps forward, right into Matt’s space, and curves his hand over Matt’s bonding scar.
Matt’s heart leaps to meet it. Even through three layers of fabric, Foggy’s touch burns.
“All right,” Foggy says. “Go be a hero. Just don’t get yourself killed doing it, okay?” There’s the wet sound of him licking his lips, and Matt wonders for a dizzy instant if Foggy’s going to kiss him. “Come back to me.”
“I will,” Matt says. “I swear.”
Foggy lets him go and holds out a hand, and a cab pulls up with a squeal of tires. Even once Matt’s in it and driving away, he can still feel Foggy’s hand on his throat.
His heart is racing, but it’s not with fear. There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s going to win. He knows it.
He promised his alpha.
*
Matt’s still blocks from his apartment when he senses Foggy waiting for him. He’s not surprised. He told Foggy weeks ago about the roof entrance, how he never keeps it locked because he can’t exactly carry keys around in his night clothes.
Foggy’s sitting on the couch, but he stands up when Matt opens the door, and comes to stand at the foot of the stairs. He doesn’t say a word, and neither does Matt as he walks down the stairs, one by one by one. He’d raced across the roofs to get home once he sensed Foggy, but now every move he makes feels slow, deliberate.
Finally he’s standing at the base of the stairs, facing Foggy. He can’t tell whose heart is racing.
“I did it,” he says. “I took him down. It’s over.”
“Good boy,” Foggy says.
Matt’s blood ignites. He doesn’t remember moving, but suddenly he’s got Foggy up against the wall and his tongue is in Foggy’s mouth. Foggy gasps and kisses him back, wet and with a flash of teeth. It stings Matt’s split lip, but he doesn’t care.
“Matt,” Foggy groans when Matt lets him breathe. “Matt, Matt, Matty…”
Matt shudders and presses closer. Foggy’s body is hot and pliant between him and the wall, soft in every place but one. He smells like Matt’s couch and his mouth tastes like the beer in Matt’s fridge. Mine, Matt thinks dizzily, greedily, biting at Foggy’s plush lower lip. Mine.
When Foggy tries to touch him he pins Foggy’s wrists to the wall, holding him in place. Foggy’s scent has grown more alpha with his arousal, but he doesn’t fight it - no, he sinks back against the wall and bares his throat to Matt. “What do you want, Matty?”
Anything. Everything. He wants to devour Foggy whole. He wants Foggy’s touch to consume every inch of him, rage through him like a forest fire.
He drops to his knees, yanks off the helmet, and presses his face to the bulge in Foggy’s pants, breathes in deep. Foggy’s intoxicating, his usual scent of coffee and nutmeg and ink mingling with desire, musk and salt and those elusive alpha notes that drive Matt crazy, that he’s been craving since his heat. “This,” he says. “You.”
“Then take me,” Foggy says.
Matt groans, rubbing his cheek, catlike, against Foggy’s erection. He practically pops the button off Foggy’s jeans yanking it open, drags the zipper down and pushes Foggy’s pants and boxers to his ankles. His mouth waters.
Someday soon, he’ll take his time. Someday soon, he’ll spread Foggy out on his bed and kiss every inch of him, taste the subtle differences from neck to navel to knee. Someday he’ll tease Foggy for so long that Foggy will be the one begging, Matt’s name echoing on his tongue like a favorite song.
This is not that day.
Matt dives down on Foggy’s cock like a starving man at a banquet. He’s been dreaming about this, twisted up in his sheets night after night, and he can’t wait any longer. Foggy fills his mouth perfectly - too much, too big. Matt knows his jaw will be aching soon and that’s good, that’s so good.
“Matt…!” Foggy chokes out, hitching forward before he presses himself flat against the wall, hands locked where Matt left them. Something possessive and glad rumbles deep in Matt’s chest. He might be the one on his knees, but Foggy’s letting him set the pace. Most alphas wouldn’t - wouldn’t stay put when an omega said, wouldn’t offer themselves up for the taking - and most omegas wouldn’t ask for it. But Matt’s never been a typical omega, and Foggy’s so much more than a typical alpha.
He works Foggy’s dick greedily, taking him as deep as he can, fingers digging into Foggy’s thighs to hold him in place. But Foggy’s not going anywhere; he’s trembling with his head tipped back against the wall, panting out praise. “Matt...fuck, Matty, so good...Jesus, Matt, your mouth…”
Matt groans wetly and sucks harder. He knows, distantly, that he’s a mess of bruises and bloody scrapes, that he’ll be feeling the aftereffects of his battle with Fisk for days. But right now he’s flooded with endorphins and nothing hurts. All he can taste and smell and feel is Foggy. It’s everything he wants.
Soon, too soon and not quickly enough, he can smell Foggy’s arousal sharpening as he twitches on Matt’s tongue. Maybe Foggy’s been wanting this as long as Matt has; maybe he’s been thinking about this since he touched Matt’s throat. Either way, he’s not going to last much longer.
“Matty,” he warns, and oh, Matt loves his new nickname, wants to hear it every morning. “Matt, Matty, please…”
Matt hums, and digs his fingers in hard enough to bruise, and Foggy comes down his throat with a hoarse cry.
When Foggy whimpers - but doesn’t move, doesn’t push Matt away - Matt lets go of his softening cock and sits back, dragging a hand across his swollen mouth. He keeps his other hand on Foggy’s hip, holding him in place, and Foggy finally lets go of the wall to curl his fingers around Matt’s like he’s grateful for the support. Matt smiles up at him, feeling drunk and pretty sure he looks it, and listens to the way Foggy’s heart trips.
“Can I help you with something?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins wider. Foggy coming doesn’t settle something in him the way it does during a heat, but it’s a hell of a dopamine shot regardless.
“I want you in my bed,” he says, his voice scraping out of his throat.
“God, yes,” Foggy says.
He kicks off his shoes and pants, then holds out his hands to help Matt up off his knees and lets Matt lead the way to the bedroom. “Get on the bed,” Matt says, and Foggy obeys, scooching back across the mattress so that he can watch Matt undress. It’s a bit of a production - the suit’s designed so that Matt can get in and out of it on his own, but he’s never actually taken it off before.
“Need a hand?” Foggy asks with a grin in his voice as Matt struggles with the top half. His gloves are already off, tossed into a corner of the room, his boots shoved under the dresser.
“I got it.” Matt finds the catch and undoes it triumphantly.
Foggy still sounds amused. “I gotta tell you, Matty, when you decide on an aesthetic, you really commit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look good, but the little horns are definitely a choice.”
“The whole thing’s reinforced,” Matt grunts, voice muffled as he wiggles out of the top. He winces as he goes - yeah, he’s going to be sore tomorrow. “If I hadn’t been wearing it, I’d probably be dead.”
Foggy goes silent but his heart gets faster. Matt can't figure out why until he realizes that Foggy's upset - that someone actually cares that he might have died. That this might be the beginning of belonging to someone again.
“Then I love it,” Foggy says, all hint of joking gone from his voice, and Matt drops the shirt on the floor and climbs onto the bed, cupping Foggy’s face in his hands.
“Hey. Hey. I’m here. I’m okay.”
Foggy’s fingers skim over his swollen mouth, the cut over the bridge of his nose; they trace the edges of bruises on his shoulders and down his chest. “Show me,” he whispers.
Matt kisses him, hands sliding up under Foggy's shirt to palm at his sides, his beautiful soft stomach. Foggy lets Matt tug his shirt off and bear him back against the mattress, pausing just to kick his own pants and boxers off and away. He's been naked in this bed with Foggy before, but the urgency is different. Last time, he needed an alpha, any alpha. Now he just wants Foggy.
He pins Foggy to the mattress, nips possessively at his jaw and growls a little, low in his throat. “See?” he says. “Still here.”
