The first thought Matthew Murdock had upon waking up was how much he hated his sheets. They were rough, scratchy, no matter how many times he tried to wash them so the stitching might loosen up. Unfortunately, he didn't have much of an option—not when the university offered single, extra-long beds that were impossible to fit. They accommodated to any range of student sizes, but it meant limiting the companies you could buy bedding from. There were plenty that capitalized on college bedding, but they all seemed to be producing stiff cotton sheets with garish patterns. The designs he could live with, but he was more than ready to leave cotton behind in exchange for something smoother.

The second thought was that his roommate wasn't yet awake. He could hear Foggy's even breathing on the other side of the room, the faint wheezing as the air worked its way through the constricted air passage of his nose squashed into his pillow, the slight smell of beer in the air as a trickle of drool threatened to fall from his lip. Matt often woke up before Foggy, stirred by the barrage of noises below their window, but he could sense that his friend was close to consciousness. That struck him as odd, at first. There didn't seem to be too many people on the sidewalk outside, and the heartbeats in the nearby rooms were slow and steady—it was still early. Foggy was usually the type to sleep until lunch if he could manage it, but his body betrayed him as almost restless in his slumber.

Matthew sat up, rubbing his eyes and racking his brain. Nothing he could remember seemed a sufficient explanation for his friend's agitation. It'd been a good night. They'd gotten grades back on their criminal law papers, each of them passing, and gone out for drinks to celebrate. True, neither of them had brought company home, but that was hardly something to rouse Foggy from sleeping. They didn't even have any major assignments to worry about for another two or three weeks.

He mulled the possibilities over in his head, but didn't manage to come up with an explanation before Foggy snorted himself into reality. He groaned into his pillow, peeling the fabric off his face before trying to arrange his long strands of hair into order out of his face. "Ugh. Dude, what time is it?"

"You're really asking me that? You must be more out of it than I thought."

"Sorry, bro. My bad." He waved a large hand at him, fumbling with his phone. "Eight fifty nine? Shit, man, go back to bed. This morning crap sucks." His mattress creaked as he threw himself down on the bed, humming his full intent to fall asleep once more.

Barely ten seconds later, his phone began to vibrate of the side table, blaring an obnoxious tune Matt had never had the misfortune of hearing before. He had to fight to hide his obvious discomfort at the loud noise.

Foggy grumbled a colorful string of curse words. He was able to silence the phone a couple seconds later, but Matt could hear the tapping and then sudden stillness as he read the words displayed on the screen. "Oh my God, it's Friday. Penny!"

Ah, of course. How could Matt have forgotten about Penny?

His roommate stumbled out of his bed rummaging through his drawers to find something suitable to wear for the day. His careless hands knocked into the edges and corners of things, threatening to bruise the skin, but he was too frantic to notice. There were a few mumbled complaints about how he should have picked something out last night, how he should have set his alarm earlier, how he didn't know whether or not he should get breakfast before they left. His clean shirt rustled as he tried to pull it over his head, but he stopped halfway into it. "Shit, man, you think I should shower?"

"Yeah, Fog, you might want to shower. She can probably smell you on the bus a mile out."

"Hey, cut the sass, Murdock." He pulled the shirt off again, almost tripping as he ran for his shower basket. "But for real, Matt. Thanks for doing this. I'm super psyched. It's gonna be awesome."

"Hey, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I don't exactly have a lengthy visitor list."

"Said the chilliest roommate ever!" Foggy cheered. Matt could hear him hurrying over, which gave him a second or two to prepared for the hearty slap Foggy left on his shoulder. "But seriously, get up. Her bus'll be here in like an hour and I told her we'd meet her."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm moving." Matt batted Foggy away, but made no effort to move until his roommate was in the hall. Then he leaned forward, resting his face in his arms and his arms on his knees.

If Foggy had been able to stop himself from talking about it for an hour, Matt might have been more excited. As it was, his roommate hadn't been able to think of anything besides the visit from his undergraduate friend for almost a month. And it was true—Matt didn't have a lot of friends he was close enough with to warrant visits. He was nice, sure, but he didn't have Foggy's charismatic social flare. Foggy Nelson just stuck to people, and Matt couldn't have felt luckier to be stuck with him. He was just a little uneasy about a stranger bunking with them for a weekend. Well, a stranger who wasn't there for sex.

