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That would make it easier, wouldn't it? I'm not entirely sold on the concept.

[ He taps the bar counter and orders them a couple of beers. Look at them, like real friends. ]

[ Like real friends. Matt gives their bartender a winning smile -- well, he smiles in the guy's general direction, anyway. ]

We did say we'd trade stories. Or start a list.

[ Well, Matt said he would start a list. But he isn't really planning to... Foggy's the more organized one. ]

I can start.

I'm still waiting for that date but...

[ He sighs, so put out!!! ]

Fine, a couple stories can't hurt.

[ He coughs. Right, the date. It was a date thing. And Matt's, you know. He's. Yeah. ]

Should probably be in a fancier place than this.

[ Is it joke? Or not joke?? But regardless, Matt feels like he won just getting Murdock to agree to trading stories, so Matt takes his beer and starts with an easy one. ]

Well, you know Foggy, right?

[ He has to know Foggy. ]

That is what I suggested, yes.

[ He doesn't want to go on a date in a dive bar! Have standards! ]

Of course, Foggy was my roommate in law school. We're practically thick as thieves.

Yeah?

[ Matt's smile brightens. Talk of Foggy makes sense, these are things that should be constants in their lives. Foggy Nelson. Who else? ]

Same here, actually. He's my best friend.

[ A friendship that has been tested, but a friendship nonetheless. ]

We just started our own firm last year. Nelson & Murdock.

That's cute. Foggy joined the dark side in my world, though. He's the district attorney.

[ there's no accounting for taste!! ]

[ Matt's jaw drops, legitimately shocked. ]

Wait, what?! Foggy? Foggy Nelson, the DA? Foggy's a prosecutor?

Such a shame, right? He thinks he's saving the world or something.

[ Matt waves his hand dismissively. ]

[ Matt can feel his eyebrows practically sticking to his hairline. This is so wild. Of all the things... ]

That's so... [ Backwards? ] ...Wow. Of all the things, Foggy going to the other side is the last thing I would've guessed.

[ Is Matt's Foggy evil?? Oh, sweetie. That sure does make Matt take a big sip of his terrible beer, though. ]

[ He feels this weird desire to defend Foggy's honor, to tell Matt Foggy really is trying, which some days it seems like he is. But mostly he isn't. Foggy does whatever Matt tells him to do. Some part of him had hoped they might have more of a game of cat and mouse, but he'd just rolled over.

So what was there to defend? Nothing. Even when he pretended to put away criminals, he didn't really. ]

Mm. You have a law firm together, though. That's nice. You're shocked enough that he's a prosecutor that I'll assume you both do criminal defense.

[ That's what happens when you love someone, Matt. You roll over, even when you find them bleeding half to death in their own apartment.

Not that Matt realizes that particular fact, but you know. He shakes his head to dislodge thoughts of an 'evil' Foggy from his mind, focusing instead on Murdock and his question. ]

That's right. Though we do a little bit of everything -- landlord cases, evictions and that kind of thing. Business is tight when you try to help the little guy, but we recently had a pretty high profile criminal case that got us on the news...

[ That "high profile case" is not one Matt's eager to talk about. But just think of how funny it'll be when they find out who Frank Castle is. ]

Edited (fixed for a rephrase) 2024-05-03 04:41 (UTC)

[ If Matt uses phrases like "help the little guy," then he definitely has never had as high profile of criminal cases but that's okay. He's going to bite anyway, even though Matt doesn't seem to want to talk about it. Maybe because Matt does seem to want to talk about it. ]

What happened?

[ He figures it would have come up one way or another, but it does kind of lead into another story...

Matt sits up a little straighter, his voice a bit tight as he starts: ]

Do you happen to know a man named Frank Castle?

Yeah, I know Frank.

[ His voice is tense, he clearly doesn't like him either. ]

[ Oh, thank goodness. Matt's still tense, but there's at least some relief to know Frank Castle isn't somehow Matt's friend. ]

Frank Castle, in my world, is -- they call him the Punisher.

[ You can definitely hear the capital P. Matt can't take all the blame for the shitshow that was his trial, but still. It was a mess in every way. ]

His family was killed by the mafia and it... broke him. Made him into a killer. He thinks anyone with ties to be mafia is a fair target.

That seems a bit reductive...but, sure.

[ Oh, Frank. Stupid in every dimension, apparently. ]

So you defended him after he took out someone? I'm surprised the cops even cared, if he was targeting the mafia.

