Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ugh! Why is it so damn hot already?” Foggy was leaning back in his shitty office chair in their shitty Hell’s Kitchen apartment. “It’s not even May, for fucks sake!”

They were studying for the upcoming finals, but between the pages and pages of material they had to go through and the heatwave that was currently tormenting America and most of the Northern Hemisphere, it wasn’t easy to concentrate on the topic.

Foggy had been complaining about it at every given opportunity, and the stuffy, sweaty air in the small living room/office really didn’t help the headache the heat had been giving Matt the last few days. He ran a hand through his already messy hair, rested his head in his hands, and massaged his temples with a sigh. “I know, Foggy, you have been saying that for the last four days.” He snapped, a little more aggressive than he had planned.

But Foggy didn’t seem to take it personally. Instead, he got up and walked up behind Matt. “Hey, Bud… I’m sorry… I’ve been whining a lot, haven’t I?”

Matt just nodded, and Foggy ran a hand through his hair. It was a gentle, loving gesture, but it was already almost more touch than Matt could take in that moment. He tried to hide the slight wince, but Foggy noticed it anyway. “Sorry…” He breathed, pulling his hand back and resting it on the back of the chair instead. “How about we take a break, huh? Maybe some fresh air would help?”

Matt nodded again and sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Foggy turned the chair “I know, babe.” He lifted a hand as if he wanted to cup Matt’s face, but hesitated just before they actually touched. “I guess the heat’s messing with you a lot, huh?”

Matt nodded again and caught Foggy’s hand just before he could pull away. “I’ve had a headache for days now... It just won’t go away.”

“Oh Matty… You gotta tell me stuff like that." Foggy brushed a kiss on his forehead, prompting Matt to close his eyes. “How about we take the afternoon off? We won’t get much more done today anyway.”

Matt nodded again, getting up and leaning against Foggy. The touch and the body heat were almost too much, but at the same time, feeling his pulse and smelling his own personal scent were worth it. “Love you…”

“I love you too, Babe.” He trailed his hand through Matt’s hair again, trying to brush it back into a somewhat respectable form. After a moment, he suggested, “You know what’s perfect in this heat? Ice Cream.”

Matt smiled tiredly but agreed. Fresh air and a cold treat sounded like a good idea.

The walk from their apartment to the park was short and familiar. Their building was only a block away from the one Matt had lived in with his dad, and Clinton Church and the orphanage weren’t far either.

“I used to come here a lot.” Matt mused as they walked through the gates. With my dad and…” He cut himself off, not wanting to talk or even think about Stick, and then, after a second, he continued more hesitantly. “With the orphanage..."

Foggy sighed, and Matt knew he had caught onto the pause that was Matt thinking about his old mentor. But even though Foggy didn’t know what he wasn’t saying, they had known each other long enough for him to know that asking would just make the problem worse.

After a moment, in which Foggy apparently decided that he didn’t want to open that particular can of worms right then, he loosely rested his arm around Matt’s waist and followed the path to the ice cream stand.

There was already a small group of people waiting there, but the two women in the parlour were working quickly, so the customers didn’t have to wait long.

“What can I get for you two?” The younger of the two asked when Foggy gently dragged Matt in front of the display, and Matt could have sworn she was winking at them.

Matt turned to face his partner, barely noticeably raising an eyebrow at him.

Foggy blushed, muttering a quick apology, something about the heat frying his brain, and quickly listing the different flavours on display.

Matt tilted his head appologetically and gestured uselessly with his cane towards the little hut, trying to ignore the annoyed sigh of the kids behind them in line and the rustling of clothes that was their father crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“And, last but not least, coffee and, of course, vanilla.” Foggy concluded. “I’ll take bubblegum and pistachio.” He added, giving Matt a moment to decide.

“Caramel and chocolate, please.” Matt decided, letting go of Foggy so he had both hands free to pay and take the ice cream cones.

With another sheepish glance in the direction of the queue, Matt took his ice cream and followed Foggy again.
“Sorry, I was somewhere else for a moment there.” Foggy sighed, running a hand through his hair, before offering to guide Matt again. For the most part, they had the small routines and habits that came with Matt’s disability down, but sometimes, especially when they were tired and drained from long study sessions, they ran into awkward situations like that one.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.” Matt dismissed it, licking around the top of his waffle to catch the ice cream that was already starting to melt in the scorching sun. “Let’s go left at the next crossing; there should be some trees there.”

After a few minutes, they had found a free bench in the shadow of some trees.

