in technicolor

FN: brett

BM: it is 3am franklin

FN: I know I’m sorry.

BM: ? Fogs what’s up? You okay?

FN: yeah, yeah. Sorry it’s cool.

BM: dude what’s happening? It doesn’t sound cool.

FN: I mean no. you’re probably right. but there’s nothing anyone can do so. Yeah.

Brett’s heart pumped faster. He shoved himself up to his elbows in bed and his eyes adjusted to the light of his phone screen.

BM: is someone hurt? Are you hurt?

FN: maybe? I don’t know.

BM: foggy what’s happening? Is it Matt?

FN: I might have cancer.

It was like being punched in the chest. It was like his heart had just emptied. Like everything went still and quiet, then came back, not as a rush, but a scream.

Brett’s hands went cold with sweat. They started shaking and his pulse started rabbiting in his neck.

BM: why do you think that

FN: because the doc told me so.

Jesus. Jesus, no.

No, no, no.

FN: I told Matt. He told me he needed some air. He hasn’t been back for hours. Brett I’m so fucking scared. I’ve never been this scared. Do you think he’s left? I can’t help it I don’t know how to fix it I don’t even know for sure yet. he wouldn’t do that right?

BM: no. No, Fogs. He’d never do that.

BM: hey I’ll come stay with you until he gets back okay?

FN: okay

FN: thank you

Brett had never prepared for the chance that Foggy wouldn’t be in his life. He’d never even considered it. It had just been a given that he and Fogs would become wrinkled old men, still locked in a perpetual battle of wits.

If anything, Brett was supposed to die before Foggy. Foggy was a lawyer. Foggy kept himself safe. Safe as houses--except everything Brett knew from experience told him that houses weren’t all that safe. Not really.

He knocked on Foggy’s apartment door and Foggy answered it pale with red, raw eyes. He seemed blonder than ever. His skin was nearly gray.

Brett had no words. He held his arms out and Foggy took a shuddering breath, then stepped into the hug. His breath caught against Brett’s shoulder, and in the end, there was nothing Brett could do but hold onto him.

He couldn’t out-smart this bad guy. Couldn’t track it or shoot it.

Matt couldn’t either.

Matt couldn’t bear to lose Foggy. 

“You’re okay,” Brett said. “You’re okay. Come on, let’s go sit. We’re okay.”

Foggy let go of him and shook his head slowly, but he still closed the door after Brett and he still went to sit on the couch with him.

A month. A month Fogs had been having splitting headaches for no discernable reason. He’d gone to the doc, thinking it was a kind of migraine and now he was here with a folder full of paperwork.

He had a tumor in his head.

They didn’t know if it was cancerous yet.

“My doc says that they’re gonna have to biopsy it,” Foggy said, exhausted. “They’ll know better then. It’s small enough that they think they can just remove it. We caught it early enough. I think—they say the outlook is pretty good, so long as we keep a close eye on it. It’s just—it’s just so fucking scary, Brett, I don’t know what else to think.”

Thank fuck for silver linings was what Brett thought. Thank fuck for Foggy’s common sense and anxiety. Thank fuck this guy was nothing like the people he worked with, who considered conventional medicine a personal insult.

“You’re gonna be fine, Foggy,” Brett told him. “Totally fine.”

Foggy was too tired to smile at him. His cheekbones looked stretched thin.

“I don’t want to die,” he said quietly.

“You’re not going to die,” Brett assured him. “Your docs said so. Chances are good. You caught it in time.”

Foggy pursed his lips and nodded with something bordering on hollowness. He didn’t believe it. Brett couldn’t blame him at all. He could, however, blame Matt.

Where was he? He couldn’t be leaving Foggy alone like this. Not in this state. Not with this information.

Matt need to be here. It was nonnegotiable.

“People have left Matt his whole life,” Foggy breathed quietly. “I promised him I’d never leave. I—I would understand if he’s mad. I just—”

No. Brett wasn’t hearing that shit, not from Foggy. Not right now.

“Matt needs to get over himself,” he said. “Shit isn’t always about him. He should be here. This is about you.”

Foggy hated that. He only liked things to be about him on his own terms.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Foggy fell asleep eventually. Brett watched him sink into it and waited a few minutes before getting up and pulling him out of his awkward curled up ball at the other end of the couch. He got Fogs more or less laid out then went into the bathroom and braced his hands on either side of the sink.

He took deep, shaky breaths.

Where was Matt?

Seriously.

Where was Matt?

Brett couldn’t handle this by himself.

He washed his face with cold water and went back into the living room and there. There was Matt. Sat on the floor next to Fogs, stroking the side of his sleeping face.

Matt had gone out to hurt himself. His hair was fucked up. His knuckles were a disaster. His face was bruised and lip bleeding. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and from afar, it was almost as though he was watching Foggy sleep.

He was. In his own way.

“I can’t fix this,” Matt said to Brett, still standing in the hallway. “I can’t fight this.”

No, but Foggy could. Matt could help Foggy fight.

Matt pressed his forehead to Foggy’s and closed his eyes.

“If it were me, it would be easier,” he said almost in a whisper. “He’s not good at fighting. I tried to teach him, but he’s hopeless.”

Brett sucked in a deep breath and came all the way out into the living room.

“He’s not hopeless,” he said. “And you can’t be either. They don’t even know if it’s cancer yet, Matt.”

Matt said nothing. Brett felt his heart skip.

“You can’t tell, can you?” he asked.

“No,” Matt said. “If I could—”

He stopped. Then shook his head and pulled it away from Foggy’s.

“If I could, it would be so much worse,” he said softly, trailing a couple fingers through Foggy’s hair.

He meant that he could feel people dying. Yeah, okay. Brett got it.

“Wade has cancer,” Matt said out of nowhere.

Brett blinked.

“Brain cancer?” he asked.

“Everywhere cancer,” Matt said calmly. “His mutation keeps it in check. Some days he’s sick until the mutation heals it. He smells like rotting meat.”

Brett swallowed hard.

“That won’t be Fogs,” he said.

“It could be,” Matt mused.

“Matt. You need to—”

“If Foggy dies, then I think I’d go with him.”

Woah, there. That was. That wasn’t.

“Matt—”

“I wouldn’t want him to go alone. It’d be scary. I’ve almost died a number of times. It’s pretty scary. Fogs doesn’t need that. I’d make sure he doesn’t feel scared.”

Brett didn’t even know where to start. There were just so many angles, too many angles.

“Foggy isn’t going to die,” Brett decided. “And you can’t think that way. You’re killing him before he’s even had a shot. For real. We need to have hope. The outlook is pretty good. Did Fogs tell you? Did you hear? He did the right thing. He did everything right and they caught it just in time.”

Matt hummed and pulled his hand away from Foggy’s face finally.

