"You were serious before? You think he's a wizard?"

"It's not the technical term, okay, that's just what sounded right at the time."

"Well, this would explain your sky-diving trip to Queens..."

Michaela groans and flops down on Matt's couch, legs sprawled out across the back of it. He's smiling at her, amused, and now that he's gotten the full story from her he's not as tense as he was when she first walked into his apartment. If laughing at her expense gets him in a better mood she's not going to question it; Matt broods enough already, she doesn't want to be one of the many reasons for it.

She hadn't planned on coming here today. Without school she's been taking as many shifts as she can at Cody's and looking for side job because she is in dire need of the extra cash. Consequently, she's had to take step back from going out as Blackout, and it would be weighing more on her conscience if Matt hadn't promised to keep the streets (relatively) safe until she's in a more stable position financially. Really, she'd feel guilty no matter what, but she knows he's been making use of the vigilante buddies club and having Jessica Jones and Luke Cage swing by when he's out of his depth. Or, at least, when she gets him to admit he's out of his depth.

But, anyway, today. No shifts, miraculously, and no villains out running amuck in the streets. This morning she'd been considering the merits of lifting her temporary (and self-imposed) hero ban just for a few hours when Matt called and asked if she wanted to drop by his apartment. Which. Yes, of fucking course, she's wanted to see how the guy lives ever since she learned he's Daredevil. A strange catalyst for the desire, probably, but Matt Murdock, charming blind lawyer, didn't provoke curiosity from her about his home life.

She figures the invitation is out of some misguided attempt at earning back her trust, or, well – misguided in the sense that he thinks he's really lost her trust in the first place. She's not going to dissuade him of that idea just yet, though; he's never been unkind to her, but the extra effort is nice, she's not going to lie to herself.

Matt's apartment isn't – she hadn't had expectations, not really. For one, it's Hell's Kitchen, and no one living here has the means to live luxuriously. At least, not where she and Matt live. So no fantastical daydreams about Matt's secret mansion or anything like that. But it's... nice. Large windows let in an abundance of cheery sunlight, highlighting the open plan of the apartment in a way that doesn't happy in her own place. His kitchen is only sectioned off by the island, and his bedroom's separated from the main living space by a sliding door. There's a staircase in the corner that she's yet to venture up, but otherwise she's seen most of his place and she kind of loves it.

One caveat, though. There is no fucking way he should be able to afford this place on the salary of a lawyer who takes more pro-bono cases than he does paying ones.

Apparently at night the signs across the street (neon and ostentatious even in the daylight) are unbearable, but hey, that's not much of a problem for Matt, so he gets a sweet apartment at a damn near criminal price.

The situation is amusing to her even though she gets this persistent feeling of guilt about it. Matt doesn't mind, at least, so there's that.

"He did this sparkler thing with his hands," Michaela says, frustrated that she doesn't have a better description of that move yet. She waves her own hands to demonstrate, a little more trusting that Matt will get the gist of the movements. His smile widens a fraction. "Made a circle in the air and I ran right through it, which is how he dropped my ass out over Queens. And the first time I saw him, he had these shields... I thought they were tech at first, holographic armor or something. But with the whole portal deal, I dunno. Magic, man, that's where I'm at right now. Spidey agrees with me, though we're still debating about whether he's more DnD wizard or Harry Potter-esque."

"The lack of a wand probably excludes him from having gone to Hogwarts."

Michaela taps her nose and points at Matt where he's sitting on the armrest of the chair across from her, arms loosely crossed over his chest. She hasn't seen him in casual clothes before, because she doesn't exactly count his black workout gear he wears under the suit, so this has been an exciting time for her. He looks good, no shock there, his t-shirt and jeans somehow elevated to an unreasonably high level of style just by virtue of him wearing them.

Meanwhile Michaela continues to look like a half-starved college student in her ratty hoodie (faded from so many washes she's not sure what band it was originally referencing) and leggings. Life, too, continues to be deeply unfair.

