Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was the soft creak of the floorboards that stirred Foggy from sleep.

He blinked in the dim light of early morning—that cool grey-blue that seeps in through the curtains just before sunrise—and reached out instinctively across the bed. His hand met rumpled sheets and empty space.

The space where Matt had been.

Foggy sat up, squinting at the vague outline of a figure standing by the window. Bare-chested, silhouetted, arms folded. Quiet.

“Matt?” he croaked, voice rough with sleep.

There was a beat of silence before Matt turned toward the sound. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Foggy rubbed his eyes. “The cold did. You dragged all the heat out of this bed when you left, like a selfish little human furnace.”

That earned a soft chuckle.

Foggy swung his legs out of bed and padded barefoot across the floor. Matt didn’t move when Foggy reached him—just stood there, letting the faint sounds of the city beyond the glass wash over him.

“Can’t sleep?” Foggy asked, voice gentler now.

Matt shook his head. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he repeated, quieter this time.

“You didn’t,” Foggy said again. “But I don’t like waking up and finding you gone. Especially when you’re standing around looking like you’re solving all the world’s problems with your eyebrows.”

That earned a tiny smile, which Foggy counted as a win.

Matt was quiet a moment. Then: “I was listening. To the city. It’s... quieter this morning.”

Foggy glanced out the window. “Looks the same to me.”

“It’s not. There’s less traffic. Fewer sirens. Just wind and breathing and... birds.”

Foggy looked at him. Really looked. Shirtless, sleep-creased, bruised faintly across one side from last week’s escapade. But in this light, in this stillness, he didn’t look like Daredevil. He looked like Matt. Just Matt.

He slid an arm around Matt’s waist, resting his head lightly against Matt’s shoulder blade.

“Still,” he murmured, “come back to bed.”

Matt exhaled a laugh—soft, almost surprised. “You just got up.”

“Yeah, and now I’m cold and lonely, and this apartment doesn’t let me open my eyes without you doing something weirdly poetic by the window. Come back to bed.”

Matt hesitated.

Foggy lifted his head to look at him. “Unless you’re secretly training with ninja monks in your sleep or something—”

“I’m not.”

“Then there’s literally no reason for you not to be in my arms where you belong.”

Matt turned toward him, slow and thoughtful. He reached up and cupped Foggy’s cheek, thumb brushing the sleep from under his eye like it was something sacred.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll come back.”

Foggy tugged him gently by the hand, guiding him back toward the bed like a tether pulling them both to the earth. They slid under the covers together, Matt folding into Foggy’s chest without hesitation now.

Foggy’s arms wrapped around him like second nature, and Matt tucked his head under Foggy’s chin, breathing him in—warmth, comfort, safety.

“This okay?” Foggy whispered.

“Perfect,” Matt murmured against his collarbone.

The sheets were still warm, and their bodies even warmer. In the silence, the world outside faded away. Matt’s hand found Foggy’s under the blankets, fingers curling in.

After a while, just as Foggy was starting to drift again, Matt spoke.

“You always bring me back,” he said, voice barely audible.

Foggy kissed the top of his head.

“I always will.”