Foggy slides a hand down to grab his ass, and Matt thrusts against his hip. “Yeah, I'm feeling something to that effect,” he says, amused and clearly still turned on even though he’s spent. Matt presses a smile against his throat, pleased. “You gonna do something about it?”
Matt bites him again, a little lower this time, closer to his bonding gland, where Matt would sink his teeth in if Foggy were an omega in heat. Foggy stiffens for split second and Matt freezes, afraid that he’s gone too far - that it’s too intimate too soon, or that the alpha in Foggy will finally resist all of Matt’s manhandling.
Then Foggy shudders and says, “Yeah, Matty,” and Matt buries his groan in Foggy’s neck and rocks against his hip.
“Wanna fuck you,” he says, muffled against Foggy’s skin. “Will you let me?”
“Fuck, yes, do it,” Foggy pants, so eager, and Matt knows he won’t last long enough for it, not tonight.
“I.” He thrusts into the soft curve of Foggy’s pelvis, hips stuttering forward on their own, over and over. There’s no finesse to it, but their skin is slick with sweat and Matt’s precome and right now having Foggy pressed beneath him is enough. “Later. Tomorrow? I just...right now I just need…”
“Yeah, yes, tomorrow, any time, you can do it in court if you want,” Foggy says, trying to haul him even closer, kissing his hair.
Matt groans again and breathes in. All he can smell is Foggy, all he can feel is Foggy, warm skin and strong arms and clever hands touching him everywhere. He drags himself against Foggy’s hip, knows he’s marking Foggy with his scent and that Foggy is letting him, and it’s so good, it’s so sweet.
And then Foggy starts talking.
“Matt,” fuck, his voice sounds wrecked, “yeah, Matt, do it, come on, baby, you feel so fucking good.” A kiss pressed to his sweaty temple. “So proud of you, you’re so brave, you did it, my beautiful Matty, you saved us and you came back to me just like I asked you to, so good for me.”
“Foggy.” Matt thinks he’s shaking. He can’t pull Foggy’s scent into his lungs fast enough.
“Come on, sweetheart, do it.” Foggy’s hands are hot and strong, holding him fast when his words make Matt feel like he’s floating. “You earned it. Come for me. I wanna feel it, Matty.”
Matt’s teeth graze Foggy’s bonding gland. He can’t help it. “Mine.”
“Yeah, Matty, I’m yours. I’m all yours,” Foggy swears, his heart steady, and Matt comes with a breathless sob.
“Beautiful,” Foggy whispers as Matt comes down from it. “My beautiful omega.”
“Foggy,” Matt says again, helplessly.
Foggy rolls him onto his back and reaches for something - tissues, Matt thinks. “Shhh, Matty. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Matt sinks back against the mattress as Foggy wipes him clean. As Foggy starts to move away again Matt reaches out - gingerly, because with the adrenalin rush over everything’s starting to ache - and hooks his fingers around Foggy’s wrist.
“Stay?” he asks.
“Of course.” Foggy pulls away enough to throw the tissues out, then lies back down, pulling Matt close. “As long as you want.”
Matt shifts so that his head is pillowed on Foggy’s shoulder. “Good,” he says, and knows he’s going to want for a very long time.
*
Matt wakes up sore everywhere and stiff down to his toes. It takes him nearly five minutes to ease himself into a seated position, and he can’t imagine how he’s going to bring himself to get up and make coffee.
Then he smells coffee brewing in the kitchen, and hears Foggy whistling, and suddenly he can’t stop smiling.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Foggy says as he walks in juggling two cups of coffee and something that rattles. “FYI, you’re somehow managing to look both unfairly hot and like you got run over by a truck last night at the same time, just so you know. How do you feel?”
“Good,” Matt sighs, beaming.
“Oh my God, stop. Stop with the face. Here.” Foggy hands him a mug, puts his own down on the bedside table, and opens up the rattling thing, which turns out to be aspirin. “I’m guessing you need these.”
Matt swallows the pills obediently and pats the bed next to him. “Thanks.”
The mattress dips as Foggy crawls back in under the covers and sits next to Matt, close enough that their thighs and shoulders touch. They sip their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes before Foggy’s heart speeds up and he says: “So I should probably tell you I called my boss and quit Landman and Zack while you were out finding Hoffman.”
Matt nearly spills his coffee. “What? That was - that was nearly a week ago, you never said anything! What if we’d lost? What if I couldn’t bring Hoffman in?”
He feels Foggy shrug. “I didn’t like being a shark, I guess,” Foggy says. “And I had faith in you.”
Matt concentrates very hard on his coffee cup, but he can feel himself blushing. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “the offer to join my firm is still on the table. I still think Nelson and Murdock has a nice ring to it.”
“So do I,” Foggy says, warmly, and Matt hunches further over his coffee cup. Foggy elbows him.
“It doesn’t pay as well. Like I said,” Matt says, because it’s only fair that Foggy know everything before he commits to - to the firm. “I get paid in casseroles a lot. You might need to bank on, uh...” He has to force this next part out. “...a lot of omegas needing surrogates over the next few months.”
“Oh. I.” Foggy’s heart gets even faster. “I quit that job, too.”
Matt feels suddenly breathless. “You did? When?”
There’s a long pause, and then, “The day after you crawled through my window.”
Matt turns to him, open-mouthed. “Foggy.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, after we - after we met,” Foggy says. “Heats are always emotional, but I’m pretty good at moving on, afterwards. I wasn’t good at it this time. And then you came to Landman and Zack…”
“I was awful to you,” Matt says. “I insulted you.”
“You were extremely obnoxious,” Foggy agrees easily. “You also made me realize how unhappy I’d been there. How unhappy I was with myself. I felt like I’d disappointed you, and it didn’t make sense that that upset me so much when I barely even knew you, but…” He shrugs. “There it was.”
“And then I crawled through your window,” Matt says.
Foggy nods. “And then you crawled through my window. And Matt, I really thought you were gonna die that night. I’d never seen so much blood, and you were so pale…”
“I’m sorry,” Matt says, face tipped down. The fact that Foggy is even still speaking to him after that night is a miracle.
“I was so angry. I’ve never been so angry in my life. I don’t get angry like that,” Foggy says. “I thought I was angry at you for bringing me into this, for doing all this illegal shit that was maybe just escalating the violence, and now here I was right in the middle of it - and don’t get me wrong, I was angry at you for that. But.” Foggy tilts his face down too, like he’s speaking very intently to his coffee cup. “Then you said that Fisk had hurt you like that, and I just…” He shakes his head. “I wanted to kill him, for a minute there. I wanted...I’ve never felt that before. That violence. I didn’t like it. But...but he hurt you, and you were mine.”
Matt’s head snaps up.
“I’m not much of an alpha,” Foggy says. “I never really got that possessive urge. It’s what made me such a good surrogate. But you...someone touched you and I saw red. And I realized that as mad as I was that you’d involved me, that you were breaking the law...I was madder because you were putting yourself in danger. Because you were gonna get yourself killed, and you hadn’t even given me a chance to lo...to know you yet.”
“I’m not going to stop,” Matt says, because it feels dishonest not to, even though all he wants is to throw himself into Foggy’s arms and think about the word Foggy didn’t let himself say. “It wasn’t about Fisk. It’s about helping people who need it. That’s not going to change.”
“I know,” Foggy says. “I wish you didn’t have to, but...I get it, a little. I do. I just want to be the one you come back to when you’re done.”
Matt’s breath catches. He wonders, a little, what his face is doing, but mostly he’s concentrating on Foggy’s voice.
“I know that’s a lot, so soon,” Foggy says quickly. “You don’t have to...I don’t expect anything. I just couldn’t go back to being a surrogate when I knew what it felt like to...to want someone to be my omega, instead of just an omega.”
