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Listen: it is not that weird.
Honestly, this day and age, the things Foggy's seen in this city – he probably should have been, like, counting down to this. Doppelgängers blinking into existence, from a nearly identical universe? Yeah, okay. Cool.
Other Foggy's hair is a lot shorter than his.
He feels kind of bad for thinking of him as Other Foggy, but what else is gonna call him? Franklin? Heck no. Besides, Other Foggy probably thinks of him as Other Foggy, so he figures they can call it even.
They're at the park, with Matt and Other Matt. A group of six lookalikes walked by on the path earlier, and it was a terrifying few seconds before Foggy realized: triplets. Whoa.
Foggy is sitting on a bench, and Other Foggy is leaning over the back of it, and they're both watching the two Matts, who are over in the grass, like... meditating, maybe? Matt's meditating, sure, but Other Matt mostly looks like he's trying not to laugh.
“A vigilante,” Other Foggy says, again. He's been saying it a lot, over the past few hours. Foggy figures that's fine, he's keeping his voice down, the park's pretty deserted and they both clam up whenever people go by.
“Yep.” He takes a sip of coffee. “Vigilante.”
“And that costume – I mean, okay, I'll buy the vigilante thing, I guess, but that was 'shopped, right?”
“No. He actually wears that. Apparently it's much scarier when you're, like. In an alley, at night, in the dark.”
“...Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
“What do you think the Karens are up to?”
Other Foggy shrugs. “I dunno. They seemed, uh... Not particularly happy to see each other.”
“Yeah. Weird.”
“Something's going on with her. I don't know what.”
“Ours too. Man,” says Foggy, and downs the rest of his coffee. “We could've been butchers.”
“You're telling me,” says Other Foggy, and downs his.
Their point of divergence is this:
a child, thrashing on his bed, trying not to scream. He wants his father. He wants silence. Both are equally unattainable.
There is no cane, tapping down the hall to his room. There are no keys, thrown and caught.
There is only Matthew Murdock, and eventually, that is enough.
Eventually, he learns to pull his senses in, in, in, and his world is tiny, and there are days – there are nights – especially that first year in an apartment, when he cannot keep hold of it, and he hears, smells, feels everything, the screams up the street, gunpowder on fingers, his downstairs neighbor swears at something and Matt can taste copper, and he holds his breath until he is sure they're still moving around –
But those are days. And nights. They are not always.
Still. Those screams. Those screams. He wants – he has to help.
He remembers Thurgood Marshall, remembers some of the first braille passages he could read out to his father without stumbling, the first passages that meant something, beyond just practicing the words and the letters, cursing the French for their lack of W. He remembers - we must dissent from the fear –
He remembers.
He goes to college on a scholarship, hard-won, and on the money his father died for.
And then he goes to law school.
Matt is trying very hard not to be frustrated. It's not Other Matt's fault he was denied the chance for proper training when he was young, when it would have come quicker. Matt is – frantic, trying to pack a lifetime's experience into however long they have before this anomaly ends. Trying to give the other him some basic skills, to sharpen in his own time.
“How many people in the park?” Matt prompts. “Or at least – in our immediate vicinity. Besides the two of us.”
There is a long pause. Other Matt starts to speak, several times, and then doesn't. Finally: “Six?”
“Close. Nine.”
“It's weird when they're standing close together. They're all sort of – tangled up, you know?”
“Yeah.” Yeah. That used to confuse Matt, too. When he was a kid. “You have to kind of look for the – for the contrasts. Two people standing close together might – might sound and smell a lot like each other, but they'll each have more of themselves. Maybe one of them has a dog, or the other's just been to a restaurant.”
“Honestly,” says Other Matt. “I think I'd rather just keep blocking it all out. Don't you ever do that?”
“Sometimes,” Matt admits. It's not something he's proud of. “When it gets – when it's just... too much.”
“If you keep blocking it out, it's almost never too much.” Other Matt's voice is mild. Matt can hear him tearing up blades of grass.
He grits his teeth. “If I keep blocking it out, I'm–” useless “–I'd... never be able to do what I... what I have to do.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why do you have to do that? Who decided it was your job?”
“I...” Matt shakes his head. What kind of question is that? “Okay, fine. You want to just – block it all out, fine. I'm just trying to–”
“I mean, hey, I'm not trying to – I don't mean to imply... I mean, it's impressive. All of it. Some of it is terrifying, but it's all... You know?”
“...No?”
“You're very disciplined,” Other Matt says, and lies down in the grass. “And I think... I am, too, just. In a different way. You learned how to process everything, and I learned how to keep it all away. I can't always do that, though, so, you know. Thanks. I'll try the whole – meditation thing, next time it all just. Explodes. And maybe you could try... reigning it in, a little more often.”
“If I do that, I can't do anything.” There is a fine line he's walking here and he knows it, doesn't want to imply that this other version of himself is some – some helpless, useless child, because he's not, he's been navigating his own world with his own skills, but –
but it's always different when it's you. Really you, not... Whatever's going on here.
