Blackout making her triumphant return to Hell's Kitchen goes about as well as one might expect. That is to say, no one gives a damn.

She does make it into the paper early on, though she's not ecstatic about it. That reporter who dubbed her as Knock-Off Thor crawls out from whatever rock he's been living under and does – she thinks it's supposed to be an expose? On Blackout? How she got started, what she's done (for) to the neighborhood over the past almost-year, why she vanished for a good two weeks and then suddenly bounced back onto the scene with new tricks up her nonexistent sleeves.

The highlight of the article is honestly the grainy photo of her crouched on a fire escape, a phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear while she mindlessly rubs her hands together, sparks flying from the friction. The reporter made some crass comment about her – she doesn't even know, her lackadaisical tendencies? Made her out to be a useless addition to the parade of vigilantes haunting New York, or something. She only skimmed the thing (okay, after reading it through two or three times, she's got a boatload of insecurities, alright?).

She can't really account for what she was doing with her hands (trying to entertain herself, probably, but that's not really helping her case), but the phone call? Peter was getting her advice on an English paper he had due the next day, and Aunt May was working late and Ned (his best friend, she's gathered) was over but he wasn't helping at all and could she just listen to his thesis statement and let him know on a scale of one to ten how likely he was to fail?

(He got an A, because of course he did, which ultimately had nothing to do with Michaela's intervention. Go figure.)

The neighborhood's starting to take to her, though, she's noticed. Maybe they haven't embraced her as emphatically as they have Jessica or Matt, but she has people waving to her now when she's on patrol, and a guy stopped her right after she'd jumpstarted someone's car and high-fived her. Looking back on it, there's a non-zero chance he was either high or drunk, but the sentiment remains, and she's... happy about it. Happy to see she's made a tangible difference in people's lives.

Michaela hums to herself as she empties the rest of the elbow pasta into the pot she's got sitting on the stovetop, contemplative. Her apartment has a finite amount of furniture, and a kitchen-slash-dining room table isn't among her collection, so she makes do by lifting herself onto the tiny counter that's adjacent to the oven, perched next to the sink and dutifully ignoring the plethora of dishes that are in dire need of a good scrubbing. She's gonna end up eating straight out of the pot, anyway, another day of deliberately not doing the dishes won't hinder her attempts at eating—alright, never mind, three squared meals aren't going to happen regardless of the state of her dishes.

Her phone chimes where it sits next to her on the counter. Peter's name pops up and she bites her lip, stifling a grin.

someone stole my backpack again!

I keep telling you webbing it to a random surface is not a viable plan for hiding it

How many is this again?

it's the third one this year

aunt mays gonna kill me

or wORSE

DISOWN ME

Okay

The HP reference is noted

But Peter my dude my boy that is what one might call inappropriate humor

Not that I'm one to judge

im sorry im stressed i don't want her to ask why it keeps happening

Michaela pauses, weighing her options. A part of her – the rational part, the one that tells her every year that calling her dad on his birthday would be a step in the right direction – is making quite the argument for telling Peter he should come clean to his aunt. Peter is fifteen, he doesn't need to be shouldering the heroic burdens of an entire borough. He doesn't need to be stressing about losing multiple backpacks to dicks wandering through alleyways. He doesn't need this – this life that's about giving a chunk of yourself to the world and expecting nothing in return, where you're labeled a criminal for doing what you think is right.

And yet.

Michaela's older, yeah, she's independent. There isn't going to be someone sitting by the phone waiting on her to call or stop by, no one waiting up for her if she's out all night. The most she'd have to answer for is missing her job (which, let's be real, she's on thin fucking ice with that anyway what with her being out for injuries every other week), and even then, she's replaceable. And that's sad, maybe, but it's the truth. Michaela knows every step that led her to this point, and there's things she wishes she could undo, conversations she'd like to take back, but – she owns up to her choices. She doesn't stand by all of them, in fact there's about four- or five-years' worth of choices in there that she'd like to wipe out altogether.

She's an adult, though, right? She made her bed, she's gotta lie in it.

She should tell Peter to hang up the suit and smash the web-shooters and just live his life, because he's got a helluva bright future ahead of him; she's no genius but she's smart enough to see that.

And yet.