"That's what I've been saying," she mutters, lifting her shoulders a little, not quite a shrug. "I'm pretty sure Spider-Child is just like, stubbornly clinging to Harry Potter because he's still waiting for his Hogwarts letter."

"Aren't we all?" Matt says sagely.

Michaela turns her head, squints at him a little. He cocks a brow, challenging her to say something. How he knows she's squinting is beyond her but he's definitely reading her mood right, because she was two seconds away from asking where Matt keeps his robes and if he's ever tried kicking off with a broom. It'd be frightening, how much information he can get from her without being able to see her, if she didn't find it so damn fascinating.

"Back to my point," Michaela says.

"You've been circling that for a while now," Matt replies. Michaela only wants to smack him a little for his cheek.

Again, life is unfair. Murdock looks cute as hell when he's being a little shit. Somehow the glasses make it worse.

"My point," she grits out, flapping a hand at him, to which he graciously lifts his own, palms out, in a show of surrender, "is that I don't know what the fuck to do with him. I can't give Jessica a good enough description of him for her to find anything substantial on him, let alone track him myself somehow. And now I'm agonizing over the possibility that he's the one targeting Inhumans for whatever goddamn reason someone might do that."

It's not that she hasn't tried to look for him; in between shifts at work, when she's not conked out in inconvenient places in her apartment, she's scouring news sites for anything that might even tangentially relate to him, what she's seen him accomplish. So far all she's gathered is that another person – a guy, younger than her by a couple of years, going to school relatively close by – has gone missing. And she's got nothing.

Spidey's tried talking her into getting the Avengers involved, and she's not exactly opposed to the idea, but. When do you make that call? When is a problem so disastrous that it needs the Avengers to do their avenging?

Also, what is she supposed to do? Text Thor that she's got a situation in Hell's Kitchen? Does he fancy doing a fly-by and lending a mighty, mighty hand? God, she feels like she's gonna break out into hives just thinking about it. Contacting Thor, a literal alien god, with her troubles. She barely survived meeting him the first time, she's not sure she'll be able to pack in all the anxiety and slip into Blackout Mode again just to get through a conversation with him.

And oh, he cannot, under any circumstances, meet Matt.

She'll actually die if that happens, because Thor will have some otherworldly sense and know Matt's the guy she's hopelessly gone on and he'll say something princely and vaguely inappropriate and she'll just up and die from heart failure. Probably from shocking herself, though the jury's out on whether or not it'll be purposeful.

"—chaela? Michaela?"

Michaela blinks, her thoughts suddenly coming to a standstill as it registers that Matt is leaning over her, an arm braced against the back of the couch, his free hand wrapped lightly around the wrist she's unconsciously drawn close to her chest. Her panicked reflection stares back at from his glasses, tinted red and distorted just enough that she absently makes a face at it, startled.

"You with me?" Matt asks, tightening his grip for a moment until she heaves out a slow breath and nods her head. "Can you take a few deep breaths for me? Yeah, just like that, you're doing good, Michaela..."

It takes a couple minutes, but the combination of Matt's presence and her own coping techniques has her breathing easier, enough that she pushes herself upright, careful not to dislodge Matt's hand but silently asking him for some space all the same. He gives it to her easily, dropping down on the couch beside her but deliberately not touching her anywhere besides her wrist. She squeezes her eyes shut, brings her other hand to her cover her mouth. Ugh. She doesn't think superheroes should be getting this many panic attacks, at least not weekly. Once a month, maybe, when the stress of the job creeps up on you while you're like, boiling water for pasta or something. Inserting itself into some mundane task and jacking up your heart rate, clouding your thoughts with what ifs and should have beens.

Not her, though. Noooo Michaela has the good fortune to nearly suffocate herself from hyperventilating at least twice a week these days. Therapy, that's what she needs. If only she could afford a fucking therapist.

"...right," she says eventually, letting the weight of her body sink into the couch, the tension dissipating from her muscles and leaving her sluggish and heavy. Matt's hand on her wrist is more or less holding up her arm at this point, and isn't that sexy of her? "That's a thing you keep having to deal with. I'd apologize but..." She manages to shrug her uncooperative shoulders, though the motion is so minute she's not sure Matt even picks up on it. "It's gonna happen again."