He forced himself to climb out of bed, going through his own clothes and feeling for the tags. He'd already been given specific instructions by Foggy not to wear one of his sweaters, something about hiding his nerddom for as long as possible. Either way, he opted for a soft T-shirt and a zippered hoodie with his jeans instead of a cable knit. Then he slipped on his glasses and grabbed his largely unnecessary cane, before tapping his way down the familiar route to the bathroom.

It was probably one of the fastest showers that Foggy had ever taken. Matt barely had time to brush his teeth and hair, tap back to the room, and read a few pages of his Spanish homework before Foggy tumbled into the room, freshly washed and dressed. "Dude, can you put the work away for like an hour? I honestly have no idea how a geek like you gets laid so often. Isn't there some sort of Catholic guilt when you cheat on all the schoolwork you're married to?"

"Funny," Matt said dryly.

"Of course it's funny. I said it. Now get off your ass and let's get to the bus stop. There is a lovely, gorgeous lady waiting to be lead by the blind and socially awkward through Columbia's campus."

"If you're so socially awkward, how did you land a gorgeous lady friend?"

"Hey, no skipping ahead. You'll get the history lesson at lunch," Foggy said, pushing Matt into the hallway and locking their door behind him. "Seriously though, Penny is the best, so I'm going to have to ask you not to sleep with her this weekend. I need to know there's at least one rare diamond on this Earth that Matthew Murdock hasn't corrupted."

"Corrupted?" he laughed. "What happened to me being an innocent Catholic boy?"

"Psh, please. Matt Murdock? Innocent? Catholic and innocent are not synonymous. In fact, for a good portion of history they're decidedly antonyms. But I will not let you corrupt my girl."

"Your girl? So you two…?"

"Cool your jets, Murdock. All will be revealed in good time. But no. Not really. Now get that damn smirk off your face."

Matt pestered Foggy for answers all the way across campus. Despite how much Foggy had been talking about her over the past month, he hadn't revealed many details. Matt knew that Penny and Foggy had met in their sophomore year of college, and that they'd gotten into a decent amount of trouble. She was from the south someplace, exactly where Matt couldn't remember and Foggy refused to remind him. She was stubborn, opinionated, and most importantly, loyal. Beyond that, Matt wasn't allowed to know. Every question was answered with the same kind of response.

"All good things come to those who wait, Matthew."

"Patience is a virtue, Matt. Practice it."

"Honestly, you'll find out in twenty minutes, Murdock. Shut up."

Eventually, Matt did shut up. Foggy was usually as stubborn as he was loyal, and Matt knew that if he didn't want him to know anything, he'd keep his mouth clamped shut. At the same time, Matt also knew that with every passing second it was becoming harder for Foggy to keep his mouth clamped shut. He could hear the extra force every time his friend's foot hit the pavement, the slight delay between his steps as he stopped just short of skipping to the bus stop. Even once they'd gotten there, his heart rate was slightly elevated, his breathing a bit labored, and Matt guessed by the crunching of sand on the cement that he was bouncing on his toes.

"Foggy, relax. The bus will be here in a few minutes." The bus would actually be there in about one minute, judging by the heavy, commercial engine that was slowing down behind the trees at the other end of the parking lot, but Foggy didn't need to know that.

"I know, yeah. I'm just—I'm psyched, you know? I've been emailing her and all, but I haven't really seen her in over a year. I mean, in college we were practically inseparable, and I just don't want things to change I guess. She could be a completely different person or—Oh my God, is that the bus? Shit, that's the bus!"

Foggy quickly returned to his bouncing, his heart beating a little louder with every foot the bus grew closer. Matt had to take a few deep breaths to stop the increasing noise from starting a headache, especially as the voices of the passengers grew louder. There was the familiar, booming voice of a football player cheering in the back with some friends as the bus squeaked and parked. A few others clapped along. A couple on the opposite side of the bus pulled away for each other, panting for breath. A girl behind the driver snorted awake, and immediately subsided into a fit of coughs. Which one of them was Penelope?

