The Devil Next Door | DAREDEVIL

15 - Eye of The Storm

It had taken hours to get Matt stabilized with Ariel working well into the morning. She struggled with the limited lighting, using a flashlight that she held in her mouth while also taking advantage of the infamous billboard. It didn't help that Matt was less than cooperative at best. He couldn't keep still during most of the ordeal, writhing and already tugging at his unfinished stitches as she sewed his wounds closed. At her wits' end, she resorted to sedatives. He was stubborn and fought against them, but even his determination couldn't keep up the good fight forever.

Ariel counted ten lacerations that demanded stitches, one giving her more trouble than the others due to how deep it went. His face was bloodied, bruised, and swollen, but was spared of having a broken nose or worse. The hardest part about it all was the bleeding. Her hands and clothes were caked in Matt's blood, some blending into her hair and streaked across her brow. She tried to clean herself off in the kitchen sink, but it seemed fruitless. The smell of iron and whiskey seemed permanently stuck in her nose no matter how much soap she used. If it wasn't for Foggy, she would have scrubbed her hands down to the bone.

Foggy's recollection of what happened after Ariel made him sit in the other room was spotty. One minute he was panicking, the next thing he knew hours had passed and he was sitting in Matt's room. Foggy's anger towards not only his best friend, but his potential girlfriend was too great to put into words. Despite his fury, he couldn't bring himself to scold her. When he looked at her, he could tell she was more affected by everything than she let on. Her gemstone-colored eyes that were full of life and conviction earlier, now seemed like a shell of what they once were. "Ariel, you should get some rest. You need it," Foggy tried to convince her.

She shook her head as she walked past him and back to Matt's side. "It's okay, I don't need to sleep. I want to be here when he wakes up," she insisted.

Foggy quietly groaned as he held the bridge of his nose. "Listen. I know you're special. You both are. I can't control your mind or make you do things, but I can tell when people need sleep."

He stood next to her as Ariel sat on her knees, brushing Matt's hair gently with her fingers. "Please? He'd even agree," Foggy tried compelling her.

Ariel sighed as Foggy's words got to her. She knew if Matt could get a word in, he would be insisting on the same thing. "....Matt won't wake up for a few more hours. I used some heavy stuff to knock him out. Can you...Can you help me get him on the couch...please?" she sheepishly asked.

Foggy nodded in agreeance before grabbing Matt from under his shoulders again. The two of them could only hold him for so long, making the landing on the couch less than grateful. As Ariel pulled a blanket over Matt's still bloodied body, she could feel Foggy's eyes staring a hole through her. "If you have something you want to say, say it," she snapped, sounding harsher than she meant to.

"I-It's u-uhm...it's nothing...Nothing major anyway...I mean, I don't think it's important right now..." Foggy saying trying to brush her off, but he was too easy to read. With one good glare from Ariel, he came undone. "I-I-I just...I know what I saw. I may have been a bit drunk, but I know that was Captain America...with you. And if you and him have something going on-"

"It would be wise of you to stop while you're ahead," she cut him off with her anger spiking.

"N-n-no no no, that's not what I was getting at. What I mean is, if there's some weird situation-ship thing...please don't get involved with Matt."

Ariel raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Excuse me?"

"I know, I sound harsh. But, I don't want to see him go down a dark road again and not realize it because he's blind, and not in the obvious way."

Foggy rubbed his temples in frustration as he took a seat in one of Matt's armchairs. "What are you talking about?" Ariel inquired, now more intrigued than mad.

"Listen, Matt and I have known each other since college and we even grew up in the same area. We were roommates, and we hit it off as friends pretty quickly. He's always been the bachelor type and somehow always had a charm with women, but nothing ever stuck...Well, not until this one girl. She was crazy, but super hot. It was the only time Matt got serious about someone, and she turned his life upside down. He would just disappear with her for days at a time, and wouldn't go to his lectures or anything. I call it the dark ages for Matt, he calls it a 'necessary lesson' or something. Anyway, after a while, they broke up and he was shattered. I knew something bigger happened than what he told me, but I never pried. I assumed he'd eventually tell me, but obviously that hasn't happened."

Foggy let out a disappointed sigh and he shook his head. "As mad as I am at him right now, he's still my best friend. So, if you have no intentions of taking him seriously, please cut him some slack."

Ariel had no words for Foggy, only responding in shocked blinking. Her silence was unnerving to him as he began to fear he came off as too aggressive. But, a subtle laugh from her eased his spirits. "You really care about him," she noted as she took a seat next to him in a matching armchair.

"Well, yeah. We've been friends for a decade at least. Back when I had even longer hair."

"No...really?"

"Yeah really. I was like, a smarter Bon Jovi."

They laughed together as the tension in the room began to lessen. Ariel felt relieved knowing Matt had a friend like Foggy looking out for him. "You don't have to worry about Captain America. Whatever was between us is over. What you saw earlier was just a hiccup. Where things go with Matt and I...Well, that's up for us to decide. But, a part of me is unsure about what he will choose," she admitted.

"I wouldn't worry too much about him if I were you. He may seem very hard to read and even mysterious, but at the end of the day he's a hopeless romantic."

Foggy got up from his chair and rubbed his aching eyes. The room progressively got brighter as the sun rose, the clouds casting the world in a gray haze. "You should really get some rest. I'll take over babysitting," Foggy assured Ariel.

She couldn't argue with him as she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Her exhaustion was catching up to her, her eyelids feeling heavier by the second. As she went into Matt's bedroom, she turned back to Foggy with a smile. "You're a really good friend, Foggy. I'm glad Matt has someone like you."

Foggy gave a small grin before shooing her into the bedroom. She sleepily crawled into bed, practically hiding under the covers. Even though everything seemed civil for now, this was still just the eye of the storm.