"No need to apologize regardless," he says, quirking the corner of his mouth up. He's rubbing gentle at her pulse point with his thumb and she would tell him to stop, but frankly she doesn't have the energy to deny herself such a small comfort. "I'm not what you'd call a stranger to anxiety. I've had my fair share of attacks, especially when I was younger. After" – he tips his head, lets his glasses slide down his nose a little, and she blinks – "well, after this happened, I had a lot of problems with sensory overload. Took years for me to learn to filter things out, to find a middle ground I could work with."

"Matt... everything I learn about you makes me want to smother you in a blanket."

"The feeling's mutual."

The mental image of Matt (decked out as Daredevil) rolled into a burrito blanket is so wild and nonsensical that Michaela has to laugh, and it's genuine, far from the hysterical outbursts she's been known to let out at times like this. It's a good thing, it means the panic from before is fading from her system, and it has the bonus of getting Matt to smile at her again. Crisis averted, no one's crying. It's a definite win for the vigilante buddy club.

"In all seriousness," Matt says, the sofa not creaking even a little as he shifts, lifting a leg onto the cushion and draping his arm over the top of the backrest. "I know what you're going through, Michaela. You feel helpless and frustrated and angry that you're not doing more, that you can't do more when this guy is operating right under your nose."

She side-eyes him, breathing slowly, half to focus herself and half because he's nailed her so completely she can't even pretend he isn't right about what he's saying. He'd know she's lying anyway, so. Waste of effort, and effort is not a thing she has in spades at the moment. Better to fill the reserves while she has a chance to rest and refute something else down the line.

"You're doing what you can with what you have," Matt goes on, undeterred by her silence. "I'm not going to tell you not to stress yourself out over it, because I'd be an idiot if I said anything like that, but. Well. You've got people on your side, Michaela. And we'll find this guy. We'll stop him. You have my word, alright?"

She nods slightly, turning to bury her face in the backrest, counting her breaths and zeroing in on the warmth of Matt's hand on her skin. Matt doesn't push for a response from her, just sits with her in the quiet of his apartment. He doesn't let go of her and she doesn't move to shake him off.

He has to know about her feelings, right? There's no way he doesn't know, what with the nifty ability to monitor heartbeats and whatever else his super senses pick up on. She's... not as horrified by that thought as she might have been, months ago when they first met. Matt knows – it's not the end of the world. That he probably doesn't feel the same way... it stings a little, sure, but she values his friendship too much to distance herself from him. She'd rather let her feelings gradually run their course and eventually fade, because the last thing she wants to do is make Matt uncomfortable. He knows how she feels and she doubts he can really help that, being attuned to her while they're out together as he is. But she doesn't need to, god forbid, make a move on him, or something equally as mortifying.

Michaela watches Matt for a moment. He's got his gaze turned towards the window, the sunlight slanting across his face and refracting off his glasses. He doesn't look unfocused, his mouth soft and shapeless but not slack, his brows drawn together slightly. She smiles, unbidden, and presses her face a little more firmly into the couch.

She's not even complaining, really. She's got a great friend and nice view. Could be much worse for her.

Well, that's what she's thinking until Matt stiffens suddenly, releasing her wrist to twist around in his seat, angling himself towards the door. She's on alert just as fast, shaking off the lethargy and crawling up behind him, peeking out over his head as though she's going to see what set him off.

"I'm guessing you heard something?" she whispers, half hoping it's just a gaggle of alley cats making a ruckus outside. Not that she thinks he'd mistake that for a threat, but well, a girl can fantasize, right?

He pauses, raising a brow, before he says, "Yeah... and it's a problem, but not the kind you're thinking of."

"What? The hell does that mean?"

"It means," Matt says on a sigh, leveraging himself up from the couch, "that we're about to have company."

Company? Michaela stares at the wall that hides the door from her view, uncomprehending. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Matt shrug on a sweater (his apartment does have something of a draft, which is pretty much its only flaw that she's seen so far) and grab his cane from where it rests against the kitchen counter. She wants to get a clear answer out of him about what she should expect, but she's beaten to the proverbial punch by a knock on the door.

