A fucking flying car. Named Lola. What the ever-loving fuck.

Michaela slumps back against her door, grateful to feel its solid (if creaky) presence at her back. She nearly sinks to her knees, but this is not where she wants to collapse into a pile of bruises and almost-broken bones. No, that honor goes to her bed, and its evil fucking mattress with the sentient springs that poke and prod at her on a nightly basis. She needs a new... everything, there's really nothing in her apartment that isn't secondhand (or third, or fourth, or fifth...), but the mattress needs to go ASAP. It's bad enough she's been trying to nurse her hero-ing wounds by herself, that mattress is undoing all her hard work every night.

With a sigh, Michaela pushes away from the door and drags her feet as she stumbles through her shithole apartment, dodging around the pile of shoes and the baseball bat she keeps by the entryway on memory alone. She doesn't bother turning on the lights; there's no point in it when she could map this place out blindfolded. She spares half a thought to unplugging her laptop from where it sits on the coffee table, then devotes the entirety of her attention to walking the mostly straight line from her armchair to her bed, where she splays out face-down, groaning into her bedsheets as her muscles protests even the temptation of relief.

A flying car. She turns her face against the bed, smooshing her cheek into the blanket and taking the pressure off her swollen eye. They really have a flying car at SHIELD. It seems so – redundant. She was literally on a big ass, super high-tech plane that doubles as that SHIELD team's base of operations, and they just – have this collector's car outfitted with like, jet engines or something. They have quinjets, and yet someone (Coulson, apparently, since he popped up out of nowhere to remind Skye that he's the only one allowed to drive Lola) decided that this was a necessary expense on SHIELD's part.

She wonders idly if Tony Stark knows it exists, and if he does, if he's jealous of it. The guy has a robot suit and an AI butler, but does he have a flying car? Nope. Seems like something he would've built in his spare time and then, like, crashed into a cliff. So maybe Stark did, at some point, have a flying car. Hadn't his dad tried to make one back in the forties, or something? That sounds familiar. Michaela's going with that until she's proven wrong.

God, she's almost glad this medication Simmons gave her is finally wearing off. The fucking tangents she's following in her brain, when they are, none of them, the crux of her concerns. Ugh. The problem is, once the meds are flushed out of her system, she is going to be in agony. Simmons stopped her on her way out with a baggie full of prescription medication she can take to take the edge off her pain, but she's probably going to mainline Advil or Tylenol or whatever because addiction scares the hell out of her, more than death, honestly.

That reminds her – she'd wanted to get blackout drunk when she got in. Well, seeing as she can't even fathom moving a single limb from its current position, that plan has effectively been tossed out the window. She'll drown her sorrows tomorrow, after she's come up with some excuse as to why she can't come into work.

...she'll work on the alcohol thing, she swears. Just – not tomorrow.

Michaela closes her eyes, tucking her arms in close to her chest, rocking a little until she's mostly on her side but still partially on her stomach, knees drawn up slightly. She wishes she had the energy to pull a blanket over her because she hates sleeping without one, even in the summer, but it's not in the cards for tonight. Annoying, but tolerable.

She's on her way to falling asleep when a sound from across the room jolts her back to wakefulness.

She's bolting upright despite the various aches and pains that are making themselves furiously known to her, her hands crackling with intermittent bursts of electricity, and for a moment she curses the fact that that one blast earlier used up so much of her energy. But she doesn't have the time to dwell on it, because that's her window sliding open, and someone ducking inside, what the fuck, didn't she lock that?

Before she can lunge for the intruder, so fucking done with today and not even remotely above zapping their ass back out the window, she hears someone call her name. Her actual, legal name. And that's a voice she'd recognize anywhere.

"Daredevil?" she whispers, her electricity fizzling out in the wake of her confusion. She squints, trying to make out his figure in the ambient lighting streaming in through her window (she also needs those blackout curtains, fuck), and – yeah, that's him alright, complete with eye-catching red suit and devil-horned mask.

"Michaela," he says, a thread of tension in his words that she doesn't immediately understand. And. Oh, wait, did he just—

He starts towards her bed after sliding the window closed behind him, but she. She blinks rapidly for a moment, trying to make sense of this. Daredevil knows her name?"

