I know I shouldn’t follow them as much as I do, though, again, I make damn sure there’s no chance either will ever have an inkling of it. It’s the one indulgence I still permit myself, the one way I’m still selfish, still won’t heed what’s right for those I love, same way Matt Murdock was selfish for getting too involved with them in the first place, thinking he could wreck havoc with their lives just because he did each of them one big favor.
Because I will say I kept Foggy good, in that time period right after law school where he might have otherwise succumbed to Landman and Zack. Though maybe he would’ve still broken free of that on his own, still found a way to stay a good man even when he finally settled at a more professional firm. To still believe the system will work, if he can just make it. At least I hope so. Irrational as it is, I can’t stand the thought of him ever not believing that.
Yet he’s so much older now. Sometimes, when I’m not following him, I still think of the guy who was sitting on the other bed when I first walked into that dorm room, with that grin I could hear and that bright laugh and that determination to make me share in both, and I miss him so much it physically hurts. But that Foggy Nelson doesn’t exist anymore, not any more than Matt Murdock. The man that replaced him is still cheerful, still warm, and still bringing that to the people around him, if they’ll accept it. But he no longer has that light heart.
It’s not even just me that took that from him; the world did it too. He’s seen so much ugliness. I think he’s even figured out on his own that Wilson Fisk is going to be bad news for him. And yet he still stands strong, still fights the good fight, still speaks his mind even to the boss who cut him down when he first attempted to help her, still meets everyone with kindness when he can, still runs to help when he sees someone down.
I actually keep more physical distance from him than I do from Karen. Unlike her, he got a chance to learn how to listen for me, so I have to. But much of the time, it’s just enough to hear his voice. He isn’t even as talkative as he used to be, but he still talks more than most people. And while he’s cultured his voice in some ways, used it in different ways when he’s playing the professional respectable lawyer, at base, it will always be the same. It will always be the best part of his heart, the part that kept my own heart warm for so many years.
It’s only now, when I’ve given all of him up, that I can admit I wanted more than that, though. That I wanted him as I wanted Karen, that I was that selfish. That when he clapped me on the shoulder, I wanted softer touches from his hands. That I never got a hug from him that I didn’t want to go on longer. That I wanted to hear that voice speaking only to me, in a more intimate setting.
I still want all of it, and more than ever. I was never going to stop loving Foggy anyway, and that I wouldn’t be ashamed of. But to be in love with him would be bad enough, if I also wasn’t in love with Karen in a way I don’t think I was back when I first kissed her.
I’ve always known Foggy, always understood exactly what he was and is. Karen, I now know, didn’t allow that, not any more than I did. Like me she hid the parts of herself she thought would get her rejected. I’m not sure she isn’t right there, any more than I am about whether she would’ve rejected me, had she known when we first met. Not that anything could get me to reject her now, even though I’m pretty sure there are details to her secrets I don’t know yet.
That’s what I’ve always been missing about her: the details. My first perception of her was much like the literal image of her in my world on fire: not wrong, but limited. Now I know where she’s been going and what she’s been doing on her darkest days and nights. I know she has darkness in her, just like I do, and like me she’s been driven to take it the darkness she fights. Though she’s trying to find a way to use it, without living in it. I pray she’ll succeed where I failed.
Because unlike Matt Murdock, she has enough in her brighter side to be worth preserving. If I am the darkness, and Foggy is the light, she’s somewhere in between. Her kindness, her sweetness, how soft and vulnerable and, yes, scared she is, that’s all real. And like him, she tries to do everything she can from her desk with her words. Finding out the secrets and exposing them to the world, or just to the people who might be able to do something with them. Calling for things to done in the name of pure righteousness, instead of the name of the law, something not better only because supposed righteousness can sometimes be wrong. In the end, she might accomplish more than either Foggy or me.
And she strode that path all on her own. I merely got her out of jail and then saved her life at the beginning of it. She would never make a speech to me about how she only ever needed Matt Murdock, because while I don’t think she likes being alone, she doesn’t actually need other people.
Though maybe, had I been a better man, she could’ve accepted me as her companion on it. I’m her protector anyway, or at least one of them, the one she doesn’t know about. But even now, when she goes home, I long to go with her. To sit close with her and make her laugh, to hold her in my arms when she gets sad or shaken, to kiss her hair and her lips, to go further than that, to do the things I passed up my chance to do. It’s for the better we didn’t, because it would’ve hurt her more, in the end. But what I wouldn’t give to have even the memories of it.
Maybe that’s the worst thing I did to Foggy and Karen, keeping them from each other. They could’ve had a happy life together, if I hadn’t distracted her from him. She was never indifferent to him, and he would’ve said yes for sure. Now they can’t even deal with each other properly because of me.
So each of them has turned halfway towards someone else, one to a friend with benefits, the other to a man loyal without them. And who knows, maybe someday Marci Stahl will get over her fear of commitment, or Frank Castle might even allow himself to fall in love again. Not that either of them could deserve the treasure they’ll be getting, not any more than I would, but maybe they’ll make them happy. Marci’s got a lot less bullshit than any of us, after all, and at least Frank let Karen see all of his clearly from the start.
By the time any of that happens, I doubt I’ll still be alive, which is a relief to think. Not even just because of them, but because of what I now know I must do. And because of them, I know I will do it. I likely would’ve at least tried anyway, for the sake of the city. But otherwise, there’d be the question of whether I could bring myself to go through with it, with the damnation of my own soul. Instead, I know that when the moment comes, I need only think of the two of them, and what Fisk would do to them, and then I won’t hesitate.
Which is the greatest reason of all that Foggy and Karen can never know I didn’t die at Midland Circle. They would neither of them forgive themselves if they ever found out I’d made such a sacrifice for them, not even if they had nothing to do with it. Let them instead chalk everything up to the bad guys all turning on each other, her reporting what she’ll have every reason to believe is the truth, maybe the two of them able to meet for drinks and be okay with each other’s company in their mutual relief. When they think of me that evening, let it be with sadness, if it must, but no more than that.
And let them sleep soundly on whatever night, be it the same night Fisk falls or some other one, that I perish with their names on my lips. The man once within him they loved will be long dead, and the Devil should be of no concern to them.