Okay. Bad guys don't knock, in her experience. She mentally lowers the threat rating, which hadn't gone down even with Matt's assurance that it's nothing terrible.

"I'm sorry in advance," he says, which – why? And then he's rounding the corner and she hears him unlocking and opening the door, and—

"Matt! What the hell? I've been trying to call you for hours, man, you can't just go radio silent like that, you know—"

"I'm sorry, Foggy, really, I had my phone turned off. Wasn't thinking."

"Turned off?" a woman asks, clearly perplexed. And yeah, Michaela would be to, considering; Daredevil doesn't turn off his hero burner phone, so it stands to reason that Matt Murdock wouldn't, either. His friends would want to be able to get in touch with him at all times. "That's not like you, Matt. Is everything okay with you?"

Uh, Michaela shouldn't be here for this. Probably. That's Foggy and... Karen? Definitely Karen. Matt doesn't talk about many people besides those two, and if they showed up together it's even more likely that Karen tagged along with Foggy. And Michaela's met Foggy a handful of times in the shop (she saw him pretty recently, actually, once she was recovered enough to start working again), but she doesn't know him. She knows Karen even less, only from stories passed on by Matt and Foggy and through Foggy's dodgy attempt to describe her one time when Michaela got curious and couldn't resist.

This was back when she was convinced Matt and Karen were a thing and it's not her proudest moment, okay? She has regrets. A lot of regrets. So many regrets.

"I appreciate you guys checking in, but there's nothing for you to worry about," Matt's saying, and Michaela recognizes that tone, oh, that's a bad choice on his part. He's an excellent liar when he wants to be but that tone is one hundred percent bullshit, and Foggy's his best friend.

"I call bullshit."

Bingo. Damn, Matt, what a rookie mistake. She can't help snickering to herself, clapping both hands over her mouth so as not to draw attention, but she must not be quick enough with it because the conversation by the door shudders to a halt at her interruption. She swears she hears Matt sigh, but it's lost in the commotion of Foggy and Karen bustling past him into the main room, both of them wide-eyed and looking somewhat shell-shocked.

Michaela waves like a dork. "Hey, Foggy. Uh, it's Karen, right? Foggy's description of you didn't do you justice, but he got the pretty blonde part down pat, at least."

Karen lifts both brows and looks sidelong at Foggy, who studiously ignores her eyes on him and instead gapes at Michaela, as though her being in Matt's apartment (dressed as slovenly as she is) does not compute for him. And, well. Foggy only knows her as the awkward cashier at Cody's who probably stares a little too long at Matt when they come in together; that doesn't translate into her having some sort of relationship with Matt, one that he hasn't told his best friend about.

Ooh. Poor Matt. Foggy's gonna be pissed at him for this... betrayal, for lack of a better word.

"That's me," Karen says at last, breaking the collective (and unpleasant) silence just as Matt is coming back from re-locking the door. "Karen Page, I used to work with Matt and Foggy at their firm."

Michaela blinks. "Used to?" She glances at Matt, which. Stupid, he's blind, he's not supposed to know when she's looking at him. He's been at this a long time, though, so he doesn't show any indication that he's aware of her gaze, just tilts his head in Karen's general direction, leaning back against the wall, his cane held loosely in both hands.

Karen smiles as she steps forward, shaking Michaela's hand in short order before she lowers herself down onto the armchair Matt had been sort of using earlier. "Uh-huh. I write for the Bulletin, now, though I still help them gather information for their cases when they need it."

"You're a journalist?" Michaela has to remind herself not to cringe; not all journalists are dicks, she knows that, objectively. She's just had a shitty first-hand experience with them so far. Not to mention what Spidey goes through all the time. But then something clicks for her. "Oh, wait. Karen Page? You wrote that piece about heroes, right? I loved that! I sent it to my friend in Queens and—"

Well, she's not going to come out and say that she and Spidey gushed about the damn thing, overwhelmed by the thought that someone out there in the journalistic community actually approved of what they were doing, rather than putting out piece after piece merely belittling the work vigilantes have done. And, okay, it wasn't about vigilantes, necessarily; Karen made it a point to say that everyone has the capacity to be a hero, whether or not they possesses amazing powers. But it felt like validation when Michaela read it and she is sorely lacking in that department, so she took Karen Paige's words to heart, took the comfort she could, even from a stranger.