He killed dozens of them. Multiple gangs. [ Matt obviously does not admire him for this. ] But all he was doing was getting rid of the competition for the bigger families—they'd been fighting among each other with Fisk in jail, and he just made their lives easier.

[ I hate season 2, why did I do this. If I'm wrong don't @ me, random stranger reading this. ]

He fell right into their trap... but instead of letting me help him, of giving me any kind of information to prove Fisk or the yakuza were pulling the strings, he just—he plead guilty and ruined our case on live TV. It was the worst kind of publicity.

[ Matt's fingers tap softly but irritability against the bar counter as he listens, tension growing as Matt explains. What a waste, a true mess. He would never have let that happen. When Fisk went to jail he wasn't stupid enough to leave a vacuum of power behind. ]

Not a very cooperative client, then.

[ Oh, but there's so much here. It's ironic, the way he says Fisk's name. He can tell how much Matt hates him. They've never been close. They've never shared wine or broken bread or spoke of family as if it could be more than a word. It's a kind of detachment to the situation that he wishes he had the luxury of having. If the Hand hadn't told him to get close. If they hadn't made him turn right back around and stab the man in the back.

God, he wishes he could talk about Wilson Fisk the way Matt does. With righteousness. With disdain. With the proper hatred of an institution that has fucked up his family--their family--instead of the corruption that rotted him.

But more than that, Matt didn't want to help Castle (no surprise there) but he did apparently want to bury Fisk further. And then that talk of getting dirt on the yakuza? He would just create the same vacuum of power and fall into the same trap Castle did except using the law instead of killing people. Even a blind man could see that, but apparently not Matt. ]

Fisk...he was the kingpin in your world, too, right?

[ oh, what an innocent sounding question, filled with a thousand shark teeth. ]

Edited 2024-05-03 05:25 (UTC)

[ Let's not talk about the yakuza because while 65!Matt's ninjas are clear parody, Netflix ninjas are not. And it's so bad. Elektra comes back from the dead. It's a mess. Matt's canon point is fake actually.

But Matt certainly spits out Fisk's name, the disdain and anger clear there. Fisk is much easier to talk about. Fisk is at least in jail. ]

That's right. Wilson Fisk. [ Matt clenches his jaw, tilting his head like he's got a krick in his neck just thinking about the guy. ] They called him the kingpin of crime in all of New York, but he operated out of Hell's Kitchen.

[ Interesting that that's another thing they have in common, it seems. Poor Matt could never suspect he's talking to the Kingpin himself. ]

Edited 2024-05-03 05:35 (UTC)

But they caught him. That's impressive. Did they get him on a real crime, or is this like an Al Capone situation?

[ Tax fraud, the weightiest of all crimes. ]

Well, it helped that the people testifying against him managed not to get killed.

[ Thanks to a certain Daredevil, of course. ]

Wish I could say he went down for any of his worse crimes, but we managed to help build a case proving that he'd endorsed violent, illegal evictions against his tenants. One look into his finances and...

[ Matt takes another long sip of his beer. This should feel like a victory, but it won't bring back all the people he killed, or undo all the hurt he caused. It still feels like it wasn't enough... ]

A guy like him, he could probably strangle his cell mate and he'd still get out on good behavior.

[ Look, there's only one man who's made Matt consider murder and that's Wilson Fisk. ]

Edited 2024-05-03 05:45 (UTC)

I guess you better hope that doesn't happen. Sounds like he wouldn't be too happy to see you.

[ they certainly had that in common, too. ]

But congratulations nevertheless. That's a big accomplishment, that you were able to help make the case against him.

[ Matt nearly smiles, because of course the truth is that Daredevil is the one that Fisk is gunning for. Karen did most of the investigative work, but it was Matt's alter ego that put him behind bars. He made sure of that.

It's pride, or something close to it, knowing Fisk was surely cursing his name. It has to be enough. ]

Thanks. As much as I know he deserves to be locked up permanently, at least we proved he wasn't as untouchable as he thought.

[ Matt wants to tell him the world isn't about what people deserve. But then again, if he were still back on his world he'd be sitting in a S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, so maybe they do. And now he's here, to atone for he's crimes or something.

(he's not going to atone.) ]

That's an important message.

[ He takes a drink of his beer thinking for a minute. Trying to decide what to give, since they're supposed to be sharing and eventually Matt is going to realize this has been more of a deposition than a conversation. Okay. ]

Well, you'll be happy to know that, even if Foggy is a prosecutor in my home, he managed to put Fisk behind bars too.

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