So, I stole ideas from everybody here and I even stole stuff from the comics (vol 3 #33 specifically). I meant to write something nice and I think it came out angsty and creepy so, sorry? I hope you enjoy anyways :D
Foggy gets the call he’s been dreading.
“Is this Mr. Franklin Nelson?” A woman asks as soon as Foggy answers his phone.
“Speaking,” Foggy replies, heartbeat starting to ramp up.
“There’s been an issue with your partner,” the mysterious woman says without much emotion besides urgency.
“An issue?” Foggy asks faintly, scenarios running through his mind of what Matt has gotten himself into now, each one worse than the last.
“Someone is on their way to you right now,” the woman continues, all business. “Please wait outside your building.”
Foggy pulls the phone from his face to double check that yup, she hung up on him.
It’s a bit of a whirlwind from that point on. Foggy gets picked up by a black car and tinted windows. He tries to talk to whoever is sitting in the front but they won’t lower the divider and Foggy hopes he isn’t being kidnapped by somebody nefarious because let’s face it, he’s being kidnapped by somebody despite his willingness to go.
They arrive at the Avengers Tower and that answers a lot, actually. He shuffles into the lobby by himself and is a bit startled the whole floor is crisp white and glass and not a single other person occupies it. Elevator doors open at the other end and Foggy enters. There are no buttons, no display to tell him how high in the air he’s going. The ride eventually stops on a floor just as white as the lobby but with a more chemical smell.
“Mr. Nelson, I presume?” the woman who called him earlier asks, her voice very distinct.
Foggy takes a tentative step out of the elevator and nods. The woman has fiery red hair and a very intense face.
“Please, follow me,” she says instead of introducing herself like Foggy hoped she would. She leads him down the hall, past empty glass rooms, until they reach a room bustling with people in scrubs and superhero costumes alike.
“What?” Foggy asks as he catches a look at Matt on the hospital bed, wires connected to various parts of his body, an oxygen mask tightly strapped to his face. Foggy feels his blood leave his face and he kind of wants to collapse to the floor at the sight.
“Mr. Nelson,” says a man with curly hair and a doctor’s coat. “I’m glad you’re here, we need-“
“What happened?” Foggy demands and ignores the irritation on the doctor’s face.
“You partner, he was-“
“Matt,” Foggy interrupts again. “His name is Matt.”
“Right,” the doctor tries once more. “Your partner – Matt – he was severely injured while helping us on a mission and we’re doing the best we can for him but…”
Foggy stares, pretty sure his eyes are bulging, as the doctor trails off.
“But what?” He asks, a bit hysterical. “Is Matt going to be okay?”
A hand falls on Foggy’s shoulder, startling him, and it’s the red-headed woman with a softer expression on her face.
“There was some sort of alien. We had called in Dr. Strange to help out. Your friend was passing by and jumped in. Dr. Strange miscalculated an attack and it hit Daredevil in the head.”
“Are you Dr. Strange?” Foggy screeches, turning to the curly haired man who backs away, arms up in surrender.
“That’s Dr. Banner,” the woman supplies.
“Okay, so,” Foggy turns back to her. “Where is Dr. Strange? Get him to fix whatever the hell he did to Matt.”
The look she gives Foggy does not give him any hope for a happy ending.
“The alien managed to incapacitate Dr. Strange and we’ve been unable to wake him.”
“Basically, we’ve managed to determine that your friend is stuck within his own mind and everything we’ve tried so far has not worked.”
“So this is,” Foggy swallows and wipes his sweaty palms on his shirt. “You brought me here to say my goodbyes or-?”
“Oh, God no,” Dr. Banner shakes his head. “We have an idea but we needed someone very close to Daredevil to attempt it.”
“We need you to go into his mind and bring him back,” the woman says and Foggy almost passes out.
Actually, scratch that, he does pass out.
~
“Okay, sorry, you want me to do what?” Foggy asks once he regains consciousness on an empty bed in the room next to Matt’s.
“We need someone Matt trusts to bring him back. In order to bring him back, we need to send someone into his mind.”
Foggy stares at Dr. Banner and Natasha, who was finally properly introduced to him.