She kind of wants to whistle, though, like they do on TV all the time. Small world, huh?

Karen's looking pleased with herself, if a little embarrassed, her cheeks tinged red and her smile bitten back. She shakes her head, looks at Michaela with the kindest eyes she's ever seen. Fuck, no wonder all Foggy got out about her was that she's pretty and blonde. He could've mentioned the eyes, though, Jesus, Michaela hates being blindsided by pretty people. It's like Matt all over again.

"Yeah, that was also me," Karen says, her hands fidgeting in her lap. "I got a good response from that piece, I'm proud of it, so I'm happy to hear it resonated with you and your friend."

Michaela laughs, the sound almost startled out of her. Oh, if only Karen knew just how much it resonated with her and Spidey. She waves a hand at Karen, trying to let her know she's not laughing at her, which she seems to understand, and cranes her neck to mock-glare at Matt. So what if he's not supposed to be able to see it? He'll get the gist from her voice. "Matty, what the fuck? You know I've got that article printed out and hanging on my fridge!"

"It's not like he can see it," Foggy butts in, teasing. And isn't that interesting? That Matt's disability is something he's comfortable with to the point where friendly banter doesn't faze him. She's not surprised, Matt's thick-skinned and he's had years to come to terms with his blindness, and it's not really a hinderance at this point, but. It says something about his friendship with Foggy, and she has to bite back a smile of her own thinking about it, the ease with which these two operate around each other.

"That's not an excuse! I told him I put it up there!"

"You did," Matt agrees, smirking as he makes use of the cane to cross back over to the couch and take his seat beside her again. "I'm sorry, I should have introduced you two sooner. Karen, this is Michaela King. Foggy and I have probably mentioned her once or twice. Michaela, Karen Paige, journalist extraordinaire."

"Matt," she says, half a whine, half a laugh. "That's going a little too far, just say I'm a journalist."

"Karen, come on," Foggy says, finally shaking off the last of his surprise and perching himself on the arm of Karen's chair. "They love you at the Bulletin. You're like, their best journalist in years. Give yourself some credit!"

Karen rolls her eyes and swats at Foggy's arm. "We're not here to talk about me. We're... Well, we came to see how Matt was doing, but I don't think we were worrying for the right reasons." Her smile turns sly as she looks back at Michaela, who swallows reflexively, her hands clenching around the fabric of her sweatshirt's hem. "How long have you two...?"

"Uh," is Michaela's oh-so elegant response. "We're, ya know, not—"

"You don't have to pretend with us, Michaela," Foggy says, all smiles, and Michaela's heart drops right into her stomach. Oh, god, she knows she just got through telling herself she's fine with Matt knowing she likes him, but that doesn't mean she wants to hear it laid out by a third party. "This guy has all the luck with women, I swear."

"Foggy, you have a girlfriend. From what you've told me, a beautiful one at that. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here."

"No point! Just congratulating the happy couple—"

"Except we're not a couple?"

Michaela's voice comes out small and withered, but it gets their attention, the three of them (Matt included) swiveling their heads to look at her. She swallows again, fingers cinching tighter around her hoodie. "Sorry to disappoint," she says with a lopsided smile, shrugging. "But Matt and I are friends, that's all. I'm, uh." Fuck. "You know. Here on friendly business only." Fuck if she knows what friendly business entails, but it's all her frantic brain can spit out at the moment.

Karen's expression softens, and it occurs to Michaela that Matt's not the only who'd be able to see right through her, metaphorically or otherwise. Foggy, however, just blinks at her, switching his gaze between her and Matt in confusion.