“You value your independence, I get that,” says Other Matt, stretching out in the grass now. “I do, too.”
How can you, Matt wants to say but won't let himself, how can you, when you walk down the street with your hand on Foggy's arm and actually need it, when you barely remember how to throw a punch–
“It's... tiring,” he says, instead, without really meaning to. “Sometimes I wish I could just... Turn it off, for a while, and just... But that's not how it works.”
“It could be. It could be how it works. I mean, I get if it scares you, though.”
Matt frowns. “Scares me?”
“If I could do what you do – I'd be terrified, of stopping. You can figure out the layout of a building by, like, listening to it or whatever, why would you wanna stop knowing where all the doors are, right?”
“...Yeah.” Matt finds his fingers drawn to the grass, now, pulling up the blades and shredding them. “Yeah. I mean. I can – navigate, the... the normal way. I can't – I can't focus on everything, all the time, it's... exhausting. Usually I use it to build a picture in my head and then I – I remember that picture, and work from there. It's easier to get around in places I've been before, places I spend a lot of time – home, the office, Josie's, the precinct... I don't have to work as hard. I guess that's my version of 'reigning it in.'”
Other Matt rolls over onto his stomach; Matt hears the grass and leaves crunching under him. “Why don't you – try it now? Just... turn it off. And tell me more about this Stick guy.”
Matt laughs. “He's kind of a dick.”
“What do you think they're talking about?”
Foggy and Other Foggy have switched places; Foggy is now leaning over the back of the bench, and he shrugs at Other Foggy's question. “Who knows. You might want to keep a closer eye on your Matt once you're back home, make sure he doesn't go out and start cracking skulls.”
Other Foggy laughs, like Other Matt being a violent, ruthless vigilante is such a ridiculous concept that he can't even be horrified by it. Foggy is only a little jealous. Only a little.
He decides a subject change is in order. “I gotta know – why the haircut, man?”
“Oh, this.” Other Foggy sounds suitably disgruntled about it. “I don't even know, dude. We don't have a ton of clients yet, I guess I'm just trying to look more–” air quotes “respectable.”
“Huh,” says Foggy. “You think that's it?”
“What?”
“The big difference. Between you and me. Our willingness to compromise personal aesthetic for maybe not going hungry because we've hitched our wagons to two jerks who are set on only defending the innocent and pure.”
“Hm.” Other Foggy stretches back against the bench, hands behind his head. “Maybe.”
“That'd be pretty boring.”
“Yeah. I was kind of hoping you had some weird dramatic checkered past going on.”
“I was kind of hoping you were a butcher.”
“Oh, man, that would've been hilarious.”
“He just left? Just like that?”
Matt is mostly concentrating on breathing. He's pulled everything in – in so close he can't even hear the Foggys' conversation anymore, in so close a dog could run down the path and he'd never smell it. He's a little dizzy. “What?” he croaks.
“Stick,” Other Matt prompts. He sounds very upset, has been sounding more and more upset, and Matt's not sure why. “He left? Because you gave him a present?”
“I wanted a father,” Matt echoes, bitterly. “He needed a soldier.”
“Dude. No. Okay, no, the – the fighting, the – knocking you down, you were gonna start with knives? What does that even – and then he just leaves. He hurts you, physically, and then – gets you dependent on him, and then leaves. That is not kind of a dick, that is – that is child abuse.”
“What?” says Matt, and the world starts bleeding back in, he's losing his grip on it. “What are you talking about? We were training, I chose to-”
“You were a kid! Kids can't – kids don't have the knowledge or experience to know what they're getting into with that kind of shit, you know that, you're a lawyer, what the hell, what did he do to you?”
“I don't–“ Matt's hands are shaking, that's not right, why are they shaking? “I don't – I don't – I d–”
“Shit, okay, I could have been more tactful about that.” Other Matt's hand pats around on the ground until he finds Matt's leg, and a second later Matt is trying to process the very strange sensory experience that is a hug, from himself.
“Please tell me you and your version of Foggy are super close, or, just, you and anyone, because I am – really hoping I didn't just dump a horrible revelation on you that you'll have no one to talk to about later.”
Matt laughs, somehow. “We're – yeah. I... I'm better, lately, at the whole. Talking to Foggy, thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“He, uh... I didn't tell him, about the... about my senses. At first.”
Other Matt lets go of him, and Matt crawls backwards on his hands and feet to lean against the tree they've been sitting under. Other Matt hums contemplatively. “I get that. It was like a year before I told him about mine, and then it was only because I was having just – the worst night, I could like, taste the weed smoke from a room across the building.”
Matt sighs. “I... took a little longer.”
“Are they – shit, which one's which, I'm losing track.”
“I think mine's hugging yours. Should we – uh, intervene, d'you think?”
“No, no, let's see where this goes. Maybe they'll make out.”