The doors to the bus opened with a hiss, releasing the stampede of students and visitors onto the sidewalk. Matt did his best to shut down his senses, waiting until he could distinguish footsteps coming in their direction to focus in. Whoever it was, they were running, the footfalls fast and heavy, like boots. There was a thud as a bag was dropped around Matt's feet, and Foggy laughed beside him before getting tackled almost to the ground. Matt plastered on a smile, suddenly overcome with the scent of chemicals and smoke.

"Woah!" Foggy choked out, spinning around as he struggled to keep a grip on his friend. "Wow, glad to see you haven't gotten any lighter."

"Hey, shove it, Porkchop. You haven't exactly gotten any hotter."

"Well of course not! Look at me! I am the pinnacle of Grecian beauty!"

Foggy placed the girl down, and there was a pause as they both caught their breath. Then she leaned forward again, pressing a kiss into his cheek and pulling him into a proper hug. "I missed you, Fognelius."

"Ah, I missed you too, Moneypenny. And you're rockin' the green hairdo. When'd you dye it?"

"Last night," Matt thought, just as Penny answered him verbally. That explained the fresh barrage of chemicals clouding around her face.

"I like it," Foggy decided. "It's very Joker, but in a business professional way." He kissed her forehead dramatically, then pulled back to turn towards Matt and present her. "Moneypenny, my Q, Matt Murdock. Matt, this is Penny McKittrick."

"It's nice to finally meet you," Penny said, the slightest southern accent tugging at the vowels in her words. Matt could hear her pick up her bag, her hands lingering on the strap and re-fixing it on her shoulder even after it was straight. Keeping her hands busy, most likely, so she didn't try to offer a handshake he couldn't see. Clearly, Foggy had given her a heads up.

Matt hesitated, wondering whether or not it was worth it to let her squirm in discomfort. But he was hyperaware of Foggy's breathing next to him. He probably wouldn't appreciate it if Matt started Penny's visit by playing games with her. So he smiled, and mercifully stretched out his hand. "Likewise. Foggy hasn't been able to stop talking about you since you suggested coming."

"Double likewise. I don't want to alarm you, but I think Foggy's a little sweet on you."

"Why does this suddenly feel like two of my ex's plotting against me?"

"Hey, you invited me."

"Psh, me? You invited yourself, you adorable leech."

"Actually, Foggy, I'm pretty sure you invited her." Matt laughed and stopped himself from sidestepping Foggy's gentle smack at his arm.

"Dude! Whatever happened to the Roommate Bro Code? You're supposed to be on my team!"

"Alright, alright, stop whining, baby," Penny said, shoving Foggy a bit to the side. "What's the battle plan? I want to get rid of this bag of bricks."

Foggy pulled the bag from her hands and slung it over his shoulder with a small grunt, batting her hands away when she tried to protest. He tapped Matt on the shoulder before heading back in the direction of their dorm. "Well, I thought we could drop your stuff in our room, head out to lunch, and then head over to the liquor store. Assuming that you've adequately prepared for me drink you under the table."

"Wow, grad school's made you really overconfident. You couldn't drink your way out of a paper bag."

"See, that analogy makes no sense. Your Honor, the prosecution's accusation is irrelevant."

"Ha! Irrelevant?"

"Sustained."

Matt could feel Penny's glare in his gut and she whipped around to look at him. "Oh that's how it is? Alright, your Honor, in your experience, has it ever taken Mr. Nelson more than five drinks to get so smashed he can't walk straight?"

"That is so not true! Also leading!"

"Sustained."

"Oh my God, this is going to be torture. Honestly, fuck lawyers."

"Well, if you're offering," Foggy said, a suggestive slant to his voice that morphed into a yelp as Penny smacked him upside the head.