Matt leans over and puts his coffee on the bedside table, then turns to Foggy. “I’m going to kiss you for a really long time now,” he says. “Is that okay?”
Foggy’s laugh sounds relieved. He puts his own coffee down and opens his arms. “Bring it in,” he says, just like he did during Matt’s heat, when he knew exactly what Matt needed. About a thousand body parts twinge as Matt scrambles into Foggy’s lap, but he doesn’t care. Foggy is warm and sweet and he kisses Matt like he’s something precious, hands gentle over Matt’s bruises.
“I never thought I’d want an alpha again,” Matt confesses, resting his forehead against Foggy’s.
“Well, if it helps, I’m a pretty lousy one,” Foggy says.
Matt growls playfully. “You’re the best alpha. I’d fight any omega for you.”
“You’d fight anyone for anything, Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” Foggy says, poking Matt gently in the side.
“...No comment.”
Foggy cups his cheek, then lets his hand drop so that his thumb can rub over Matt’s bonding mark. Matt shivers. “I know it can’t be easy, trying again.”
Matt closes his eyes. Foggy’s nothing like Elektra. There was a time he thought that meant Foggy had nothing Matt wanted, but now he knows better. “You make it pretty easy, actually.”
“Hey, way to go, me.” Foggy kisses Matt’s eyelids softly, one by one, and then his nose. Matt laughs. “Here’s to trying again, then.”
Matt opens his eyes and beams at Foggy. It really is too early to talk about him going off suppressants, or bonding, or if he even wants to risk starting a heat while crimefighting. There’s a million logistics to consider first about adding Foggy to the firm, about working together while dating, about how to keep Foggy protected from anyone targeting the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And they’re still getting to know each other.
But Matt feels hopeful about something, for the first time in a long time.
He breathes in and fills his lungs with Foggy. It’s quickly becoming his favorite scent.
“Here’s to us,” he says.
Fandom: Daredevil (TV)
Rating: NC-17
Chapter One
Two weeks later Matt’s still catching phantom wisps of Foggy’s scent when he turns his head. He’s almost positive they’re not really there, not after two weeks of showering, of changing clothes, of going out in his Daredevil suit and sweating out his anger. It’s psychosomatic, something triggered by his omega hindbrain rather than his olfactory sense. He’s already started suppressants, though, and he’s confident the phantom scents will vanish completely once the suppressants are working at full strength.
He catches one as he follows Karen through the glass doors of the building downtown into a lobby that echoes cavernously around them, all smooth shimmering surfaces for sound to bounce freely off of. “It looks like a place in a movie where you’d buy a clone,” she says, her voice simultaneously amused and impressed. “Or a robot baby. Or a clone of a robot baby.”
“Which is exactly why I started my own firm after law school,” Matt says. “No robot baby clones for me.”
She laughs and gives their names at the front desk. An assistant leads them into an elevator and up - Matt doesn’t catch the floor number, but from the pressure in his ears and the speed of the car it must be pretty high.
“Your meeting room is just down here, Mr. Murdock, Ms. Page,” the assistant says, leading them down the hall. Matt catches another whiff of Foggy and tries to exhale firmly but discreetly through his nose to clear it away. He doesn’t have time for this now.
The assistant opens the door to their meeting room. Matt takes a breath and his heart plunges to his knees. Not phantom smells, then. Not phantom at all.
“Mr. Murdock, this is Franklin Nelson and Marci Stahl,” the assistant says. “They’ll be representing Mr. Tully in this matter. Can I get you something to drink?”
Matt swallows hard. His mouth is certainly dry, but he’s not sure he can speak. That’s Foggy - it’s definitely Foggy standing on the other side of the conference table, all mild beta scent and familiar shampoo and a heartbeat that’s starting to race. He definitely recognizes Matt - aside from the heartbeat, Matt catches a hint of sweat beginning to form on his upper lip and his palms.
“Matt?” Karen asks, sounding concerned. How long has it been since the assistant asked Matt a question? Has he just been standing here gaping? He feels hot - is he blushing?
“I,” he says. It comes out rusty. “Sorry. Yes. Water would be lovely.”
What is Foggy doing here? He’s a surrogate, not a lawyer. Sure, a surrogate can be a part-time job - is, for most surrogates, since they can’t necessarily count on a sufficient amount of omegas needing alphas in any given month - but if Foggy’s a lawyer, and at a place like this no less, he should be making more than enough money to live on. Though he did say his family was having financial troubles…
Matt lets Karen lead him to a chair and gratefully accepts the glass of water the assistant hands him. “Sorry about that,” he says. There’s only the faintest quaver in his voice. “Just a little dust in my throat. Shall we begin?”
“Of course,” the female lawyer says, and there’s a scrape of chairs as everyone else sits. “Franklin, do you want to start…?”
“Oh! Right. Yes. Right. I’ll just…” There’s a rustle of papers. Foggy’s fumbling with them, jumpy and nervous. Is it just because he’s afraid Matt will reveal his side job to his coworkers, or is he as shaken by being in the same room as Matt as Matt is by being so close to him?
“Right. Your client, a Mrs. Elena Cardenas, claims that our client, Mr. Tully, is trying to force her out of her apartment. However, Mr. Tully offered Mrs. Cardenas a sizeable payout to vacate her apartment, far more than the monthly rent, and - ”
“And she turned it down,” Matt says, trying to wrest control of this situation back. “At which point Mr. Tully sent men who damaged her apartment, and others, in an attempt to drive her and her neighbors out of the building.”
“Those were workmen making requested repairs,” Foggy says - but his heart skips. Not quite enough of a jump for Matt to be sure it’s a lie, but a definite flutter. So Foggy doesn’t actually believe Tully’s bullshit. Interesting.
Matt forces down an idiotic moment of disappointment that the sweet, steady alpha he spent a heat with apparently has no professional ethics to speak of. He has no claim on Foggy, moral or otherwise.
“Repairs which were never completed,” Matt points out.
The female attorney jumps in with something about the workmen fearing for their safety, but the minute she starts talking again Matt stops listening, stuck on a memory. Marci, the assistant said her name was Marci, and hadn't Foggy said he had an alpha ex by that name? This woman’s an alpha, Matt can smell it. She must be the ex in question.
“Mr. Murdock?” she says, apparently noticing him spacing out, and he actually growls at her before he can stop himself. Shit.
“Matt!” Foggy says sharply, his tone all warning alpha. Matt bares his throat immediately, an apology, before fighting the instinct and forcing his chin down. Shit, shit, shit. Apparently the omega in him wants to submit to Foggy as badly as it wants to fight off any competitors, even alpha competitors.
Not that Foggy has the right to order him, not when they’re not bonded. He glares in Foggy’s direction, even as his hindbrain screams at him to be good, dammit, or he’ll never get those teeth in his neck.
Marci’s turning her head back and forth between them. “Do you...know each other?” she asks, and Matt’s stomach sinks as he realizes what they’ve just given away. Even setting aside the possessive behavior, opposing counsel who’d just met him wouldn’t be likely to call him by a nickname. Plus, Matt’s definitely bright red by now, and he’s pretty sure Foggy is, too.
“Uh,” Foggy says.
“Oh my God,” Marci says.
“Matt?” Karen’s hand lands on his forearm, gentle and too hot. “What’s going on?”
There’s too many alphas in this room. Matt can’t breathe. “I need...restroom,” he says. “Not feeling well.”
He lurches to his feet, barely remembering to use his cane as he makes for the door they came in by. “Second door on your right!” Marci calls after him, and then hisses in a whisper that Karen probably can’t hear, but Matt can even from out in the hall, “I can’t believe you fucked the opposing counsel, Foggy.”
“I didn’t...that’s not exactly…” Matt slips into the bathroom, but he can still hear Foggy sigh and stand up. “I’m just going to make sure he found the bathroom okay. Jane, can you please get Ms. Page some fresh coffee?”