Foggy sat down with a sigh, relaxing against the wooden backrest and stretching his legs for a moment before sitting up and focusing back on his ice cream and the park around them. Matt sat down close to him, listening to his heartbeat and enjoying the relative quiet of the park over the noise of the streets.

Licking up the last bit of chocolate ice cream, he started to map his surroundings. The park had changed a little since the last time he was here. The time he was here with Stick. But it was still clearly recognisable.

The trees had continued to grow, casting a dense shadow over the paths and meadows. Some of the benches had been repaired or replaced over the last few years, but they were still in the same spots. Matt thought back to what he remembered that day and what Stick had taught him.

He smelled his ice cream for a moment. It wasn’t the plain Vanilla Stick had bought him, so the profile was even more complicated. And this time, there was the artificial sweetness and flavour of Foggy’s choice mixed into it. Matt had gotten better at fading out parts of his surroundings, so he chose to focus on the different flavours of his own treat. He tasted the sweet, sugary caramel, a little chocolate where the two portions had mixed together, and a little saltiness.

Then he sent his senses out, letting them wander over the people and animals around him. Like that time with Stick, there was a group of people exercising on the grass across the path; the hot dog stand close by was still selling that very strong-smelling mustard with their cheap meat, and even the flocks of pigeons searching for crumbs on the paths were still there.

Matt leaned against Foggy, trying to push the memories of Stick and the pain he had caused him to the back of his mind. It was a long time ago. He had left it behind him. Stick had abandoned him, and Matt didn’t want to be a fighter in the first place. His dad had never wanted him to use his fists to solve problems.

“Today’s not a good day, huh?” Foggy asked quietly, lightly resting his hand around Matt’s shoulders and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. His lips were cold and slightly sticky, but Matt didn’t care. The comforting gesture was worth the weird feeling the ice cream left behind.

“‘M just tired.” Matt answered. It wasn’t the full truth, but it was close enough that he didn’t feel bad for telling a white lie. Foggy didn’t need to know about Stick. He didn’t need to know about the things Matt could do and the things his mentor had done to him when he was still just a child.

Matt enjoyed feeling Foggy next to him, sweaty and too warm in the afternoon heat, but no less the cosy and steady anchor he was on the cold winter evenings they had spent huddled close together in their badly insulated dorm room. He was breathing steadily, fiddling absentmindedly with something on his left hand, and eating the last bit of his ice cream cone with the other.

Matt licked a drop of ice cream from his waffle, and he had almost fully managed to pull himself back to the present when he realised what Foggy was playing with.

Just as a small family walked by, the shape and sound of the item clicked together to form an image. Matt was distracted by the parents quietly teasing each other and one of the kids dropping a piece of sausage for the dog to catch when he realised Foggy had folded the paper the ice cream came in into a simple bracelet.

The woman laughing, the dog snatching the meat, and most of all, the bracelet, pulled him back into his memories with so much force he couldn’t resist.

Matt’s mind was running, playing disconnected scenes of Stick lecturing him, of fights and pain, of the bracelet he had made, and of Stick leaving. Matt could feel the pain in his body. He could feel his head swimming from the concussions he no doubt had gotten in the training and the air being pressed out of his lungs when he was thrown into the thin mats on the old wooden floor.

He could smell the sweat and the alcohol on Stick's skin, and he could feel his hands all over him. Matt could hear his voice scolding him for every little mistake, and his muscles were burning with the countless training exercises he had to do as a penalty.

Matt was grinding his teeth and balling his hands into fists. The ice cream cone in his hand was forgotten, even as it cracked and the half-melted contents spilled over Matt’s hand and onto his pants and the ground between his feet. He could feel his fingernails digging into the palm of his hand, the actual pain doing barely anything to pull him out of the flashback and back to reality.

“Shit, Matt… Hey, it’s okay. I’m here; you’re safe.” Foggy’s voice was distant and quiet over the storm in Matt’s mind. He had seen Matt have panic attacks over seemingly random things before; it was something that Matt had to realise very quickly was not avoidable when he lived so close together with other people.

Most of his panic attacks were short—just a few blips, a hand full of sensations, the feeling of a calloused hand invading his privacy, the smell of cheap liquor, or the pain of long-healed injuries. But this—this was different. This was more than a memory. This was a fully-blown flashback.

He could feel himself slipping deeper and deeper and Foggy drifting further and further away as the memories and feelings threatened to crush him.