He continued to say nothing.

Brett could only let the silence sit.

He left around six, but he couldn’t make himself go to work. He went to his mom’s. He didn’t know who Foggy had told, if he’d told anyone. But he couldn’t bear this one by himself.

Mom sunk into a chair at the table and shook for a long time at the news.

“He’ll be okay,” she eventually decided when the shock wore off. “Franklin’s a tough cookie. He’ll be okay.”

Yeah.

Yeah, Brett knew.

“Does Anna know?”

Brett had no idea. Mom sighed.

“Horrible,” she said. “Just horrible.”

Brett wasn’t sure what Fogs was going through because he didn’t text for the next couple of days. Brett wanted to respect his space, but the feeling of emptiness when his body screamed at him to be doing something, anything was almost too much to bear.

Anna Nelson, his mom told him over the phone, was inconsolable. But more than her, Ed, Foggy’s dad, was nearly numb from the news.

It wasn’t a surprise. Ed was Foggy’s father for fuck’s sake. He was a man of few words and lots of teasing. When he couldn’t bring himself to tease, he didn’t have a whole lot of words left.

Brett didn’t know where Matt stood on things anymore.

He’d seemed to be in a pretty dark place. Brett didn’t know him well enough to know how he coped with grief. All he knew was how he coped with rage.

He made his fists drip.

He made the world around him roar and beg for mercy.

It didn’t take a whole lot of guesswork to figure how he coped with any other emotion. Didn’t take a whole lot of guesswork at all.

Foggy texted him the next week and the message sent relief booming through Brett’s heart like soundwaves.

FN: so guess who’s got a non malignant tumor???

Thank.

GOD.

BM: Guess who is actually literally crying right now.

FN: Is it Matt? Because I’m pretty sure it is :D

BM: it’s me you fuckhead jesus

FN: awwwww you do care! Amazing! Stupendous! An act worthy of Vegas, baby!

BM: I cannot deal with this bullshit right now. I’m so glad Fogs. What did they say? What are they gonna do?

FN: ooooooh you know. Brain surgery. Which is fun. Dude, quick question: when catholics pray over you, is that a pre-death ritual or?

Brett laughed so hard that Ellen and Maynard looked over the desk dividers at him.

He didn’t care.

“It’s not cancer,” he told them.

Ellen’s face went wide and she threw her folder up over her head in celebration. She sent paper rocketing everywhere and scared the shit out of the whole damn bullpen, but again:

Not important.

BM: not a pre-death thing always, no. Pretty sure matt’s just thanking his lucky stars

FN: oh yeah, he did a great job with that earlier. Told a nurse to piss off and everything. So grateful. An example to us all.

BM: I’m coming to see you. are you still at the hospital?

FN: yeah, for now. They’re running some tests and then scheduling me for another surgery (which I just LOVE) but yes please come my mom is on her way and I can’t bear for her and Matt to be fighting to cry over me. You know how it is, neither of them is good at sharing.

Brett could not contain his smile. He realized now that the Captain had come out to investigate the paper-throwing.

“Is everything alright?” he asked Brett a little nervously.

“Nelson’s tumor is benign,” Brett said. “Not cancer.”

The Captain touched a hand to his heart. Then blinked and cleared his throat.

“That’s excellent news, detective,” he said. “Nelson’s a damn fine attorney. A pain in our ass, but a damn fine attorney.”

Fuck Foggy being a damn fine attorney. He was a damn fine friend.

“Do you need to take off?” the Captain asked.

“In a minute,” Brett said. “I’ve been asked to run mother-interference.”

Ellen squeaked in delight and Maynard smiled over the top of the divider.

“Send him our love, alright?” she said.

Yes, ma’am, he would.

Brett was a little late for mom-interference at the hospital. Matt had been terrified out of his place at Foggy’s side by the sheer strength of Anna Nelson’s sobs. Matt looked a little raw, but ready to climb a wall to get away from the sound.

Foggy seemed fine, all laid up in white and blue. Still sickly pale, but fine and clearly suffering under his mom’s relief and attention. His sister was already in the room, next in line for her turn and blinking back tears in preparation. Fogs looked up enough to notice Brett, then waved lightly.

Matt edged away from the bed as carefully as he could and touched Brett’s shoulder.

“Have you seen Ed?” he asked.

Brett paused and looked around and indeed, there was no Mr. Nelson Senior to be found.

“No, I haven’t,” he said.

Matt nodded.

“I’m gonna—” he gestured to the wall. Brett realized he was going for the door. He was probably too shaky and jumbled to tell where it was.

“For sure,” Brett said. “Go grab a coffee, I’ll keep an eye on these guys.”

He lost track of time and soon found himself and the ladies being ushered from the room for the time being. He looked around and found neither Matt nor Ed around. Anna noticed that too.

She didn’t seem too concerned, though.

“It’s been hard on him,” she said. “I think he’s trying to collect himself for Foggy.”

Right. That made sense. Until Brett heard the tapping.

The three of them looked up expecting Matt’s cane, but what they got was not that. Instead it was a woman wearing high heels and a neat gray suit with a white and silver brooch on her lapel. She seemed very calm, but Brett noticed that Anna and Candace had gone stiff as boards next to him.

“Anna,” the woman greeted when she caught up to them.

“Rosalind,” Anna stuttered. “How—how are you? Did you come out all this way?”

“Ed called me,” Rosalind said.

She smelled like something expensive.

“Oh, well. Right, sorry, visiting hours are over,” Anna said, brushing strands of brown and gray hair out of her face. “I’m—maybe the nurses might be a little lenient, though?”

Rosalind smiled.

“I’m sure I can convince them,” she said.

And she continued on her way, clack-clacking down the hall. The ladies watched after her in mutual heart-shaking silence.

Matt and Ed were outside. Brett saw from a distance that Matt was making his ‘EMOTIONS. S-O-S’ expression. Anna and Candace noticed it, too.

“Wuh-oh, Dad’s probably busted out the waterworks,” Candace said.

Anna’s smile flickered. She didn’t say anything. Brett frowned down at her, but when she looked at him, she shook her head and tried harder to smile.

It was strange.

Weird.

Brett felt like he was missing something.

Matt did, too, judging by the fact that his panicking did not decrease at all when Anna and Candace got within his range of awareness. Ed’s watery blue eyes spoke volumes of where he was at.

He didn’t want to cry on Foggy. He didn’t want to upset him or his wife any more than he had.

Ed was a sweet guy from a time where masculinity was all about stoicism. He tried his best, but Brett was 100% sure that Foggy would want to see him, crying or not.

Still though, that was between Ed and Fogs.

Matt let Anna take his place next to Ed and stepped closer to Brett just as Anna whispered, “Why did you do that, Edward?” quietly enough that Brett almost missed it.