Matt braces himself against a sink and waits. The porcelain is cool and soothing under his hands. He’d be able to hear Foggy’s footsteps coming closer even with normal senses.
The door swings open. “Hi,” Foggy says.
Matt doesn’t turn. His embarrassment is turning to something hot and indignant under his skin, the kind of heat that sends him into the streets at night in a mask. “You never said you were a lawyer.”
“I didn’t see how it was relevant.” Foggy takes a step closer. “I kind of had other things on my mind.”
“Why would you be working as a surrogate when you’re making the kind of salary a place like this pays?” Matt asks, releasing his death grip on the sink to wave a hand at their surroundings. True, they’re in a bathroom, but it’s a pretty nice bathroom.
“Not sure why you think that’s your business,” Foggy says - steady, not a hint of anger in his tone. It just makes Matt want to needle him more.
“It’s less the occupation and more the firm,” Matt says, finally turning to face him. “I try to avoid sleeping with sharks.”
“What - ”
“You know perfectly well what Tully’s trying to do to Mrs. Cardenas. You can fuck me or you can fuck my clients, not both.”
“Hey.” Most alphas would be in Matt’s space by now, looming over him - or trying to, Foggy’s almost exactly his height - and breathing their scent down on him, trying to get him to back off. Matt’s never been the kind of omega that works on. He kind of wishes Foggy would try it anyway.
But no, Foggy keeps his distance, though his voice is brittle and cold. “You hired me to perform a service and I did. You have a problem with my freelance job? Then don’t use that kind of agency again. You have a problem with this job? Then we’ll have it out in that conference room, where you will treat me and my colleague with respect. Anything else, and I’d be happy to find someone to show you and your assistant out.”
Matt takes a deep breath and unclenches his fists. Foggy’s not going to give him the kind of fight he wants - which is probably for the best, really. Matt doing something dumb to shake off his own embarrassment won’t help Mrs. Cardenas. “I apologize for insulting you,” he grits out. “And you’re right. Your financial matters are none of my business.”
“Thank you. Apology accepted.”
“But I am right about Tully.”
Foggy takes a step back. “I can’t have this conversation with you, Matt. Not here.”
“Come on.” Matt’s banking on the guilty flinch in Foggy’s heartbeat when he defended the workmen who tore up Mrs. Cardenas’s apartment, and the hope that Foggy’s heat-sweetness carries through to Franklin Nelson, Attorney-at-Law. “He’s strong-arming a little old lady out of her home to turn a profit, and you know it.”
Foggy’s silent for half a minute; then he sighs and leans against the wall. “I know,” he says. “She and my mom have a mutual friend. The Hell’s Kitchen coffee klatch, you know?” Matt nods - he does know, actually. Half of them go to his church and are forever trying to set him up with their alpha kids. “Anyway, my mom actually asked me if Mrs. Cardenas could come to me for some legal advice, but when I realized we represented the reason she needed the advice in the first place…”
He straightens up. “Look, you and I both know that Tully has a lot more weight to throw around than Mrs. Cardenas does. He can drag this case out indefinitely, and in the meantime she’s living in a trashed apartment. But...no one high up is looking all that closely at this case. I can at least make a lot of noise about Mrs. Cardenas possibly going to the media, and get those repairs made sooner while we work out the rest of the settlement.”
“You won’t get in trouble for that?” Matt asks, surprised.
Foggy shrugs. “Like I said, no one’s looking too closely at this case. And I can handle a little yelling, if it comes to that, and if it means a little old lady has running water and a working stove.”
His heart is steady, but Matt’s wary, after the unpleasant shock of finding Foggy here in the first place. “If this is...some kind of bribe or something, no deal. I’m not going to encourage Mrs. Cardenas to sell if she doesn’t want to, just because…”
“It’s not a bribe,” Foggy interrupts, sounding halfway between amused and annoyed. “I’m just trying to do the decent thing here. That happens sometimes, even with us sharks.”
Matt bites his lip. He wants to apologize. He wants to pick a fight. He wants to ask if Foggy thinks about the heat they shared as often as he does.
“...Thank you,” he says finally.
“I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for her,” Foggy says. “As far as I’m concerned, what happened between us...it doesn’t have anything to do with this, okay? It’s over. It has to be over now, or one of us is gonna have to recuse himself.”
Matt closes his eyes behind his glasses and remembers a gentle kiss on his forehead. You can definitely call me for your next heat. Not that Matt’s going to have another one, not on suppressants, but it felt good to know that someday, maybe…
But no, Foggy’s right. They can’t oppose each other in court and still keep the option open for…
For nothing, Matt reminds himself. Foggy was just doing his job.
“Don’t worry,” he says, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. “I’m not the clingy kind of omega.”
“Good, because I’m not the possessive kind of alpha,” Foggy replies, equally sarcastic, and Matt bites back his snarl that yes, Foggy’s proven that already. “So we’re good?”
Matt straightens up and taps his cane on the ground. “Somewhat. I’m still gonna make Armin Tully sorry he ever fucked with my client.”
Foggy’s laugh is a surprise - and an unpleasant one, because it brings a wave of stupid, useless wanting with it. “God, I hope you do. I hate that guy,” he says, and opens the bathroom door. “After you, Mr. Murdock.”
*
The world lurches beneath Matt’s feet. Everything tastes like river water and blood, and he can’t get his bearings. He knows he needs to get to Claire, or get home and call her, or the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is going to bleed out in the street, but he can’t even begin to guess which direction home is.
Looks like Fisk might have managed to kill him after all.
He staggers to the nearest wall and props himself up against it, trying to shake the foul Hudson water out of his nose and ears so that he can figure out where he is. But then there are no familiar scents, nothing to place him, nothing like home…
Wait.
There, threading warm and homey through the miasma of New York City’s night air. He knows that scent. He needs that scent. It’s safety and security and a roaring fire on a winter’s night. He’ll be okay once he reaches it. He just needs to get there.
He follows it through the streets, away from the water. By the time he’s fighting his way up the fire escape, he has a name for it: alpha. His alpha. Foggy.
Foggy lives on...Matt’s lost count. The fifth floor, or maybe the sixth, but he’s here. The window’s open a crack and Matt can slide his fingers under it and push it up, up, open. There’s a reason he shouldn’t be here, a reason his alpha can’t be his alpha, not really, but he can’t remember it right now, and anyway it doesn’t matter. He’s hurting. His alpha will make it better. That’s what alphas do.
He crawls through the open window, slips, falls to the floor with a thud. A heart starts to race in the next room.
“Hello?” Foggy. “Is someone there?”
Matt wants to tell him it’s okay, it’s just him, but his mouth won’t cooperate. He’s trying to push himself into a seated position when Foggy walks in, holding something - a baseball bat, maybe?
“Holy shit!” Foggy says, holding the bat at the ready. “Holy shit, you’re the - you - what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
“Foggy,” Matt manages.
Foggy’s heart gets even faster, somehow. “How do you know my name?”
It doesn’t make any sense until Matt remembers his mask. “It...I’m…” he says, and tries to reach up to pluck at it, but the world is swimming and even the sound of his alpha’s heartbeat is fading and he can’t...quite…
*
Matt wakes in a bed that feels unfamiliar but smells like home. Everything hurts.
“Where…?” he manages to groan, trying to sit up. His stomach screams a warning and he freezes, reaches down to feel a large bandage taped to his skin. When he starts to peel it back the scent of blood fills the air.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a familiar voice says, walking into the bedroom.
It’s the alpha lawyer. Foggy Nelson.
Oh, fuck.
“What happened?” he croaks, and Foggy steps forward and feeds him - oh God, it’s another one of those little juice boxes. Matt would blush if he hadn’t lost so much blood.
