Chapter Text
Tomorrow came quite early, as tomorrow's tend to do. The good news was that Matt felt a lot less overwhelmed the next day. He had spent a good chunk of the night with his hands over his ears, repeating motions and phrases in his head to help quiet down the loudness of the outside world. Once everything felt slightly less loud, Matt found himself completely exhausted. Like every bone in his body was suddenly the weight of bricks. He fell asleep pretty quickly after all that.
The next morning things were manageable. Matt still felt tired, but it was better. He felt like he could get through a day with only minimal difficulty.
Before fully waking up, Matt again tried scheduling the day completely in his head. Get up. Shower. Eat breakfast. Head to work. And at some point, either at work or after, Matt had to schedule the possible conversation he would have to have with Foggy. Of course a part of him hoped that no conversation were to happen, but it was better to keep it in mind and prepare just in case.
This was Foggy after all.
So Matt did as he scheduled. When he got to work and was finally around Foggy again, there was a slight yet constant anxiety that at any moment Foggy would bring up what happened last night. That he would ask more questions. It felt like an excruciating waiting game. Matt waited for it during their lunch break. Waited after the short breaks between clients. Waited when the day was coming to an end, and they were ready to leave. A part of him wanted Foggy to just bring it up already. Meanwhile the other part wanted him to never ask about it.
Foggy did, eventually, ask about it.
The two of them were making their way to Matt's apartment (because Foggy had insisted on accompanying Matt) and the conversation between them was normal. Casual even. Foggy was the one who really did all the talking. Matt on the other hand, still had his mind solely on yesterday's conversation. There was a ball of anxiety inside Matt's stomach as he waited for that damn conversation, and, every time Foggy began saying something new, that anxiety only grew larger.
And at one point Foggy asked. “You okay, buddy?”
Matt nodded, not trusting that his voice won't give away the anxiety brewing inside of him.
“Is it because of yesterday?” Foggy asked. Of course, he knew so easily. Matt nodded.
“I meant what I said about talking about it. We don't have to do it today, but this isn't a conversation I'll let you avoid.” Foggy told him.
Matt wasn't sure when he wanted to talk about it. He was actually quite sure he never wanted to talk about it, but he also knew Foggy was right. Matt can't just avoid this conversation. It was better to rip the band-aid off now than to wait.
“We can talk about it today.”
-
The two of them were in Matt's apartment, both had a beer in their hand from Matt's fridge, but neither of them had brought up the actual topic yet. Matt was still swimming in anxiety inside. The cold glass from the beer bottle was the only thing that helped him focus on the present and not on the worrying thoughts inside his head.
Matt didn't have it in him to start the conversation properly. He wanted Foggy to begin, to start asking the questions and force Matt to give answers. Matt never found it easy to just talk about his personal life normally, this was no exception.
Foggy wasn't speaking yet either, mostly because he wasn't sure where to start and what words were the right ones for what he wanted to say to Matt. It wasn't as simple as just asking, that much was clear. Especially with everything that Foggy actually knew he wanted to say.
“Great conversation we're having, huh?” Foggy joked instead, even he felt lost and unsure.
Matt chuckled awkwardly, but didn't say anything else.
After some more moments of silence, Foggy sighed. “Okay, fuck it. No point in sitting in silence. How long has your whole thing been going on?”
Matt felt like that ball of anxiety in his stomach was growing. “My… my entire life.”
“Oh.” Foggy replied. “So it's not just a heightened senses thing?”
“No. Yes. I don't know.” Matt admitted. His senses became heightened after becoming blind, and that certainly didn't help his situation. But he's pretty sure he was always like this, even before the accident Matt can remember conversations with his dad that consisted mostly of his dad talking and Matt barely able to get out more than a few grunts of yes and no. He remembered times when the whole world felt so inescapable and loud. Times when he just wanted to be completely alone to deal with it.
“Okay. You said it was sound that bothers you? Yesterday, you said something about sounds.”
Matt nodded, the anxious pit in his stomach growing larger. He still could never get used to being so vulnerable around anyone. “Sometimes sounds are too much. There's too many of them and they're too loud. The whole world just becomes overwhelming.”
