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For all the theological talks with Matt and offhanded remarks about the place over the years, Foggy’s not actually prepared to wake up in Hell.
The pain doesn’t go away when he dies. It’s muffled for a minute, and he thinks Fisk’s men are done with him. His whole body feels like one big bruise, and he can’t move his limbs, and his eye is swelling up and for just a moment, everything feels numb.
Then it comes slamming back, every inch of the pain inflicted on him in this most recent incident and before, older wounds, the sickness from the chemo and the knife going into his belly, a lifetime of his own fear and pain doubling back on him. Memories surface of the Beast, his claws around Foggy’s neck, his sickly sweet breath in Foggy’s face as he speaks with Matt’s mouth. I want the pleasure of killing this whining little maggot myself!
The smell here is the same. Sulfur and burnt sugar. Broken promises and broken bones. There’s really no question where he is when he opens his eyes to the craggy burned-out landscape beyond the iron bars.
Above him, the Beast looms. “ Welcome home, Franklin ,” he laughs, and for a second Foggy is so pissed off he forgets to be scared. After everything? After fucking everything, this is his end? Murdered by Fisk’s men for representing Luke Cage, beaten to death and then damned to Hell? It isn’t fair. It feels so stupid, to have survived everything he’s survived and wound up here anyway.
The Beast taunts him, and Foggy lets his mind wander, wishing he had a robe or something to cover up. It’s awkward and undignified, standing here naked.
It becomes more awkward when he realizes he isn’t alone in his cage.
There’s a question people like to ask, usually just to make conversation— if you could have a dinner party with any five people, dead or alive, who would it be?
Foggy finds himself trapped in Hell with the President of the United States, the Prime Ministers of Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom, and Matt’s former mentor Stick. He thinks, hysterically, You’ve heard of the Five People You Meet in Heaven. Well, here’s the five you meet in Hell.
There are more than five, of course, but nobody’s up for much conversation. “They got you too, huh?” Stick says to him. “Shame.” He doesn’t say much more. As far as Foggy can tell, this cage is basically a who’s who of world leaders. And Foggy. And Stick. If you have sway on a global scale— or if you have sway over Matthew Murdock— you ended up here.
He starts to worry that he’ll see Kirsten or Elektra wind up here, but he never does.
Time doesn’t really make sense down here, but there’s a clear beginning. And in the beginning, all Foggy feels is angry and scared. He’s not being physically tortured, at least, which feels like a plus. But there’s no way to get out from beyond the bars, and it’s easy to let the despair consume him and fuzz out his mind.
And then he starts to feel it.
He starts to feel his body.
It’s like a phantom limb, but worse. He has the vague impression of his arms and legs moving, walking around. He feels the ache and snap of his jaw as words are pushed out. He feels the cold fingers of the Hand digging through his memories, finding the right words to say.
Of course. This wasn’t just about killing him. That would be too easy.
The Hand is using his body and his mind to get to Matt.
He sits hunched in the corner of the cage, eyes shut, trying to feel what his body is feeling. He only manages brief glimpses, like trying to tune into a radio station that’s too far away. This is my fault, Foggy , he hears Matt say. You’re not leaving my side , he hears Matt say.
It isn’t me , he wants to scream, wants to grab Matt and shake him and make him realize that he’s talking to a puppet. It’s horrible, his soul severed from his body, desperate to stop his skin from walking around and smiling and talking like Foggy Nelson. Dammit, Matt, it isn’t me. It isn’t me.
You know me better than anyone , he wants to shout. You have to be able to hear that I’m not right, to smell it.
With every day, he grows more and more terrified that the phantom aches might eventually allow him to feel Matt’s throat crushed between his hands, or something equally bad. It’s almost a relief when the truth finally comes out. He catches it coming through, staticky and distant. Fisk never does anything in half measures , his mouth says. You know this. Those men… they killed me .
He watches as well as he can as Matt breaks down, pleas spilling from split lips. No. No, no, no, you can’t…
Foggy feels the thing that isn’t him dissolve into smoke and ash, and he’s relieved. At least this way, nothing that looks like him can hurt Matt anymore. He’s still in Hell. But now the only one suffering for it is him. And that’s bearable.
He sits with his knees pulled to his chest and listens with detached interest as the world leaders all try to work out how this happened to them, and who’s responsible. Most of them want to blame the Krakoans. There’s a moment where Foggy thinks about speaking up in defense of mutant rights, and then a moment where it occurs to him that he has quite literally a captive audience of the most powerful people in the world. He could bend every ear in his place. Matt went through the arduous process of appealing his way up to the Supreme Court but Foggy has the President right here in front of him.