“Hell if I know,” Foggy says. He's got that brittle tone in his voice again. “I was just trying to make ends meet, and this omega I serviced once turned out to be my opponent on a case at my day job, and then he also turned out to be the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Who else are you secretly, Matt? My dentist? The mayor? My second grade teacher?”
Matt pokes at his bandage again and winces. “You patched me up?”
Foggy shakes his head. “No. That was your nurse friend.”
“Claire?” That doesn't make any sense, how would Foggy even know Claire…
“You had me call her after you took a swing at me for trying to call 911.”
Matt’s stomach roils. He attacked his alpha - no. Not his alpha. Besides, it's bad enough that he apparently tried to hit an innocent civilian. Still, he can't deny that his dismay over that is mingled with the sickening wrongness of offering violence to someone who could have been his bonded mate.
But isn't, he reminds himself. Isn't.
“I'm sorry,” he manages.
“For which part?” Foggy asks. “Giving me a heart attack when you crawled in my window last night half dead? Implicating me in whatever criminal activity you've got going on? Or blowing up the city and sending me to the hospital?”
“What?” Matt breathes, punched-out.
“Yeah, asshole, I live in Hell’s Kitchen too, remember? Those bombs took out my parents’ kitchen window, they pulled three inches of glass out of my side at Metro-Gen.”
Matt's stomach rebels harder. It must show, because Foggy says, “Wait, whoa,” and grabs for something - a bucket, a bowl, Matt can't tell, but he's heaving into it, the juice he just drank and river water and bile until he's dry heaving and Foggy's rubbing the back of his neck and saying, “Shh, shh, you're okay.”
“I didn't...it wasn't me,” Matt says. His throat burns. “I would never.”
Foggy gives him water to rinse and spit with and then takes the bucket away. Matt's grateful; it smells foul and makes him want to heave again. “Sleep,” Foggy says, and though his voice is still angry, his hands, when they push Matt back down against the mattress, are gentle. “You can explain when you wake up. And don't you leave a damn thing out.”
*
Matt explains when he wakes up: about his senses, about Stick, about hearing sirens at night and knowing he could help. About the little girl.
Foggy listens. He mutters comments under his breath, too, appalled and sympathetic and sarcastic by turns, and sometimes he needs to get up and pace the bedroom in furious silence, but he listens. It’s a better gift than Matt deserves.
It’s only when Matt mentions the name of the man behind the curtain that Foggy stops him.
“No,” he says, holding his hands up. “Wilson Fisk is a client of Landman and Zack’s, I can’t be party to any speculation about...about conspiracies to - ”
“It’s not speculation!” Matt snaps. “Who do you think did this to me?”
Foggy’s pacing comes to a halt. “Fisk did this?” he asks, and Matt’s heard Foggy when he’s angry and Foggy when he’s commanding, but he’s never heard him dangerous before. He's not sure what it means.
He nods. “Him and a guy named Nobu. I think he’s...some kind of ninja.”
“A ninja.” Foggy lets out a puff of air too bitter to be a laugh and sits on the edge of the bed by Matt’s hip.
“I went by Elena Cardenas’s apartment when the repairmen were scheduled to work on her apartment. She was jumpy after what happened last time. I didn’t want her to be alone,” Matt explains. “When the doorbell rang, she opened the door to let the workmen in, but it wasn’t them - it was a junkie with a knife. I managed to disarm him by pretending to stumble into him, but by the time I got Mrs. Cardenas to safety, he was gone.”
Matt shifts, trying to find a position to lie in that doesn’t hurt. He’s not sure there is one. “I changed into…” He nods at the chair where the bloody scraps of his working clothes are piled. “...and tracked him down. Found out he was hired to kill Mrs. Cardenas, all because she refused to move.”
“Fuck,” Foggy breathes.
“I got a lead on where Fisk would be, but it was a trap. Nobu was...I wasn’t expecting someone so strong. So fast. And then…” His aching bones throb. His memories throb. He still can’t believe he’s not dead. “Fisk showed up. He’s...I was already injured, and…” He waves a helpless hand in the air, even though it hurts to. “I jumped out the window. We were right on the water, but when I got back to land I was disoriented, and you...you smelled familiar, and I guess I just…”
Foggy’s close enough that Matt can sense his hands twitching. He’s quiet for a long time, and then he says, “The scars. Fuck, I should have guessed. Or at least questioned it.”
“What?”
“Your scars.” Foggy shakes his head. “I saw them, but I was so rut-stupid I didn’t think to wonder where they came from.” Matt only has a second for a burst of inappropriate triumph - his heat left Foggy too addled with lust to think - before Foggy’s talking again. “And Mrs. Cardenas is safe?”
“I brought her to a police officer I know is clean and trustworthy. Brett Mahoney.”
Foggy makes another one of those not-laugh sounds. “Yeah. I grew up with Brett. He’s good people.” He tilts his head. “Hell’s Kitchen boys, both lawyers...how did we not know each other, Matt?”
Matt’s not sure what to say in response. He suddenly desperately wishes he’d known Foggy for years, had the right to impose on him the way he can’t seem to stop doing now.
“I never meant to get you involved in any of this,” he says instead.
Foggy stands up. “Get some more rest,” he says. “I...I need to think about this.”
Matt misses his warmth immediately, but all he does is nod. “I really am sorry,” he says again. “I should never have come here.”
Foggy pauses in the doorway. “Yeah, well, if you didn’t, you’d probably be dead by now, so I’m glad you did.”
He steps out of the room before Matt can figure out how to parse that.
*
A few hours later Foggy helps him to the bathroom - Matt’s too exhausted to be ashamed - tucks him back into bed, and feeds him juice and crackers with peanut butter. Foggy sits back down on the edge of the bed and just breathes for a few minutes. It's...nice. Steadying.
“You're gonna get yourself killed,” he says finally. “You know that, right?”
“I’m being careful.”
“You crawled in a near-stranger’s window after pouring half your blood into the Hudson, Matt. That doesn’t sound like careful to me.”
Matt suspects his expression is mulish, but he can’t help it. “Fisk needs to be stopped. I can’t let him keep hurting people like this. I can’t let him keep hurting my home. If it means my life...well, I’ve made my peace with that.”
Foggy makes a noise, a sharp hiss of air through his teeth like he’s stubbed his toe or cut himself shaving. But he doesn’t say anything, until...
“So how do we stop him? Preferably without you dying in the process.”
Matt drops his cracker. “We?”
“You’ve slept for like twenty hours combined. I’ve had a lot of time to think,” Foggy says. “I've only been at Landman and Zack a little over a year, but there's already been all sorts of things that didn't smell right. I let it go because it was a good job, with a good salary, but…” He sighs. “If I make it out of this alive I’ll probably get disbarred for it, but Hell’s Kitchen is my home too.”
Matt swallows. His throat feels raw. “What if I’m lying?” he asks. “What if I set those bombs? What if I killed those cops?”
“Then I’ve just made a very serious mistake,” Foggy says. He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair off of Matt’s forehead. Matt’s breath catches. “But I don’t think I have.”
Matt snatches at Foggy’s hand as he starts to withdraw it, holds it close to his chest even though curling his fingers hurts. “You said if you make it out of this alive. I won’t let you get hurt again because of this, Foggy, I promise. I’ll keep you safe.”
He feels Foggy’s thumb stroke his swollen knuckles. “I believe you,” he says. And his heart beats true.
*
Matt tries to give Foggy his bed back after that but Foggy insists on sleeping on the couch for another night despite Matt’s best and most logical arguments. Early the next morning, before the sun’s quite up, he lends Matt a too-big hoodie and pajama pants and Matt makes his careful, achey way home, with his own clothing bundled inside of a shopping bag and a promise to wash Foggy’s and return it.
