that role reversal thing

[bestavocado]

 

Foggy Nelson’s life is a thing of Lifetime movies. Blinded as a child while saving someone else from being hit by a truck, then kidnapped for several years? She could’ve survived the rest of her life just by selling the rights to her story for an actual Lifetime film. Instead, she did a few interviews to sock some money away for college and years of extensive therapy and faded back into semi-obscurity. Worked hard, got into law school, opened a law firm with her best friend from college. Now, they save Hell’s Kitchen by taking on low-income clients and pro bono cases to represent people who need a voice in the justice system but don’t know how to speak for themselves. It’s inspiring.

It’s a lie. (It’s true.) (It’s complicated.)

When Stick came along and told the Nelsons that he knew why their daughter spent her days writhing in bed with her hands clamped over her ears, that he could help her (for a price), they agreed. And when he told Foggy that he couldn’t really help her with her parents hovering over their every move, she said okay. She agreed. She consented. She let him squirrel her away to a Chaste Temple to train. That yes haunted her for years, every time Stick taunted her with it, reminded her that she agreed to do whatever was necessary to learn how to work with her senses.

After, people ask her how she got away. She lets them think it was a brave act, that she finally found an opening and took it. The truth is he gave up on her. She wasn’t a soldier; she didn’t have the temperament. More importantly, she didn’t have the loyalty. So he washed his hands of her, declared she was the biggest waste of time he’d ever met in his life, and he left, leaving her simultaneously relieved and hollow.

A kind soul found a poor blind girl stumbling her way to civilization and took her to the proper authorities, who eventually got her home. She was unable to identify her captor or even the location she was held.

After years of therapy, she finally went to college on a scholarship, then Columbia, where she met Matt. Matt’s sweet and smart and one of the few people who treats her as a person first, not a childhood tragedy. The two of them hatch the plan to open their own law firm after their internship with L&Z. It would be that perfect, inspiring story, except that the city calls out for the kind of help only Foggy Nelson can provide. She delays answering, puts in timely calls to the police, but it becomes clear that something—someone—is diverting justice in Hell’s Kitchen. So she puts on the mask and puts to use what Stick taught her. With her fists, she protects the people who need it, and with her senses, she has access to information no one else does.

Then Stick shows up. She hates it, throws a few satisfying punches, most of which don’t connect, and spits out some of the words that have been percolating in her heart since he abandoned—released her. She agrees to help him with the Black Sky only on the conditions that no one dies and he gets the hell out of Hell’s Kitchen afterwards and never comes back.

She’s fucking furious when she gets back to the apartment and Stick’s sitting there, waiting for her. The next few minutes are a blur of fists and kicks, pain and the crack of bone under skin. For the first time in her life, she bests Stick in a fight. He’s still playing with her, not really trying to kill her, but she stands with a boot at his throat while he wheezes to catch his breath, and she feels—vindicated. Satisfied. And disgusted by the tiny hint of pleasure she feels when Stick grudgingly tells her that maybe she wasn’t such a waste of time after all before taking his shit and leaving via the roof exit.

She’s lying on the ground, still clad in the black suit that doesn’t provide her with nearly enough protection, slowing her breaths and feeling her body, the damage done to it and to the apartment she’s lying in, when she hears a set of steps and a very familiar heartbeat.

Matt.

Fuck.

He can’t see her or this apartment right now but he has a key, so she closes the deadbolt and props a chair up against the knob for a little breathing space while she tries to figure out how to handle this. Because he can’t know, not right now—she’s thought about it, thought about telling him the truth, but just the thought of trying to untangle the truth right now is just—she can’t. She can’t. So she sits in front of the door, head in her hands, and waits for him to arrive on the other side of it.

Comments

[blessmefather]

[ It's late so he doesn't simply waltz into her apartment but he is on high alert concerning the safety of those around him ever since he caught Karen digging for dirt on the people who nearly had her killed. Their firm could be a target so they need to look out for each other. He knocks on her door and waits... Then knocks again, leaning against the door to call through to the other side. ]

Fog, are you home?

[bestavocado]

[Unintentionally, he's given her an idea for a possible out, if she just doesn't answer and hopes that he assumes she's not home. It makes her feel stupid to do - like she's a child playing hide-and-seek - but if he just leaves, then she can have time to clean herself up and figure out what to do about her wrecked apartment and keep her secrets safe for a little longer.

So she sits still and waits, focuses herself on being quiet and listening to him, to the slight movements of his body and breath so that she can track what his next step will be - if he'll go away or go for the spare key she gave him when she first moved in.]

[blessmefather]

[ He waits, shifting on his feet anxiously. Surely Foggy would be at home this late at night unless she had gone to someone's apartment but if this was a night of hooking up with a stranger at a bar he's pretty damn sure she would have invited him and Karen to go out with her for drinks. He looks down the stairwell and debates over his next action in his head. He bites his lip then digs in his pocket for his keys and the spare Foggy had given him on the keychain loop.

He needs to be sure. After what happened to Karen Foggy should understand, the danger feels too close still. He slides the key into the lock and undoes the bolt then moves on to the handle lock. ]

[bestavocado]

[Crap, crap, crap. She could run for the roof exit, pretend she went out and someone mysteriously trashed her apartment, but she'd have to be damn fast, and that would bring unwanted police attention to her apartment. And the chair wouldn't exactly hold him out for more than a minute or two, because having the door blocked would be proof that something's wrong.

She's going to have to let him in and pray he'll understand.

She picks up the chair and moves it out of the way as he's undoing locks. She'd shoved her mask out of sight when she first heard him, but that still leaves her heavily bruised and lightly bleeding in her Woman-in-Black clothes.

(Whatever's about to happen - she deserves it for helping Stick kill that kid.)]

Hi, Matt.