"Stop," she breathes, her voice suddenly about ten times as hoarse as it had been earlier at SHIELD. He falters, but does as she asks, and she just looks at him, watching him watch her. The tension in his voice is evident in the rest of his body, tight across his shoulders and straining his hands, clenched into fists. He's upset, okay, and – and she can guess why, now, the synapses are firing a little quicker in her brain. She didn't call after all, after everything, and the news must have been a shit show, especially because she and Rodriguez up and disappeared right at the end there.

But none of that explains why he knows her name.

"The fuck," she says, the anger rising bright and hot in her chest, filling up the aching spaces between her ribs with a fire she so very rarely experiences. "What the fuck, man? How do you know who I am?"

"Oh," he says. Just oh, like he hadn't realized what he said. Like the reminder she's giving him is an unwelcome one. Well, fuck that, she wants answers, and she's sure as hell going to get them from him, ninja-skills or not.

"Daredevil. What the fuck. How long have you known? Be honest with me, you fucker, because if not I'm going to- to—" She doesn't even know, what threat can she possibly give that would be remotely convincing? She could never hurt him, she...

"Michaela," he says, and she flinches, which he must be able to see because he lifts his hands in a placating gesture, shaking his head slowly. "Michaela, I swear, you're not in any danger."

And that's so reminiscent of the shit Coulson was trying to sell her that the anger in her chest blossoms into an inferno in about point two seconds.

She's on her feet before she realizes she even wants to move, her pain forgotten for the moment, so overwhelmed by the visceral feeling of betrayal that it all becomes secondary. He doesn't move even as she closes the distance between them, as she gets a hand hooked into the neck of his suit and drags him down so that they're eye-to-eye.

"Give me an explanation right now," she says through gritted teeth, "preferably one that doesn't make me want to murder you in my own damn home."

He still doesn't move. He breathes quietly, utterly still in her hold, and god, she wants to be able to see his eyes, wants his mask off, but she's not going to do that to him even though turnabout is fair fucking play.

"I've known since the first time I met you," he says, quiet, soft, his voice barely more than a low hum in her ears. "The first time I met you as Daredevil, at least."

Her brow furrows. "What does that mean? Do we know each other?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. Here, I'll—" and he takes off the mask.

Michaela can't breathe. The anger's gone as quickly as it came, and she can't breathe with the loss, her hands dropping from his suit and clutching at her own throat as she tries to take a step back and just—the world feels like it drops out from under her, her head is spinning, thoughts whited out into static, every inhale short and broken and the air trapped in her throat and—

Matt Murdock catches her, arms gentle around her, guiding her to the floor without letting her go for a second. She's aware, faintly, of him talking, the words indistinct and meaningless, but low and soothing just the same. She feels a pulse, much steadier than her own, under her fingers and wonders when he pressed them to the side of his neck.

Times slides away from her. It could be seconds or minutes, hours or days before she draws in the first proper breath, sharp and cutting, the ache in her chest expanding for a moment before it dwindles again. She becomes aware of things slowly, incrementally; the heartbeat thudding rhythmically beneath her fingertips first, the hand at her back pressing down in smooth, warm circles second, the voice in her ear, careful and precise and so, so soft last.

"You're alright, you're okay, Michaela. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before now, but you're alright, I promise. You're safe. I've got you, you're not alone, just breathe, that's it, you're doing great, Michaela, just—"

Fuck, she thinks, the second her thoughts aren't beating uselessly at the shores of her overworked, underpaid mind. Fuck, he's Matt. Matt is really Daredevil. How did I never notice? He doesn't change his voice, he—god, he's blind, the fuck, how does he even—

"You're blind," she says, sounding like she's been gargling some horrid mix of rocks and sandpaper. It's insensitive and she knows that, on some level right now, but it's the only coherent thought in her head that she can vocalize.

He goes quiet mid-sentence, though his hand on her back doesn't slow or stop. "I am," he says. "That wasn't a lie. Isn't a lie." He pauses, and she feels his breath against her ear, the side of her neck, ruffling her flyaway hairs. "Most people don't—they don't make the connection," he says. "Karen, she... I saved her once, as Daredevil, and she's known Matt Murdock for months, but she just doesn't see it. Or hear it, maybe. The same voice, the same mannerisms. It's a leap that people don't see any point in making, they—they can't reconcile blind, passive Matt Murdock with Daredevil."