“Is that even possible?” Foggy saw this in a sci-fi movie once. And on Star Trek, he’s pretty sure. Or maybe it was Stargate. Either way, it’s science fiction not science truth.
“Yes,” Dr. Banner says calmly like he’s had this conversation, or a similar conversation, many times. “We need to send you in right away, though, if we have any hope of this working.
Foggy freezes. He doesn’t think Matt would really like anyone poking around in his brain – he was an onion with secret layer after secret layer. But a little more sweet. Maybe more of a trifle or layer cake than an onion. Matt would probably like to live, though, no matter what.
Sighing, Foggy nods.
“Hook me up, doc.”
~
Foggy opens his eyes to a hallway. It’s dingy and not well-lit and Foggy frowns. It’s more gray scale than anything and a light halfway down is flickering too fast. He doesn’t really understand how anything works here – he’s in Matt’s brain for freak’s sake – but his eyes water as he stares at the light until he can’t stare any more.
Instead, he turns his attention to the doors lining the hall. They’re all a muddy brown with a brass handle. They’re all shut tight and Foggy sighs. Of course Matt would have his brain all closed up into neat spaces.
Foggy makes his way to the first door on his left. He tentatively touches the handle, expecting to get burned or shocked or something for daring to trespass into someone’s personal thoughts. But nothing happens. It’s just a regular door knob.
With baited breath, Foggy turns the handle, swings the door inwards, and is startled by the salty and humid air assaulting Foggy’s senses. He just opened a door to a beach. He stumbles through the doorway and into sand which fills up all the spaces between his toes and burns his soles. Foggy stares down – he’s barefooted when he he definitely had shoes on only moments before. The mind works in mysterious ways, he assumes.
Continuing on his path, further into the beach world, Foggy glances back to see just a doorframe with a wide open door in the middle of nowhere. Sand goes for miles. Foggy turns back to where he was heading – towards water and jagged rocks. He stops as he sees two figures standing at the edge of the water, waves lapping lazily at their feet.
“You know I’m not really Foggy Nelson?” one of the figures asks, a much older gentleman than the other.
“I don’t know what Foggy Nelson looks like,” the smaller figure, a child, says.
Foggy, the real one, creeps forward to get a better look. The child is wearing a suit, holding a cane, with circular red glasses on – it’s Matt but Matt at nine years old in current Matt’s attire.
“Evidently, you remind me of the grocer my Dad bought from,” the child – Matt – continues saying as the older gentlemen walks straight into ocean, for it must be an ocean as the water stretches out to the horizon.
“I miss being a kid,” the gentleman offhandedly mentions as he takes more steps into the water until it’s reaching his chest.
“Foggy, where are you going? Foggy?” Matt cries, rocking on the spot. “Foggy, come back! I can’t move! I’m trying! But I can’t move!”
The real Foggy bites his lip to keep any sounds he may want to make in. It’s heart wrenching, watching this child version of his Matt screaming his name, crying for him to come back. The older gentleman glances back at child Matt for a brief second before his head disappears underneath the water.
“Foggy!” Matt screams. The real Foggy chokes back a sob and starts retracing his steps out of there. His last image is of child Matt, finally able to move, collapsing to the sand, sobs wracking his entire body.
Foggy slams the door behind him as he returns to the dingy hallway. He stands there, calming his breathing, willing his tears to dry up. Eventually, Foggy manages to compose himself and push himself away from the door and down the hall.
He doesn’t want to look in any more doors if anything similar to that is what’s hiding behind them.
“Do it for Matt,” Foggy whispers as he steels himself and pushes open another door.
A bedroom is revealed and Foggy sags a bit in relief when he sees nobody in there. A bed and a bedside table occupy the room. Curtains over the only window flitter in the breeze as sunshine pours in. On the bedside table sits a plain lamp and a bible. A cross hangs above the bed.
Foggy steps in, eyes searching for anything else that might point to where he is but there’s nothing. No personal effects that he can see. Foggy sits on the bed, runs his fingers over the scratchy bedspread and then reaches for the bible. Something pokes out of the pages.