Just because she's older, just because she's an adult... that doesn't make her any less of a hypocrite. Telling Peter to stand down when he knows the risks, knows the ripple-effect of him not coming back from a fight – does she even have the right? They're not related, he's not her brother, not her kid. Her opinion might matter to him but she has no authority here, no leverage. She's even a little selfish, because she doesn't want him quitting the hero gig.

Her fingers hover over the keyboard, her mouth thinned into a flat line. Fuck, she's not qualified for this.

You got any bullies at school?

Peter doesn't seem bothered by her switching tracks, given how quickly he fires back a text.

uh yeah. it's high school (he doesn't type it, but she reads the added duh with ease, rolling her eyes at his intended tone)

Hm. That, uh, that does not sit right with her. They'll revisit this later, but for now, she has shoddy advice to be giving out, completely unsolicited.

That's what you tell your aunt then. Bullies stole your backpack. Three times. Kind of a stretch but if you give her the puppy dog eyes it'll probably work

puppy dog eyes?

Peter. You've got big brown eyes and a baby face. Your repertoire of looks is almost exclusively puppy dog eyes

Michaela knows what she's talking about, particularly because she never perfected the look herself, and god, did she try in her younger years. She never got away with anything more major than the whitest of lies, and even then, she's pretty sure her mom was only indulging her in those moments.

The bubbling of the water distracts her, and she casts the pot a fleeting look, bobbing her head slightly before she decides it'll keep for another minute or two. She returns her attention to her phone just as Peter replies.

i'm holding you accountable if this goes badly

Sure thing, Pete. You know where I live, and all that jazz

!!!!

oh shit I do!!!

Michaela snorts, clapping a hand to her mouth to stifle the high-pitched laughter that follows right on its heels. She's not surprised he's somehow forgotten their heart-warming moment on her rooftop, per se, but. Well, no, yeah that pretty much sums up her feelings. Not surprised, not disappointed – amused, if she has to slap a label on it. Never mind the fact that she's been using his give name throughout this entire conversation, it's just frankly hilarious that something that monumental could escape his notice, though she's a little touched that he's comfortable enough with her that this shift in their dynamics hasn't altered their friendship too much.

Good luck with your aunt. Let me know how things shake out, yeah?

Can do Michaela!

Grinning, she sets her phone aside and hops down from the counter, pausing briefly to snag a gently used spoon from the dishrack for stirring purposes. Normally she'd have set the timer on the stove so she knows how long to boil the pasta but, ugh, she's done this often enough, hasn't she? She can eyeball it, and hey, if she gets mushy, overcooked macaroni for her troubles, then that's the punishment for overestimating her (incredibly limited) culinary skills. She gives the pasta a quick stir, frowns at the spoon, then stirs it for another couple of seconds. That's fine, right? She doesn't usually stir it that much...

What the fuck. How can she not remember? She cooked pasta three nights ago!

In all fairness, that was another night where she had to abandon her dinner in favor of taking a call from Jessica Jones, who – in a shocking turn of events – needed her help. It wasn't for anything crazy, which in hindsight she's grateful for, but it was nice to be able to offer her services to a fellow do-gooder and the warmth of that minor victory carried her through having to eat dry cereal for dinner, since she'd burned the only pasta she had in the apartment at the time. Better the pasta than her kitchen, and subsequently her entire apartment, yeah, but she's also fairly certain that cereal had been past its expiration date. She hadn't thought cereal had an expiration date prior to that, so. She learned something new that night.

(Something other than, ya know, what the inside of Jessica's office looks like, which. Michaela feels a sort of kinship with her now that she'd rather die than admit to Jessica's face. Still nice, though)

Michaela's turning that thought over in her mind, wondering what would happen should she ever divulge that information (nothing good, according to her scarily active imagination), when a faint sound rouses her. That's – decidedly not her imagination, because it comes again, slightly louder. Knocking? No, not – it's not coming from the direction of her door, and she swivels when she hears it for the third time, eyes flitting to every corner of her apartment. Not the neighbors, she thinks, flicking a glance at the ceiling; she's never had a noise problem with whoever's upstairs, and everyone else on her floor seems to be out more often than not.

It's not even knocking, it's more like—

Tap. Taptaptap.

Michaela twists on her heel, pressing her hands flat to the counter as she leans over it, straining to make out the window adjacent to her bed, and—

Oh, fuck. What fresh hell is this?