Ed shook his head and offered Matt and Brett a ride home. They politely declined and instead waved the Nelsons off to do their thing. The trio were nearly a minute gone when Matt turned towards Brett and said for the both of them,

“What the fuck was that about?”

Brett almost laughed.

“No idea,” he said. “Some lady went in to see Fogs after we left though. I don’t know her. Do you?”

“No idea. What was she like?”

“Uh, low voice; tall-ish. About Candace’s height. Older--about Anna’s age. Heels. Dark eyes, salt and pepper hair?”

Matt shook his head.

“Don’t know anyone,” he said.

“Me neither,” Brett said.

“Trouble?” Matt asked him.

Brett was taken aback by the question.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Trouble,” Matt repeated. “Everyone’s hearts went all weird. Ed was talking to himself out here when I found him; he was saying he shouldn’t have done something.”

Oh. Okay. Trouble, indeed.

“I think this is a job for Mom,” Brett said.

Mom crowed in joy when she received the news of Foggy’s diagnosis, then spent her energy viciously attacking Matt with hands on his cheeks and chin, apparently having already forgiven him for being a neighborhood watchman in horns. Matt never liked this touching, but he allowed it for Mom, which Brett thought she was intimately aware of.

This was possibly her way of punishing him for keeping secrets.  

Before she abandoned them to go make coffee, she forced Matt into a hug that sent Matt’s shoulders to shivering.

And Brett had to say, the one thing that he appreciated about Matt was that he never hid how profoundly uncomfortable he was with moms of all varieties. He did not discriminate between moms. He was as unhappy in Anna’s arms as he was in Mom’s and, after any interaction with such maternal affection, he always sought somewhere to hide.

Brett was mildly gratified that he was trusted enough at this point to become something to hide behind.

“She doesn’t bite, man,” he pointed out.

Matt wrinkled his nose at him then went back to the business of pretending he didn’t exist.

Mom returned and ignored this. She waved everyone to sit and implored them to tell her everything, which naturally they did.

Up to an including the encounter with the mysterious Rosalind.

Mom tipped her head at the name in a way Brett would never mistake.

Mom knew everything that went on in Hell’s Kitchen. Everything. When Brett had been a kid, an occasional police officer would come through the front door, asking to speak with her. She was never arrested, rarely a witness, but she always, always knew what the neighbors were up to.

The face she wore now said she knew this Rosalind lady.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I’m sure that was awkward for Anna.”

Brett thought about it.

“She did seem pretty uncomfortable, Candace too,” he said, completely aware that Mom was finagling more information out of him.

“Ed as well,” Matt added. “He seemed upset.”

“He would be, he would be,” Mom said sagely.

They waited.

She acted surprised like she didn’t know that the whole point of this conversation had been for her to tell them the dirt.

“Oh, well that’s Franklin’s birth mother, you know,” she said.

Brett hoped the silence that followed as tense for Matt as it was for him.

“Foggy’s adopted?” Matt blurted out.

Brett paused and now saw that he and Matt were equally uncomfortable for very different reasons.

It was no secret that Anna was Foggy’s step-mom in this part of Hell’s Kitchen. When Brett and Foggy had been especially small, Foggy had even still occasionally called her his step-mom. At some point that Brett couldn’t remember even if he tried, though, he’d switched completely over to calling her his mom-mom, and Anna fit in so well with the Nelsons that that had just seemed right. It was as though she was a lost piece of a puzzle finally found and slotted into place. She and Foggy had been close for as long as Brett had known them.

Brett, out of teenage curiosity, had asked Foggy once about his biological mom, but Foggy had just shrugged and said he didn’t remember her much.

Evidently, that had been a lie, seeing as Ed Nelson had called bio-mom to come see her not-dead, but almost-dead kid. But even then, it was out of character for Foggy to lie. He was bad at it. The worst.

“Did Fogs not tell you this?” Brett asked Matt, who had apparently had a different experience of this information.

Matt blinked.

“Uh? No?” he said. “Or maybe he did? Maybe I’m just—maybe I wasn’t listening right.”

Oh.

Now this was interesting indeed.

Foggy, what was going through that head of yours, keeping secrets like this?

“Anna is Franklin’s stepmother,” Mom told Matt gently. “She and Ed married in, oh, ‘92? ‘93?”

Matt processed that information long and hard.

“That tracks,” he finally decided.

Brett thought that he was taking it well. Either that or he was stuffing it into his box of things to repress for now and work out later while breaking other people’s bones.

“You wouldn’t have known, honey, you and Jackie were living on the other side of things,” Mom said, patting at Matt’s knee.

Matt put on an excellent show of not being creeped the fuck out by Mom remembering his childhood whereabouts. It didn’t make a lick of difference to anyone, but it was certainly impressive. Brett himself was used to his mom’s borderline scarily precise memory, but for a while there, he and Kelly had been paranoid that they would do something so unfathomably stupid or embarrassing that their mom would use it as one of her mind-markers to help her remember shit.

And that was inescapable really, so the time Kelly had slammed Brett’s fingers in the front door in a sibling brawl was now a marker for Mom. As was the time that Brett had sobbed his way through his first haircut. And Kelly’s first period. And Brett’s first break-up.

Yeah. All of them. Markers now.

What fun times.

Kelly swore that if Mom ever got dementia and started just talking to people, there would be no dignity left in their household. They might as well just start publishing everything themselves to at least have control over the flow.

Brett knew that this was a hopeless endeavor. He knew this in his heart and he’d accepted it by the time he left the police academy that he was condemned to live in embarrassing-mother hell for the rest of his life.

But that was neither here, nor there.

What was here was the fact that that Rosalind lady was Foggy’s bio mom.

And that was just weird.

“She came across a little stiff,” he told Mom diplomatically.

“Like she had a stick up her ass?” Mom replied with a sniff.

Matt chose that of all things to be surprised by.

“Did she?” he asked Brett.

“I mean, I guess,” he said. “She said she could convince the hospital to let her see Fogs.”

“Cocky,” Mom said.

Dude. Come on, now. That was uncalled for.

“Cocky and stiff,” Mom maintained. “An intensely unpleasant woman, I must say. I couldn’t believe Ed married her to begin with. Nobody could see them together. But then of course Rosalind started showing and we all understood a bit more then.”

Oh, how scandalous.

Matt smiled a bit.

“I’m sure Foggy charmed her with all his natural optimism,” he said.

Mom settled in smugly, always more than happy to gossip about times past.

“We thought she’d brought home the wrong baby,” Mom said. “Cute as a button. Blond like his daddy used to be. But no, it was the right one. Rosalind just wasn’t interested—well, she was for a time. But you know, she’s always had her career. Never wanted to be a family woman. She had the baby and tolerated it and Ed for a while, then decided it wasn’t for her and went back to her lawyering.”