Curious, Foggy pulls the something out to reveal a photo. Foggy has seen this photo before – only twice, both times in college, both times by accident. The photo he remembers was cracked and worn. This photo is pristine with a couple fingerprint smudges.
Matt, a child, beams up at Foggy from the picture. His face is free of sunglasses – this is pre-accident. Jack Murdock stands beside him, arm wrapped tightly around Matt’s shoulders, grin firmly set in place.
The photo is cropped too close for Foggy to know where the picture was taken. He never asked Matt. Foggy likes to think it was taken at a baseball game, or maybe the zoo – anywhere a father should take his son. He imagines Jack pulling a stranger aside, asking for them to take a picture of him with his son. It’s a beautiful moment captured.
Foggy carefully slides the photograph back into the bible and heads into the hallway. He needs to find Matt. He needs to bring Matt back.
The next couple doors Foggy tries lead him to pitch black or scorching fire. Foggy isn’t brave enough to enter those.
Three doors from the flickering light, Foggy finds a door cracked open. He peers in and sees a carnival. Pushing the door open a bit further, the sounds of screeching children and the smell of elephant ears reach him.
Foggy assumes this is where Matt has gone. It’s been the only door already opened.
He navigates through the crowd of people who part like the red sea for Foggy. It’s odd but very convenient and Foggy isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Things continue to grow odder as Foggy takes notice of the rides around him. In particular, he notices one of the game booths.
“Is that?” Foggy asks, not really believing what he’s seeing.
“Step right up!” The carnie behind the divider calls to Foggy. “Try your hand! Win a Foggy!”
Foggy’s eyes grow even wider as the carnie starts brandishing stuffed toys that are Foggy, in various sizes.
“Knock over three milk bottles, win a large Foggy!” The carnie continues his spiel. “Everybody’s a winner! Everybody wins a Foggy!”
Foggy stumbles as he starts walking away as quickly as he can. He freezes when he comes across the rollercoaster, obviously the main attraction of the park, and there’s Foggy’s face at least a hundred-feet tall covered in lights. People are riding a coaster through his mouth.
A carnival will never look the same to him ever again.
[FILL] Hug-a-Fog (1/2)
Foggy gets the call he’s been dreading.
“Is this Mr. Franklin Nelson?” A woman asks as soon as Foggy answers his phone.
“Speaking,” Foggy replies, heartbeat starting to ramp up.
“There’s been an issue with your partner,” the mysterious woman says without much emotion besides urgency.
“An issue?” Foggy asks faintly, scenarios running through his mind of what Matt has gotten himself into now, each one worse than the last.
“Someone is on their way to you right now,” the woman continues, all business. “Please wait outside your building.”
Foggy pulls the phone from his face to double check that yup, she hung up on him.
It’s a bit of a whirlwind from that point on. Foggy gets picked up by a black car and tinted windows. He tries to talk to whoever is sitting in the front but they won’t lower the divider and Foggy hopes he isn’t being kidnapped by somebody nefarious because let’s face it, he’s being kidnapped by somebody despite his willingness to go.
They arrive at the Avengers Tower and that answers a lot, actually. He shuffles into the lobby by himself and is a bit startled the whole floor is crisp white and glass and not a single other person occupies it. Elevator doors open at the other end and Foggy enters. There are no buttons, no display to tell him how high in the air he’s going. The ride eventually stops on a floor just as white as the lobby but with a more chemical smell.
“Mr. Nelson, I presume?” the woman who called him earlier asks, her voice very distinct.
Foggy takes a tentative step out of the elevator and nods. The woman has fiery red hair and a very intense face.
“Please, follow me,” she says instead of introducing herself like Foggy hoped she would. She leads him down the hall, past empty glass rooms, until they reach a room bustling with people in scrubs and superhero costumes alike.
“What?” Foggy asks as he catches a look at Matt on the hospital bed, wires connected to various parts of his body, an oxygen mask tightly strapped to his face. Foggy feels his blood leave his face and he kind of wants to collapse to the floor at the sight.
