Awry
Matt didn't break the window on purpose. He thought it was open, but apparently it was the window next to the one he leaped through that was where the flow of air from inside Foggy's apartment came from. After the messy chaos of breaking glass, Foggy's girlish scream from the bedroom and Brisa's alarmed squawking, and the various awakened neighbors, Matt was content to simply place his hands over his ears and lay on his back, distantly reflecting that his blood loss was making him fuzzier than he thought if he couldn't even figure out an open window from a closed one.
"Jesus, Matt, the window!" Foggy said as he stumbled out of his bedroom, his heart beginning to settle down from his rude awakening. He stepped carefully towards Matt, and suddenly his heart rate spiked again. "Jesus, Matt!" he repeated, with more panic.
Matt convinced his hands to stop pressing against his ears in order to help him roll over and stagger to his feet, broken glass crunching under his gloves and boots. He swayed slightly, his senses flickering erratically, picking up random sounds and smells from across the street or on different floors. Usually he was pretty good at controlling what filtered through his senses, but after so much blood loss his mind was fuzzy and difficult to control.
"I'm-" Matt began.
"If you say okay, Matt, I will set Brisa on you," Foggy said firmly.
"I know you don't need your eyes, but I'll still peck them out," Brisa said from the floor, her tone doing a much worse job concealing panic than Foggy's.
Matt slowly crunched over the glass until he reached clear ground, then carefully sat down, hoping that the couch really was located where the air currents were telling him. Luckily, he met softness and solidity rather than empty air and sat down fully with a sigh of relief followed immediately by a groan of pain as the stab wound on his side gave a nasty twinge.
"I swear to god, if you get blood on the couch..." Foggy muttered, crossing the room to Matt. "What's wrong?"
Matt groaned as he reached around to the side of his suit, fumbling with the zipper until he managed to pull it down, then began the delicate process of extracting his arm from his sleeve while not moving the rest of his body as much as possible.
There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath from Foggy.
"Is that a stab wound? Matt, you need to go to the hospital! Or Claire!"
"No hospitals," Matt grunted, finally wrestling his arm from his sleeve and letting his suit drop around his waist on one side. "And Claire's in Harlem."
"Why- Nevermind. Uhm. What am I supposed to do?"
Matt stripped off his gloves and began to prod around the sluggishly bleeding wound with his fingers, ignoring Foggy's rapid heart rate and audible swallows. "Get some clean towels, please. At least one soaked with hot water."
"Right," Foggy said, obviously trying his best to sound confident despite his voice shaking. "I'll just- do that-"
He practically ran out of the room, Brisa's quieter steps flopping after him.
Matt pressed one palm over the wound. It wasn't long before Foggy tossed him some soft, floppy object that he easily caught one-handed before pressing the towel to the side of his ribs in favor of his blood-soaked hand, applying as much pressure as he could.
By the time Foggy returned to the couch with more towels and a pot of hot water, Matt was fairly sure the bleeding had mostly stopped, and the rest had cleared his head a little.
"Where's Alstriona?" Foggy asked conversationally, but Matt could hear his heartbeat spike at the mention of Matt's dæmon. Matt didn't blame him. It was a rare person who could think about separation without discomfort and fear.
"Patrolling while I can't," Matt said briefly. Then he smiled a little, laughing dryly. "She's the one who made me go to you instead of just heading straight home."
Matt heard the sound of Foggy's hair moving as he shook his head. "She's always had way more sense than you."
"That's very true," Matt said softly, before reaching for the wet towel Foggy held to clean the wound.
"Nuh-uh, mister!" Foggy said, snatching the towel away. "I'll do it. You are going to sit back and relax. Well, relax as much as you can with an enormous bleeding hole between two ribs."
Matt let out a short laugh and carefully leaned back as Foggy began to carefully dab at the sticky blood coating his skin.
Brisa took the opportunity to flap up to the armrest beside Matt, her tiny heart still hammering, even faster than it beat usually.
There was a moment of silence.
"How did it happen?" she asked, her voice quieter and more unsure than her usual loud, boisterous tone.
"Oh, just some traffickers," Matt said casually. "One of them managed to get a knife in one of the suit's weak spots."
"You know what I mean," she replied, voice regaining some of its usual confidence.
Matt was silent for a few long moments. Foggy's hands had stilled, his heart beating faster again.
He didn't want to respond, didn't want to tell them. But he'd promised to be honest, hadn't he? He wouldn't risk Foggy's friendship again, not after that awful night of Foggy's anger and hurt and betrayal.
"It was my... teacher, I guess you could call him." Matt cleared his throat. "If I was separated, I could do so many more things. I was useful. He- he drove her across the city. It didn't take long, but it felt like forever."
There was a long stretch of silence before Brisa hopped down from the armrest and strode towards Matt, unhesitatingly tucking her body underneath his arm. After a tense moment, all three relaxed.
"You know, you're gonna have to pay for that window," Foggy said wryly.
Matt laughed. "With what money?"