“Dude.”
“Kidding! Mostly. Hey, do you wanna make out, or?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“It's like, you always kind of think, if I ever run into a clone or something, we should definitely–”
“Right?”
“But then you're face to face with the real thing and it's just.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah.”
“...Okay, wow. Yeah. Yeah, you're... really lucky he stuck around.”
Matt is tearing up grass again. Tearing up grass and trying not to think about what he and Foggy could have had, all these years, what this Matt and Foggy must have.
There is a universe out there where Foggy Nelson never had to find Matt Murdock bleeding out on the floor, never had to learn that where there should have been unwavering loyalty and trust, instead there was nothing but lies, lies, lies. There is a them not having to rebuild from those shambles.
That universe exists. That universe is possible, if Matt had just–
Foggy deserves that universe.
(Karen deserves a universe where her bosses aren't collaboratively lying to her, wondering when the time will be right to finally-)
(Claire deserves a universe where she was never dragged into a parking garage and-)
Matt swallows. “I know.”
“So...” Other Matt clears his throat. “So things have been better? Between you, since then?”
“Yeah, we're... We're working on it.”
Other Matt is back to wanting to say something, and not saying it. “You know –“ he finally starts, then stops, and starts again: “You know you're allowed to need people, right?”
Matt's jaw clenches. “I don't need-”
“I don't even mean needing help, which, just by the way, is also fine, I just mean... You're allowed to like. Need people. Around. Friends. Just, sorry, I know we've only known each other for like six hours, but I'm just... thinking back on how I was doing, at that point, after – after Dad, and like... If I'd suddenly had this mentor figure, this – this guy teaching me and – and who I thought cared about me, if I gave him a present and he completely abandoned me, I am just. Trying to think of all the specific ways in which that would have absolutely fucked me up. You're allowed to get attached to people, okay? There's not like. An automatic punishment for it.”
Matt takes a deep breath, and then another. If there's one thing he's not going to do today, it's cry in front of himself. That sounds like just, an awful thing to have happen, for all involved. “I – I'm not, I mean... You...” He growls, drags his hands through his hair. “Okay, you might have a point.”
“I like to think I do.” Other Matt sounds smug. “Occasionally.”
Matt snorts. “I guess I do kind of... keep people at arms' length. I just... I need to know I can stand on my own. I need to know that if – if one day they all leave – I have to be able to survive that.”
“Matt.” Other Matt pulls himself up next to him against the tree, drapes an arm around his shoulders. “Matthew. He's not gonna disappear if you admit you need him, I promise.”
And Matt is still absolutely not going to cry, so he makes a fist and bites down on it. Eventually, it feels safe to stop. “Thanks,” he says quietly, wiping his hand on his shirt.
“Any time,” says Other Matt easily. “Can't pretend I don't have my own issues, I am speaking from at least partial experience.”
“All the other kids.” Yes, Matt remembers that, too. “Any time we made a friend.”
“They got adopted,” Other Matt confirms. “Also, I mean. I did still find my father murdered in an alley and blame myself for years, that kind of thing tends to leave scars.”
“Yeah,” says Matt dryly, “there is also that.”
The anomaly opens back up that evening. The Foggys helpfully narrate - “We are fading in and out of visual existence, Matt, and it is super weird” “super weird, I can confirm” - and Matt thinks they might be waving at each other. He shakes the other Matt's hand, feels its presence flicker in his grip, solid and then static and then solid again.
Then they're gone.
Matt's head is aching. All over, people are talking, frantically, about what's been happening, and the anomaly leaves a residual crackling in the air that he can hear and smell and taste.
He reigns it in.
Picks up his cane, takes Foggy's arm and trusts him to lead the way.
“Foggy,” he says, and if his voice is a little hoarse, if his hand at Foggy's elbow is shaking, that's just what he's going to have to work with for now. “There are some... There are some things I need to tell you.”
(They are still rebuilding. They are still picking themselves up, picking each other up, putting the pieces back into place, finding new ways to coexist. Their next fight will be short, and bitter: people begin to theorize that the universe the doubles came from does not have a Daredevil.
"He saved my life last month, is all I'm saying," a man will say, vaguely familiar. "And my double never showed." Dozens of others will echo this experience in dozens of interviews, and Matt – will not react, because they will be at Josie's, the first time he hears of this.
He will react later.
And later, Foggy will tell him, a lot of people's doubles didn't show. A lot of people flickered into existence and found they died last week, last year, decades ago, before their first birthday. Causality is a funny thing, and Matt is not its focal point.
"Matt," Foggy will say, at last, desperate, "if I go grocery shopping at a different store tomorrow, maybe they'll run out of ink after my receipt, and the clerk they send to buy more gets – gets mugged and killed on his way back. Shit happens, you cannot take on another universe's guilt, this does not mean you're killing people when you take a night off!"
And Matt will try to believe him.
He will try.)