She doesn't quite vault over the counter (because that would end in tears and possibly a broken appendage on her part) but she side-steps it quickly, not-quite running over to her window and flinging it open with much less hesitation than is probably proper, given the circumstances.

Matt Fucking Murdock sways through the open frame, already sluggishly dragging the mask from his face. It slips from his fingers and lands with a disarming clatter on the ground, but she—Michaela can't look away from Matt's face.

"Michaela," he says, smiling through a wince, "hi, it's. Uh. Sorry for the intrusion."

"Matt," she hisses, barely letting the last syllable hit her before she's reaching out for him, hands automatically clutching at the grab-able bits of his suit. She doesn't know where to look, where it's safe to touch. "Matt, what the actual fuck happened to you?"

Blood. Fuck, there's so much blood. A cut on his cheek drips with it, his mouth is smeared red courtesy of his split lip; his teeth are stained, too, though she can't tell if it's from the lip or from something internal making itself known externally. Her eyes pass in quick sweeps over his suit but of course it's red anyway and fuck, he's holding a hand to his side, keeping pressure on it, maybe, or is he only bruised? God, fuck, he's, he might as well be one giant bruise at this point, what exposed skin there is already discolored, looking like it's darkening right before her fucking eyes.

There's a hitch in his breathing, a quiet note of pain that she wouldn't notice if she weren't currently pumped full of adrenaline and hyper-focusing on every square of inch of this absolute bastard. Fuck, fuck, okay, broken ribs for sure, she knows that one intimately (thanks Rodriguez). Oh, god, her slapped-together med kit is woefully underequipped for this level of damage.

And Matt's still smiling.

"Got... a little in over my head," he gets out, gripping one of her wrists shakily, the other pressing just a bit more firmly into his side. His nose scrunches up with another wince and she wants to violently shake him and scream and fuck— "Ironic, huh? Since I've, uh, been telling you not to do that anymore."

There's a sliver of a moment where she thinks: this is it. This is when she officially loses what's left of her sanity and gets hauled off kicking and screaming to the nearest hospital. Better yet, this is when her heart just. Gives out. Flooded with panic, galloping right out of her chest, it just – just stops. Matt Murdock is going to be the death of her, literally.

And then she inhales sharply, catches the metallic tang of his blood, hears herself shudder out an exhale. She squeezes her eyes shut, digs her fingers deeper into the malleable bits of his suit. Tenses her grip until the shaking subsides. Until the tell-tale heat behind her eyes dissipates. Until she feels Matt slide a hand up her forearm, gentle, always so gentle, offering up comfort and reassuring without saying a word, when for once – for once – that shouldn't be his job.

Michaela blinks open her eyes, takes in the naked concern on Matt's bloody face, and decides – fuck everything, she's not having a panic attack right now, she's not going to lose her shit. She's not, she won't.

"You dumbass," she says, her voice hoarse, the words choked out of her. She does shake him a little, nothing harsh, just enough to convey that he's an idiot and that she knows he's an idiot. "Get the fuck in here, you're bleeding all over the fire escape when you could be bleeding all over the bed."

She sees the protest on his lips and grits her teeth. Nope, not the time, Matty. Let yourself be coddled, you fucking asshole.

"In," she insists, ducking to snake an arm around his torso, careful of his everything as she guides him away from the window, hunching a little under his weight but refusing to even mutter a complaint.

They shuffle awkwardly towards her bed, Matt pale and unsteady, his grip on her shoulder just short of bruising with the effort of holding up as much of himself as he can. It's only about twenty feet but Matt can barely walk and Michaela hasn't exactly been prioritizing her strength training; what's more, she keeps darting glances at him, cataloguing every twinge, every tensing of his muscles, the tendons of his neck straining, his jaw clenching around whatever noise he traps his in his throat.

There's a moment of clarity that hits her like a fucking eighteen-wheeler, her heart stuttering at the realization that this is how Matt must've felt, when he couldn't reach her after the fight with Rodriguez, when she called him after the wizard debacle. And lingering resentment she might've had about him ambushing her in her apartment promptly vanishes. Fuck if she wouldn't do the exact same thing, fuck if she wouldn't track him down just to yell at him if he scared her like that. Fuck if she wouldn't—

They've stopped moving. Matt has his head turned toward her, his mouth leveled into a faint frown. Her heart is hammering in her chest and she's breathing unevenly, blinking back a fresh onslaught of tears. She's been—just so stupid. So, so stupid.