(The clothing smells like Foggy, even clean, and Matt already knows he’ll put off washing that smell off of it for as long as possible.)
He lies low for a few days, takes it easy. Karen visits and fusses over him. He knows she doesn’t believe his thin cover story about being hit by a car, but she doesn’t press him - much - and he’s grateful.
He’ll tell her everything. Someday.
A few days after he’s well enough to go back to work, Foggy comes over in the evening, with a briefcase full of files he’s smuggled out of Landman and Zack. Matt feels a hot flush crawling up the back of his neck as he opens the door to let Foggy in, remembering the last time Foggy walked over that threshold, and from the way Foggy’s heart speeds up he thinks Foggy might be remembering it too.
That, or he’s thinking about how dangerous what they’re doing is. It’s possible the heat they spent together is barely worth remembering, to Foggy. Matt has no idea how frequently Foggy gets calls from his side gig. He could have been with half a dozen other omegas since Matt.
The thought makes Matt grind his teeth, but he smiles instead, and offers Foggy a beer.
The files are a nightmare, secret after secret buried in offshore account after hostile takeover after dummy corporation. After the first night Matt gives up and loops Karen in. He’s doing the best he can with the internet and his screen reader, but they need more than one working pair of eyes, and he knows she’s been digging into the case when she thinks he’s not paying attention. He doesn’t tell her about his work in the mask, but the hope of taking down Fisk is enough to pique her interest.
When she gets to Matt’s apartment to find Foggy there she goes stiff, hand drifting towards the purse where Matt can smell pepper spray. “Matt, isn’t this Fisk’s lawyer?” she asks, her voice wary.
“Not once he finds out I’m helping you with this,” Foggy says cheerfully.
“Foggy’s where I’ve been getting a lot of my information from,” Matt explains. “We can trust him, Karen.”
She clearly doesn’t, and it’s just as clear that that bothers Foggy, because he spends the rest of the evening working on charming her - poking fun at himself, complimenting her detective work, and generally lightening the tension in the room like he’s hauling it upwards with both hands. It works. A couple hours in and Karen’s giggling behind her hand, her posture relaxing as she sinks into the couch, closer to Foggy. It reminds Matt a bit of the day he and Foggy met, the way Foggy managed to keep the intensity of the heat easy and playful when Matt was so clearly in distress. But of course, Karen’s an alpha, so it’s not the same.
Then Matt remembers that Foggy’s dated alphas before, and has to stop himself from getting up and unsubtly sitting between them on the couch.
He has to rein himself in. Just because he and Foggy shared a heat together - just because Foggy is turning out to have brains and integrity as well as a sense of humor and a nice dick - is no reason to let his biology run away with him like some stereotype of a nesting omega. He doesn’t want a mate - any mate. He’s been bonded before. He knows how badly it can end.
Still, he knows he smiles at Foggy too easily, and he listens too hard for any change in Foggy’s heartbeat when he does.
One night, when Karen’s off with the reporter, Urich, and it’s just him and Foggy, Foggy puts down his laptop with a groan and stretches. Matt bites the inside of his cheek.
“It would look suspicious if I updated my LinkedIn profile, right?” Foggy asks.
“Huh?” Matt asks intelligently.
“Well, I’m probably gonna be out of a job pretty soon,” Foggy says. “Either I’ll get caught and fired, or we’ll win, in which case I’m going to want ‘shady firm that represented murderous crime boss’ off my resume as quickly as possible.”
Right. Matt had been so busy thinking of all the ways Foggy could wind up getting hurt physically that he hadn’t stopped to consider Foggy getting hurt professionally. “God, I’m sorry. I should never have pulled you into this.”
Foggy waves a hand. “Water under the bridge, Murdock. I just wish there was a way I could put out feelers without making the partners look at me sideways. You’re not hiring at your firm, are you?”
He chuckles a little - it’s clearly a joke - but Matt sits up a bit straighter. “We...could be,” he says slowly. Carefully. “If you were interested.”
“What, really?” Foggy asks.
Matt spreads his hands. “Karen’s amazing, but she doesn’t have a degree, and it’s tough carrying a case in court solo. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have clients beating down the door. And we don’t pay nearly as well as L&Z. Like. At all.” He shakes his head. “Never mind. It was a stupid idea.”
“Not that stupid,” Foggy says. Matt still can’t tell if he’s taking this seriously or not. “At least if I was your minion I wouldn’t feel like I was selling another piece of my soul with every case.”
“Minion nothing. We’d be partners,” Matt says, trying a smile.
Foggy’s heart gives a little flutter. “Murdock and Nelson, huh?”
“Nelson and Murdock,” Matt corrects him. “It sounds better.”
“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and his voice is so soft that Matt can’t stop himself from beaming helplessly at him.
“Yeah,” he insists. “I can’t see worth shit, but my hearing’s spectacular.”
He nudges Foggy’s knee with his own. Foggy’s heart races and for a moment Matt thinks maybe - maybe -
“Well,” Foggy says, “I’ll think about it.”
*
It’s Karen who finds it - the tiny line on the financial report that shows where Owlsley’s hidden Fisk’s pet cop, the one weak link in Fisk’s armor. Matt brings Hoffman in, and suddenly, after months of scrabbling for answers, dominoes start falling into place. Arrests are happening left and right, the Bulletin is trumpeting Fisk’s downfall in every headline, and even Karen has stopped moving like she’s so brittle she might break if she trips. Everything is going right.
And then Fisk escapes.
They put Karen in a cab, and then it’s just Matt and Foggy standing in the street, and Matt can barely hear the sirens everywhere over the sound of Foggy’s heart pounding.
“You’re gonna go find him,” Foggy says, and Matt nods. “Matt, no. You heard what’s going on out there! You can’t go up against that in your black pajamas.”
“I won’t be.” Matt hasn’t picked up his new outfit, hasn’t even had time to tell Foggy about it, but he has faith in Melvin. “I know what I’m doing, Foggy.”
There’s the catch in Foggy’s breath, the one Matt has learned means he’s about to say something. But instead he steps forward, right into Matt’s space, and curves his hand over Matt’s bonding scar.
Matt’s heart leaps to meet it. Even through three layers of fabric, Foggy’s touch burns.
“All right,” Foggy says. “Go be a hero. Just don’t get yourself killed doing it, okay?” There’s the wet sound of him licking his lips, and Matt wonders for a dizzy instant if Foggy’s going to kiss him. “Come back to me.”
“I will,” Matt says. “I swear.”
Foggy lets him go and holds out a hand, and a cab pulls up with a squeal of tires. Even once Matt’s in it and driving away, he can still feel Foggy’s hand on his throat.
His heart is racing, but it’s not with fear. There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s going to win. He knows it.
He promised his alpha.
*
Matt’s still blocks from his apartment when he senses Foggy waiting for him. He’s not surprised. He told Foggy weeks ago about the roof entrance, how he never keeps it locked because he can’t exactly carry keys around in his night clothes.
Foggy’s sitting on the couch, but he stands up when Matt opens the door, and comes to stand at the foot of the stairs. He doesn’t say a word, and neither does Matt as he walks down the stairs, one by one by one. He’d raced across the roofs to get home once he sensed Foggy, but now every move he makes feels slow, deliberate.
Finally he’s standing at the base of the stairs, facing Foggy. He can’t tell whose heart is racing.
“I did it,” he says. “I took him down. It’s over.”
“Good boy,” Foggy says.
Matt’s blood ignites. He doesn’t remember moving, but suddenly he’s got Foggy up against the wall and his tongue is in Foggy’s mouth. Foggy gasps and kisses him back, wet and with a flash of teeth. It stings Matt’s split lip, but he doesn’t care.