And he says nothing. He sits and tries to block them out. He waits for Matt.
Because Matt is coming to get him. He knows it, like he knows the sun still rises and the stars still shine, even if he can’t see them from down here. He knows that Matt knows where he is now. And nothing on Heaven and Earth will stop him from coming to Hell.
Much as he wants Matt to be safe, Foggy can’t find it in himself to wish Matt would stay away. He tries to make himself believe that it isn’t selfish, the desire to be rescued. After all, it’s bigger than him. There are so many people trapped here. When Matt comes to save him, he’ll be saving all of them, too.
But they aren’t the souls he’s walking into Hell for.
Foggy is.
When he finally hears the sounds of a scuffle, when he finally peers through the bars and sees Matt , it feels too good to be true. Matt’s dressed differently, all in white like an avenging angel. “M-Matt,” Foggy chokes out, mouth dry. “Is that really you ?”
Matt shouts his name, and Foggy loves him so much it could burn him right out.
“I knew you’d come,” Foggy says, faith pulsing through the shreds of his soul. “You always do.”
Kirsten asked him once why he keeps going back to Matt. They’ve been through so much, so many arguments and betrayals and losses. Foggy has fired him, has deleted his phone number, has cut ties with him professionally and personally. He always comes back. He never gives up all the way, not really. Not even when he probably should.
It’s because Matt doesn’t give up on him, either.
It’s because Matt could burn every bridge he had and he would still walk through the fire for Foggy.
It’s because Matt might not show up to court in time for an important case, but he’ll wade through nauseating chemical fumes in a hospital just to sit by his side. And he’ll fight through the Beast’s realm to bring him back home.
When Matt was possessed, when Foggy climbed up a rooftop to get to him, only for the Beast to mock him and spit in his face and lift him up with a hand on his throat, Foggy had called out for Matt.
And Matt had answered.
The Beast couldn’t separate them back then, and he can’t do it now.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Matt promises, his voice rough.
And then Foggy watches as everything gets worse, and weirder. Apparently, the Beast has a sister just as terrible. Apparently, Matt has been unknowingly serving her. Apparently, destroying the Beast was her plan all along.
Matt sinks to the ground in despair, his hands covering his face as the awful, undulating form of the Wild fills up the immense cavern, her mocking laughter ringing through the sulfurous air. It’s hopeless. Foggy can see it all pressing down on Matt. He looks so small, kneeling in defeat.
Foggy takes a breath. Then he holds out his hand. “Matt. It’s going to be okay,” he says, believing it only because he has to. Believing in Matt Murdock only because he’s never known how to stop.
Matt looks up, tears gleaming on his face, and then he rips the bars of the cage, setting all the souls free. Foggy sags into his arms, clutching at his best friend tightly and feeling the solid weight of Matt’s arms wrapping around him. “I’ve got you, Foggy,” he promises, voice thick with tears. “Let’s go home.”
Foggy starts running, herding everyone up the rough-hewn steps along with Stick. And Matt…
Matt doesn’t follow.
“Leave him be, kid,” Stick says, but Foggy can’t. How can he? After everything… Leaving Matt behind feels as wrong as staying in Hell felt.
Matt fights, and wins, and loses anyway. He yells at Foggy to run, and Foggy feels his feet rooted to the ground. He screams Matt’s name, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t fix anything. Hell shatters around Matt, and he’s falling down. He yells again to run, and this time Foggy listens, telling himself that Matt is right behind him. Telling himself that he can lead Matt out of Hell.
He runs, makes it to the top of the sloping archway out of Hell, and then he looks back.
Matt didn’t make it.
He stands too far away, stranded on a jagged brimstone outcropping, his hand outstretched as if he could bridge the gap between them. Foggy screams his name, and the sound gets swallowed up as everything left of the Beast’s realm crumbles to ash. He’s still staring as everything falls away, and there’s nothing left but a dark, empty cave.
Matt is gone.
The suddenness of it— seeing Matt again, being rescued, only to leave Matt behind— it breaks something in Foggy. He emerges from the cave and collapses to his knees, tears streaming down his face. He wanted so badly to escape. He always assumed that Matt would be with him when he did.
He weeps, and then he feels Sam Chung lay a blanket around his shoulders.