"Michaela—"

"It's nothing," she says, then curses under her breath, shakes her head when he just keeping looking at her, his eyes unerringly finding hers when she chances a look at him. How he does that she doesn't fucking know, and now is not the time to sate her curiosity. "It's nothing that's worth dealing with right now," she amends, and while that doesn't go a long towards appeasing him, he accepts her words at face value, dipping his head in a slight nod, taking a deep breath himself. Bracing for another attempt at walking, probably.

The sound Matt lets out when she finally manages to leverage him onto the bed – she almost mirrors it, biting a little savagely into her tongue to staunch the reaction. Matt doesn't need her freaking out, he doesn't need her crying into his fucking wounds. She can – she can hold out for now, fix what she can and figure something out for the rest before she. Does something. Faints, maybe. Up and dies, more likely.

"Okay," she says, more to herself than to him, though she's aware that he's listening, "okay, let's just. Start with the basics. You – talk," she adds as she studies his suit, searching for, she doesn't even know, hidden clasps? A zipper? How does he get into all this shit? "I need more than just got a little in over your head."

"Ah, yeah, that's—" Matt, perhaps sensing her frustration with the mechanics of his hero gear, grabs her hand and brings it to his opposite wrist. Right, gloves. Those she's got covered. She starts easing the glove from his hand, mindful that he's more than likely got bruised and battered (if not broken) knuckles under there. He lets out a quiet hiss when she's got it halfway off, head dropping back onto shitty excuse for a pillow she's been suffering for the last year or so. She's regretting not splurging on a new one right now more than she ever has before. "Drug traffickers."

She lifts a brow, dropping his glove unceremoniously onto the floor and starting in on the next one. "Drug traffickers did this to you? Uh. They're not usually that good at getting the drop on you..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, and it would've been fine, but." His mouth twists into a wry smile, his eyes somehow brighter against the backdrop of bruising. "They, uh, they had... I guess you'd call it a sound grenade?"

Michaela freezes, her hand caught on the strap of his belt.

Matt visibly swallows, closing his eyes. "Uh-huh. Loud enough to stun a normal person for a few seconds at least, have them drop their guard, but. You know. With me it was like everything was turned up to eleven. So loud I thought my ears were going to start bleeding."

That... would be about the only thing she can think of that would put Matt at a clear disadvantage. Electricity flits through her veins, almost an itch under her skin, screaming to be let loose on whoever put their hands on Matt. But that thought, satisfying as it might be, isn't productive. So she stows it for now and puts the energy humming inside of her to be use; namely, getting Matt's stupid utility belt undone. She looks him over again, wincing. Yeah, this next part isn't going to fun for either of them.

"Matt, you're... um. You're gonna have to sit up, aren't you?"

The lines around his eyes tighten as he nods grudgingly, his whole body tensing at the prospect. Fuck, she'd do it another way, any other way, it's just – there's no cutting him out of it, like she would regular clothes. Scissors aren't going to make a dent and she doesn't trust herself with a knife, not when she might only make things worse in the long-term.

She rakes her hair back out of her face, absently pulls it back and secures it with the rubber band she's got sitting snug around her wrist. Right, okay, no getting around this. Matt's going to be more comfortable with the body armor off and Michaela'll get a chance to see the extent of his injuries. She doesn't want to hurt him (and this is going to hurt, she has no doubt about that), but, well. Needs must, and all that. She'd trust him to do it for her, wouldn't even have to think twice about. She just hopes he feels the same way.

But, before that—

Michaela leans down, bracing one hand against the mattress, using the other to brush Matt's damp hair back. She bites her lip, wondering a little morbidly whether it's damp with sweat or blood, though she figures it only matters if he's got a head wound she's overlooking. And she'll get around to that, once she's done with this and about a dozen other things that need seeing to.

Fuck. Just... fuck.

Matt grins, just a little, at the touch, leaning into it, and yeah, she gets why the guy might be craving a gentle hand after what he's been through tonight. So she smooths her hand down to cup his cheek, avoiding what scrapes and bruises she can, his perpetual five-o-clock shadow rough but welcome against the pads of her fingers.