"Really?" Foggy asks, looking directly at Matt. Matt isn't looking at him, his head turned enough that his glasses are pointing somewhere in the vicinity of Karen, but the tight lines around his mouth are evidence that he's very much aware that Foggy's speaking to him. "I'm not trying to push here," Foggy adds with a glance at Michaela, who smiles sheepishly on impulse, "but, uh. You know what, Matt, come with me for a sec."

And with that, Foggy crosses the room and snags Matt by the elbow, leading him into Matt's bedroom and sliding the door shut behind them.

If Michaela strains her ears she can just make out the hushed cadence of their voices, but she doesn't exactly want to hear what's being said, so she lets herself drift back from that heightened awareness and instead looks at Karen, who's rolling her eyes again and crossing her legs as she leans back in her seat. She offers Michaela a sympathetic expression.

"They've been friends a long time," she says, and Michaela nods. She doesn't know the whole story there, but she knows they've known each other at least since they started law school together. "Foggy can get... kind of bull-headed if he thinks Matt's being an idiot about something. It happens more often than you might think," she adds, her teeth flashing in a warm, fond smile.

Michaela is not equipped to hold up against such an onslaught, and she slumps back in her own seat, releasing the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "I'm not used to people calling me out on my bullshit like that," she admits, because it's true. Emmett isn't going to do it, and she isn't all that close with anyone from her college classes, all of them much younger than her and therefore not really people she wants to get to know on a more personal level. Spidey and Matt aren't super indulgent with her or anything, but, well. They all give each other breaks because of the whole superhero thing, so she doesn't think she gets chided as much as she probably should. "Not that I think Matt has bullshit to be called out on right now, but."

"Well, no one's going to convince Foggy of that, so we might as well let them talk things out for a while." She smiles again. "How about we get to know each other? Foggy's mentioned you work at Cody's?"

Michaela returns the smile as best she can, trying to ignore her rapid pulse beating in her ears, striking a discordant rhythm with the rushing of her blood. Why she's so fucking nervous, she doesn't know. This is friends teasing each other about crushes, and in this case it's about a crush that doesn't exist. She shouldn't rile herself up over the consequences of Foggy's chat with Matt, but.

Ugh. She hates her brain so fucking much.

"Yeah, I work there, and I'm kinda also working a side job as an amateur graphic designer. I've been helping people design websites since the summer started and I finished with classes for the semester."

"Where are you going to school?"

The conversation is stilted, mostly on Michaela's end, but Karen's polite questions at least manage to distract her from the fact that twenty minutes have passed without either Matt or Foggy leaving the room. Twenty minutes. What the fuck. What could they possibly be talking about that it takes them twenty minutes to hash things out?

"So, uh." Michaela grimaces, then pastes a passable smile onto her face as she looks up at Karen. "You seeing anyone right now? I kinda thought you and Matt..."

She blinks, probably in shock because that question definitely came out of left field and Michaela is a full-blown idiot all on her own. Fuck. Why is she like this, why can't she keep her mouth shut? This is another Thor situation except she can't just have cool, smooth Blackout hijack her brain and take control of the conversation. Karen doesn't need to see her do a one-eighty with her personality, not when her first impression of Michaela can't be that favorable already.

"Oh, wow," Karen says, and she's... laughing? She covers her mouth with her hand, but she's laughing alright, her shoulders shaking with it, even. Michaela is just a little dumbfounded. "We tried, me and Matt, but, uh, no. Turns out we're not really each other's type."

"And you're still friends?"

"Of course," Karen says, grinning. "Matt's hard not to like, and we didn't end things on bad terms. We just... realized we didn't fit quite right."

Huh. Michaela can't say she's ever parted amicably with any of her partners over the years, but then again, she's never had we didn't fit quite right as a reason for breaking up. That time in high school might've qualified, but... hm. No, that guy was just a douche who didn't want to come across as a douche. Thinking back on it, she really hasn't been lucky in the romance department, has she?

Stands to reason that's not going to change any time soon.

"That's, uh." Michaela is struggling. Just. There's no other word for it. Everything about this situation is a struggle. "I'm glad you two didn't, ya know, end up hating each other."

