"You're Murdock's second in command."

"We're partners," Foggy says, but he can't not trip over the words because it's fucking cold in here and his tongue feels swollen in his mouth. Maybe he's got a chipped tooth. "That's how lawyers work, we're partners."

This guy knows about Matt. He fucking knows.

The bored-looking goons have filed off into the hall, though they probably haven't gone far. Neither of them is the guy with the glasses who came in to unsubtly hint that Murdock & Nelson, Nelson & Murdock should take up with his employer's incredibly shady organization instead. Talk about sharks and skin suits. That guy probably made the call that Foggy was on his way back from work, alone. That he was looking at his phone and not at his surroundings. Distracted, like a dumbass.

The chair beneath him is cold metal, institutional quality. If he had Matt's crazy kung fu moves, he could probably make an okay weapon out of it, but his right hand is cuffed to a table leg, and the table leg is bolted to the floor. The extent of his data-gathering tells him they're in an office block somewhere, which makes the bolted-down table kind of incongruous -- but Foggy's eyes are refusing to focus, and his vision swims too badly to pinpoint any specifics. There's no helpful street view out the window, mainly because there's no window. Matt could probably pinpoint where they were just by vibrations from the street, because he's the auditory equivalent of Captain America, but Foggy can't -- there's a dull buzz in the air that might just be a ringing in his ears from getting clipped on the side of the head when they pulled him out of the car.

Beige carpet, beige table, pockmarked plaster ceiling made up of the same kind of tiles that are in the offices of Nelson & Murdock. For all he knows they're in the same building as the office, one of those neighboring suites he hasn't been able to charm his way into yet. For all he knows they're in Jersey, it certainly looks bleak enough. There's nothing like a convenient fire alarm to pull (to evacuate all the armed guys in suits or what?) or a window to fling himself out of after heroically picking the lock on the cuffs and scampering to safety. On the far wall, there's the bleached outline of where a bulletin board used to hang -- maybe a whiteboard.

There's nothing here to really work with, except the knowledge that Fisk is there and he hasn't killed him yet.

Fisk comes up to him from behind. Foggy stays very still.

"I had," Fisk says, "a very good friend, who had a run-in with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. He was shot seven times in the chest. I'm told he died more or less instantly."

One of his hands dips into Foggy's shirt, grazes against the cotton undershirt next to his skin, presses with a fingertip. Like the trajectory of a bullet, or the phantom presence of a wound. Fisk has big hands and blunt fingers; the sensation of them probing at skin raises the hairs on the back of Foggy's neck. That's the kind of thing that he was really better off thinking was just a saying; the disturbed prickle makes his breath hitch, and Fisk seems amused. Or maybe he's just pissed.

Foggy really doesn't want to get shot.

If he doesn't turn around, he can pretend it's not Fisk, the asshole from TV. His voice is worse in person, it's got all these weird hesitations and pauses but it's even deeper, even bigger, it's everywhere.

"When they showed me the body, I was... shocked. He looked much the same as he had alive, apart from having been shot seven times in the chest." Which isn't supposed to be funny, but Foggy gasps back a horrible snicker of inappropriate laughter anyway. Fisk does not seem amused when he continues. "And there was a remarkable amount of blood."

He's not going to look at his face. He's not going to look at his face.

"I'm sorry, but why are you telling me this?"

Fisk grabs him by the collar like Foggy is a kid and pulls him out of the chair like a squirming rabbit. The chain rattles, carving a crescent of clear pain into his wrist, and Foggy is terrified for a split second that he's going to throw him down on the ground and start kicking. He's a really fucking big guy, okay. But Fisk's preposterously strong grip does not release, and he instead drapes him over the edge of the table like a dry-cleaner bag full of shirts. This is easy for him; he doesn't seem bothered, like he does this all the time.

Foggy's cheek presses against the cold metal tabletop. Maybe he can twist over onto his back and ninja-kick this guy in the face. Fat chance.

"I'm not going to tell you anything." Not about Matt. Not about the guy in the mask. Not about their cases. Foggy's a lawyer and Wilson Fisk is a major-league criminal, those two things aren't going to change. If this is the part in the script where Fisk makes him an offer, tries to get him on board, he's not going to leave happy. It's way too late for that. Maybe a couple years ago when they were both desperate interns, and Fisk was nothing but a completely anonymous shadow on the horizon, but not now. Definitely not after having him abducted and poking him in the chest.

"I wasn't planning on asking you any questions," Fisk says, almost affably, "but it might help to be forthcoming."