“Mr. Nelson,” says a man with curly hair and a doctor’s coat. “I’m glad you’re here, we need-“
“What happened?” Foggy demands and ignores the irritation on the doctor’s face.
“You partner, he was-“
“Matt,” Foggy interrupts again. “His name is Matt.”
“Right,” the doctor tries once more. “Your partner – Matt – he was severely injured while helping us on a mission and we’re doing the best we can for him but…”
Foggy stares, pretty sure his eyes are bulging, as the doctor trails off.
“But what?” He asks, a bit hysterical. “Is Matt going to be okay?”
A hand falls on Foggy’s shoulder, startling him, and it’s the red-headed woman with a softer expression on her face.
“There was some sort of alien. We had called in Dr. Strange to help out. Your friend was passing by and jumped in. Dr. Strange miscalculated an attack and it hit Daredevil in the head.”
“Are you Dr. Strange?” Foggy screeches, turning to the curly haired man who backs away, arms up in surrender.
“That’s Dr. Banner,” the woman supplies.
“Okay, so,” Foggy turns back to her. “Where is Dr. Strange? Get him to fix whatever the hell he did to Matt.”
The look she gives Foggy does not give him any hope for a happy ending.
“The alien managed to incapacitate Dr. Strange and we’ve been unable to wake him.”
“Basically, we’ve managed to determine that your friend is stuck within his own mind and everything we’ve tried so far has not worked.”
“So this is,” Foggy swallows and wipes his sweaty palms on his shirt. “You brought me here to say my goodbyes or-?”
“Oh, God no,” Dr. Banner shakes his head. “We have an idea but we needed someone very close to Daredevil to attempt it.”
“We need you to go into his mind and bring him back,” the woman says and Foggy almost passes out.
Actually, scratch that, he does pass out.
~
“Okay, sorry, you want me to do what?” Foggy asks once he regains consciousness on an empty bed in the room next to Matt’s.
“We need someone Matt trusts to bring him back. In order to bring him back, we need to send someone into his mind.”
Foggy stares at Dr. Banner and Natasha, who was finally properly introduced to him.
“Is that even possible?” Foggy saw this in a sci-fi movie once. And on Star Trek, he’s pretty sure. Or maybe it was Stargate. Either way, it’s science fiction not science truth.
“Yes,” Dr. Banner says calmly like he’s had this conversation, or a similar conversation, many times. “We need to send you in right away, though, if we have any hope of this working.
Foggy freezes. He doesn’t think Matt would really like anyone poking around in his brain – he was an onion with secret layer after secret layer. But a little more sweet. Maybe more of a trifle or layer cake than an onion. Matt would probably like to live, though, no matter what.
Sighing, Foggy nods.
“Hook me up, doc.”
~
Foggy opens his eyes to a hallway. It’s dingy and not well-lit and Foggy frowns. It’s more gray scale than anything and a light halfway down is flickering too fast. He doesn’t really understand how anything works here – he’s in Matt’s brain for freak’s sake – but his eyes water as he stares at the light until he can’t stare any more.
Instead, he turns his attention to the doors lining the hall. They’re all a muddy brown with a brass handle. They’re all shut tight and Foggy sighs. Of course Matt would have his brain all closed up into neat spaces.
Foggy makes his way to the first door on his left. He tentatively touches the handle, expecting to get burned or shocked or something for daring to trespass into someone’s personal thoughts. But nothing happens. It’s just a regular door knob.
With baited breath, Foggy turns the handle, swings the door inwards, and is startled by the salty and humid air assaulting Foggy’s senses. He just opened a door to a beach.
He stumbles through the doorway and into sand which fills up all the spaces between his toes and burns his soles. Foggy stares down – he’s barefooted when he he definitely had shoes on only moments before. The mind works in mysterious ways, he assumes.
Continuing on his path, further into the beach world, Foggy glances back to see just a doorframe with a wide open door in the middle of nowhere. Sand goes for miles. Foggy turns back to where he was heading – towards water and jagged rocks. He stops as he sees two figures standing at the edge of the water, waves lapping lazily at their feet.
“You know I’m not really Foggy Nelson?” one of the figures asks, a much older gentleman than the other.