"The... connection," she says, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment as she eases herself back from his chest, which she's been lying against for god knows how long. He lets her go, but keep a cautious grip on her sides. She opens her eyes, looks right at him, and she's... she's never seen him without the glasses, or the mask, and his eyes are so big and brown and they're looking right back at her. Not over her shoulder, or off to the side. "You made it pretty easily with me."

He smiles wryly, his eyes bright with an apology she's already heard him make. "I... I don't know if you've figured it out yet, from our outings together. I'm blind, but my hearing is ridiculously good. It's how I can fight as well as I do, I can track people's movements by the sounds they make, or the absence of sound where I know I should hear something. And I can hear heartbeats, breathing patterns, the faint differences between voices. I can recognize who I'm talking to without having to see them, physically." She feels a squeeze at her sides and can't bear to be upset about it, not with him looking at her like this. "I realized your voice was the same as when I went into Cody's. Your laugh is pretty distinct, too."

"You've known this entire time and didn't... didn't think it was something I should know too?"

He couldn't look more Catholic right now if he had a rosary around his neck, guilt a well-worn mask that slips over his features, darkens his eyes and brings a faint flush to his skin that she barely sees in the dark. Matt doesn't say anything for a moment as he nudges her back slightly, urging her to lean against the bed frame. She does, putting a scant few inches of space between them, and Matt respects that, sitting back on his heels, hands loose between his knees. He breathes in, holds it for a heartbeat.

"I should have told you," he says. "I should have, I know that, and I've known that for months. But at the time, I was worried that telling you I knew Michaela was Blackout meant you'd figure out that Matt Murdock was Daredevil." His mouth quirks into a small, humorless smile. He looks older than he ever has, as either Matt or Daredevil, and despite everything her heart goes out to him. "It was... stupid. Stupid and naïve of me. I didn't want anyone to really know this side of me. I wanted Daredevil to be a completely separate entity, a costume I put on and take off at will. But you know Daredevil better than you know Matt Murdock."

That's true, through she's never had cause to think of it that way before. Matt Murdock is the cute, charming lawyer who sometimes comes into Cody's and regales her with tales of office life, what dumb argument Karen and Foggy got into that morning, what snacks Foggy is craving this week. Daredevil, though, he's a partner, someone she trusts with her life, someone she trusts with the lives of others. Matt is a stranger, one that she enjoys the company of, but a stranger nonetheless. Daredevil... she doesn't quite know what to call Daredevil right now, but he's... important. And more than just because he's pulled her ass out of the fire more times than Michaela can count.

"Daredevil's your dark side, huh?" she asks, and that humorless smile widens a fraction.

"I'm not a very forgiving Catholic, as you may have noticed."

And oh boy, has she noticed.

Even before Michaela hit the genetic lottery and became her own personal phone charger, she read the reports on Daredevil. He saved lives, yeah, but he left bodies behind everywhere he went. He didn't go as far as to kill anyone, but the people he went after, they wound up in the hospital beaten to within an inch of their lives. They weren't – aren't – good people, not by any definition of the word. Rapists, murderers, child traffickers. As far as she's aware, Daredevil has never set his (metaphorical) sights on anyone who hasn't proven themselves to be the scum of the earth. But the police don't like him, don't like his methods or his style, and they never have, not since the beginning.

Daredevil hasn't changed, either.

That night they met, he did more damage than necessary to those gang members, but he prioritized helping her out of the fucking mess she'd made for herself. And they've gone out together on patrol, and she's followed Daredevil into fight after fight, letting him take the lead, because he has more experience, because he has the skills to end fights, not just start them. And it's not like Michaela was ignoring it, she saw him – the violence, the rage. The doubt, that what he was doing was right, that he wasn't making a mistake.

She isn't sure what it says about her that she's never thought he was making a mistake. Not even after seeing his methods up close and personal. Daredevil gets the job done where Michaela sometimes can't, because she prefers to subdue someone rather than outright out-fight them.