"Be honest with me for a second," she says, soft, barely more than a whisper. She waits for him to nod, then asks, "How close was I to losing you tonight?"

He doesn't – she's not expecting any particular reaction, her expectations were shot to hell the moment she opened her window, and yet he still manages to surprise her when he wraps his hand (and yup, most of his knuckles are split and swollen) around hers, pressing it harder to his cheek. When he turns his head enough to brush his lips against her palm.

Her breath hitches in her traitorous chest, and he laughs, one little huff before it's cut off with a groan, his ribs no doubt protesting his amusement.

"Closer than I would've liked," he says at last. "Karma's a bitch, huh?"

"Asshole," she mutters, grinning despite herself. "We're both idiots, alright? Anyone with half a brain wouldn't put themselves through this on a regular basis. I get it, we should both be committed. You don't gotta rub it in."

"To be fair," he says, "most people wouldn't put themselves through this" – he squeezes her hand, to which she furrows her brows, her mouth opening on a question that she cuts short – "either. The worry, the stress, the fear. It's not always worth it."

"You are," she blurts out, hating herself for how desperate she sounds but overcome with the need for him to understand. "You're worth it. I'm, uh. Not happy with you at the moment, sure. But." She lets a sheepish smile cross her face, knowing he'll hear it in her voice. "I can't really put it into words, I just. I'm sure Matt Murdock pre-Daredevil was a great guy. I'm sure I woulda liked him just fine. But I met you and I... I don't regret that. Even if you're currently staining my bed sheets with blood." She pauses. "And, well. Yeah. I've definitely worried you more. Wouldn't really be fair of me to make a complaint when I've come home looking worse."

Matt blinks, slow, unsure. Then he sighs, tightens his hand around hers. "I really hope you realize that I think you're worth it, too. All of it. Definitely more than I've shown you in the last couple weeks." Before she can even begin to process that, he barrels on, "This has been a great distraction, but I'm gonna need to get this off at some point."

Oh. Oh, right, yeah, that's a thing they were doing before... whatever the hell just happened. Before her sappy bullshit got the better of her. They'll have time to go over everything later, so she nods, tucks everything irrelevant away into some far-flung corner of her mind, and moves to slip an arm around Matt's back, helping him ease into an upright position.

Ease is the wrong word. It's a fight, every second of it, Matt's breathing labored, chest heaving under his body armor, his hands clenched so hard around the bedspread he's nearly shredding it. Michaela swallows down each and every protest that bubbles up in her throat, is all but biting clean through her cheek as she tries to ground Matt with her hands on his back, his shoulders, giving him a point of contact that hopefully doesn't fan the flames of agony he must be weathering. He sucks in a short, strangled breath as she slips her hands under the edges of the armor at the small of his back – there's so good way of going about this, she knows it and Matt all but confirmed it with his involuntary reactions, and it's nothing like ripping off a band-aid—

"Fuck, please don't hate me—"

She's not deliberately slow about it, doesn't linger when he chokes on a breath or when his hand clamps around her forearm, spasms twice and digs blunt nails into tender flesh. Michaela tries for efficiency and probably hits something just shy of not-so-bad-that-she's-literally-killing-him, and time feels stretched out like a rubber-band, waiting to suddenly snap back at her, like this is taking too long to be real, every moment a new subsection of Hell—

And then the armor is off and hurriedly tossed to the far side of the room, and Matt's collapsing back into the sheets, heaving for a decent breath. Michaela stands there for a second or two, stunned that it's over, that they can move the fuck on because that might actually have been the worst thirty seconds of her entire life (and god, it was only thirty seconds it felt like six eternities laid out end to end). But, fuck, okay, not the time for her existential crisis; she darts in to squeeze Matt's hand, a fleeting reassurance, then runs back into her kitchen and tears open the cabinet under the sink. She's got one med kit and she knows from past experience that it's not stocked with all the essentials (she never seems to remember to buy them when she's out, and when she does – money) but it's going to have to do. Matt's told her before that hospitals are out (and duh, she's aware that stumbling into the emergency room decked out in your vigilante finest and bleeding profusely is a one way ticket to the nearest precinct) and Michaela doesn't have anyone she can call that has any sort of medical skill set.

They're on their own with this, which is. Fine. Totally fine. Michaela already promised herself she's not going to curl up on the floor in a fetal position, so. She'll deal.