Matt sank back into silence as Foggy and Penny lead the way to their room and then to the restaurant they'd booked for lunch. It was probably better to give them their space to laugh about college stories and talk about where their other friends had ended up. It felt odd to be following Foggy's voice around campus and not conversing with it. He was out of his element. He hadn't really noticed how nice it was to have Foggy as a friend until he didn't have him. That was melodramatic, he supposed. It wasn't like Foggy had dropped him, he just had a lot more friends that Matt did. It was probably easier when you weren't fighting off a pounding headache every day from sensory overload. And, you know, when you could see people. Matt knew that he didn't have a long list of friends, but it was stupid to be jealous of a girl Foggy had known longer than he knew Matt. Still, it wasn't easy to soothe the acidic edge in his stomach when he realized they'd made it all the way to the table without him saying a word.

Matt and Foggy ordered their usual burgers and fries, and Penny a plate of wings that was intended to serve four. A waitress brought a round of beers to the table a few minutes later. Matt could only imagine her confused and somewhat judgmental expression. It could hardly be eleven o'clock.

Foggy didn't seem phased in the slightest. He just thanked her with a smile in his voice and forcefully pushed one of the bottles into Matt's hands. He cleared his throat, signaling everyone to raise their drinks before he spoke. "A toast! To old friendships, new friendships, and new new friendships I'm forcing you two into."

"I'll drink to that," Penny laughed, jolting Matt's bottle with her own before downing what sounded like a considerable amount of the bottle.

Foggy snorted into his own drink, and clapped her on the back. "Easy there, tiger. Drinking competition doesn't start until tonight."

"Yeah, uh, isn't it a little early for us to start drinking?" Matt asked. The question was somewhat depleted as he took another sip from his beer, but no one seemed to care.

Foggy's hand slammed down on the table, causing a momentary lapse in the conversations around them. "We are college students, my friend! Well, graduate students, but we're still in classes. We've got a reputation to uphold, dude! An image. And we will start drinking whenever we damn well please. Which is right now." His bottle knocked into Penny's once more, and Matt coaxed a smile onto his face as they laughed.

"So, Matt," Penny started, smacking her lips together and aspirating the t's unnecessarily. "Let me hear about you from you. How'd you get stuck with Foggy for a roommate?"

"Yes! History time!" Foggy cheered and drummed his hands on the table.

Matt shrugged, his fingers picking at the label on the beer bottle. "Uh, just lucky, I guess."

"Yeah, real lucky. I know there's a reason he's called Foggy, and I know it's something to do with his God-awful snoring."

"Please, I do not snore that badly. Matt, back me up."

"How did you two meet?" he asked instead.

Penny snorted at his inelegant sidestep of the question, but Foggy let it slide without complaint. "Well, Pen and I met in our debate class sophomore year. Professor paired us up for a demo debate about the super-soldier experiments in the forties. Penny argued against on account of the ethics of human experimentation, I argued for because…"

"Because he was and is a massive piece of Captain-America-loving trash."

"Excuse me, no part of loving Captain America should mean someone is trash. He was the pinnacle of our country's ideas! He was an icon! He was a hero!"

"I'm not saying he wasn't. I'm just saying that you are a complete fanboy."

"That is fair," he admitted, and took another swig of his beer.

Matt followed suit, not altogether surprised by this information. "So who won?"

"Officially, no one," Foggy answered. "It was just supposed to be a little twenty minute argument, but Penny and I ended up high jacking the class for the whole hour fifteen. Jury never convened, judgment never made. Unofficially, though, I was totally winning."

"Please, you took the easy case for public support. Manderson agreed my argument was way tighter and better developed."

"That's the thing, Pen. Court of law, you're aiming to convince a jury of your peers, not a professor."

"Well thank God I don't plan on practicing law."

"Come on, it's the same in a paper. You convince the readers, not just the editor."

"You're a journalist?" Matt asked, an unruly smirk tugging at his lips.

Penny let out a breath of laughter. "Eventually, maybe. I'm just a blogger at the moment. I'm in the program at University of Maryland so someone might eventually want to hire me."

"Nonsense!" Foggy scoffed, pulling her tight to his side. "Employment's overrated. You're a journalist in your bones, and you always have been. Which incidentally is part of the reason it's impossible to get along with you."

"Well if I'm that annoying, maybe I should just get back on the bus."