Michaela's also seen the way he shrugs off her praise, the way he smiles at her corny jokes, the support he offers her unconditionally, even when she unintentionally casts herself as the damsel in distress. She knows – knows deep down in her core – that what Daredevil does for Hell's Kitchen comes from a place of genuine kindness, a desire to help those who can't help themselves. She thinks, though, that sometimes the signals get crossed, and maybe he likes the thrill of fighting for his life. Maybe he takes on anything and everything that threatens Hell's Kitchen because it gives him a purpose he can't find anywhere else. And maybe that isn't healthy, but.

Michaela would be the biggest fucking hypocrite if she called him out on it.

"You can be both, you know," she says, after a long while of the two of them sitting in silence, regarding each other. On the floor of her apartment, with an open window and a hell of a secret separating them.

"Both?" He cocks his head, and god, that's familiar. That's Matt and that's Daredevil, and it's him, all of it is him, this guy she's half crazy about.

"Matt Murdock, attorney at law, and Daredevil, Devil of Hell's Kitchen. They're both... you, Matt. I..." She trails off, biting at her lip. She lets her head thunk back against the bed frame. "When I started this, I promised myself that Blackout would be my complete opposite. And in some ways I've stayed true to that. But I've also learned that... that I'm not just pretending the entire time I'm wearing the costume, ya know? Blackout isn't another person, it's me."

She carefully lets her leg stretch out until the tip of her sneaker is lightly jabbing at Matt's foot. He doesn't startle, through his sightless gaze drops down to where they're touching, frowning. She smiles, even knowing he can't see it.

"What I'm trying to say is... yeah. I know Daredevil pretty well by now. But I think I've also learned a thing or two about Matt Murdock along the way. So you're wrong, sort of." His frown deepens and she lets out a huff of a laugh, stifling it into her shoulder, because she is the queen of inappropriate reactions. "I am kind of an idiot for not putting two and two together and seeing who you are under the mask. Sure, I never would have thought Matt Murdock could kick the shit out of four grown men with only minor casualties on his part, but Matt Murdock laughs at me and my idiocy just like Daredevil does."

"I'm still mad at you," she says before he gets any funny idea about being off the hook, though from the look of fond exasperation he gives her, she figures that was understood implicitly from the get-go. Aw, look at them, knowing each other and shit. "You should have told me. You also shouldn't have broken into my apartment."

"Technically," he says, and Michaela's chest already feels less tight, because she knows that tone, she knows him, even if it's a surprise to both of them, "I didn't break in. Breaking in would imply the window was locked, which it wasn't."

"Don't go into lawyer-mode right now on me, Matt, I swear to god..."

He smiles, ducking his head. "Can't really turn it off, honestly. Arguing has always been my forte."
A retort sits ready on her tongue, but she pauses, considering that. It's true, obviously; she's had him talk circles around her while they're out on patrol together, even over the most trivial of subjects. But he didn't do that here, tonight. He barely made a case for himself. Just gave her the information she wanted and the briefest of explanations as to why he did what he did and let her decide whether or not that was enough. Matt's persuasive; he's won every "debate" they've ever had. But he wasn't aiming to win anything against her tonight.

Swallowing, Michaela tucks that information away, and instead says, "What the hell do you mean, the window wasn't locked?"

"It wasn't," he insists, looking up at her through his lashes, and how the fuck does he do that? Look so fucking doe-eyed that she just wants to hug him and damn the consequences when he can't even see her. "I'm not even sure that lock works. It felt rusted to me."

"It felt rusted, okay, sure. Did it also feel like it's about fifty years old?"

"All I'm saying is you might want to look into getting a new lock..."

"I bet your apartment is just the pinnacle of safety, is that it?"

There's that Daredevil smirk she's come to loathe and adore in equal measure. "The locks work, if that's what you're asking."

"Fuck off, Murdock," she says, sans heat. She kicks her foot at him again. "We got really off-track, huh? What are you doing here so late?"

He slow-blinks, darting his eyes away before they settle on her again. Then he reaches into a hidden pocket of his suit and pulls out his phone. "I'm spoiled," he says, wry. "I'm used to you actually checking in after you say you're going to check in. When you didn't, and no one else had heard from you..." He shrugs. "I wasn't sure how thing had gone, in the end. The bar I met Luke outside of had the news on, and I heard that no one could find you or that guy when the fighting was done. Luke claims I overreacted, and would also probably claim that I'm overreacting right now."