Alright, no.

Hold up a second there.

“Foggy’s mom is a lawyer?” Brett asked.

“Oh yes. A very good one. Very high class. Sharpe, her name is. She decided was too good for the likes of us in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Matt tipped his head slightly.

“She wouldn’t be the first,” he said. “I think I’ve heard that name.”

“She works down south,” Mom told him. “You might have crossed paths. I’m positive Foggy would try to avoid her, though.”

“Do they not get along?” Matt asked.

“I don’t know that,” Mom hummed. “But I do know that Rosalind only used to come see him once a year or so. I don’t know how long that lasted—especially after Anna came into the picture. Don’t think she liked the idea of someone taking her place even after she’d left it.”

Brett could not imagine the woman in the hallway wandering around Hell’s Kitchen and he certainly couldn’t imagine her as Foggy’s mother. Which was probably the point, now that he thought about it.

“Should we go back and rescue Fogs then?” he asked Mom.

Mom shifted in her seat.

“I imagine they’re civil after all this time,” she said. “I can see why Ed would call her, too. He’s a good man, Ed. He probably thought she ought to know what was happening to her child. And I suppose she can’t be completely soulless if she came up this way to see Foggy like this.”

This was a less-than-ringing endorsement of the woman in Brett’s mind. But for whatever reason, Matt didn’t appear uncomfortable by that at all.

Mom noted this.

“What are you thinking, dear?” she asked him sweetly.

Matt smiled.

“I’m thinking that Fogs and I have more in common than I thought,” he said, standing up. “Thank you, Bess. I think I ought to be going. I’m sure Foggy and Ms. Rosalind will work out their differences.”

“I hope so, too,” Mom said politely. “Be careful on the way home, Matty. Nasty folks out at this time of night.”

Matt’s grin was toothy this time. He didn’t reply. Just left with his cane in hand.

The door closed and Brett started to get up. He had work the next day and needed to be heading home.

“Matty’s mother left him, too,” Mom said apropos of nothing.

Brett froze.

“Sorry?” he said.

Mom studied him coolly.

“I said, Matty’s mama left him, too,” she said. “She was never like Rosalind, though. Rosalind is stiff. Grace was always a fire cracker; couldn’t help herself. Didn’t live around here—more on the outskirts. She wasted no time and took no prisoners, that girl. She wasn’t ready for a baby, though, bless her. She and Jackie were both too young, really.”

Brett hadn’t heard this story before.

“Grace is a very Catholic name,” he pointed out, slowly sitting himself back down on the old creaky couch.

“Well, she is a very Catholic woman,” Mom countered, smug again. “I suppose she and Matty found each other through that in the end. I’m happy for them. Must have been hard.”

Oooooh.

See, this was how Mom got you. She threw out a line and reeled you in and there was nothing you could do but let her talk.

“Is a very Catholic woman?” Brett prodded.

“Is indeed,” Mom agreed.

And so began the standoff.

“Do I know this very Catholic woman?” Brett asked, taking the first shot.

“I believe you probably do,” Mom said, dodging swiftly.

“Have I known her long?”

“I don’t know your church habits, son.”

“A church? Why would I go to a Catholic ch—Mom.”

“Yes?” Mom asked, sweet as a peach in June.

Brett crossed his legs.

“That’s pretty scandalous, Ma,” he said.

“Oh, but it does make for a very romantic love story, doesn’t it?” Mom said. “A novice nun and a rising boxer. Certainly beats mine and your daddy’s story.”

“I mean, lotta imagery there, but Ma. Jack Murdock went out and defiled a nun? Kinda fucked up,” Brett said.

Mom gave him a prissy look.

“Excuse you, Brett Mahoney,” she said,  “Jack Murdock was a nice Catholic boy and I’ll hear no ill spoken of him in this household. All he did was look pretty and sad. The rest of that decision was Grace’s. She didn’t have to give up her veil and anyways, she went right back to it.”

Brett huffed.

“Are you allowed to do that?” he asked. “Seems shockingly un-nunly.”

Mom’s cheer seemed to droop a bit.

“Special circumstances, honey,” she said. “Like I said, both she and Jack were too young for a baby.”

“What happened to her?” Brett asked.

Mom sighed.

“You remember how Kelly was after Amos was born?” she asked.

Woof. Did he ever? He hadn’t recognized her. She’d been so happy until…well, really until she had Amos in her arms. Her boyfriend had come to Mom and Brett with palms open and eyes wide. He hadn’t understood, he’d thought she’d wanted the baby. Mom had, though. She told him to bring Kelly and Amos home.

Post partum depression was a real-ass thing. And Kelly claimed that she didn’t need to talk to anyone about it. She was fine, Mom. Everything was fine.

But it wasn’t.

In those early days, Brett and Mom had held baby Amos more than she had. It took a while. Months—maybe years--Kelly never spoke about it—for her to embrace her son without sobbing and feeling, in her words, like a failure.

“That’s rough,” Brett said.

“Folks didn’t know much about it back then,” Mom said. “And Grace—god help her, there was no way she was going to talk to anyone about it. Tried to work through it on her own. She’s a taskmaster, Brett, a real regimented sort of gal—probably that nun training, you know? But of course Jackie noticed; he came around here once, confused. Asked me real quietly what he ought to do. I told him to just hang in there; things would turn around. And he did—stupid boy, Brett. He was pretty and stupid. Didn’t even see her leavin’ him. Didn’t cross his blessed mind.”

Yikes.

Mom hummed.

“She left,” Brett said.

“Nearly drowned Matthew at six weeks,” Mom said. “Everyone who was anyone heard about it.”

Holy shit.

“Lashed out at Jack. Caught herself and then dashed off. Back to the church, back to the church, you know,” Mom said. “Folks ‘round here hated her; kept tellin’ Jackie ‘good riddance,’ but you know he was broken hearted. Maybe twenty years old, then. Barely out of babyhood themselves, the both of them.”

What the hell was Brett doing at twenty? Probably trying to buy whiskey with his cousin’s ID. Damn, man.

“You know more about Sharpe, too?” he asked. Mom shrugged.

“’Fraid not,” she said. “You’ll have to ask Foggy about that one.”

Foggy’s surgery was scheduled for a Thursday and in the meantime, Brett couldn’t help but follow him around like an undercover tail.

Matt approved. Matt took nights. Brett took days. Karen took all the times in-between.

It was a good system until Foggy sent out an none-too-pleased group message to the three of them to express how he felt about it. He used words that he’d never speak in court. Karen took Brett’s number from there and made a new group chat with out Fogs, in which she said that they had to be more subtle.