"You know, maybe you should. I know I was like super psyched about this, but now that you're here…"

"Guys," Matt interrupted, just short of pinching the bridge of his nose. "The story?"

"To make a long story short, Foggy and I both had to hang back so the professor could complain about how we wasted the class's time on trivial matters, and how serious it was that she had to reconceive her entire class syllabus to make up for our nonsense or whatever. Anyway, Foggy came up to me after class, complimented my case, and asked if I was headed for the dining hall."

"We got lunch, talked about movies, and then I slept with her."

Penny snorted at the same time Matt did, her amusement countering his surprise. "Do you have to do that? If you're gonna fabricate an affair, at least give me some agency, man."

"Alright, alright. We slept together. And it was awesome."

"Thank you." Matt must have pulled a face, because Penny laughed. "We didn't really, if you're worried."

"Of course he's not," Foggy answered before Matt had to answer. "He's not allowed to be worried, cause I already told him explicitly that you're off limits. Which goes doubly for you. No flirting with my roommate."

"Oh come on, Fog…"

"Ah! I wanna hear you say it!"

"Fine, fine. Precious, sightless cinnamon roll is not for sale. I got it."

"Uh, thanks." Matt pursed his lips, cheeks searing as he fidgeted in his seat. At least Foggy seemed to be trying to smother his laughter. Penny didn't seem to notice his awkward response.

"I'm kind of off the market anyway," she said. She swirled the remaining liquid in her bottle, somehow already more than halfway finished.

"Oh yeah, who is this guy?" Foggy asked. "Brick or something?"

He giggled to himself, but she didn't seem amused. "Brock."

"Brock, right, right. Sorry. I mean, I did the appropriate amount of Facebook stalking after you told me. Guy looks like a brick. I got confused. But it's appropriate!"

"Oh, that's rich, coming from the Pillsbury Dough Boy."

"Only cause I'm ticklish, which you're not supposed to tell anyone!" Foggy whined obnoxiously, bouncing in his seat until Penny finally laughed. "Honestly, Pen, I'm sorry. I'll shut up. How'd you meet Brock?"

She sighed in resignation, and the seat of the booth squeaked as she leaned back. "Larissa introduced me. My roommate."

"Is she hot?" There was a moment of pregnant silence, and Matt had to cover his mouth to hide his grin. Foggy exaggerated a shudder, leaning toward him. "In this moment, you can be thankful you're blind, dude. Pen's got a death glare that could execute you. I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks."

"Can I go on?" she asked tersely. Foggy made some hand gesture for her to go on, but kept his mouth shut. "Like I was saying, my roommate introduced me. Some long chain of she knows a guy who knows a guy or whatever. Anyway, he was throwing a party after midterms, Larissa dragged me along, and I ended up talking to him for most of the night. He grew up in Malibu, but after the incident with Stark Industries he decided it's be a better idea to go to grad school on the East Coast. Less chance of getting blown up."

"What's he studying?" Matt asked.

Foggy rapped his knuckles on the table as he started chanting, "Cop, cop, cop, cop, cop…"

"Veterinary medicine, actually."

"Aw, come on. There is no need for a vet to be that jacked. Is a puppy dog gonna appreciate that physique?"

"Actually, that's my job," Penny replied, the smirk slathered over every inch of her tone.

Matt snorted as Foggy gagged. "Never mind, I don't want to talk about your boy toy anymore. Matt, take us into a subject change."

"Okay, uh—when did you get into journalism?"

"Um, end of my sophomore year, I guess."

"May 2008," Foggy said immediately. "So we're just wrapping up our exams, right? Penny and I go to the dining hall and Tony Stark's face is on literally every single screen. Every single one's replaying that press conference where he admitted he was Iron Man. And Penny just goes absolutely apeshit!"

"I did not go apeshit…"

"I practically had to force feed her to make sure she was eating over the next few days. She just became this like inhuman whirlwind of research, coffee in her veins, eyes ripped out on the computer, everything. Stark this, Ten Rings that, Pulsing Tech node the other thing…"

"Repulsor Tech node, Foggy. Jesus."

"Whatever. The point is that I watched her become a Stark fanatic in front of my eyes, and that's when she dedicated her life to journalism."