What's the worst he can do? Break some bones? Foggy's had that happen before; it sucks, but it's not fatal, and he can always tell the girls he got his legs busted standing up to a psychopathic gangster. This guy could beat the ever-loving shit out of him, go all Reservoir Dogs, and Foggy still won't tell him anything about Matt's dumbass secret identity.

Unless Fisk knows about Matt already (he does) and plans on blinding him as a matter of dramatic irony. Which would suck. But he's not going to die from being blind.

Unless Fisk doesn't care about dramatic irony and is going to shoot him seven times in the face.

Basically the only thing he does not want Fisk to do is kill him. Anything short of that, Foggy reasons, he can handle. Matt's made of sterner stuff than he is, as categorically proven by upholding the whole double-life thing so long, so maybe Foggy won't make it out with such a stiff upper lip, but he won't die--

The proximity of his body is a horrible thing. Wilson Fisk is a man with a presence, and it's been a long time since Foggy has ever felt small next to anybody, but his skin is crawling. It's honestly a minor miracle that he hasn't pissed himself yet.

Anger surges at the core of him, a little reservoir of pure and total hatred buried deep in his gut -- he's pissed about Elena Cardenas and all her neighbors, he's pissed about whoever hurt Karen so bad, he's pissed about the state of this whole damn town and the one guy who's still lording it over one shitty neighborhood like he's the Second Coming despite persuasive evidence to the contrary. Fisk thinks he's got him scared, when really he's just got him mad.

Foggy shuts his eyes hard enough to see yellow spots. With luck he can martial enough willpower to sound confident, if he can just stop shivering in the A/C.

"You know, I wouldn't fuck with me if I were you. He's going to come after you and he's gonna nail your ass to the wall. You're a dead man."

He, him. Matt. The guy in the mask. Heat prickles at the back of his neck, down his spine, weight shifting and chain slinking against metal.

"I could crush you like an insect," Fisk rasps against his ear, and Foggy shuts his eyes tighter. "But then I wouldn't have anything to turn back over to your friend."

The worst thing Fisk could do? What's the worst thing Fisk can do to him, now, before he goes for Karen or for Matt or for the people in the office next door to theirs -- or maybe he's done all that already and that's why nobody's been returning Foggy's calls and that's why him, just because everybody else is already dead. He starts to protest, an awful animal treble that escapes his throat before he can stop himself, and Fisk slams his head against the table.

Foggy feels something crack, or chip, or something, and the pain starts to blossom from the corner of his eye socket all at once. A sound escapes his throat that is a scream.

Fisk strikes his head against the metal again. It's not as hard this time, and Foggy's gone slack so it's easier. Everything's gone kind of gray.

With one sweep Fisk knocks the chair aside. Foggy lashes out at him but his dizzy impreciseness means he manages exactly nothing but making himself black out. Reality strobes out like a broken lightbulb.

His shirt's untucked, his pants are down, he doesn't know when he went from being fully-dressed, albeit trussed to a fucking chair in a murder basement, to feeling the cold air on his naked legs and feeling Fisk palm in his underwear. His hands are warm, and the edge of the table is freezing cold. His thumb digs into the softness of Nelson's stomach.

"You're soft," he says, with blistering contempt.

The cloth of Fisk's suit brushes the backs of Foggy's thighs.

"So what? What are you going to do to me?"

Is he going to say the words? Is he going to say the actual words, stuff Foggy can remember for later -- he knows all the words for this, chapter and verse, just in case, the stuff like physically helpless and forcible compulsion and if he's really unlucky tonight foreign object. Or is this guy too macho to say he's raping him?

Fisk doesn't answer the question. He tugs on a fistful of Foggy's hair and twists, pulling his head back so sharply for a moment Foggy thinks he's going to snap his neck. "Look at me," he says, "you're worthless to me. I ought to break you apart."

He's an animal, there is no way this is a person, Foggy's vision is edged in black and Fisk's monstrous face is framed impassively in the kind of staticky dimness that probably means brain damage.

"I'm looking. I get it. I see you."

His head is grudgingly released, allowed to drop. Fisk smooths his hair back into place with weird conscientiousness; Foggy can only grunt his distress through a sudden sweep of nausea.

"Tell him what you've seen."

He's still got one hand free. He's not totally spread-eagle here. He balls up a fist and drives it back, twisting around to drive it full-force somewhere in the vicinity of this guy's solar plexus --

--and Fisk twists it right back, presses it into the table's edge with a rolling motion and crack. The world shutters out like a camera lens. When it wells back into focus again it's harder and colder; the lights are so bright he can't see a difference when he shuts his eyes.

