Chapter Text
Karen notices them about a week into working for Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law. Brightly coloured and jauntily scattered throughout the office, they pop up in drawers and filing cabinets, perched on ledges or placed like little paper weights on bookshelves.
It took finding one in the teabag jar for her to clock that they were moving them around. She’d laughed, shaken her head in exasperation, and moved the bright blue figure to the fridge shelf with the milk.
It didn’t take Karen much longer to realise that there was more to them than just a fun joke.
It was during the Healy case that she’d first noticed Matt fiddling with one as he paced. He and Foggy were having a tense discussion about the strategy for the upcoming trial, a flash of orange catching her eye as Matt turned one of the dinosaurs over and over in his hand.
She’d begun to notice him fidgeting with them frequently after that. He’d spin them round in his fingers when bouncing ideas off Foggy, run his fingertips along the ridges of their textured skin as he pushed back in his chair, thinking. He never tried to hide it, and Foggy never drew attention to it, it was just something he did. She didn’t want to be obnoxious and ask about it needlessly, but she was curious. She didn’t want to put her foot in it by bringing it up with Matt, so she’d brought it up with Foggy instead.
“What’s with the plastic dinosaurs?”
Foggy grins.
“They’re cute right? I got them for Matt in college, followed us ever since” he says, a hint of pride in his voice. That set of dollar store dinosaurs had followed them through so many important life stages and they hadn’t lost a single one. Seeing as Matt had lost his undergrad degree certificate once, that was saying something.
“Since college?” Karen laughs. They’re not old, but that’s a long time for some dinosaur figurines to stick about.
“He likes them” Foggy shrugs simply.
Karen doesn’t want to gossip. She already feels slightly guilty for talking about Matt whilst he’s not here, doesn’t want to put Foggy in an awkward situation of forcing him to spill things behind Matt's back. But Matt dodges sincere conversation with frustrating skill, and she’s really, really curious.
She decides to keep wheedling, just a little.
“He fiddles with them a lot, doesn’t he?”
Foggy’s attitude doesn’t particularly change, but when he replies it’s with a careful tone to his voice, his posture slightly more tense.
“Matt’s very tactile.”
Next time she notices Matt dragging his fingertips across the spikes of the little yellow triceratops she barely spares a glance, continuing her conversation with Foggy about the pros of investing in a toastie maker for the office kitchen.