Daredevil does not, in fact, have a convenient number she can call to order herself a badass costume. Superhero Amazon would be such a great service, though; someone should pitch that to Stark, let him provide for the less fortunate heroes running around New York.

Anyway, he's apologetic about it, at least, letting her down easy; says his guy did him a one-time favor as repayment for... something Daredevil did. He's sketchy on the details, but Michaela doesn't hold it against him; people like them can't exactly afford to reveal too many personal anecdotes, not even in the interest of getting to know their vigilante buddies a little better.

In a surprising turn of events, Daredevil also congratulates her for handling the attempted robbery at Cody's. Michaela, in true school girl fashion, flushes to the roots of her hair, faking a cough just for the excuse to spin away from him so she can hide what's visible of her beet-red face. Why she's embarrassed she doesn't know; hormones, probably. They're a bitch most of the time, they might as well try to ruin all aspects of her life when presented with the opportunity to do so.

She'd ask him how he even knows it was her, but then it hits her — it'd been a slow news day, so the robbery, or lack thereof, made it to the front page of the New York Bulletin. Emmett's testimony made her sound a lot more self-assured than she was, but he did work in that she calls herself Blackout, so at least the media has a genuine name for her now. No more Knock-Off Thor, or toaster oven.

Well. From the Bulletin, anyway.

"Aw, shucks," she says, kicking her legs out like the child she's never quite outgrown, letting her heels thump back against the concrete of the building they're perched on. She'd gone up here, climbed a fire escape and settled right at the edge of the roof, to give herself a moment's pause, time to consider where she's going to go from here. Daredevil came out of nowhere, silent as a goddamn shadow, said he was passing by and thought he'd check in with her. She certainly isn't complaining. "I didn't do all that much. I'm just glad I was there when it happened, ya know? Before anything went screwy."

"That kid thinks you did a lot," Daredevil says, with a flash of a smile that he directs at the cityscape around them. "Though I think he said your — what was his phrase? — bedside manner could use some improvement."

"Okay, first, that is not applicable to the situation, I'm not a fucking doctor. There was no bedside by which I could be mannerly. Second, I made sure he was alright! I wasn't rude or anything, just... maybe a little abrupt. I wasn't looking to get arrested, thanks."

Daredevil shrugs. "Hazard of the job. You're never going to please everyone all the time. The important thing is that that kid isn't hurt, and he got to go home to his family." He looks at her, and though she can't see his eyes his gaze seems more intense, grounding. She sits up straighter without consciously choosing to. "You did a good thing."

"Feels kind of... I don't know, selfish that I'm happy about what I did. Just. I'm not doing it to get thanked, that's not why I... And anyway, I'm terrified every time I go out like this, so I. Ugh." Michaela drops her face into her hands, huffing out a tired sigh. "Can you like, do your ninja thing and just sneak off while I'm not looking? Let me go back to gazing soberly out at the city like the Batman wannabe I am on the inside?"

She hears him laugh under his breath, then the scrape of his shoes over the concrete as he resettles his weight on the roof's ledge. A gloved hand catches her shoulder and squeezes. "I actually have to head out anyway," he says, and she peeks out from between the cracks of her fingers, sees him smiling again, this time looking her way. "But don't be so hard on yourself. You did good, you can be happy about that. I'm not exactly the best example of an emotionally stable vigilante, though, so. You fit right in."

Michaela snorts a laugh, wiping a hand down her face and leaning back on the other. "I heard Jones is a day drinker," she says, though she's careful to remove any judgement from her voice. She's been drinking a lot more recently than she ever has, and she's not special just because she makes sure it's always after eight when she cracks open a bottle. "Cage seems like he's doing well, though. Neighborhood loves him."

"He also gets shot on a regular basis. Regardless of his bulletproof skin, that doesn't seem like the healthiest of pastimes."

"Okay, Spider-Man, then! He's at least got the sense to wear a mask like us."

"I don't know enough about him to make a judgement call, but anyone who suits up probably has problems they aren't dealing with."

That gives Michaela pause. He's right, of course; while there are truly selfless people out there in the world, she figures most super-powered people (and non-supers who join in on the fun regardless) have their reasons for doing what they do. Reasons that probably multiply the longer they stay in the profession.

She hopes most of those reasons extend beyond kind of liking the adrenaline rush of a fight, as she's beginning to. There's a point where she's past panic, past anxiety, when it's — not fun, that's not the right word, but. Intense. It's intense. And she thinks she could get hooked on that kind of thing all too easily.

Shaking off that train of thought, Michaela smiles at Daredevil, rolls her eyes a little as she gets to her feet. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, you go do what you gotta do. I'm heading home for the night, I think. You can—" Another pause. "How much... just like, hypothetically, how much do you think it would cost for us to get our own bat signals made? Because obviously we can't seriously exchange phone numbers, but if you ever need an assist..."