"I'm not a fucking fanatic," she groaned. She didn't hit Foggy this time, but Matt could hear the way her body seized up in frustration, her fingers trembling from tension she couldn't release. "If I was a fanatic, I would have moved out to Malibu and bought tickets to a bunch of those conventions and had an arc reactor tattooed onto my chest. I was researching."

"Researching and going to protests."

"Okay, so I went to a few protests demanding information. It's cause the government's trying to hide half of what's going on to keep people happy, not cause I'm in love with the guy. Stark's just so different from the stereotypical idea of a superhero. Half the world shits on him for it, and half the world worships him like a God, including himself sometimes. Everyone just picks a side and doesn't look at the whole story, and that just pisses me off. It's infuriating. If someone's going to choose to be a public figure like that, the people have a right to the information surrounding them. How informed was Stark of what his company way up to? And if he didn't know, who in the company successfully kept it from him? What happened to him in captivity that suddenly reformed him? We can't make informed decisions if we just swallow one half of the media. Stark's case just highlights it better than most. That's why I'm into journalism."

"You don't think that's an invasion of privacy?" Matt asked.

"I'm not asking for the blueprints to his suit, or anything. But Stark now has abilities that the rest of the population doesn't have. If those freedoms are going vastly affect the rest of the population, there's got to be some aspect of regulation. And if there's not, I need to know why I'm being asked to trust Stark's judgment over the officials that the people and the government put in place. If we're that worried about corruption in the system, we should probably do something about it. And I guarantee you this isn't going to be the last of it. After the whole Captain America thing in the forties, people were trying to experiment for super soldiers for years! They still are! I mean, did you guys follow the Hulk story when Harlem got demolished? There's all this research about how that was born from an attempt to recreate Captain America, and that's just what's born from one…I don't know, superhuman if that's what you want to call it. Now that Starks's made his statement, everyone in the world is gonna try and copy him. All these things are gonna start coming out of the woodwork. I wanna know who these people are, and who else is trying to control them."

There were a few seconds of silence, marked by the sound of Penny's slightly labored breathing. Matt had unconsciously honed in on her, blocking out the sounds of the restaurant in favor of her heart's fast, steady beating. He could almost picture her, leaning forward on her elbows, a few strands of green hair hanging in her face and her eyes wide as she pleaded her case. Her nails had tapped the tabletop with each point she made, but now she pulled her hands back into her lap, twisting her fingers together to create a net that might hold her thoughts inside of herself. Matt found, with some surprise, that he didn't want her to.

"Sorry," she apologized. "It all makes sense in my head, but then it comes out and I feel like a crazy person."

Foggy wrapped an arm around her, shaking her whole frame in a comforting motion. "She gets uber passionate about this stuff."

"No, it's fine," Matt insisted, shaking his head. "I mean, it's a good thing to be passionate about. Isn't that why we're here? Law school? Trying to protect people from the corruption in the system, do a better job."

"Well yeah. Also we're gonna be fucking loaded," Foggy laughed.

Penny tousled his hair, but didn't scold him. She probably knew as well as Matt that Foggy was probably one of the most earnest people on the planet when it came to protecting the people. He often talked a big game—daydreaming about corner offices with a few of the city, an expensive car that people would be afraid to breathe on—but he also was incredibly invested in his studies. Matt had listened to Foggy rant about the injustice in a hypothetical essay question more than once. If he was that passionate about the problems of the fictional, he couldn't imagine the effort he'd put into solving the plights of real people. He was going to be unstoppable.

"Well hopefully you can rent me a room in your mansion," Penny chuckled. "Writing for the public good doesn't exactly have a lot of money in it, or make you a lot of friends."

"Hey, who needs anymore friends than this, am I right? Hands in, everyone!" Foggy cheered. Matt slid his hand forward to the middle of the table, where Foggy and Penny placed theirs on top. "The three of us, taking on the world. We'll probably be some pathetically broke motherfuckers, but at least we'll have a clear conscience."

Matt grinned as Foggy threw his arm around Penny again, both of them laughing carelessly. "Here, here."