Matt started fidgeting with the glass bottle, running his hands over it and picking at the label in an attempt to distract himself from some of the difficulty. “It's not always just sounds, it’s usually other things around too. Sometimes there's too many smells or too much expectation to be around other people. It mixes into one and-”
Matt cut himself off, he hesitated admitting all of this out loud to Foggy. He didn't know how Foggy would react to all of this. As understanding as he had been so far, Matt was pretty sure he had to have reached a limit at some point and sooner or later Foggy wasn't just going to stay.
“And what?”
Matt shook his head, he couldn't do this. The anxiety was basically a black hole in his body now, sucking up every other feeling inside.
“Matt.” Foggy called out, his voice calm and soft. Matt didn't feel like he deserved someone like him in his life. He wished all of this wouldn’t bother him, like it seems to be with everyone else.
“And I feel like I can't function the way I’m supposed to.” Matt admitted, his voice quiet. “Talking and being social especially feels impossible. A simple sentence feels like trying to lift the weight of the world.”
Foggy was silent for a while, though Matt could hear the way his breath changed. He wanted to say something, that much was obvious from the sound.
Every second of silence only increased that black hole. Matt wished he could just curl in on himself and disappear from the situation entirely. He hated telling people about stuff like this, even when he knew he had to. It'd be worse if he didn't.
“Matt.” Foggy finally spoke up. “Do you- I think…” He sighed, unsure how to get the words out correctly. “You know my cousin Ava? I think you’ve met her before.”
Matt wondered what the hell that had anything to do with this. Still, he nodded.
“She and her girlfriend experience something really similar, with the sounds and smells and everything being too much. I’ve talked to them both before and they’ve shared a lot about it.” Foggy clarified, then paused again for a few seconds. “My cousin and her girlfriend are both autistic.”
Matt froze. Was Foggy really implying what Matt thought he was? Suddenly the anxiety within him exploded and every part of Matt started feeling overwhelmed. It felt like there were thousands of thoughts running through his brain. The further the thought of what Foggy was trying to say sunk into Matt’s brain, the worse the panic became.
“I’m not-” Matt tried to speak, but the overwhelmingness was already too much. Out of all the times for his voice to stop working, why did it have to be now? “I’m not autistic.”
But Matt’s voice was suddenly quieter and even he could hear that he wasn’t fully confident in saying that. A part of Matt, a very small part, quietly admitted that it made sense. He was always so different from the people around him, even as a little kid. He struggled with the social aspects a lot and his charismatic self was more of an act in an attempt to hide it than anything else. And then, of course, there was his senses. They always overwhelmed him, even in times when they probably shouldn’t.
But the other part of Matt still tried to deny this completely. The thought terrified him. This would mean his whole world, everything he knew about himself, was so much different than he ever thought. Matt didn’t think he could really handle something like that.
“I’m just saying, it’s a possibility.” Foggy stated. “I’ve noticed other similarities, but the way you’re describing this is almost exactly the way they do.”
Matt wished he never had this conversation. He wished he could forget all about it, wished he could be on his own in some quiet room trying to calm down the loudness inside.
He hated that he couldn’t even argue about it. Even if his voice didn’t suddenly fail him completely, what would Matt even say? Was there even anything he could say that would convince Foggy otherwise? If it even was Foggy he was trying to convince.
Matt needed to do something though. So he tried speaking again. The first time he opened his mouth, no words came out. In a second desperate attempt, he managed to speak. His words slow and quiet. “It must be something else. Foggy, I’m not-”
Matt felt hopeless in denying it. There wasn’t anything for him to grasp at, not really.
“Okay. Just know, no matter what it is, I want to help, Matt. Any way that I can.” Foggy said. “We can figure out some way to communicate without you talking, or try to find a way to reduce the noise, or-”
“I’ll be fine. Foggy.” Matt forced out. “That’s not needed.”
The idea that things could change now terrified Matt, even if they weren’t negative changes. He couldn’t accept something like this. He was scared things would be so different now. Matt had never expected Foggy to say this.
Matt felt like he needed to prove Foggy’s theory wrong. So, as their conversation started moving onto a different topic entirely, Matt once again forced himself to talk. To make it seem like it isn’t nearly as bad as Foggy thinks. Both for Foggy's sake and his own.
But in the back of his mind, the idea that he might be autistic never left him. It scared Matt, much more than he’d like it to. But, for now, he’d rather stay denying it.