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The first thing Foggy noticed when he opened the apartment door was the puddle.
The second thing was the man standing in the middle of the kitchen, dripping onto the floor like a very guilty, very wet retriever.
“Matt?” Foggy blinked, stepping inside slowly. “Why is there a puddle? Why are you a puddle?”
Matt stood frozen, cowl off, damp hair plastered to his forehead, red suit clinging like shrink-wrap to every line of his body. He was shivering.
“There was a... boat,” he said, teeth chattering slightly.
Foggy stared. “A boat?”
“A guy ran across the docks,” Matt said. “I went after him. The rain messed with my hearing. Echoes off the water threw me. I misjudged the ledge.”
Foggy stared harder. “You fell in the Hudson?”
Matt shrugged helplessly, water droplets flying off him like punctuation. “Not on purpose.”
“Oh my God,” Foggy groaned, setting his bag down with a thud. “You fell into one of the most toxic bodies of water on the East Coast, and instead of going straight to a hospital or, I don’t know, calling your actual boyfriend, you decided to come home and… marinate?!”
“I’m fine—”
“Shut up, you’re shaking,” Foggy snapped, already moving. “Jesus, Matt, your lips are blue. You look like a crime scene they pull out of a river on Law & Order.”
Matt winced as Foggy tugged at the fastenings of his suit, hands firm but careful. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Foggy said, voice rising, “were you being considerate while actively becoming hypothermic in my kitchen? That’s so thoughtful, babe.”
Matt offered a sheepish grimace. “I dried off the floor.”
Foggy paused mid-unzip. “You’re lucky I love you,” he muttered, then shook his head and went back to peeling the suit off like wet wallpaper. “You could’ve slipped again in here. Cracked your skull. Died twice in one night.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how dying works.”
“Don’t test me. I’m rewriting the laws of physics next if it keeps you alive.”
He got Matt down to his boxers and pointed toward the bathroom like a man on a mission. “Shower. Hot. Scrub yourself like you’re trying to pass a CDC inspection.”
Matt shuffled off obediently, trailing water with every step.
“And I swear to God,” Foggy called, “if you tell me the water pressure was too low and you went back outside to rinse off in the rain, I’ll kill you myself.”
Twenty minutes later, Matt emerged from the bathroom in sweatpants, a hoodie, and a cloud of steam. His hair was towel-damp and fluffed like a disgruntled cat. He looked thoroughly decontaminated and, finally, warm.
Foggy was waiting on the couch with two mugs of tea and a blanket that looked like it had been shaken out of a Pinterest board.
“Sit,” Foggy ordered.
Matt sat. Foggy immediately wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, then handed him the tea and glared over the rim of his own mug like a mother on her third espresso.
“I’m not mad,” Foggy said. “I’m… well, okay. I am mad. But mostly I’m terrified. And mad about the terrified part.”
Matt looked down. “I didn’t expect the rain to mess with me like that.”
“You never do,” Foggy said, gently now. “But babe, you’re not a machine. I know you like to pretend you’ve got all this under control, but even with the ninja skills and the whole echolocation magic thing, you’re still human.”
“I know.”
“Then stop scaring me like this.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Foggy leaned in, forehead resting gently against Matt’s temple. “I know you didn’t.”
They sat in silence for a while. Matt’s shivering had stopped. Foggy’s heart hadn’t quite.
Eventually, Matt tilted his head, voice soft. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
Foggy let out a breath. “Always,” he murmured, kissing his hair. “Even when you’re radioactive and dumb.”
“I’m not radioactive.”
“You fell in the Hudson. You might be.”
Matt chuckled, quiet and warm against his side.