The first time Matt had temporary complete hearing loss was the worst moment of his life. He was sure he was going to die.
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It was back in law school— he and Foggy were studying, or something of the sort— though with a couple of drinks already down and more sure to follow it looked like it was either going to be an absolutely unproductive night, or a grand night of inhibitionless genius in papers due by midnight. This was how it happened:
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“That is total BS!” Matt laughed and leaned forward, slapping his thigh. He wasn’t any lightweight— in fact it took a lot to get him drunk— tipsy? Tipsy he reached before most people. Foggy insisted it was because he was always so serious; his mind just yearned to have fun, so it let go sooner.
But right now, when a slap to his own leg made his head spin with the confused and crossing lines of a his reverberating sense, he knew it was time he lay off.
“Is not!” Foggy laughed, too, presumably plopping down on the couch in their tiny apartment. The room shook, almost too much, as he threw himself into the cushions. “That’s a perfectly sound argument!”
“But it’s not valid, Fog!”
“Valid shmalid. Sound and valid—“
“You are not about to say they’re the same thing. Come on, what did we take logic class for, man? That was all we needed to pick up from that stupid class and you didn’t even get that?”
“I got it. I got it.” Foggy yawned and punched a pillow into the air, sending a dusty smell into the air that made Matt want to sneeze.
“Sound, though—“
A rumbling noise sounded below and everything in the apartment rattled on its shelves. The building seemed to be shaking. Matt was up on his feet within a couple of seconds, trying to find the source of the problem even with a slightly warped radar.
Suddenly a huge noise shook the building and something crashed down from one of their walls— Matt assumed it was the clock Foggy thought was so ugly (personally he didn’t mind). Another crash in the street below, heard through the open window.
“Whoa! Is it an earthquake?” Foggy asked, no longer yawning or relaxing.
Matt could hear screams from down in the street and in other apartments below theirs. Peoples’ rushing footsteps in the stairwells and the distant drone of police sirens filled Matt’s head. He shook his head, though the world was already shaking, and took a step toward the kitchen doorway.
“We should get out of here. It seems pretty bad, Matt. I’ll help you, just—“
BOOM!
An explosion of gargantuan proportions went off and the world that was already shaking went wild with quaking. A ringing penetrated Matt’s hearing and the high-pitched squeal seemed to strike a match in his ears. When the match burned down to the very last tip, though, and the ringing should die down and open the door for regular sounds, there weren’t any. No sounds followed the squeal. Just silence. Real silence. Dark silence.
Then something hit Matt in the back of the head and something else found his gut, and as if the world being already soundless, lightless, and now completely blank wasn’t enough, a little switch of consciousness flipped perfectly into the “off” position.
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“MATT!” Foggy shouted, panic digging deeper down into his dreading heart. “Matt! Where are you?!” He kicked aside a piece of cement rubble and hurt his foot more than he moved the block, almost crying out in aggravated anger.
“Matt?! Murdock, come on! I know that super-freak hearing has to be good for something! Come on, Matty, where are ya?!” Foggy’s despair started to weaken his resolve. It was hopeless. Like he’d find his best friend under all this rubble anyway. Yeah, right.
Still he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He tramped through the debris, around half-fallen walls and over exposed rebar, carefully under precariously standing archways and through remains of furniture.
Then something red glinted in the light of the sun out of the corner of his eye. He just barely caught it, it was so quick, but when he turned back with held hope in his eyes he recognized it again.
“Matt! Hey, Matt, buddy!” Foggy ran over crumbles of building-frame toward the shine of the one remaining lens of Matt’s glasses. Foggy moved part of a broken column off of Matt, having to use all his strength to move the heavy cement.
“Matty? Matty, can you hear me? Come to, man. Come on. Please!” Foggy pulled his friend up out of the little hole that had probably saved his life. He laid him back and brushed the red glass of the broken lens off Matt’s face, seeing that it had already done significant damage.