“I don’t know what Foggy Nelson looks like,” the smaller figure, a child, says.
Foggy, the real one, creeps forward to get a better look. The child is wearing a suit, holding a cane, with circular red glasses on – it’s Matt but Matt at nine years old in current Matt’s attire.
“Evidently, you remind me of the grocer my Dad bought from,” the child – Matt – continues saying as the older gentlemen walks straight into ocean, for it must be an ocean as the water stretches out to the horizon.
“I miss being a kid,” the gentleman offhandedly mentions as he takes more steps into the water until it’s reaching his chest.
“Foggy, where are you going? Foggy?” Matt cries, rocking on the spot. “Foggy, come back! I can’t move! I’m trying! But I can’t move!”
The real Foggy bites his lip to keep any sounds he may want to make in. It’s heart wrenching, watching this child version of his Matt screaming his name, crying for him to come back. The older gentleman glances back at child Matt for a brief second before his head disappears underneath the water.
“Foggy!” Matt screams. The real Foggy chokes back a sob and starts retracing his steps out of there. His last image is of child Matt, finally able to move, collapsing to the sand, sobs wracking his entire body.
Foggy slams the door behind him as he returns to the dingy hallway. He stands there, calming his breathing, willing his tears to dry up. Eventually, Foggy manages to compose himself and push himself away from the door and down the hall.
He doesn’t want to look in any more doors if anything similar to that is what’s hiding behind them.
“Do it for Matt,” Foggy whispers as he steels himself and pushes open another door.
A bedroom is revealed and Foggy sags a bit in relief when he sees nobody in there. A bed and a bedside table occupy the room. Curtains over the only window flitter in the breeze as sunshine pours in. On the bedside table sits a plain lamp and a bible. A cross hangs above the bed.
Foggy steps in, eyes searching for anything else that might point to where he is but there’s nothing. No personal effects that he can see. Foggy sits on the bed, runs his fingers over the scratchy bedspread and then reaches for the bible. Something pokes out of the pages.
Curious, Foggy pulls the something out to reveal a photo. Foggy has seen this photo before – only twice, both times in college, both times by accident. The photo he remembers was cracked and worn. This photo is pristine with a couple fingerprint smudges.
Matt, a child, beams up at Foggy from the picture. His face is free of sunglasses – this is pre-accident. Jack Murdock stands beside him, arm wrapped tightly around Matt’s shoulders, grin firmly set in place.
The photo is cropped too close for Foggy to know where the picture was taken. He never asked Matt. Foggy likes to think it was taken at a baseball game, or maybe the zoo – anywhere a father should take his son. He imagines Jack pulling a stranger aside, asking for them to take a picture of him with his son. It’s a beautiful moment captured.
Foggy carefully slides the photograph back into the bible and heads into the hallway. He needs to find Matt. He needs to bring Matt back.
The next couple doors Foggy tries lead him to pitch black or scorching fire. Foggy isn’t brave enough to enter those.
Three doors from the flickering light, Foggy finds a door cracked open. He peers in and sees a carnival. Pushing the door open a bit further, the sounds of screeching children and the smell of elephant ears reach him.
Foggy assumes this is where Matt has gone. It’s been the only door already opened.
He navigates through the crowd of people who part like the red sea for Foggy. It’s odd but very convenient and Foggy isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Things continue to grow odder as Foggy takes notice of the rides around him. In particular, he notices one of the game booths.
“Is that?” Foggy asks, not really believing what he’s seeing.
“Step right up!” The carnie behind the divider calls to Foggy. “Try your hand! Win a Foggy!”
Foggy’s eyes grow even wider as the carnie starts brandishing stuffed toys that are Foggy, in various sizes.
“Knock over three milk bottles, win a large Foggy!” The carnie continues his spiel. “Everybody’s a winner! Everybody wins a Foggy!”
Foggy stumbles as he starts walking away as quickly as he can. He freezes when he comes across the rollercoaster, obviously the main attraction of the park, and there’s Foggy’s face at least a hundred-feet tall covered in lights. People are riding a coaster through his mouth.
A carnival will never look the same to him ever again.