Peter saluted Brett and Karen and said he’d been practicing Stealth Mode for ages now. Matt nearly swallowed his fingers, he chewed them so violently. He suggested Jessica Jones as a replacement for the umpteenth time and Peter said over him that he was ready for liftoff, Houston.

He said that he’d scare the cancer right out of Foggy. Matt asked God for guidance. Brett asked Peter if he was aware that the tumor was non-cancerous and got a blank look. Peter decided that this meant that said tumor had potential but hadn’t passed its STAR tests.

Brett told him to aim for engineering in college, not biology. It wasn’t his strong suit.

Peter was not a good tail, which Matt emphasized over text about forty times before Brett had to give in to the facts before him. Foggy’s messages to the other chat were becoming increasingly violent. He’d started in with the guillotine talk. That was bad news for everyone, including Peter, who evidently thought ‘stealth’ was wearing a slightly darker suit. He failed to account for the fact that said suit did not do the job in broad daylight.

Wade was employed by unmentioned bodies to drag the kid off for a crash course in secret-keeping and not drawing the whole city’s attention to himself.

Wade also told Brett, Matt, and Karen that they were a ‘chicken coop of fuckin’ hens. God, just let the man live his damn life.’

Matt could not. And Karen couldn’t either, what with Fogs meandering around their office, clutching at his head and moaning.

Matt gave Brett a long-lasting, slightly over-the-shoulder, owlish stare for a long time before Brett understood what he was being asked to do.

Foggy didn’t want to stay home. He had anxiety. He’d had anxiety his entire life and the way he coped with it was by moving around and making other peoples’ problems his own. Distraction was the name of the game, but obviously, he was in no condition to be reading briefs or trying to argue with other attorneys. He didn’t trust Matt to do both of their work in his absence. He was convinced that his beloved was going to deck someone in court.

Brett let him pace back and forth across his living room while he explained all of this about a thousand times, in nearly the same words but not quite.

Ellen asked Brett over text if he would be coming back to work.

He said no, he was on Nelson duty once again. Foggy was about ready to tear up the floorboards and hunker down there for warmth.

Ellen said that the Captain said ‘good luck.’ She also relayed Maynard’s success in fixing the perpetually broken copy machine. Allegedly, all it had taken was some ‘baby talking.’

Brett tried to imagine Maynard baby-talking a copy machine. Then he got up and blocked the front door when Fogs threw up his hands and claimed that he’d had enough.

Foggy had to fast for 12 hours before the surgery, but up until then, Brett decided that he was allowed to have whatever he wanted, so long as he stopped referring to it as ‘the last supper.’

They got shitty Chinese food. They sat on the rug by the couch. Foggy wasn’t hungry. Brett watched him pick through a box of noodles with next to no enthusiasm and finally bit the bullet.

“Is Rosalind going to be there?” he asked.

Foggy grimaced and thunked his takeout box down on to the floor.

“I hate her,” he said. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.”

Brett reached over and caught the box before it fell onto itself and spilled noodles and veg all over the floor. He set it on the plate next to it.

“You wanna say why?” he asked.

“She’s a bitch.”

Wow. Strong language coming from Foggy Nelson. This was uncharacteristic.

“She doesn’t actually care, Brett. She just came because Dad thought I was going to die. That’s the only reason. She talks to him like he’s trash.”

Oh, oof.

“She asked me why I settled for Matt.”

She what?

“Yeah. Said ‘sure he’s pretty and clever enough, but is that worth the inconvenience,’ Brett. She thinks I’d have gotten better grades if it wasn’t for him.”

Better—wait, in like, law school?

“Of course in law school,” Foggy snapped, “It’s always about law school. It’s always about internship. It’s always about work.”

“Wait, so you guys talk often?” Brett asked.

“No,” Foggy said, picking at the peeling edge of the takeout box closest to him. “Not really. It’s more like, she calls me anytime there’s an opening at her firm and tells me to think about my career.”

“She’s got a firm?” Brett asked.

“Of course she’s got a firm,” Foggy sighed. “She’s got everything. And none of it ever mattered, apparently, until Dad let slip that I got into Columbia.”

Now that was some fucked up shit.

“I know,” Foggy said. He finally deflated. “I know.”

He didn’t lift his eyes. Brett chewed his lip.

“If you don’t want her there tomorrow, you can say that,” he said. “She makes your mom hella uncomfortable.”

“I know,” Foggy said again, quieter this time. “I tried. It didn’t work. She won’t let me get a word in edgewise. She was—she was so busy shit-talking the hospital and the nurses and—all that stuff.”

Amazing how kids could be so different from their parents. Brett lowered his own eyes.

“Mom said Matt’s mom left him, too,” he said.

Foggy’s shoulders tensed, then loosened.

“She didn’t,” he said. “Not the way people think. Not like Rosalind. They’re apples and oranges, Brett.”

“How so?” Brett asked. “Did Matt tell you?”

“Sort of. He found out and had a breakdown—as you would, you know, if you’d spent the last twenty years thinking that you were alone in the world. He told me afterwards.”

“You met her?” Brett nudged.

“Once,” Foggy said. “She’s—they’re—” he huffed a laugh and Brett felt the muscles in his chest start to relax. “They’re exactly the same.”

Brett grinned.

“Mom said she’s a nun,” he said.

“God, you have no idea. It makes no difference at all,” Foggy said, smiling now. “She’s like the size of a gopher. She worked at the home he grew up in—the children’s home. She’s more of a sister than a nun specifically, and she gave up all her rights to him when he was about four, I think? When his dad died, some of them were restored, so she’s the one who got all Matt’s school reports.”

Wild.

“I know. She still has them. She—she loves him a lot, Brett. Even if she bullies the hell out of him—she’s so sharp with him, man. Like, think an army of bayonets. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think they hated each other, but like, he trusts her. Despite everything. I don’t think they’re mom and kid, yet, I don’t know if they’ll ever be, but they’ve got this relationship. And it’s stupid to be jealous, you know? I have a mom. She’s great, she’s amazing, she’s—”

Nah, man. Brett got it.

Foggy lived outside of a storm with a firm that called him, buffeting winds against the tiles of his little shack, and intruded on the life he’d built away from it all. But he’d never not be tied to the storm, so long as she raged and lived.

“Rosalind broke your dad’s heart,” Brett said. “I get it. Living ghosts and all that.”

Foggy finally looked up and Brett saw just how tired and aching he was. His eyes were nearly gray.

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. “Why did she come back now?”

“Your dad,” Brett said.

“She never cared about him. He was just the first rung on a ladder.”

“You, then.”

Foggy’s lips pressed together so hard they nearly disappeared.

“Sister Maggie stayed away for nearly all of Matt’s life,” he said. “But she was watching him the whole time. They only ever interacted when he was nearing rock bottom.”

Mmm.

It did sound familiar, didn’t it?

