Kyle, Foggy Nelson and briefly, Matt Murdock - Clint's Birthday Bar Crawl

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Halfway through the bar crawl, Kyle ends up at a table with Matt and Foggy - and accidentally outs Clint and Matt.



"The hell?" Foggy muttered, blinking at Matt and Kyle. "I'm reasonably inebriated, he's drunk and you're...barely tipsy? You've matched me shot for shot!" He wasn't so drunk that he couldn't use big words or notice things like Kyle's lack of intoxication. Big lawyer brain at work.

Kyle grinned, and pointedly picked up Foggy's last undrunk shot and downed it. "Cause. I have been blessed by the drunking gods." Then the taste of the shot caught up with him and he crumpled up his face. "Or cursed, jesus, what the hell is this?" His own shot, the same color and opaqueness was poked, then poked again with a barely extended claw, and then carefully tasted. "Oh, gross. Ouzo."

"Nectar of the drinking gods!" Foggy proclaimed as Matt took his shot. "I can't decide if having a ridiculous tolerance is good or bad," they were on their 16th or so bar out of apparently 31. How he got roped into this he had no idea, other than Matt asked. Actually, no. That was exactly how he did. On the other hand, it gave him a chance to finally meet Matt's new friends. They were ridiculously good looking, too.

"Oh man no, ouzo is the worst." Kyle said. "Bro, it tastes like bad black licorice." He nudged Matt. "Bro, bro agree with me here, ouzo's the worst, right? All the gross of absinthe, none of the bright green and sugar cube ritual."

Matt shook his head, one hand on Foggy's shoulder. Maybe he should slow down? Nah. "Ouzo's not that bad. Sambucca is better," then again, he and Foggy had both drank much worse on their pitiful college budgets back in the day. "Never had absinthe. It's green?"

"You know what we need?" Foggy asked, "We need food! Fried foods! And meat!"

"It's electric green and you have to like, do a little thing with a spoon and sugar on fire." Kyle said. "It's not worth it, but eh. You know me, there are potato chips I think are too spicy, so." He shrugged, glanced cautiously at the bar crowd and then adjusted the knit hat he'd thrown on to cover his ears. "We need burgers, because I need bread to get this taste out of my mouth."

Matt and Kyle were similar in terms of preferring blander foods because of their powers, but Matt didn't have the chocolate problem Kyle did. "Huh," Matt said intelligently. "Burgers," he burped. "Bathroom!" he announced, leaving the duo quickly.

Foggy watched him, trying to grab his friend to guide him, only to find the crowd blocking his way and his friend nowhere in sight. "Huh," he parroted, then turned to Kyle, "No idea how he does that," he said rhetorically. "But dude, yes. Burgers! And a round of jack and cokes," that would help too. "So what do you do?" he asked, mildly concerned still about Matt getting lost, but not too worried. Even drunk, Matt was generally okay unless he got the spins.

Kyle signaled the bartender, ordering - decaf coke for him, regular for Foggy and Matt. "Teach, mostly. Kind of a small classroom deal, kids who can't be easily integrated or are recovering from trauma." Well. In theory Xavin was recovering, though they'd probably be out of high school before they were able to manage powers control enough to mainstream again. "Edit papers sometimes, cause man, Matt's brother? Holy shit does that man like, abuse the English language in the written form sometimes. I got a med student friend who is worse too. Jesus."

"I have both seen his writing and heard Matt's cursing," Foggy laughed, "It's practically it's own language. That's cool though," he hadn't expected Kyle to be a teacher. Maybe construction or something. "You don't think about kids who don't fall in the mainstream and what happens, at least I don't. So that's cool. Matt mainstreamed. I think."

"Visual impairment's pretty typically integrated." Kyle said. "I mean, it's not perfect but it's done a whole lot more than like, some learning disabilities. So right now I got two whole students, which is great for them, and means I write a lot of individual education plans, in between yeah, cursing out Clint Barton's name. That man's spelling is suspect at best." He pulled a phone - in a ruggedized case, and tapped out a text. "Bet he manages to misspell every word in the next text he sends me."