The rest of lunch passed without incident, and Matt slowly felt the edge of his hostility wearing away. Penny interrogated him about his life with the fervor of a professional reporter, fascinated by his stories about his boxing father. Foggy, of course, told a ridiculously over exaggerated rendition of the story of Matt's blindness—now featuring an eighteen wheeler and several close calls with passing cars that refused to stop for a small, heroic boy on the pavement. Penny clearly knew Foggy was fibbing, but it didn't stop her from shedding a few crocodile tears on his behalf.

After lunch, Foggy and Matt showed Penny around their corner of the city. There were the essential parts of the tour—key parts of campus, a few stores nearby, the best coffee shop later in the afternoon. Really they were just biding their time until it was a little more socially acceptable to go to the liquor store. Then Foggy was piling bottles into his arms with the glee of a small child on Christmas morning. Penny graciously picked up the tab in honor of her first visit. Foggy returned the favor by graciously picking her up, and giving her a piggyback ride back to the dorms.

The afternoon passed into the evening, and Matt could feel the sunlight waning on his skin. The cool nip of the night breeze funneled between the tall buildings, and he was all too happy to be sitting on his bed inside. He waited until Penny had ducked out to wash the feeling of public transport off her skin, and Foggy had run down the block to grab a pizza for their dinner. Then he pulled his Spanish assignment back into his lap, trailing his fingers across the braille. It was comforting sometimes to have the words solidly formed in front of him, tangible in a way that all the sounds that bombarded him around the city were not. It had been a long day, and something about focusing on his work helped him mentally prepare himself for what he was sure was going to be a long night of bar hopping. At least, if Foggy had anything to say about it.

It was probably about an hour later that the smell broke his concentration—a strong scent of fresh smoke that was wandering down the hallway. There was a rap on the door before Penny let herself in, her duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Matt could hear the box of cigarettes in the side pocket, the last three sticks rattling softly even as she walked evenly over the floor. "Where'd Foggy go?"

"Ran down the street for dinner. He said he didn't need to ask what you wanted. He should be back in a few minutes."

"Ha, typical."

Matt hesitated for a moment as a tension seeped out from the muscles of her shoulders. She dropped her bag at the end of Foggy's bed, and let out a small breath of what sounded like relief.

"Does Foggy not know that you smoke?"

Penny froze on the other side of the room. He panicked for a moment, worried that he'd slipped and mentioned something he shouldn't have ordinarily noticed. But her surprise quickly melted into resignation, and she sighed. "Shit, I know you're supposed to have more sensitive senses after you lose one, but I didn't think they were that good. Can you really smell that?"

"Just a little," he said quickly. "Mostly a guess."

"Well it's a damn good one. I tried to wash it off in the shower."

Matt could smell that too, her honeycomb shampoo clashing with the fresh powder scent of her deodorant, the traces of shaving cream that were still stubbornly under her nails. If he really focused, he could still smell the traces of the laundry detergent in her jeans. She'd probably done all her laundry the day before so she'd have clothes to pack. But these were all things he knew he wasn't supposed to know. So he kept them to himself.

Penny rubbed at the back of her neck, shuffling toward the opposite wall. "Sorry, I know I must smell awful. I hate smelling like smoke."

"Don't worry about it. It's a college campus. Trust me, there are a lot of people that smell worse than you."

"Well that's comforting," she snorted, collapsing on Foggy's bed. "He knows I smoke, but he hates it. I try not to do it around him so I don't have to hear the lecture. So yeah, I know it's not healthy. But we're all gonna die someday, right?"

"Ha, uh, yeah, but not all of us are gonna die from cancer."

"Okay, if that's the kind of night it's gonna be, I'm gonna need some help from my buddy Jack." She rolled to the other side of Foggy's bag, rustling in the bag from the liquor store until she found the bottle she was looking for. It opened with a satisfying crack, and she took a deep swig of the whiskey without so much a hitch in her breath. "Besides, I plan on dying long before the cancer gets me. I was thinking about throwing myself in front of a truck to save the elderly."

Matt shook his head with a grudging smile. "Not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes you just end up visually impaired."

"Foggy seems to think you turned out okay, anyway."

