Chapter Text
“Magic.”
Matt nods. “Magic.”
A strangled laugh manages to escape from Foggy’s tightening throat. With it, a tongue of bright flame. His mouth tastes like a matchstick head, and his breath smells like brimstone.
He stares down at the hole in his blazer and dress shirt and pokes at the unmarked skin underneath.
“Magic,” he says again.
Matt runs a soot-stained hand over his head, aggravating the seriously clinical case of Helmet Hair from his cowl. “I... I don’t know what else to tell you, Foggy. That’s what the doctor said.”
“And exactly what kind of ‘doctor’ is this Stephen Strange?”
“A neurosurgeon,” Matt says with a perfectly straight face.
More laughter, high and slightly hysterical -but thankfully not particularly on fire- spills out of him. He has to sit down.
The Avengers are standing in a tense clump, muttering at each other. The new Captain America -Sam, Foggy reminds himself- is frowning thunderously at whatever Dr. Neurosurgeon Sorcerer Supreme has to say. Barton, Barnes, Lang, and the Spider-kid are listening intently. Thor and Loki (Loki???) interject with the occasional correction.
The Avengers.
Foggy’s knees feel a little watery. The chairs in the Avengers compound’s common area are in the other side of the room.
Oh look, the floor.
The floor will do nicely.
Crisscross applesauce.
Much better.
His chest feels hot and cold at the same time. He can’t stop touching the spot where the magic fucking death beam had hit him. Should have killed him. It doesn’t even hurt.
Matt sinks down beside him, favoring his bruised left leg.
“I won’t ask you if you’re OK,” he says unnecessarily. “But if you want to talk about it, I’m here. Or if you want a glass of water, I’ll sniff some out.”
Yeah he could. Matt and his super-senses. Matt and his super senses and ninja training and weird dumpster-bro friendship with fucking Hawkeye of the fucking Avengers could definitely find a soothing glass of water for ol’ Foggy Nelson, esq., lately of Nelson, Murdock, and Page.
But Foggy isn’t thirsty. Not so far, anyway. Really, aside from the fact that he is now apparently some kind of Invulnerable Lava Person, he hasn’t felt this good in ages. The low-grade ache in his forearm from when he’d fallen out of Cousin Sadie’s tree house and had to get pins in his ulna back in ‘98 is gone. He had never even noticed it had ached for so long until now. Now that it’s gone. Now that he feels like he has the energy to do twenty back flips and run a half-marathon full tilt, even though he had gotten only four hours of sleep last night and was supposed to be running mostly on caffeine and powdered sugar fumes.
He reaches out for Matt’s hand and hopes he doesn’t accidentally burn him.
Matt catches him and squeezes tight. His palm is dry and callused and his knuckles are red. Foggy keenly feels how cool it is in contrast to his own fever-warm skin.
“I’m sorry,” Foggy says.
Matt blinks at him, eyes not quite meeting his, as usual. “Sorry for what?”
“I don’t know. I’m... I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was rubbernecking like the rest of Midtown, and I should have been herding folks to safety. Or at least getting my own ass out of your way.”
Matt shakes his head. “From what I understand, Loki and Dr. Strange had put on a really fantastic light show.
Foggy snorts. “That’s one way of putting it, I guess.”
“And then the interdimensional portals.”
“And then the interdimensional portals, yeah.”
“With the flying ice hornet aliens, don’t forget those.”
“Can’t leave those out.”
“No.”
“Nope.”
There’s a heat inside of him that Foggy is only now beginning to recognize. Experimentally, he takes a deep breath, purses his lips, and exhales long and slow. A thin line of orange and blue fire billows out of him. He expected it, but it still surprises him. He watches as his breath peters out and the flame dies in midair.
“That’s kinda cool,” Matt says gently. Like he isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to say.
He squeezes Foggy’s hand again.
Something settles in Foggy’s stomach, even amid the Avengers’ murmur and the banked coals underneath his skin.
“I guess it is.”