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Matt knew he had one shot at this, knew it would hit him hard, but God he couldn't have known it would feel like getting run over by a truck again. He'd pulled out an outfit he hadn't worn in a year for the trip, not since— Not since. It fit oddly now, with the shoulders too loose thanks to lost muscle and the waist a bit tighter with the softness that had grown around his middle.
But he'd wanted to be recognizable to Foggy. He was only going back a year and a day, just far enough he could set things right. Set the world on the path it was supposed to be on—his world, at least.
All the important people in his life left: that was fact. That was inevitability. Even Karen, who wasn't dead, who was somehow still alive after everything life had thrown at her, even she left. Chose to leave him, but by choice or by force it was all the same in the end.
Not Foggy, though. Not if he had any say in the matter, and this one time he did.
He stood in a hallway, in front of an apartment door. He ran his fingers over the numbers screwed on to the wooden face, needing to confirm that he was were he thought he was.
302. That wasn't.... A year and a day ago Foggy had lived in 517; he hadn't lived at 302 for a decade, not since they'd first opened Nelson & Murdock, practically a lifetime ago. What....
The door opened, and there stood Foggy Nelson. A much younger Foggy Nelson, his hair long enough to reach his shoulders—a slight swish which Matt hadn't heard in...years...as he reared back in shock.
"Matt?" he hissed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Foggy sounded the same even as anger sharpened his voice into a knife. But oh, what a beautiful blade to feel. Matt would let Foggy's ire cut him every time, if it meant Foggy were alive.
"Shouldn't you be out committing crimes in the name of lawlessness right now?"
Foggy didn't smell the same, not like how he remembered. The superficialities were present—his shampoo, his laundry detergent, the drunken noodles he ate when stressed—but Matt had forgotten.... Matt had forgotten....
In a year, Matt had forgotten what his best friend smelled like.
His face crumpled.
"Foggy," he choked out.
And Foggy, bless him, slung an arm around Matt's shoulders and brought him inside, shutting the apartment door behind them, letting Matt hug him tight and break down in the privacy of his home rather than the open hallway.
Because he was. Breaking down. Getting hit by a truck would have been kinder—a reasonable explanation for why he felt like his heart had no space to beat within his ribcage. Why his muscles were seized in a brittle, unyielding circle around Foggy. He buried his face in Foggy's neck, huffing that wonderful odor like Foggy's pheromones were the oxygen he needed for life. He couldn't move, couldn't let go, even though a far off part of him recognized how his reaction must be confusing as hell to Foggy.
His tears soaked into Foggy's shirt, followed by his snot. Because he was a messy crier, always had been, and this time was certainly no different.
Foggy's heart beat though. A steady pulse, not thready, not weak, not diminishing so rapidly Matt had felt like he was fighting Dex in free fall. No, it boomed, Matt's entire body attuned to the force of it as that force traveled through Foggy's arteries, and it sped up the longer Matt collapsed around Foggy.
Foggy rubbed circles along Matt's spine, and when Matt was finally able to lift his head without the brush of Foggy's hair against his cheek prompting another wracking sob—or the softness of Foggy's back under his palms, the warmth of Foggy's core in his arms, the many precious details signaling to him Foggy was alive and bringing Matt to joyous ruin—when Matt could compose himself from the miracle before him, Foggy got a second look at the man who'd shown up on his doorstep and dropped his arms.
"What the—? Who are you? You're not Matt."
Matt let go of Foggy, but his hands hovered awkwardly in the air, wanting to reach back out.
"No, I am," Matt protested, but Foggy stepped backwards. Away. Shit, he was going to botch this and lose Foggy again—Matt would fail Foggy a second time unless he could get Foggy to believe him. Another wave of pain, another heaving ball of guilt lodged in his throat, choking him. He needed to work through it—had to in order to explain. Words felt clumsy on his tongue, mangled by the effort it took to bring them from his lungs to his larynx to his lips, but he managed. "I'm Matt, I swear, I am. But I'm from the future." He swiped fingers across his face in an attempt to pull himself together. After, his glasses sat askew on the bridge of his nose, knocked aside by his crying and his fumbling, so he removed them. He didn't need them here, not in Foggy's home with just the two of them. "Please, believe me. I'm here because I need you to do something."