"Drunk texting," Foggy shook his head. That was shameful and setting Clint up for failure. It was perfect. "No bet, dude. Matt's spelling is equally atrocious when he types things out instead of using his voice program. I spent many, many nights revising his papers after spellcheck gave up. It's probably a family trait," thank goodness for the voice program. It kept his misspellings down to a more manageable level. "You're at that school he volunteers at or whatever. Must be a sweet place to tear him away from work like that. Maybe I should volunteer there, too."

Kyle shook himself, literally, and looked at Foggy, trying to figure out if he was messing with Kyle or not. "Uh. Dude, how long have you known Matt?"

"Freshman year of college. We were roommates," Foggy replied, signalling the bartender for another drink. This time with rum in the coke.

"Uh." Kyle started. "And I'm not sayin' you can't volunteer because like, the goals of the Xavier Institute are better relations between people who are X-Gene positive and people who aren't but.." He shoved the knit cap he was wearing back off his head and pulled his hair back off his ears. "But I teach two kids and both of 'em can't go to school for the same reason I can't get a job at a regular high school." And thank -fuck- this place was on the safe list, where he wouldn't get kicked out, but that hat was going right back on as soon as Clint declared they were moving to a new bar.

Foggy couldn't decide if he was too drunk for this or not drunk enough. His eyes grew wide at Kyle's ears, he had never realized, but then the rest of the pieces started clicking into place. "I'm going to kick his ass," he stated, looking around the bar for his friend, unsurprised to find him hitting on some girl across the bar. It figured. "And you," he pointed at Kyle, "are going to help."

"Hell no I'm not. You're both too drunk." Kyle made grabby hands at Foggy's drink but the other man managed to play keep away successfully. "And man, you can't kick the guy's ass for not saying, it's a pretty heavy deal, especially like, right now. I mean, dude, I cover up for a reason, and 'blind's probably enough of a pain in the ass for Matt, 'blind and a mutie'? I mean, dude."

"We lived together for six years!" Foggy retorted, unmoved by Kyle's arguments, "Gonna kick his ass," he paused as more pieces clicked into place. Like that Clint was at that school, too. "And his brother's. Actually, I should get Clint to kick his ass. Then there will be mutual ass-kicking." Perfect!

"You could just tell them that whoever pins the other one gets a free pizza, dude. I mean if you want to watch them just beat each other up." Kyle suggested. "I mean, ima be lucky if they don't kick my ass for outing them. It's kind of a big deal, if they were keeping it on the down low, there's probably good reasons." Like, ninety-nine percent of everyone in the world being bigoted lately, it seemed. "I lived with my parents for fourteen years and... " He shrugged. "I'm not sure my mom ever really got used to it, and my dad... still wants me to move to Jersey and wear a hat all the time sometimes."

"Why would you want to move to Jersey?" Foggy asked, though that was where his parents lived now. He couldn't help the knee-jerk reaction when it came to that state. He was a New Yorker. That's how they rolled. "I need them to beat each other up without rewarding either of them," because watching the brothers was usually hilarious. And insane. "Fucking Murdock."

"Dude I don't. Jersey smells like a fart." Kyle answered. "Tell 'em the loser has to buy you a pizza for not even hinting." And then Kyle'd probably buy another one because he'd outed Matt, and by proxy, Clint. "But don't give 'em too much crap. It's pretty much a survival skill, not telling anyone. I can't even grocery shop at some places, they freak out so bad."

"Ain't right," Foggy lamented, not that he truly understood. It was still ridiculous though to suddenly have to hate people that were born normal and then changed later. Way to offer nice things and then take them away. "Fine then. I'm going to see where Murdocks gotten to. And I'm going to order him shit to eat."

"He's chatting up some chick over at the bar." Kyle pointed towards where he was fairly sure he could hear Matt. "Okay, for serious though, you're not gonna get up tomorrow and have a freak out about Matt or Clint, right? We're cool?"

"Yeah," Foggy agreed, somewhat reluctantly, though he did understand the reasons why, "Yeah, we're cool."