“Good news, then Fogs,” Brett said. “When you get your shit together and propose, she’ll be your mom, too.”

There was a pause. Then a slow smirk made its way across Foggy’s face.

“You’re starting to sound like Bess,” he said.

“Y’all aren’t the only folks becoming your parents,” Brett said. He pushed himself up and felt the bones in his back pop.

Foggy had to be at the hospital at 7am. Brett offered to drive him and got waved off. Ed and Anna had already laid claim to transportation. Before he left the apartment, Foggy gave him a long hug. A real one, too tight and too close.

Maybe the last hug they’d ever have.

Brett hugged him back just as tight, just as close. He promised Foggy he’d be okay; if he could have moved mountains in that moment for him, he would have.

Foggy let go with misty eyes and asked him to swear that if anything happened--if anything went wrong, that Brett would look after Matt and Karen and Peter and Clint and Wade and Frank and—and—

Brett told him he got it. He understood. Nothing would go wrong, but in case they did, he’d swear.

He left the apartment with a broken ‘thank you’ echoing in his ears. It followed him home. It followed him into bed. Into a troubled sleep.

7:30am.

Brett called in and asked for the day off. He couldn’t make himself think about work at the moment. Maynard texted him, asking if he was okay. Ellen opened a group chat and told him that Foggy would be fine. Four or five other people chimed in with prayers and well-wishes.

Goldberg sent a Spiderman sticker.

Brett got up and got ready to make an exodus.

The waiting room was crammed full of bodies even at the asscrack of dawn. The hospital staff clearly had no idea what to do with them all; they seemed caught between calling security and hyperventilating over Captain America reading a book in one hand while holding Candace Nelson’s in the other. Candace had never been so awake in her life, Brett was sure. She stared at him when he entered with eyes the size of tea saucers and lifted Cap’s hand with hers slightly as if to say ‘do you fucking see this?’

Cap turned the page. JB snorted himself awake against Sam Wilson’s shoulder and then shifted around to get even more of his semi-metal bulk in that tiny old chair. Barton and Kate were cozied together in a corner, playing a game on Barton’s phone.

In the row of seats closest to them, Jessica Jones was sprawled across the arm of a chair, half in Luke’s lap, while Danny held his chin and dipped and swayed as his girlfriend and Misty Knight watched on sleepily.

The whole room seemed to need its morning coffee.

“’Sup, Detective?” Peter asked from the floor, where he was laying presumably with Matt, who must have gotten overwhelmed with all the bodies and stress. Brett could only make out his stick on the ground, the rest of him was hidden in the dark under Luke and Jess and Danny’s chairs.

“Not much, kiddo,” Brett said. Anna reached out a hand for him as he came over to sit down next to her and Ed. “Not much room in the place, is there?” he asked her.

Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“There’s another shift coming at 10,” she said shakily.

Oh?

“More clients?” Brett asked.

She giggled a little hysterically. Brett smiled at her.

10am saw Cap stand up and tell JB to stand guard. He and Sam Wilson left. Barton shut his phone off and went and hauled Peter up off the ground. He dropped the kid in his abandoned chair. Peter melted into it and Kate took out her own phone for a new round of whatever she’d been playing with Barton.

Barton said he’d be back at 2. Misty stood up and left with him.

Their empty chairs were quickly filled by new bodies from the outside hallway: Marci Stahl, Karen Page, and a tall woman with green skin who could only be She-Hulk. A handful of folks from the neighborhood came in to fill some of the other gaps in the place.

Brett knew some of them from highschool. They nodded at him, he nodded back.

At noon JB traded guard with Wade Wilson. Candace gaped at them. Wade settled in and called Peter over to come scramble into his lap to doze instead of drooling on Kate’s shoulder. She’d had enough of him. She went and crawled under the chairs to tuck herself up against Matt in the absence of her own mentor.

Wade let Peter scramble up, around, and half-over his shoulders with uncharacteristic patience and quiet. He pulled out his phone and ignored the arms hanging loosely on each side of his neck.

Jessica and Luke told Matt they’d be back and left Danny to watch over him. Karen moved into Luke’s seat and told Matt that Foggy was going to be fine. There were only a few hours left.

More clients came in—people speaking all different languages settled in next to each other wherever they could find space. The floor, empty chairs, the space by the nurses’ station. Many of them came over to Anna and Ed to clasp their hands and tell them what their son had done for their families. They asked where Matt was and polite coughs directed folks’ attention to the shadow man under the chairs.

Anna simply said ‘he’s coping’ in the face of the newly concerned expressions.

Mom came with Kelly and Amos around 1:30. Brett held Amos in his lap and watched him peer at Wade and Peter with unbridled curiosity. He wriggled around and told Brett that they looked like a baby kitten sleeping silly on a big old cat.

Wade was charmed. He looked up from his phone and made his mask make all sorts of expressions at Amos.

Brett handed him over and moved to let Mom sit next to Anna. Amos asked Wade if he could wear his mask.

“What, this thing? You tryin’ to expose my identity, bub?” Wade asked, teasing.

Amos giggled.

“I think not. I won’t be outsmarted by the likes of you, earthling,” Wade warned him, shaking a finger in his face.

Amos asked him if he was an alien. Wade said he was from a planet called ‘Manitoba.’ A triumphant ‘aha!’ sounded out under the chairs, followed by a thud and a groan. Kate maintained that she’d called it.

At 2, Cap returned with Sam Wilson in tow. They had no JB. They brought coffee for the Nelsons instead, which was very sweet.

Steve even got down on the carpet and offered Matt a drink, which Karen took for him to hold until he was ready to come out.

Matt hadn’t said a single word in hours. Brett was starting to get worried. He found Mom’s eyes and she deferred to Anna who bared her teeth and shook her head.

Shortly after Cap had fished Kate out from under the chairs and Peter had woken up, fallen off Wade’s shoulders, and shuffled under to take her place like his life depended on it, Rosalind Sharpe entered the waiting room.

Her eyes blew wide open at the sight that met her.

There were barely two open seats in the place between all the clients and neighbors and family. Brett felt smug about it. He could tell Mom could too from the way that she refolded her hands neatly on her lap with Anna’s still tucked between them.

Brett watched Rosalind pick her way through the folks sitting on the ground, minding her tall slender heels, towards a seat between a re-dozing Danny and Mr. Ghosh with his littlest daughter. Mr. Ghosh moved his baby’s pink coat of the seat next to him. Rosalind’s lips twitched at him before she settled in and smoothed down the fabric of her beige suit.

Everyone else in the room was wearing street clothes. She stood out like a sore thumb.

Well, at least until the fuckin’ nun entered.

The nun was the size of a floor lamp, truly, and slightly familiar somehow. Brett had to do a double-take when she appeared in her black and white, but the second that she entered the room proper, Mom stood up with Anna. Anna let go of Mom’s hand to press both of hers over her mouth with tears again in her eyes.