(She might vomit later but that's later)

She grabs the kit and makes her way back to the bed, twisting so she can get a knee up on the mattress and more or less hover over Matt's prone body. God. She blinks, looking down at him, blinks again. Okay, okay, he's – pretty beat up. She expected this, she did – the purple-edged bruises that line his ribs aren't a surprise, nor are the razor-thin cuts on the side of this throat, where his cowl apparently wasn't protection enough from whatever blade the person was wielding. The armor did its job, though – there are no other stab wounds, as far as she can tell, which is quite the fucking relief for her, given that she doesn't know how to sow stitches and she really, really doesn't want to stick a needle into Matt, anyway.

"Alright," Michaela says out loud, infusing her voice with as much comfort as she can muster, "alright, basics first. We'll, uh. Flush out the cuts?" She looks at him, helpless, the med kit open and useless on the bed next to her.

Matt's eyes are on the ceiling, but he must realize she's staring at him; he flexes a hand, reaches it out to her and lands at the edge of her thigh. The tips of his fingers are cold and that's somehow terrifying in the moment; Matt's always so warm.

"That's as good a start as any," he says, and she has to smile. He's too fucking good for her.

So that's where she starts. Matt doesn't flinch from the antiseptic, muffles a hiss when she presses against his ribcage to feel for breaks (at least two, Jesus fuck). She wraps his knuckles in the gauze she unearths from the depths of her bathroom cabinet (probably from that time she got into it with a guy hopped up on something, right before she discovered she is very okay with mildly shocking civilians in order to get shit done). She runs a washcloth she inexplicably has under the sink and cleans the blood and sweat from Matt's skin. The ribs she can't do much for, but she puts together a makeshift splint for the fingers Matt broke punching some cocky drug dealer in the face – repeatedly. Ill-advised maybe, but she bets it was fucking satisfying after the sound grenade bullshit.

By the time she's sure he isn't going to keel-over if left alone for more than five seconds, she's run herself ragged, and the stress is catching up to her. Michaela drops heavily onto the mattress, giving not one iota of a shit about propriety as she tucks up her legs and curls down against Matt's (least injured) side. She feels Matt's splinted fingers in her hair after a few heartbeats have passed and she retaliates by blindly flailing out a hand until she connects with Matt's chest (gently), splaying her fingers against the steadying rhythm of his heart.

"I hate you," she says, sans venom. Sans any emotion, honestly, unless numbing exhaustion counts more as an emotion than a state of being.

Matt's chest vibrates with muted laughter under her fingers. How is he laughing, Christ, he's insane. Which definitely makes her twice as insane just by virtue of continuing to be his friend. Continuing to pine after him. "About eighty-percent of my body shares the sentiment."

"You scare me like that again, Murdock, and I'll..."

"Yeah, I know. And you'll have every right. But the same goes for you."

That's... fair. "I'll take it," she says, tilting her head back so she's got a clear view of his face. She blinks – he's... not watching her back, obviously, but his eyes are on her almost dead-center. And, fuck her, he's smiling again. She's weak for that smile and she's not even ashamed to admit it. Anymore. "...I don't hate you."

"I don't hate you, either, even though I'm pretty sure I've been going prematurely gray since I met you."

"Ah, but what a sophisticated silver fox you'll be, Matty. Your lawyer level is gonna just skyrocket, I can feel it."

Matt doesn't say anything, and Michaela quietly does not freak out. She's an adult, okay, she can handle silence. Awkward silence, even, though that's not how she'd describe what's going on just now. It's a long silence, though, that's – mildly disconcerting. Did he fall asleep, or—

"Michaela, come up here for a second."

Come up for what, exactly? Michaela debates the merits of asking – Matt's real honest with her these days, another facet of that famous Catholic Guilt – then rolls a shoulder in a shallow shrug and twists so she's closer to upright, digging her elbows into the bed and leveraging herself up enough that she and Matt are face-to-face. She quirks a brow, silently asking now anyway, very much ignoring the fact that that minute facial expression might be lost on the guy.

She blinks when his hands – still trembling slightly, but warmer – cup her cheeks, thumbs passing softly over her cheekbones. Her breath stutters out of her. So. This is new. They're not above some casual touching, never really have been, but uh. This. Is a lot for them, she's realizing. It's a lot for her. Not that she's going to tell him to stop, god forbid, but.