"Aw," Michaela says teasingly, even as her heart makes a decent attempt to trip out of her chest, "you were worried about me."

Matt raises a brow. "Does that surprise you?"

"Uh... no, no it does not. It's just nice to hear you say it."

"Yes, I was worried about you." Just then, Matt's phone rings (and Michaela is going to be kicking herself forever, because why else would Daredevil insist on phone calls over texting?), and he frowns down at the screen. A robotic voice says, "Spider-Man is calling," and he rolls his eyes. "That was the other problem I've been fielding all day. Spidey came very, very close to swinging his way down to Hell's Kitchen before I told him I'd find out what happened. I'm guessing he wants me to report in."

"Here, let me see that," and Michaela grabs the phone from Matt's unresisting fingers. She answers the call and puts it on speaker phone. "Hey, Spidey. You miss me?"

"BLACKOUT YOU'RE ALIVE," Spidey practically screeches from the other end of the line. Matt visibly winces at the volume, leaning back from the phone. Michaela makes a sympathetic noise and lowers the volume of the call. "Where have you been all day? I called Daredevil and he said he hadn't seen you in a few days but he got the same text I did earlier, and then I called Ms. Jones even though she is terrifying, but she told me I'd have to pay her if I wanted her to investigate and then she said she doesn't extort money from children and hung up on me! Hey, what happened with that Iron Man guy? You kind of like exploded with electricity at one point and all the news coverage cut off. Did you fry everyone's phones? Oh my god you totally fried everyone's phones. Were you trying to do that, like, because you didn't want what you were about to do on the news? I was freaking out when you jumped on that car, I thought it hit you, oh my god—"

"Dear god, Spider-Child, breathe," Michaela laughs, though she stops soon enough, what with the throbbing of her ribs and her, well, everything else. It doesn't go unnoticed by Matt (damn super hearing), but he only reaches out to lay a hand atop hers, squeezing gently. She smiles down at the phone. "I'm... not fine, exactly. I'm pretty banged up, honestly, but I'm alive, and Daredevil's here right now, so you don't have to worry, okay?"

"People always say that, you don't have to worry, but I'm always gonna worry anyway! I thought you died, Blackout! That's gonna make me worry!"

He has a fair point, Michaela concedes. "You're right, shit, if it were you, I'd be out of my mind with worry, kid. But I promise, I'm as alright as I can be right now. I'll give you all the details the next time we meet up, okay?"

Silence, aside from a bit of static on the line, which might just be Spidey moving around. It's late; is he at home? That seems so strange to her, the idea of Spider-Man, a literal teenage, maybe puttering around his room, talking to her and Matt about all this superhero shit that none of them should probably be involved in. Spidey's a kid, for Christ's sake. This is all so surreal, she can barely wrap her head around it sometimes.

"Yeah, I can be alright with that. But we gotta meet up soon! Er, once you're feeling better. You can come to Queens! Or I can—"

"I'll come to Queens," Michaela says instantly. Hell's Kitchen would eat this boy alive if he stayed for more than the few minutes required to drop Michaela off. "Give me a couple weeks and I'll take the subway over, and you can see for yourself that I'm okay. Besides, I have one hell of a story to tell you, Spidey, you're not gonna believe it."

"Aw, I have to wait weeks to see you again?" Dismayed as he sounds, he barrels right along before she can even try to console him. "We can get churros! I know this really great street cart, the guy who runs it is hilarious, you're gonna love him, Blackout." In the background there's the muffled sound of someone else's voice, though Michaela makes out something along the lines of who are you talking to? She grins. Parents, probably. "Oh, sh—shoot! Gotta go, Blackout, feel better soon! No, no, no don't come in, I'm, uh, naked, I'm—"

The line goes dead.

Michaela snorts, dropping her face into her waiting hand. This kid. He's going to have her going gray by thirty, but she's also intensely glad she met him. He's really good at restoring her faith in humanity, which has been in short supply these last few weeks.