Foggy screams. Wilson Fisk undoes his belt.

There's a stiff, artificial little rustling sound from somewhere behind him. Foggy knows it from dorm rooms and extra-long twin beds, from office bathrooms and lots of other places he would really rather be right now. Fisk is unwrapping a condom, because just because he's fucking him up the ass is no reason not to be polite.

This is going to suck. This is going to be so bad.

Foggy reflexively hugs his ruined hand to himself, gasping huge breaths, like pressure will mitigate the blinding pain -- it won't, Fisk pulls his arm away from his side and wrenches it up behind his back. His thigh presses apart Foggy's legs; his dick is brushing against his ass as he fumbles for an angle. His dick's already hard.

There's a deep ballpoint-pen gouge in the tabletop, like somebody scribbled there, and Foggy tries to focus on that. But the sensation of somebody else's dick touching him makes it impossible not to struggle, not to twist around protesting while his chained-down arm shoots out in pins and needles. Fisk makes an annoyed sound and leans against him, hard.

They're beyond talking now. The first hard press is like nothing else -- it trips an involuntary sob, and the heel of Fisk's hand presses into Foggy's back, to hold him in place or to press the air out of his lungs. He doesn't feel him up lasciviously or waste a whole lot of time being theatrical about what he's doing, because it's pretty obvious. But he takes his time. It's not like either of them has anywhere else to be.

This part Foggy's not even trying to fight. He can't. He's not like Matt is, he's just a guy. Fisk exhales in annoyance when he's breaching him, not even exertion. Foggy will remember that sound maybe, forever.

By the time an actual dick is inside him, Foggy is trying not to cry or throw up or both. Nothing else hurts like this, not the cotton-padded ache in his head or the bones in the back of his hand, or the press of the table's edge against his stomach. His shoulder feels as if it's about to be wrenched from its socket by the strain, the position he's in is all kinds of unnatural, but Foggy can't even focus on that splintering patch of pain without being reminded of each splitting thrust. It can't be easy.

Fisk's size would be enough to keep him in place, but he braces him there for better access, front and back. He doesn't bother touching him really, after a cursory grope that feels more like a mistake. The pressure of his hand is nightmarish now, an infinitely worse bracketing restriction than the otherwise minimalistic restraints.

Maybe the low-budget ambiance and the stuff about Matt and Fisk's dead friend is just the set-up to getting bent over like a twenty-dollar hooker, getting fucked in silence with nothing but the strike of flesh against flesh, not even that, Wilson Fisk's cufflinks digging into the shallow flesh over his ribs through cloth. Now he knows what this guy sounds like having sex and he sounds like he's having sex with somebody else, somebody who knows to shut up, not Foggy who can barely breathe.

Something in him is broken apart now, maybe something small but he's bleeding badly. He's starting to black out before it's done, stuttering shortages in his vision like a buffering video. Throbbing in his head like a blood vessel -- where the fuck is Matt for all this? Where the fuck is Matt?

Foggy regains consciousness to the feeling of a massive hand clasping his throat. Not even hard, though it elicits a shudder of animal panicking that's put to rest with a jostle, just the sweaty folds of the inside of a hand waiting to grip and press. Waiting.

He keeps waiting for Fisk to tighten his grip and press the life out of him, but he hasn't done it yet. Foggy keeps waiting.

("Soft," he says.)

*

The second time, he doesn't even cuff him to the table. The third time, he must get bored, because he uses a gun to do it.

*

Foggy doesn't notice when he's done, or when he leaves him there on the floor like dirty laundry. He doesn't leave him there naked, but it wouldn't matter if he did.

Afterward, after the last time, the guys in suits come in again -- one of them has a glass of water, Foggy remembers that with weird clarity and basically nothing else. Some nameless mook has a plastic cup of water in his hand and an ugly class ring on his finger and he holds the cup up to Foggy's lips while the other guy lifts his head.

It doesn't occur to him, what if it's drugged or something like that because they didn't bother chloroforming him or whatever to take him here, they just hit him over the head. He's so pitifully grateful that he drinks. He can barely swallow; his throat is one long raw patch.

He can't keep it down for long, and he has to lie there in the consequences of that until he passes out again. Here it goes, this is him dying -- this is how he dies, fucked bloody on the ground and puking. His shirt sticks to his back between his shoulder blades, it's adhered to his bare thighs with sweat. He's dirty, bleeding, concussed, near-dead already. He's done. He's ready for giving up, even if it means having it happen like this.

It happens like this, and he still doesn't die.