Stick’s voice yelling at him was drowning out Foggy’s gentle reassurances. Stick’s hand hitting him and touching him where he didn’t want to be touched were pushing Foggy, carefully pulling him close, to the back of his awareness. The smell and taste of his old mentor were stronger than the sweet ice cream and the familiar scent of Foggy’s shampoo and conditioner.

Matt was spiralling quickly, falling deeper and deeper into the darkest, scariest corners of his mind and memory. Things he had tried to forget for many years—things he hadn’t thought about in just as long.

Pain he didn’t know he was still carrying with him.

It was getting hard to breathe. Matt barely got enough air, and he could already feel the world around him starting to spin slightly. His world on fire was a burning inferno, threatening to swallow him but at the same time not allowing him to get any information on his surroundings other than the distant touch of his partner by his side.

"Shhh. Breath, Matt.” Foggy tried to pull him back, but his voice got lost between Stick scolding him for failing a fighting manoeuvre and the same man telling him to lay still, just a few hours later.

Matt was pressing his eyes shut, and when he felt a hand brush the side of his head, he flinched, his natural instinct to duck away from the touch and the learned one to stay still and endure fighting each other until he realised it was Foggy who was touching him this time.

Gentle fingers were carding through his too-long hair, as a second hand was carefully wiping away the melted ice cream and soggy pieces of waffle. Matt was still gasping for breath, and as he very slowly found his way back to his body, he could feel the wet, salty trails of tears on his face and a faint taste of blood in his mouth. His hand was hurting where his nails had broken the skin, and he could feel two tiny splits in his bottom lip where he had bitten himself, trying not to make any noise.

Rationally, he knew he was allowed to make noise. Stick was gone; he wasn’t forced to hide anymore. In fact, Foggy had assured him multiple times that he wanted him to say what he wanted and needed and, maybe more importantly, what he didn’t want.

But the rational part of his mind wasn’t working right now. Panic wasn’t rational. It was emotional, primal, even. And Matt’s instincts told him that making noise or any sort of sound would only make the pain worse and the bad things last longer. Stick would hit him harder, overpower him, and show him how much he still had to learn. He would drag their training late into the night and punish every movement or sound he hadn’t allowed.

“Hey, Bud… It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.” Foggy repeated, still running his fingers over Matt’s head and now carefully holding his hand. As his voice started to pierce through the fog of panic and the world started to take shape around Matt again, he realised Foggy was crouching in front of him now.

Matt leaned down, touching his forehead against Foggy’s. His glasses were digging into the bridge of his nose uncomfortably, but the real pain was almost grounding against the imagined and remembered pain the flashback had brought.

“Hey, Honey…” Foggy breathed, his hand now holding the back of Matt’s head.

Matt’s voice was shaky and rough when he managed to speak a moment later. “Don’t stop…”

Foggy chuckled fondly, starting to run his hand through Matt’s hair again. “I love you.” He whispered, his breath warm on Matt’s neck.

“I’m sorry…” Matt breathed. He wanted to add more, wanted to tell Foggy he was sorry for ruining their afternoon, for dropping the ice cream, for scaring him, and for so much more, but Foggy just gently brushed a kiss on his forehead and pulled him into a hug.

“It’s okay, Matty. It’s not your fault.” He cupped Matt’s face with both hands and carefully caught the last tears running over Matt’s cheeks with his thumb. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel a little better?”

Matt shook his head. “It’s just…” He sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head towards the ground, but didn’t continue speaking.

After a moment of silence, Foggy lifted his head up again. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But if you ever want to talk about whatever is going through your mind, I’m here to listen, to hold you, and, if you want that, to try and help you find ways to cope.” Foggy promised, taking Matt’s hand and still softly cupping his face. “I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night or whatever I’m doing. I want you to come to me when you feel like you need to talk, okay?”

Matt ran a hand underneath the sleeve of his T-shirt, where both of them knew he had a long, faint scar. Foggy had asked him about it before, and while Matt hadn’t told him the entire truth, he knew that he had gotten it when he was freshly orphaned and still learning to navigate the world without his sight. “It’s Stick…” Matt muttered, not daring to look at Foggy, even though he couldn’t see him anyway.

“Stick?” Foggy asked, confused for a moment, before he realised that that was the man the orphanage had hired to teach Matt everything a blind boy needed to know about the world. “Your Teacher?”

“It’s…” Matt sighed again, but he realised it was time to tell Foggy the truth. And the whole truth this time. “It’s more complicated than that.”