“Matt,” Foggy groans when Matt lets him breathe. “Matt, Matt, Matty…”
Matt shudders and presses closer. Foggy’s body is hot and pliant between him and the wall, soft in every place but one. He smells like Matt’s couch and his mouth tastes like the beer in Matt’s fridge. Mine, Matt thinks dizzily, greedily, biting at Foggy’s plush lower lip. Mine.
When Foggy tries to touch him he pins Foggy’s wrists to the wall, holding him in place. Foggy’s scent has grown more alpha with his arousal, but he doesn’t fight it - no, he sinks back against the wall and bares his throat to Matt. “What do you want, Matty?”
Anything. Everything. He wants to devour Foggy whole. He wants Foggy’s touch to consume every inch of him, rage through him like a forest fire.
He drops to his knees, yanks off the helmet, and presses his face to the bulge in Foggy’s pants, breathes in deep. Foggy’s intoxicating, his usual scent of coffee and nutmeg and ink mingling with desire, musk and salt and those elusive alpha notes that drive Matt crazy, that he’s been craving since his heat. “This,” he says. “You.”
“Then take me,” Foggy says.
Matt groans, rubbing his cheek, catlike, against Foggy’s erection. He practically pops the button off Foggy’s jeans yanking it open, drags the zipper down and pushes Foggy’s pants and boxers to his ankles. His mouth waters.
Someday soon, he’ll take his time. Someday soon, he’ll spread Foggy out on his bed and kiss every inch of him, taste the subtle differences from neck to navel to knee. Someday he’ll tease Foggy for so long that Foggy will be the one begging, Matt’s name echoing on his tongue like a favorite song.
This is not that day.
Matt dives down on Foggy’s cock like a starving man at a banquet. He’s been dreaming about this, twisted up in his sheets night after night, and he can’t wait any longer. Foggy fills his mouth perfectly - too much, too big. Matt knows his jaw will be aching soon and that’s good, that’s so good.
“Matt…!” Foggy chokes out, hitching forward before he presses himself flat against the wall, hands locked where Matt left them. Something possessive and glad rumbles deep in Matt’s chest. He might be the one on his knees, but Foggy’s letting him set the pace. Most alphas wouldn’t - wouldn’t stay put when an omega said, wouldn’t offer themselves up for the taking - and most omegas wouldn’t ask for it. But Matt’s never been a typical omega, and Foggy’s so much more than a typical alpha.
He works Foggy’s dick greedily, taking him as deep as he can, fingers digging into Foggy’s thighs to hold him in place. But Foggy’s not going anywhere; he’s trembling with his head tipped back against the wall, panting out praise. “Matt...fuck, Matty, so good...Jesus, Matt, your mouth…”
Matt groans wetly and sucks harder. He knows, distantly, that he’s a mess of bruises and bloody scrapes, that he’ll be feeling the aftereffects of his battle with Fisk for days. But right now he’s flooded with endorphins and nothing hurts. All he can taste and smell and feel is Foggy. It’s everything he wants.
Soon, too soon and not quickly enough, he can smell Foggy’s arousal sharpening as he twitches on Matt’s tongue. Maybe Foggy’s been wanting this as long as Matt has; maybe he’s been thinking about this since he touched Matt’s throat. Either way, he’s not going to last much longer.
“Matty,” he warns, and oh, Matt loves his new nickname, wants to hear it every morning. “Matt, Matty, please…”
Matt hums, and digs his fingers in hard enough to bruise, and Foggy comes down his throat with a hoarse cry.
When Foggy whimpers - but doesn’t move, doesn’t push Matt away - Matt lets go of his softening cock and sits back, dragging a hand across his swollen mouth. He keeps his other hand on Foggy’s hip, holding him in place, and Foggy finally lets go of the wall to curl his fingers around Matt’s like he’s grateful for the support. Matt smiles up at him, feeling drunk and pretty sure he looks it, and listens to the way Foggy’s heart trips.
“Can I help you with something?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins wider. Foggy coming doesn’t settle something in him the way it does during a heat, but it’s a hell of a dopamine shot regardless.
“I want you in my bed,” he says, his voice scraping out of his throat.
“God, yes,” Foggy says.
He kicks off his shoes and pants, then holds out his hands to help Matt up off his knees and lets Matt lead the way to the bedroom. “Get on the bed,” Matt says, and Foggy obeys, scooching back across the mattress so that he can watch Matt undress. It’s a bit of a production - the suit’s designed so that Matt can get in and out of it on his own, but he’s never actually taken it off before.
“Need a hand?” Foggy asks with a grin in his voice as Matt struggles with the top half. His gloves are already off, tossed into a corner of the room, his boots shoved under the dresser.
“I got it.” Matt finds the catch and undoes it triumphantly.
Foggy still sounds amused. “I gotta tell you, Matty, when you decide on an aesthetic, you really commit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look good, but the little horns are definitely a choice.”
“The whole thing’s reinforced,” Matt grunts, voice muffled as he wiggles out of the top. He winces as he goes - yeah, he’s going to be sore tomorrow. “If I hadn’t been wearing it, I’d probably be dead.”
Foggy goes silent but his heart gets faster. Matt can't figure out why until he realizes that Foggy's upset - that someone actually cares that he might have died. That this might be the beginning of belonging to someone again.
“Then I love it,” Foggy says, all hint of joking gone from his voice, and Matt drops the shirt on the floor and climbs onto the bed, cupping Foggy’s face in his hands.
“Hey. Hey. I’m here. I’m okay.”
Foggy’s fingers skim over his swollen mouth, the cut over the bridge of his nose; they trace the edges of bruises on his shoulders and down his chest. “Show me,” he whispers.
Matt kisses him, hands sliding up under Foggy's shirt to palm at his sides, his beautiful soft stomach. Foggy lets Matt tug his shirt off and bear him back against the mattress, pausing just to kick his own pants and boxers off and away. He's been naked in this bed with Foggy before, but the urgency is different. Last time, he needed an alpha, any alpha. Now he just wants Foggy.
He pins Foggy to the mattress, nips possessively at his jaw and growls a little, low in his throat. “See?” he says. “Still here.”
Foggy slides a hand down to grab his ass, and Matt thrusts against his hip. “Yeah, I'm feeling something to that effect,” he says, amused and clearly still turned on even though he’s spent. Matt presses a smile against his throat, pleased. “You gonna do something about it?”
Matt bites him again, a little lower this time, closer to his bonding gland, where Matt would sink his teeth in if Foggy were an omega in heat. Foggy stiffens for split second and Matt freezes, afraid that he’s gone too far - that it’s too intimate too soon, or that the alpha in Foggy will finally resist all of Matt’s manhandling.
Then Foggy shudders and says, “Yeah, Matty,” and Matt buries his groan in Foggy’s neck and rocks against his hip.
“Wanna fuck you,” he says, muffled against Foggy’s skin. “Will you let me?”
“Fuck, yes, do it,” Foggy pants, so eager, and Matt knows he won’t last long enough for it, not tonight.
“I.” He thrusts into the soft curve of Foggy’s pelvis, hips stuttering forward on their own, over and over. There’s no finesse to it, but their skin is slick with sweat and Matt’s precome and right now having Foggy pressed beneath him is enough. “Later. Tomorrow? I just...right now I just need…”
“Yeah, yes, tomorrow, any time, you can do it in court if you want,” Foggy says, trying to haul him even closer, kissing his hair.
Matt groans again and breathes in. All he can smell is Foggy, all he can feel is Foggy, warm skin and strong arms and clever hands touching him everywhere. He drags himself against Foggy’s hip, knows he’s marking Foggy with his scent and that Foggy is letting him, and it’s so good, it’s so sweet.
And then Foggy starts talking.
“Matt,” fuck, his voice sounds wrecked, “yeah, Matt, do it, come on, baby, you feel so fucking good.” A kiss pressed to his sweaty temple. “So proud of you, you’re so brave, you did it, my beautiful Matty, you saved us and you came back to me just like I asked you to, so good for me.”