“Grace?” she asked.

The nun paused, then placed a hand on her hip—her hip. She cocked it out and smiled.

“The one and only,” she said.

Brett’s jaw almost dropped as Anna reached forward and took the nun’s hands.

“It’s been so long,” she said.

“It really has,” Mom added. “Is it ‘Maggie’ now?”

“To most, but I’ll make an exception,” Sister Grace said. “How is our boy?”

Anna was full-on crying now.

“Soon,” she croaked. “He’ll be out soon.”

“And I’m sure he’s just fine,” Sister Grace said with complete confidence. Brett looked sharply at Kelly who was equally perplexed.

This was not what he had been expecting from a nun. Maybe it was just TV or something, but he’d expected someone a little more…meek?

“Thank you for making the time, it’s—I know you’re busy,” Anna said.

Sister Grace waved her off.

“Ed,” she snapped out of nowhere. “Stop sulking.”

Ed jerked up in surprise and started to mumble, but Sister Grace cut him off.

“You’re all a damn sight,” she said. “Come on, now. Have a little faith.”

The room seemed to freeze, as though everyone was waiting for a giant hand to crash in through the ceiling and send bolts of lightening down upon this swearing nun and her audience of sinners.

Nothing happened.

Cap looked up to heaven and crossed himself, and Sam Wilson burst into laughter, which made everyone relax. Sister Grace bounced her eyebrows at Cap.

“I’ve had practice, Captain,” she said.

“Thanks, you terrify me,” Steve shot back without reservation.  

That chased the rest of the tension out of the room. Anna even cracked a smile.

“She terrifies all of us,” she said as Mom started grinning too. “Let’s find you a seat, oh, uh—”

“No, no. Sit. Sit. I’m fine—Anna. I’m fine,” Sister Grace said.

The day Anna Nelson stopped fussing over hospitality would be the day of the next nuclear disaster. Mom knew this better than anyone.

“Grace, he’s under there,” she redirected gently, pointing.

Sister Grace jerked immediately towards Matt’s shadow-spot. It was like she had a homing device on him. Her eyes narrowed.

“Look at your clothes. How long have you been under there?”

There was a certain kind of glee that came with a public scolding that made you forget all your troubles.

“Imagine what you’ve been breathing. Do you think these people get paid enough to clean under there? No, that’s not a question for you to answer.”

Even Amos had gone still in Kelly’s arms to watch this trainwreck.

“You’ve got allergies, did you forget? What’s this, now? You look like death warmed over. What’ve you eaten today—have you eaten today?”

Brett had never in his life pictured a nun with a Hell’s Kitchen accent of this strength. It was bringing out Matt’s own drawl and his temper, which was surely magnified by him being dragged out from his designated safe spot under the chairs.

“Sister,” he grated out, indeed covered in dust bunnies and the crumbs of old crackers and god knew what else that was living under the chairs. “I’m busy being hysterical. Just give me this one—”

“I’ll give you nothing. You’ll work for it and that’s that,” Sister Grace snapped. “Go clean your face. Give me that sweatshirt, it’s an abomination. You’ll terrify Franklin if he sees you like that. Imagine waking up from brain surgery and finding your partner lookin’ one shade shy of homeless vampire. You trying to make him guilty? Is that what you’re trying to do? Because it’s working.”

“Alright, alright. Christ, I’m goin’ already,” Matt grumbled, feeling around for his cane.

“Go faster,” Sister Grace said, “And drop the attitude. Time’s a tickin’. What’re you lookin’ at, sir? Did you have something to add?”

Peter snickered and shook his head. Sister Grace huffed at him.

“Then mind your business,” she said. “Or you’ll be next.”

Peter hunkered down between Wade’s shoulders, peeking over them in delight.

Incredible. Amazing. 10 out of 10 stars for the lady in the habit.

Cap was visibly hiding behind Sam Wilson now. Sister Grace noticed him and pointed at him warningly. He flinched. She waited a moment, then nodded curtly in approval.

“If you’ll excuse me,” She said. “I’ll be right back. Someone has a tendency to ‘get lost’ on purpose.’”

There was not a lick of pity in this woman. Brett loved it. She flounced right back out the way Matt had gone and when the door closed, Cap said “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

Sister Grace returned not ten minutes later with Matt’s arm looped through hers. His hoodie had been miraculously replaced with an oversized cardigan. Brett had never seen him this furious. Sister Grace, on the other hand, looked pleased as punch, and Cap still hadn’t returned from his extended coffee run, which was nearly as entertaining as Sister Grace bullying Matt into sitting on the ground next to Mom to sulk.

She told him he’d look a ‘treat’ if only he didn’t have that unfortunate scowl.

Mom hid a huge grin behind her hand.

Sister Grace settled in next to Matt and told him that he was now listening to a book on tape with her about God. Matt said that he hated God and all his disciples, and the Sister told him that he would like this one. There was a cat.

Matt lamented that he didn’t read books for cats anymore. He wasn’t 12. But the Sister wouldn’t hear it; she told him to hush and put in the earbud she’d put in his hand. The cat part was coming up.

Karen beamed at Brett across the little aisle between them and not smiling back at her nearly broke his jaw.

Rosalind Sharpe coughed in disapproval and Brett watched Sister Grace’s eyes flick her way.

The ladies held each other’s gaze, then Sister Grace tilted her chin up almost haughtily before returning her attention to Matt. She flicked at his fingers where they were fidgeting with the loop of his stick and produced a rosary which she pressed against his knuckles. Matt took it, then realized that he’d been duped and sagged in defeat.

It became clear over the next half hour that Rosalind Sharpe thought that Sister Maggie-Grace was nothing but a low-class broad who’d risen above her station in life and was dead set on making that everyone else’s problem.

She kept glancing over with increasingly narrowed eyes and a stronger and stronger jaw.

It was fascinating. Anna and Mom were clearly invested in that contentious relationship, and honestly? Brett got it now.

With Matt complaining about how he’d been listening to this book on tape for ages now and there were still no cats and Sister Grace assuring him (obviously lying, wow) that it was coming up very soon, it was hard for the ladies to keep tying knots in their bellies. Brett even found himself looking at the time and thinking ‘oh, Foggy’s almost done. He’s going to be fine.’

This was helped along even further by Sister Grace asking Steve when he came back into the room with coffee if he’d like to join the prayer circle.

Steve did fucking not.

Steve was physically incapable of saying that to a nun, however. He sat down miserably next to her and when she told him that it wouldn’t start for a good hour yet, even he started to loosen up at the joke.

“You’re a wild nun,” he told her.

“I prefer ‘cantankerous,’ now that I’m old enough for it,” Sister Grace said. “But thank you.”