Ugh. Why do feelings have to be so complex all the time.

"Matt..."

"You've got me," he says, and her heart flutters, goddammit, "you've got me, Michaela. I need you to remember that, okay?"

This man is – so much, he's so much, and Michaela—

"Matt, just, okay, if you don't like this or whatever, you can—I give you full permission to judo flip me across the room or—"

She kisses him.

Michaela may be a hopeless romantic at the worst of times, but she's not expecting fireworks to go off behind her eyes, or for her to feel settled in her own skin for once in her life. Romance isn't a cure-all for the human condition – and she's learned that the hard way. But that doesn't mean she doesn't absolutely melt when Matt kisses her back, threads his fingers through her hair and tugs her closer. She can feel his pulse where his wrist lines up with the edges of her jaw and it's perfectly synchronized with her own – which is a little gratifying, no lie.

She's breathless when she finally pulls back, reluctant about it, resting her forehead against Matt's.

"Um," she says, ever articulate. "So, I see you didn't judo flip me."

Matt's laugh is warm where it spills across her nose and cheeks, the heat prickling her skin and wreaking fucking havoc on her already unsteady heart. "No, I didn't."

"This is... probably a monumentally bad idea."

"Probably," he agrees, amused.

"You know Foggy and Karen are going to be insufferable about this."

"Oh, sure. I wouldn't expect any less of them."

"I just—okay, laying cards on the table here. This isn't, uh. Like, I'm way beyond casual, Matt, it's... a little terrifying."

"Do you want me to drop the L word this early or would that make it worse?"

"Matt, what the fuck—"

Michaela stares at him, incredulous, and he just laughs, smoothing his hands down from her face, over her shoulders, snaking them around her waist to urge her to lay down beside him. The bed's barely big enough for one person, but they manage to align themselves well enough that neither of them are in danger of taking a mortifying spill onto the floor. She's wary of putting pressure on his everything, so she settles for hugging his side and laying an across his waist, enjoying the skin-to-skin contact more than she realized she would. It's been... awhile since she's been this close to anyone.

"You're not serious," she says, her voice dropping into a whisper because somehow the situation demands that of her. Matt'll hear her anyway, so she supposes it doesn't make any real difference. "Oh, shit, are you serious?"

Matt's tucked his face into her hair and she can feel him smirking, the asshole. "The question is which answer you'd prefer."

"I..." Oh, wow. She, uh, She's thought about this, sure, every girl's got her fantasies. Hers have never included quite this much blood but hell, that's kinda par for the course at this point. And, really, she trusts Matt – he wouldn't lie about this, wouldn't spin it into a joke no matter what she replies with. "I, um. I think I've been at least a little in love with you since... god, I don't even—No, no, I actually do know. That day I was over your apartment, when you talked me down from my panic attack before it even got out of control?"

"That always impresses people, true."

"No, Matty, you dumbass, I just realized... you see me. And it's cheesy and cliché and especially ironic given the fact that you're blind, but. You do. All the worst bits included. And you're not trying to fix everything, but you want to help regardless, and that's." Michaela swallows, turning her face to press her cheek into his chest. "That means a lot to me."

Matt pauses, quiet; his hand – with his stupid broken fingers – smooths down her back and back up in comforting sweeps. She listens to him breathe and feels the momentary panic ebbing with every measured exhale.

"Just to be clear," he says eventually, "I love you, too. Have for a while. Karen's been very unforgiving about it, honestly, she's be grateful that I've finally done something about it."

Michaela can't help but snort, imagining Karen and her very own version of the Disappointed Eyebrows and how effective that would be on Matt even without him being able to see them. And then what he said processes and she just. Laughs at the absurdity of it. She's in love with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and somehow, Daredevil loves Knock-Off Thor just as much. What a strange fucking world she's living in.

"If we're being completely honest... I'm just glad you didn't like, disown me as your friend after the Second SHIELD Bullshit Session of 2016. So. You know. This is all going a lot better than all the scenarios I played out in my head."

"Glad I didn't disappoint."

"Like you could ever, Murdock. All you'd have to do is smile at me and whatever ill feelings I might have towards you would like, vanish."

"Good to know."

"Ugh."

"I love you, Michaela."

"Love you, too, Matty."