“Foggy.” Matt thinks he’s shaking. He can’t pull Foggy’s scent into his lungs fast enough.
“Come on, sweetheart, do it.” Foggy’s hands are hot and strong, holding him fast when his words make Matt feel like he’s floating. “You earned it. Come for me. I wanna feel it, Matty.”
Matt’s teeth graze Foggy’s bonding gland. He can’t help it. “Mine.”
“Yeah, Matty, I’m yours. I’m all yours,” Foggy swears, his heart steady, and Matt comes with a breathless sob.
“Beautiful,” Foggy whispers as Matt comes down from it. “My beautiful omega.”
“Foggy,” Matt says again, helplessly.
Foggy rolls him onto his back and reaches for something - tissues, Matt thinks. “Shhh, Matty. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Matt sinks back against the mattress as Foggy wipes him clean. As Foggy starts to move away again Matt reaches out - gingerly, because with the adrenalin rush over everything’s starting to ache - and hooks his fingers around Foggy’s wrist.
“Stay?” he asks.
“Of course.” Foggy pulls away enough to throw the tissues out, then lies back down, pulling Matt close. “As long as you want.”
Matt shifts so that his head is pillowed on Foggy’s shoulder. “Good,” he says, and knows he’s going to want for a very long time.
*
Matt wakes up sore everywhere and stiff down to his toes. It takes him nearly five minutes to ease himself into a seated position, and he can’t imagine how he’s going to bring himself to get up and make coffee.
Then he smells coffee brewing in the kitchen, and hears Foggy whistling, and suddenly he can’t stop smiling.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Foggy says as he walks in juggling two cups of coffee and something that rattles. “FYI, you’re somehow managing to look both unfairly hot and like you got run over by a truck last night at the same time, just so you know. How do you feel?”
“Good,” Matt sighs, beaming.
“Oh my God, stop. Stop with the face. Here.” Foggy hands him a mug, puts his own down on the bedside table, and opens up the rattling thing, which turns out to be aspirin. “I’m guessing you need these.”
Matt swallows the pills obediently and pats the bed next to him. “Thanks.”
The mattress dips as Foggy crawls back in under the covers and sits next to Matt, close enough that their thighs and shoulders touch. They sip their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes before Foggy’s heart speeds up and he says: “So I should probably tell you I called my boss and quit Landman and Zack while you were out finding Hoffman.”
Matt nearly spills his coffee. “What? That was - that was nearly a week ago, you never said anything! What if we’d lost? What if I couldn’t bring Hoffman in?”
He feels Foggy shrug. “I didn’t like being a shark, I guess,” Foggy says. “And I had faith in you.”
Matt concentrates very hard on his coffee cup, but he can feel himself blushing. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “the offer to join my firm is still on the table. I still think Nelson and Murdock has a nice ring to it.”
“So do I,” Foggy says, warmly, and Matt hunches further over his coffee cup. Foggy elbows him.
“It doesn’t pay as well. Like I said,” Matt says, because it’s only fair that Foggy know everything before he commits to - to the firm. “I get paid in casseroles a lot. You might need to bank on, uh...” He has to force this next part out. “...a lot of omegas needing surrogates over the next few months.”
“Oh. I.” Foggy’s heart gets even faster. “I quit that job, too.”
Matt feels suddenly breathless. “You did? When?”
There’s a long pause, and then, “The day after you crawled through my window.”
Matt turns to him, open-mouthed. “Foggy.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, after we - after we met,” Foggy says. “Heats are always emotional, but I’m pretty good at moving on, afterwards. I wasn’t good at it this time. And then you came to Landman and Zack…”
“I was awful to you,” Matt says. “I insulted you.”
“You were extremely obnoxious,” Foggy agrees easily. “You also made me realize how unhappy I’d been there. How unhappy I was with myself. I felt like I’d disappointed you, and it didn’t make sense that that upset me so much when I barely even knew you, but…” He shrugs. “There it was.”
“And then I crawled through your window,” Matt says.
Foggy nods. “And then you crawled through my window. And Matt, I really thought you were gonna die that night. I’d never seen so much blood, and you were so pale…”
“I’m sorry,” Matt says, face tipped down. The fact that Foggy is even still speaking to him after that night is a miracle.
“I was so angry. I’ve never been so angry in my life. I don’t get angry like that,” Foggy says. “I thought I was angry at you for bringing me into this, for doing all this illegal shit that was maybe just escalating the violence, and now here I was right in the middle of it - and don’t get me wrong, I was angry at you for that. But.” Foggy tilts his face down too, like he’s speaking very intently to his coffee cup. “Then you said that Fisk had hurt you like that, and I just…” He shakes his head. “I wanted to kill him, for a minute there. I wanted...I’ve never felt that before. That violence. I didn’t like it. But...but he hurt you, and you were mine.”
Matt’s head snaps up.
“I’m not much of an alpha,” Foggy says. “I never really got that possessive urge. It’s what made me such a good surrogate. But you...someone touched you and I saw red. And I realized that as mad as I was that you’d involved me, that you were breaking the law...I was madder because you were putting yourself in danger. Because you were gonna get yourself killed, and you hadn’t even given me a chance to lo...to know you yet.”
“I’m not going to stop,” Matt says, because it feels dishonest not to, even though all he wants is to throw himself into Foggy’s arms and think about the word Foggy didn’t let himself say. “It wasn’t about Fisk. It’s about helping people who need it. That’s not going to change.”
“I know,” Foggy says. “I wish you didn’t have to, but...I get it, a little. I do. I just want to be the one you come back to when you’re done.”
Matt’s breath catches. He wonders, a little, what his face is doing, but mostly he’s concentrating on Foggy’s voice.
“I know that’s a lot, so soon,” Foggy says quickly. “You don’t have to...I don’t expect anything. I just couldn’t go back to being a surrogate when I knew what it felt like to...to want someone to be my omega, instead of just an omega.”
Matt leans over and puts his coffee on the bedside table, then turns to Foggy. “I’m going to kiss you for a really long time now,” he says. “Is that okay?”
Foggy’s laugh sounds relieved. He puts his own coffee down and opens his arms. “Bring it in,” he says, just like he did during Matt’s heat, when he knew exactly what Matt needed. About a thousand body parts twinge as Matt scrambles into Foggy’s lap, but he doesn’t care. Foggy is warm and sweet and he kisses Matt like he’s something precious, hands gentle over Matt’s bruises.
“I never thought I’d want an alpha again,” Matt confesses, resting his forehead against Foggy’s.
“Well, if it helps, I’m a pretty lousy one,” Foggy says.
Matt growls playfully. “You’re the best alpha. I’d fight any omega for you.”
“You’d fight anyone for anything, Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” Foggy says, poking Matt gently in the side.
“...No comment.”
Foggy cups his cheek, then lets his hand drop so that his thumb can rub over Matt’s bonding mark. Matt shivers. “I know it can’t be easy, trying again.”
Matt closes his eyes. Foggy’s nothing like Elektra. There was a time he thought that meant Foggy had nothing Matt wanted, but now he knows better. “You make it pretty easy, actually.”
“Hey, way to go, me.” Foggy kisses Matt’s eyelids softly, one by one, and then his nose. Matt laughs. “Here’s to trying again, then.”
Matt opens his eyes and beams at Foggy. It really is too early to talk about him going off suppressants, or bonding, or if he even wants to risk starting a heat while crimefighting. There’s a million logistics to consider first about adding Foggy to the firm, about working together while dating, about how to keep Foggy protected from anyone targeting the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And they’re still getting to know each other.
But Matt feels hopeful about something, for the first time in a long time.
He breathes in and fills his lungs with Foggy. It’s quickly becoming his favorite scent.
“Here’s to us,” he says.