Alright, Thor, now would be a really good time to try some smiting.

But Karen just laughs again. "We had a rough patch but that... wasn't strictly related to our relationship," she says, her pleasant expression cracking slightly, mouth flickering between a smile and a frown. She settles on the smile, though. "Like I said, Matt's hard not to like."

"Yeah, that I can agree with." Michaela's liked the guy since he came into Cody's, despite how stubborn he was about his change. "He's a good guy, through and through."

At that, Karen's smile widens. "He is." She pauses, cups her hand over her mouth for a moment, then adds, soft, "You know, I think you'd be good for him."

And they're back to this incomprehensible conversation. "I'm sorry?" Shit, that's kind of rude; Michaela back-peddles instinctively. "I mean, uh, you don't really know me?" That is, by far, the least understandable thing about this – Karen literally just met her. She's seen Michaela interact with Matt for a grand total of five minutes.

"Technically true," Karen concedes, still smiling. "But I've seen how Matt's changed over the last few months. That wasn't me or Foggy, and I've been wondering who else he's been spending his time with. If that was you..." She trails off but she doesn't need to finish. Or, Michaela would like her to finish, but that's only because she wants it said out loud, so there's no room for misinterpretation.

"Right," she says, for lack of anything more eloquent. "Okay, sure... thank you?"

Karen might have something to say that (what, Michaela doesn't know, she's not giving much to warrant a response) but she's cut off by the door to Matt's bedroom opening. Foggy emerges first, his suit rumpled in a way that suggests he was gesturing quite a lot, and then Matt, with an expression Michaela finds difficult to read. Michaela makes the executive decision not to question anything else today – if Matt and Foggy fought, that's their business, and hell if she's going to pry.

(Or, just as likely, she's a coward who really doesn't want to bring things to a head with Matt after her heart-to-heart with Karen, but that thought isn't leaving her head, so oh fucking well)

She does, however, shoot Foggy a curious look. He shrugs at her, then flops down onto the arm of Karen's chair again, loudly declaring that he's ordering pizza and anyone who asks for pineapples is getting tossed out.

Matt – politely – reminds Foggy that this isn't his apartment, to which Foggy – maturely – lobs a pillow at him. Matt doesn't dodge, so it smacks him clear across the face, and Michaela can't help it, okay, she's only (sort of) human: she fucking howls with laughter, doubling over in her seat when she catches sight of the deliberately neutral expression Matt's etched across his features.

"Well," Matt says, ignoring Michaela completely as he bends down to retrieve the pillow, fumbling for it for a moment (and doing one hell of an acting job, Michaela sees awards in his future) before he rights himself, the pillow tucked under one arm. "Sounds like Foggy's just volunteered to pay for dinner."

"Thanks, Foggy," Karen chirps, unabashedly delighted.

"Oh, no," Foggy says, lunging from the chair again and grabbing for the pillow. Matt, laughing to himself, holds his cane out as a barrier, which Foggy grumbles over but doesn't cross. "Oh, no, what? I didn't agree to that! There was no verbal agreement! No verbal agreement, no contract, Murdock!"

"Call it a punitive punishment for your crimes, then."

"Crimes? I threw a pillow—"

"At a blind man," Karen cuts in, but she's laughing almost as hard as Michaela, so the words are a breathy mess that Michaela only barely understands. Matt hears, though, judging by the smirk on his face.

"That's assault," he says pointedly.

Foggy does pay for the pizza, in the end, though Michaela does offer to pay for her share. She's not sure what look Matt gives Foggy to have him turn her down, but she makes sure to glare at him when the others aren't looking, and he just grins at her, boyish and charming and every bit the Matt Murdock she met at Cody's half a year ago. It's... sweet, to see him like this, with mirth curling at the corners of his mouth, laughing at the banter between him and his friends.

Michaela's never needed a reason to try and humanize Daredevil (he's never been anything but achingly human to her), but seeing Matt Murdock with his guard truly down and a smile curling around every word he speaks... she thinks it's rare, this moment, and that she's lucky to be a part of it, however small.