"They say we are asleep until we fall in love
We are children of dust and ashes
But when we fall in love we wake up
And we are a god and angels weep
But if I die here tonight
I die in my sleep"
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Zoe sat down in one of the chairs now, deciding to curl beside Rhea as they took a nap together. She stirred awake at the sound of Matt's voice.
"You want to say something."
Foggy didn't turn away from the window, "Really don't."
Matt opened his eyes but didn't move from his spot curled up on the couch, "Your breathing changes when you're about to."
"Now you're just showing off."
"Say what you need to say."
Foggy slowly turned around to face him. In the midst of their argument, Rhea woke up next. She wasn't expecting a screaming match between Matt and Foggy since she thought Foggy had already gotten everything out.
"You and Rhea run around dressed like morons, beating people up!"
Matt had sat up at this point, "It's not that simple and you know it."
"No, I don't know shit. Not about this. I mean, how-" Foggy shut his eyes and closed his palms into fists, "Okay, so you get these whatever-you-call-thems when you're a kid. How do you go from that to what you're doing now?"
"When I was a kid, before the accident I'd lay awake at night listening to the sirens. Liked to put stories to them. Trying to figure out what they were for, ambulance or cops, robbery or fire. I don't know, just a stupid game. But after I lost my sight, after my abilities developed, I realized how many sirens there actually were... how much this city suffered every single night."
"You've been running around doing this since you were a kid?"
"No. I-I tried not to fight to make my dad proud. To-to block it out. The sirens, the pain, the fear, all strangling Hell's Kitchen. For years, I buried my head and turned away. Then one night after we quit Landman and Zack... I heard it."
Zoe was playing with Rhea's hair, "Heard what?"
"A little girl crying in her bed, in a building down the block. Her father liked to go to her room at night when his wife was asleep."
Zoe felt her entire body involuntarily shake and convulse at the thought. Which made Rhea hold Zoe's hand as tightly as she could.
"Oh, Jesus."
"I called Child Services like you're supposed to. But the mom, she wouldn't believe it. Said it wasn't true. And the dad, he was smart. He made sure what he did, how he did it, didn't leave a mark. The law couldn't do anything to help that little girl. But I could. I knew his routine. Waited till he was alone."
Rhea's eyes widened, "I remember reading about that on an online article..."
"He spent the next month in a hospital, eating through a straw. And I never slept better."
Foggy was glad to see that Rhea and Zoe were reacting about the same as he was to this story, "You say all this, like one day you'd just had it with how things are. But to do what you do you had to keep training, all those years since that Stick guy, knowing you would do something like this. Maybe it isn't only about justice, Matt. Maybe it's about you having an excuse to hit someone. Maybe you just can't stop yourself."