"Yeah, well, at least someone does."

He tilted his head in her direction, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. He didn't need to see Penny to know she was looking at him. He could feel her gaze tracing over his skin, around the rims of the glasses blocking his sightless eyes. Foggy's bed squeaked as she got up, crossing the room to his bed. She sat down without invitation and pushed the bottle of Jack Daniels into his hands. "Here. Still poison, but it tastes a hell of a lot better than a cigarette."

Matt pushed his homework to the side of the bed, slowly feeling out the bottle before taking a sip. He hissed as the liquid cut at the back of his throat, stinging in the spaces behind his eyes. He took another drink before passing it back to Penny. He heard the liquid slosh against the glass as she took her own sip, then rested the bottle between her knees.

"He's been okay, yeah?"

"Foggy?" Matt asked, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, as far as I know. Why?"

"I don't know. I know he worries about me, but I worry about him too. Undergrad was sorta hard on him cause we were out in the middle of nowhere. He didn't like not being in a city, having limited options. And he hated being away from his family."

"Yeah, they're pretty close aren't they?"

"Like sitcom close. It's this huge family of like weirdly happy people. Foggy brought me home for Thanksgiving once. Honestly, I was waiting for the omniscient laugh track to start up."

Matt snorted as she passed the bottle back to him. "Not what you're used to?"

There was a beat of silence that very clearly stated that, no, she wasn't used to that. Matt pushed the bottle back at her, and she hummed a moment of thanks. "My folks divorced when I was a kid, so uh…yeah. Not exactly a Rockwell painting."

"Hey, me either. Growing up with a single dad who boxes for a living wasn't all that glamorous."

Her hair dragged over her shirt as she nodded, a nail tapping anxiously at the neck of the bottle. "Foggy's like a brother to me. He's a total weirdo, but he's got a heart of a lion or whatever. I hope you're ready to protect that. Cause if you don't and something happens to him, I'm coming for your sweet ass. Blind or not, Murdock."

Matt blinked. It wasn't that he thought she was lying; he could tell by the steady beat of her heart that she wasn't. He couldn't even say that he was surprised by her words. She'd proven herself to be passionate and somewhat blunt over the course of the day, and the protectiveness she felt for Foggy was certainly evident. Ultimately, what surprised him was just how normal it felt. He wouldn't dream of intentionally hurting Foggy, but he didn't feel the need to defend himself to Penny. He hadn't batted an eye when she dropped onto his bed, and he didn't feel upset that she'd threatened him. It was an odd feeling compared to the hostility he'd felt earlier in the day.

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

She let out a breath of laughter before knocking his knee with the bottle. She lifted it up, taking a prolonged swig and letting her back drop to the mattress so she was slung over the foot of his bed.

The door swung open a few seconds later to reveal Foggy, carefully balancing a greasy paper bag on top of a pizza box. "Alright, dinner is served! Aw, come on, you guys started drinking without me? That's beyond lame. Shame on you."

Matt found the bottle back in his hands as Penny jumped up to help Foggy with the food. Her solemn air had evaporated in an instant, either cured by Foggy's presence or hidden under a smile until she could recover. Even as he focused all of his senses to study her he couldn't be sure which it was. The two of them were already laughing, Foggy teasing her about how many toppings she liked on her pizza while she snatched the bag of garlic knots out of his hands. She ran around the room with Foggy on her tail, and Matt had to scoot back into his pillows to make sure he wasn't taken out in the crossfire. He was laughing too, he realized. He could hardly breathe as Penny and Foggy mirrored each other across the bed, Foggy making to leaps over the mattress and failing miserably.

It had been a long day. But he was well on his way to realizing that it was worth it.

A/N: Hey guys! I know I have no business starting a new story, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about Penny and Matt all week, so I figured we'd give this a whirl. I'm intending this to be less of a story and more of a one-shot series, but who can really tell for sure. I get attached fast, so we'll see how this goes. I'm in the middle of grad school applications and thesis work, so I can't promise consistent updates on anything, but I'm gonna try my best.

Thanks for putting up with me. Can't wait to hear what you think!

-Brittney