Handing the phone back to Daredevil (and marveling only a little that he anticipates he movements with ease), she resettles herself against the bed, trying to get as comfortable as possible when it sort of feels like she had the Hulk smash her into the ground on top of Thor hitting her with a blast from his hammer. She's going to be feeling this for weeks, just like she told Spidey. But she is alive – that has to count for something, even if that something is eluding her at the moment.

"That's one problem solved," she says, and Matt laughs, nodding.

"You handle him much better than I do."

"I'm not actually any good with kids, but he's... we get along well. S'nice to know someone out-geeks me. He honestly puts high school me to shame."

"He keeps trying to get me to watch Star Wars, which for obvious reasons is ironic and somewhat funny, but it's like he thinks he's discovered this hidden gem of the seventies that no one has ever heard of before." Matt wrinkles his nose and god it's cute, ugh. "Talking to him feels like it ages me about twenty years."

"You and me both, buddy. Oh! The phone thing, that reminds me," she mumbles, twisting cautiously to pull her not-so-broken phone from her pocket, then twisting back like she's presenting it to him. "So. Long story short? SHIELD's still kicking."

Matt blinks, leaning forward as if he's afraid he hasn't heard her correctly. "SHIELD? As in the government organization that Captain America systematically dismantled because it was plagued by Hydra?"

Michaela taps her nose. "That's the one."

"Do I even want to know how they're still around?"

"I don't even know everything, honestly, just that they're semi-active on the enhanced individuals scene. They picked me and the Iron Man guy up after the fight, patched me up, promised the guy would be going to a secure facility and that they'd try to rehabilitate him, whatever that means, and..." Well, if she wants honesty from Matt she's gotta put her money where her mouth is. "One other thing. Turns out I'm not as, uh, human as I thought I was?"

His brows draw together in a sharp v, mouth twisting in confusion. He doesn't respond, clearly a little thrown by the abrupt subject change, so, heart climbing into her throat, Michaela rushes to fill the silence: "It's, uh... another case of me not knowing everything. There's a woman at SHIELD, like me, she's an Inhuman, which – unoriginal name but not all that important. They're like humans, for the most part, except they're technically descendants of an alien race's experiments, and... well. It's why I have my powers. I'm not like, a hundred percent Inhuman, it's just that someone somewhere in my ancestry was one, so I carry the genes..."

"Michaela," he says gently, gripping the hand she hadn't realized he's still holding a little tighter, "please don't work yourself into another panic attack." He winces. "Your heart rate gets so high I keep worrying you're going to pass out."

"I'm not—" Except she definitely is, her breathing already shallow and her heart, previously in her throat, now dropped down to the bottom of her stomach. But she swallows and flips her hand around to grip his back, letting the touch ground her in the moment. One panic attack is more than enough for this shitshow of a night. "Okay, okay, I'm... I just. You're not... freaked out?"

"It's not like it changes anything," he says. "And it's not like you're the only hero with an interesting backstory. Thor is a literal alien, remember? People like him just fine."

"Right, you're totally right, I..."

"Just breathe, Michaela. I'm going anywhere unless you want me to."

She gives a sharp shake of her head at that, because the last thing she wants is to be alone right now. She knows he means it more in the sense that he's not going to suddenly start ghosting her, he's not going to refuse to patrol with her, but she takes comfort in the warmth of his hand, even through the glove, and she doesn't want to give that up just yet.

"Okay," she whispers, which gets her another reassuring squeeze. Neither of them lets go. "You got any exciting news to share? Make us equal?"

"It's not really the same but... I mentioned before that I did get to have a chat with Luke Cage today."

Michaela perks right up at that. "Oh, shit, I forgot you were in Harlem." It's why she didn't have him as backup today for Rodriguez, which should mean that fact is seared into her brain, but alas, that's not how her brain works, apparently. "What did he say?"

Matt grins. "He likes the idea. But he said Harlem is a priority for him, so we can't always expect him to answer the call."

"Holy shit." Michaela feels lighter, the stress of the day and the bitter residue of the night sliding off her as she breaks into the biggest smile she can muster. "Holy shit, that's everyone. We got everyone. That's—" She laughs, she can't help it. This stupid little idea she had has actually become something. She wants to cry a little; it's probably a holdover from the drugs. "Thank you, for going along with this. For... all of it, really."