"Do...what? What?" Foggy ran his hands through his hair as he paced three steps right then three left. Socked feet muffled his footfalls, but the stress tensioning his strides was clear. "This is unbelievable. Time travel? You're telling me I have to believe in time travel now?" He circled Matt, and Matt tracked that beautiful pulse every step of the way as Foggy rounded him. "Fuck. You do look like him, just older. Hotter too, somehow."
Matt chuckled shakily. "But am I still a wounded duck?" he asked, taking this chance to joke again with Foggy like the blessing it was.
"The most wounded, always and forever. It's part of your charm. I gotta ask...," Foggy trailed off but said no more.
Matt thought he knew when he was, going by how Foggy had initially greeted him and how young he seemed, and so Matt thought he knew what Foggy's question was. He'd landed in time in the middle of their first big fight, and Foggy was questioning who Matt was and where did that leave Foggy. Matt let himself smile, wobbly around the edges because a portion of him still wanted to burst into tears over the fact he was here, now, with an alive Franklin "Foggy" Nelson standing in front of him, but hopefully reassuring as well. "Go ahead. Ask."
"Do we get through this? I mean, is it worth it to try to fix us? Because the man in black is a lot to get through, I gotta be honest."
The easy answer would be to say no. Matt's pushed away Foggy in the past—his past, Foggy's future—and maybe that would be the best way to keep Foggy safe. He opened his mouth to tell Foggy it wasn't worth it, to leave Nelson & Murdock now for greener pastures, but couldn't. That choking ball of emotions, so many twisted and tangled together, anchored itself once more in his trachea. Guilt, longing, awe at having a healthy Foggy before him and relief that he had the chance to change things made speaking impossible, all overlaid with an anxiety that whatever he said wouldn't make a difference.
It was the longing that won his voice, ultimately. While distance from him might be the safest path, he'd lived a year without Foggy in the world. Not merely absent from his side, but absent from everywhere. Even when they'd been separated in the past, he'd had the ability to catch glimpses of Foggy about the world: his voice on the other side of a door in City Hall, his aftershave lingering in the air at the café they both liked, the cadence of his shoes against the asphalt as he walked home at night. After a year without any of that, he couldn't live with only those small reassurances as his signs of Foggy's vitality. He needed more, needed Foggy himself.
Besides, he knew that Foggy—his Foggy, the Foggy of the future—would have said it was worth it to stand by Matt, even with the end.
So he licked his lips and said, "Yes. Yes, it's worth it. I can't promise it's easy—I make it extremely difficult at times—but you've always thought we were worth it. That I was worth the effort."
Tears welled again at how much forgiveness Foggy had granted him, how immeasurable his love had been. A gift, one he cherished all the more for the countless times he'd fought it, and one lost to him with Foggy's demise.
"Whoa, whoa, hey." Foggy's arms circled around him again, and he hugged back. Tight. He would fix the incorrectness of his world so it would not become Foggy's world. Foggy continued, "It's okay. You said we get through this, so we'll get through it. Me and my Matt, I mean. He'll turn into you, Hot Older Matt, and I'll turn into Hot Older Foggy, and everything is going to be aces. I bet the opposing counsel pees their pants a little every time we walk into the courtroom together."
Foggy's speculation of their future together was Matt's cue. He'd been lingering, indulging himself with this version of Foggy from the past instead of getting down to business. But he had a job to do, and he couldn't ignore it any longer. He gave himself thirty seconds more to imprint every aspect of Foggy on his senses because once he'd completed his job, once Foggy believed him and Foggy's future changed, he'd be gone. Made non-existent.
He drew away from Foggy. "There's something more I need to tell you. About the future and...about your death."
A sharp intake of breath as Foggy gasped; a hushed "Oh," as he exhaled.
"But once I tell you, you'll be able to prevent it. And once you prevent it, I'll vanish. That's how you'll know it worked."
"Oh!" Foggy exclaimed, startled but more pleased.
This was how it had to be. After all, the world had no place for a grieving Matt Murdock while Foggy Nelson yet lived.