Rosalind Sharpe rolled her eyes and Sister Grace did not miss it.

“You can be too,” she said kindly. “I’m happy to share with all my sisters, holy or no.”

“You haven’t changed, Margaret,” Rosalind sighed.

Brett’s teeth went sour and he nearly balled himself up in his chair. Matt perked up and tried to figure out who Sister Grace was talking to. He seemed offended on her behalf.

“Sorry, did you hear something?” Sister Grace asked Mom and Anna. “I could have sworn I heard something.”

This lady was here to fight. Good God.

“I did not,” Mom said with grace.

“Must be these ears then,” Sister Grace said peacefully.

“That’s not very holy of you, sister,” Rosalind said more sternly this time. She crossed her legs the other way.

“There it was again,” Sister Grace said.

Anna whacked at her shoulder and mumbled something about keeping the peace, but Matt had clearly caught onto who was speaking now, and he tugged at Sister Grace’s sleeve until she leaned in and let him whisper something to her.

“Perhaps,” she told him.

Matt cocked his head.

“No idea,” Sister Grace said. “Always seemed to me like a her-problem.”

Rosalind’s face was growing stormier by the second. She stood up abruptly and click-clacked her way through the double doors. Brett watched her go.

Steve peeked after her and leaned into the other two in the ‘prayer circle.’

“What bone has she got to pick?” he asked Sister Grace in a low voice on behalf of literally everyone else in the room.

Thanks, Cap.  

“Not a clue,” Sister Grace said. “Hated me at school, too.”

At school? MOM. You were holding out, Mom.

“You went to school together?” Steve asked.

“Oh, yes,” Sister Grace said. “From elementary to highschool. It wasn’t until I met my late partner that I came over to this side of the neighborhood. Must’ve irked her to be followed from our earlier cesspit.”

Matt pawed for her in shock and she caught his hand indulgently and petted it.

“The world was a smaller place back then,” she said. “Some of us stayed, and some of us left. And some of us have yet to come to terms with our hypocrisy.”

Mom refused to pick up on the desperate telepathic waves Brett and Kelly began sending her way. Matt picked up on them instead.

“I imagine you told her that at some point,” he said.

“Some of us have since experienced growth in the area of self-control,” Sister Grace answered serenely.

“What’s it like?” Matt asked.

“I’m told it’s healthy,” Sister Grace said.

“Can’t relate,” Matt said.

Sister Grace hummed.

“You’ll get there,” she said.

A doctor came out of the double blue doors on the other side of the waiting room at 3pm and was startled at the sight of a packed full waiting room. He cleared his throat twice before asking who Foggy Nelson’s family was.

Folks made space for Anna and Ed and Candace to get to him. Brett noted that Rosalind did not stand up and join them.

The doc said something too softly for the rest of them to hear, but Anna suddenly pressed her hand to her heart. Ed wrapped an arm around her waist and Candace thanked God. Brett sighed in relief with the rest of the room.

Foggy had made it.

He was okay. He was going to be taken to recovery now until he woke the rest of the way up.

Someone started a cheer, Brett wasn’t sure who, but he hoped that Foggy, as woozy as he was, heard it on his way out of the operating theatre.

Visiting hours passed before Fogs was human enough to have company. The cheer team had to wait until the next day to visit. Brett arrived at 9 in the morning to half the team already crammed into Foggy’s tiny room. He was drowning in affection already, what with all the flowers and bears and cards and cousins on his bed. He smiled at Brett when he peeked in the door.

“Matt slept here,” Foggy said, when the tide of affection had finally flowed out his room and left him alone with Brett for a few minutes. “Went home, threw on the suit, and climbed in through the window. Got chased out by the staff at like, seven.”

Aww.

“Yeah, it was pretty cute. I guess Sister Maggie gave him the go ahead for once.”

Sister--? Oh right. Sister Grace.

“Grace?” Foggy repeated.

“That’s what Mom and your mom called her yesterday,” Brett said, pulling up a chair.

“She came to wait?” Foggy said. “No shit? I thought Matt went to church.”

Brett huffed.

“Well, her future son-in-law was sick, you know,” he teased.

Foggy blinked slowly at him like he was trying to burn him with his eyes. Brett snickered.

“Rosalind was there, too. Was civil even, sort of,” he said. “Here, we took pictures of all the shifts for you.”

He handed over his phone and watched Foggy swipe through the photos. He seemed at a loss for words. His hands started shaking. His lip threatened to wobble.

“They came—they came for me?” he asked.

“Of course they did. Who else would they come for?”

Foggy touched knuckles to his eye and handed back the phone.

“No one picked a fight?” he asked.

Brett realized belatedly that he meant the hoard of vigilante and superhero visitors.

“Nope, but not for lack of trying,” he said. “Hey, did you know that Rosalind hates Sister Grace?”

Yep, now that was the face that Brett was looking for.

“Get out,” Foggy said.

“They went to school together,” Brett said, unable to contain his growing smirk.

“Get. Out.”

“I know. The sister called Rosalind a hypocrite in front of God and everyone. I mean, not loudly, but still. I heard her for sure.”

“BRETT.”

“Shut up, you’re not supposed to raise your blood pressure.”

“Brett.”

“It was amazing,” Brett said. “Too bad you were busy.”

Foggy collapsed back onto his collection of pillows.

“Did she say anything?” he asked quietly.

“Who Rosalind? No. She left before Sister Grace said that. I don’t think she liked watching Sister Grace making Matt feel better. Might’ve been jealous.”

Foggy huffed.

“Incredible,” he sighed. “Just incredible. Whatever. I’ve decided I’m not going to care.”

Mm. Good plan.

“Is everyone else okay?”

Fuckin’ Fogs. Worried about other people even as he lay here, freshly no longer dying.

“Everyone’s fine,” Brett said. “Worried. Jittery. I think Cap’s convinced he’s being stalked by nuns. Amos made friends with DP. Mom got Jessica’s nail polish brand. She’s decided that Jessica needs to marry Luke, by the way. I guess that takes the heat off of you for now.”

Foggy moaned and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Stop the world, I want to get off,” he said.

“I’ve got more,” Brett said.

“God, say it ain’t so.”

“God can’t help you now, bub. How long are you here?”

“Another two days.”

Brett leaned back in the shitty chair and crossed his arms.

“Perfect, that’s loads of time to hold you captive,” he said. “You’re going to help me figure out who the fuck Sister Grace fought on a stoop when she was a teenager. I know she must have. I asked Matt about it, but he’s convinced that she’d never do such a thing.”

Foggy blinked, then surveyed the sheets covering his chest down to his toes. He thought about it.

“Yeah, alright,” he said. “I don’t have anything better to do. Bring on the yearbooks.”