"What are vigilante buddies for, if not following through on potentially disastrous ideas?"

She just shakes her head and smiles, at him but mostly to herself. He's a dumbass; he should have told her months ago that her secret identity wasn't all that secret with him around, and she's mad about that, don't get her wrong. But she doesn't want to be mad at him, and from her experience that means it's not going to last longer than a week or two. He's a dumbass, but she... she really likes him. Believes in him, even, which is not a feeling she's familiar with when it comes to people she's been romantically interested in. He's a good guy – he's made mistakes, but he's still good, she knows that without a doubt. She also knows how lucky she is that he stepped in that night, that he's stayed with her this long. Things could have gone a lot differently with her superhero career without Daredevil. Without Matt Murdock.

"Can you..." She feels like she's thirteen again, shoring up the courage to hold her crush's hand for the first time. Except she's nearly twenty-five and they're already holding hands, and this isn't even about anything romantic. She just wants to not be alone tonight. "Would you mind staying here, tonight? If you don't have to get back to your apartment right away, at least. Or. I don't know. You said it yourself, right? Security here sucks. And I'm not exactly in peak physical condition right now, so. Uh."

She's a little worried she's overstepped when he doesn't say anything, just looks at her, head cocked to the side, a curious expression on his face. And she's two seconds from reeling everything back in and laughing it off as a side-effect of the many, many things that have gone wrong today, but then he's helping her to her feet and pushing her a little until she's seated on the bed. He nudges her shoes and says, "You get these off and I'll start on taking the suit off. It's going to be a couple minutes, fair warning."

He disappears into her bathroom (somehow unerringly finding it, without tripping over any of her miscellaneous shit on the ground) and she stares blankly at the closed door for about ten seconds before the subtle sounds of clothing hitting the ground shakes her out of her thoughts. Michaela toes at the heel of one sneaker, kicking it off into the shadows under her desk that's adjacent to the bed, then does the same with the other. Then she shuffles back until she's laying down on her side, wrapped up in her blanket cocoon. Waiting, and driving herself mad with it.

But of course she doesn't get to dwell on her plethora of insecurities for long, because Matt comes out of the bathroom minus the suit, in a long-sleeved black athletic shirt and matching pants. She can just make out the outline of his crumpled suit on the floor of her bathroom before he closes the door quietly behind him and turns to her, quirking a brow. She flushes, just a little, because this is a weird fucking situation and she doesn't know the protocol for any of it. She's not exactly setting out to be the world's greatest host here.

"Couch," he says, when her wide-eyed staring has culminated in not saying a single word to him for at least thirty solid seconds. She wants to protest, but he waves a hand, saying, "It's fine, I swear. Closer to the door this way, anyway." And he grins like it's a joke but she knows it's not; he doesn't consider her helpless, he's said as much before, but you don't have to believe that about someone to want to protect them.

She should know – she feels the same way about him.

So she says okay and watches as he picks his way effortlessly through her apartment, snagging the blanket she keeps tossed over the armchair and curling up on the couch with it. It's never quiet here in the city; there's always the sounds of traffic filtering in through even the closed windows, people stumbling home drunk and shouting. The occasional gunshot. Tonight, though, beyond the faint whoosh of cars outside, she doesn't hear anything but her own breathing and the tick-tick-tick of her janky ceiling fan.

Matt, though. Matt can hear so much more than that.

"Matt," she whispers, unsurprised when he lifts his head. God, just how good is his hearing? "I just realized something. I'm gonna have to tell work I got into an accident or something. Fuck, they're gonna fire me."

"They aren't going to fire you."

"You don't know that."
"No, I don't. But if they try, I can recommend a great lawyer to plead your case."
Michaela mock gasps, bunching up her blankets. "You'll get Foggy to help me out?"

Matt just laughs lightly. "Sure, he'll love it. Karen, too. You'll be in their very capable hands."

"...was that a serious offer?"

"Yes, Michaela, I'm serious. Now go to sleep, you'll heal faster."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

The last thing she hears before she drifts off is Matt chuckling, and she admits, just to herself, that it's something she'd like to hear a lot more of.