inthewildwood | fanfiction: lay your body down

Title: lay your body down
Fandom: Daredevil
Pairings: girl!Matt/girl!Foggy
Summary: I don’t need the woman in the mask, Foggy had said; maybe not, but she needs some sort of protection, a guise. Something that makes her look stronger than she is.
Rating: T

As Maddie lurches through the streets of Hell’s Kitchen towards home, every droplet of rain feels like a dart piercing her skin. As nights go, this wasn’t a bad one- only two fights, with three guys apiece, and she took every one of them apart. But it left her bruised and battered, and maybe there’s something about this night in particular that’s worn her down, but every step she takes feels like her last.

She went to Claire’s first, of course- Claire’s gentle fingers skimming her face, probing at every cut and bruise and abrasion. At this point, Maddie’s held together more by stitches and goodwill than anything else. She feels like Frankenstein’s monster, a memory half-held from a childhood spent kneeling in front of a flickering TV. A misshapen thing dragging her limbs behind her as she trawls through the world searching fruitlessly for a sense of grace. If there is grace somewhere- and she doubts it- she’s not going to find it in Hell’s Kitchen.

When she reaches her apartment, she scales the wall rather than using the stairs- easier and safer than risking someone seeing her in the mask- and falls to the floor through her window with an inelegant thump. It’s only then, as she begins to scrape herself up, that she realizes she’s not alone. That the staccato heartbeat and quick, high breathing in her ears doesn’t just belong to her, though it seems to be moving in time with her own body. She lifts her head. “Foggy?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Yeah, it’s Foggy- she can hear the sound of skin peeling away from the pleather of her couch, flat footsteps stomping across the floor until Foggy’s standing in front of her. She hears the rustle of her arms being crossed. “What the hell did you do to yourself this time?”

“. . . see the other guy.” Maddie murmurs.

Foggy sighs, another familiar sound, then reaches out to pull Maddie to her feet. Her grip is gentler than her voice, and Maddie permits herself a brief moment of leaning into Foggy’s grasp, feeling her cheek against Foggy’s shoulder. Soft, like a pillow. She knows she shouldn’t be indulging herself like this, but Foggy smells like mint toothpaste and the remnants of what she had for dinner- pizza- and it smells like security. Foggy makes a brief noise that could be either impatience or surprise (probably the latter; instinctively, Maddie leans towards the former) and lets go of Maddie’s arms, pulling her into a hug instead. Maddie sighs into the softness of Foggy’s neck, the familiar smell and the sound of her pulse jumping beneath Maddie’s ear. A familiar symphony: care, concern, compassion. The same things that drew her to Foggy when they were in college, when she was just Maddie’s strange, babbly roommate, before Fisk or Daredevil. Before the city made them hard.

Correction, she thinks as Foggy pulls her towards the couch and lowers her onto the cushions, made her hard. Not Foggy. Foggy is busy clicking her tongue in false annoyance as she brushes damp hair out of Maddie's eyes and tugs her coat and boots off. The mask is the last to go, and Maddie lets out a quiet sigh of relief as it falls to the floor in a wet heap. The air of the apartment is warm against her sodden face, and Foggy's hands return to brush across her cheeks and chin, wiping away the excess droplets, some of which- Maddie can admit- are leaking from the corners of her eyes. "Oh, Maddie," Foggy says.

Maddie closes her eyes. Not that it means much, but- it's the principle of the thing. She hears the creak of Foggy's knees as she kneels down next to the couch and rests her chin gingerly on the top of Maddie's head. Her fingers comb through Maddie's hair, easing the tension in her scalp, until the burn of the rain and the iodine and the old and new bruises layered over each other fade into a distant hum of pain. It's not gone, not entirely, but there are new sensations to occupy her mind: Foggy’s fingertips, callused from hitting the keyboard keys too hard, the drag of skin on skin, the warmth of Foggy’s palm as it cradles the curve of her head. She lets out another sigh, long and low.

“You should be in bed,” Foggy says. “Probably. I mean, I’m not a doctor or anything, but you look pretty-” She whistles. “Like something that lost a fight with a cat. An angry cat.”

The mental image makes Maddie huff a laugh- an army of Fisk-cats, claws unsheathed, charging at her one after one. She thinks she might have a concussion, or some other sort of brain damage, because normally this would not be nearly as funny. “I think the phrase is ‘something the cat dragged in.’”

“Whatever,” Foggy says. “That too.” She puts a hand behind Maddie’s shoulders. “Can you get up, or do I have to drag you?”

“I’m up,” Maddie says quickly. Not that Foggy would actually make good on that threat, but it’s good to be careful. She levels herself off the couch with her elbows, leaning harder than she’d like against the support of Foggy’s hands, and weaves her way towards the bedroom. She can hear Foggy’s quick steps behind her, a hand always at her back to make sure she doesn’t topple over. It’s a more necessary precaution than Maddie wants to admit, but of course she’s not going to say as much out loud. Foggy shouldn’t even be here- she didn’t ask her to come, and this was exactly why. She doesn’t like people seeing her like this. Claire is a necessity, and she’d be lying if she said she resented Claire’s presence in her life, but when it comes to Foggy and Karen, she needs to be better. Stronger. I don’t need the woman in the mask, Foggy had said; maybe not, but she needs some sort of protection, a guise. Something that makes her look stronger than she is. Strong enough to lead a law firm and fight crime and do everything else she needs to do, because no one else is going to do it for her.

Foggy deposits her on the bed, and Maddie feels herself sink into the spots between lumps on the mattress. Belatedly, she realizes that the bed isn't listing to one side, and that's because Foggy's curled up next to her, an arm snaking over Maddie's waist. Maddie cracks one eye open. "You don't have to-"

"I want to," Foggy says, then adds "shut up," as an afterthought. Her face nestles into Maddie's neck, lips against her collarbone. "Go to sleep. You can beat the bad guys up tomorrow."

Maddie waits for Foggy's pulse and heartbeat to slow down before she closes her eyes, the telltale signs of peaceful sleep. They're longer in coming than she would like, and she wants to apologize- for letting this burden be shared, for making Foggy worry, for lying to her in the first place, for somehow wrapping them both up in this story that doesn't seem to have any ending. She can't find the words, though, so she turns her face towards Foggy's, letting her mouth brush against Foggy's forehead. She'll be there when Maddie wakes up, she knows, making a mess of the kitchen and barking out aggressively cheerful orders to rise and shine because they have a new day of helping the poor and downtrodden ahead of them. Maddie can't say she looks forward to it, but she also can't say that the thought isn't a comfort as she finally allows herself to sleep.