Foggy and Matt rep an SA victim and it brings back memories for all of them
- Matt didn’t learn how to fight from Stick (he was never there), he was assaulted at a young age after his father passed and learnt how to defend himself as a blind kid
- Foggy it happened after him and Matt were already roommates, and he never told anyone, Matt kicked himself for not knowing (with his super senses, hearing, smell, etc) and gets bad flashbacks as his is similar to the vic they’re repping
- Karen’s was like every high school girl’s story, their first real boyfriend and he takes it too far, and she can’t do anything about it, she knows how the he said she said goes down
Matt feels really guilty for not being able to protect Foggy, he should have heard his screams, especially since it happened at university. He should have noticed something was up. He feels bad about Karen’s but he doesn’t have the guilt that he could have done something, just an urge to punch her high school boyfriend and take on more cases like that one.
Foggy trying to reconcile that the two strongest people he knows have faced the same trauma he has and that he’s not alone or strange for having gone through it. Hell, Matt, the strongest man he knows went through it, he’s not weak for struggling sometimes.
Karen doesn’t feel a sense of guilt about anything, she’d attended the support groups, heard stories from girls from her own school and others from out of school acknowledging that it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t always feel safe walking home at night, but that’s why she carried pepper spray. Hell’s Kitchen might be a dump, but she’d never felt safer than there.
They do win the case, but not without panic attacks on Foggy’s side, Matt finds him crying in his office one night after Karen has gone home and he just sits there, making sure Foggy’s breathing and heart rate don’t go too fast.
Karen finds the men there the next morning, Foggy napping on the floor against the wall and Matt snoozing on a chair. She grabs the two of them coffee and then they all sit there all morning just making small talk.
Foggy brings it up just as the sun is hitting the middle of the sky. It happened one night when he was walking home from a bar. He was attacked and dragged into an alleyway and spent the night passed out in the alleyway near the bar. He made his way back to his and Matt’s dorm, spending far too long in the shower before throwing away the clothing he’d been wearing.
Using the excuse of a hangover to an already in class Matt, he spent the day in bed, going through the motions for the next few weeks and not going back to that bar.
Karen then tells her story, it was her first high school boyfriend. She didn’t realise what was happening until too late and no amount of pleas and scratching at him could make him stop. In fact it seemed to just make him happier and then he ordered her to fix her skirt and dropped her off outside her house, giving her a peck on the lips and waving politely to her parents.
She threw up a couple of times in her bathroom and like Foggy stood in the shower far too long, she broke up with him the next day as he was making out with another girl at the school, just another conquest on his wall.
She tried reporting him to the school, but he was a football player and nothing ever happened. So she formed a club for the girls at the school, first for victims of him and later all victims of SA, and for those who felt unsafe walking alone, starting little walking groups.
When they had fallen silent, not expecting Matt to say anything, he whispers, so quietly they almost don’t hear him.
He was eleven and currently ignoring the gasps of horror from Foggy and Karen. The blind kid couldn’t defend himself, so at the orphanage he was beaten and kicked and bullied, until one day an older kid had cornered him and instead of the usual blows he felt caresses on his face. He’d rather the blows.
He stood ramrod straight as the assault was happening, refusing to acknowledge what had happened to him until years later. In the time he took up fighting, he embraced the enhanced senses, after his dad he was left alone, and although his dad never wanted him to fight, he learnt to protect himself.
He’d never talked about it, hadn’t planned to tell Foggy or Karen, but he thought it was the right time. He knew he wasn’t weak at that time, but spends time apologising to a green Foggy. Foggy can’t understand why he apologises, until he remembers Matt’s vigilante alter ego, and even then can’t understand. It wasn’t Matt’s fault and he’d obviously had worse and survived.
Karen reminds them it’s not a competition and that trauma can occur to anyone and neither of them can argue with this very smart woman. The client knocks on the door while they’re all sitting together in Foggy’s office and Karen answers the door welcoming in the client as Foggy wipes tears off his face and Matt stretches, neck cramped from sitting still so long.
It isn’t perfect. Their trauma doesn’t suddenly disappear because they’ve talked it out, but it does help. They’re able to talk about it, able to get Matt to feel less guilt over Foggy, although it will never truly go away, Matt teaches Karen more self defence so she feels safer, Foggy learns how to put his anxious energy into something productive and useful, and they learn they’re not broken.
A little busted up and leaning on each other, they all go to group therapy together, it’s a little less scary that way as they clutch each other’s hands and sit on plastic chairs. It isn’t perfect, but it’s good. They fashion a life as good as they are able and hold each other up, it’s all they can hope to do sometimes.