“Matt, you hear everything! Come on! You can’t even sleep with any noise going on! Just wake up. Please, Matty.” Foggy tried to check Matt’s pulse but his hands were shaking too much. He’d just about given up on the dusty corpse before him when Matt coughed violently and seized, taking in deep breaths then starting to hyperventilate.
“Matt! Yes! Matt, finally.” Foggy relaxed and his hands went to Matt’s shoulders. Matt, however, seemed to just begin his panic. He grabbed Foggy’s arm and twisted it to a nearly-impossible angle, poised to break it, Fog assumed.
“Wait! Wait! Matt, it’s me! It’s me!” Matt’s position didn’t change.
“Can you hear me? Murdock. Can you hear me?” Foggy said, quieter.
No change.
Oh no.
Foggy was lost for anything. he didn’t know what to do. How could he get Matt to recognize him without sight or sound? Come on, Nelson, think! Your brain has to be useful for something! What would be only you? What would he know was you? What, what, what?!
Wait. Foggy suddenly had an idea. He took the risk of wriggling an arm out of Matt’s masterful hold and he found his keys in his pocket. They always joked about how ridiculous they were. Because someone had dared Foggy to make use of a plastic rhinoceros toy that they’d found on campus. So, naturally, needing to win the bet that no one else cared about, Foggy had made the rhinoceros his keychain. Matt would feel it on the table and laugh sometimes, or he’d get this faraway expression like he was trying to remember what a rhinoceros looked like from feeling its horns and four legs on the miniaturized version.
Foggy stuffed the rhino into Matt’s palm and Matt immediately let his arm go from the bent position.
“Fog?”
“Yeah!” Oh, wait.
Yeah. Foggy squeezed Matt’s shoulder once for yes.
“I can’t hear anything.” Matt whispered.
Foggy didn’t know what else to do but squeeze once again. A few moments went by without a word spoken. Then, a drop of wetness streaked down Matt’s dust-covered face and he said, in a quiet, broken voice:
“I’m really scared.”
Now Foggy really didn’t know what to do. He wanted to comfort Matt. Tell him everything would be fine. That he’d help him. That he’d take care of him. Tell him he’d get him to the hospital. Tell him he wasn’t alone.
Wait…
Foggy realized suddenly that there was a perfectly acceptable way to say that, even without passing any words.
Foggy hugged him. Tight. The two of them remained seated there on the rubble, covered with dust and grime, until Matt’s tears had stopped flowing and he was ready for his best friend to lead him from the rubble.
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“Heyyy, Mattster! Maestro! Murdockian!” Foggy greeted, when Matt first stirred, rolling his head on the pillow and his eyes jerking unconsciously open then his face scrunching up like a bunny rabbit’s.
For a moment Foggy was afraid that Matt still couldn’t hear him. It wouldn’t be anything new. It had been a few days in the hospital and nothing yet. He almost went back to reading his magazine on muscle cars when he finally got an answer.
“Hey, Foggy.”
A mischievous smile was spread across Matt’s face when Foggy looked back up.
“Matty? You can hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can hear ya, you big— oof!” Matt grunted as Foggy attacked him with an unexpected hug.
“Oh my gosh I’m so glad. You had me worried sick!” Foggy didn’t even realize how cliche that sounded until after he said it. He backed off and pulled his little hospital chair closer to the bed.
Matt laughed with him. He blinked his large brown eyes, complete with the long eyelashes, and for a moment of comfortable near-silence, Foggy could’ve sworn Matt was looking him in the eye.
“Thank you.” Matt reached a hand to find Foggy’s and Fog took it out of habit. The heart rate monitor on Matt’s finger and the needle from the IV coming out of his skin reminded him of what was so close to happening.
“Hey, I couldn’t just stop searchin’ fo’ your ass. I wouldn’t get through law school without your help.”
Matt chuckled and shook his head, stealing his hand back and tenderly touching some of the scrapes from the broken glasses lens around his eye.
“Seriously, Foggy. Thanks.”
“I know. Seriously, Matty, I couldn’t’ve stopped looking. You’re my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”