It's far, far more likely that she'll be the one in need of an assist, but Daredevil, like the gentleman he is, doesn't point that out to her.

"We'll think of something. For now, though, the neighborhood isn't that big. I'm sure I could find you if I needed to."

And with that, he hops the ledge and drops down onto the fire escape below, only a shadow now even when Michaela squints to watch him; a shadow, and then a smudge against the darkness, and then — gone. She bites the inside of her cheek, shaking her head again. He barely made any noise even when connecting with the rickety metal of the fire escape; he's got serious skills and Christ, could she take a couple lessons from him.

It occurs to her, on her way home, that she still doesn't have much an answer as to what to do for her costume.

Well, I might as well make use of that graphic design degree I'm driving myself insane over...

___________

Two weeks later, Michaela has been a patron of three thrift stores, a Michael's, and browsed some questionable websites, but she thinks she has herself a decent costume. Uniform. Whatever makes her sound at least thirty percent more dignified than she currently feels.

It's not much, all things considered. Black nylon running pants because she's, you know, going to be running. A lot. A black sleeveless jacket over a light blue-accented sleeveless hoodie, on which she's stitched on a matching blue lightning bolt because she lives to be cliche. Comfortable black boots, again because of all the running. Black fingerless gloves and black arm braces. And the pièce de résistance? Kickass goggles and a black face mask for the lower half of her face.

Granted, she bears a passing resemblance to the Winter Soldier, which is. Not great. But she's hopeful that the rest of her gear is enough to detract from the fact that her entire face is hidden and that she might have possibly sort of borrowed some of her look from the greatest assassin of all time.

With any luck she will never, ever run into Captain America, the Black Widow, or the Falcon while on the job, because even the possibility of one of them having an opinion on her costume gives her terrible indigestion and also makes her want fry her own brain.

None of this is really worth giving herself a migraine over, but it's still in the back of her head as she's slipping out of her apartment for the night. Again, she's gotta give it to New Yorkers: no one bats an eye at her get-up. Sure, someone could mistake her gear for just a weird-ass running outfit, but more people than not can probably connect the dots, especially when she zaps a guy in the ass for trying to pee in public. She gets a cheer from a passing drunk couple for that one and the laugh she lets out is much louder than she intended it to be.

It seems like it's going to be a slow night for her. Aside from a few counts of

public indecency that she awkwardly breaks up, and the occasional public pisser, she's not finding anything that demands her attention. Maybe Daredevil took out all the baddies before she even stepped out of her apartment. There's a thought — Daredevil single-handedly cleaning the scummy streets of Hell's Kitchen, no help from Blackout required. He probably could, too, but. She'd like to help, if she can. It's only right.

She's thinking about turning in early again when someone shouts, "Blackout!"

Which is a helluva experience, really, because she's never had anyone address her by her self-imposed hero name, and it takes her a second of who, me? before she thinks to pivot towards the source of the voice. There's a woman, maybe her age, maybe a little older, waving at her from across the street, and she might think the woman just wants her attention to say hello or something if not for the creeping all-in-black figure coming up behind her, making a beeline for her from the alley behind them.

Michaela doesn't overthink things, just yells, "Duck!" and throws a bolt of electricity over the woman's head; she ducks, thank god, and the bolt — gets deflected, what the actual fucking fuck?

Michaela darts in to grab the woman by the arm, guiding her back and away from the, the man, she thinks it's a guy, who simply stands there, arm extended, fingers splayed wide, with an intricately designed circle of golden light projected in front of him. Only it can't be light alone because her electricity bounced right off it and struck the brick of the building to his right, carving out a sizeable chunk in the process. Clearly her electricity is working just fine.

Okay, so, regroup. A shield? Some sort of holographic tech but the holograms have physical substance? That's... probably something Stark could invent, probably something he has invented, one weekend when he was drunk and bored out of his mind and surrounded by all his semi-sentient robots.

The how of it isn't important right now; Michaela's much more interested in the why. She gets the woman behind her, lights up both hands and plants her feet. He's not getting by her, shield or no.

"No means no, dickbag," she says, jutting her chin out at him, almost daring him to make a move.

"He just, he came out of nowhere," the woman whispers, her fingers clutching at the folds of Michaela's jacket. "I could've sworn I was alone, but he..."

"Call the police," Michaela says under her breath, shifting her stance as the man takes a step towards them. "Call and then get the hell out of here. I'll take care of this guy."

The woman doesn't need any more encouragement. Michaela tracks her panicked footsteps until the sound fades from her hearing, all the while keeping her eyes on the guy who's since dropped the main shield. But similar projections ring both of his wrists, spinning slowly, the glow they're emitting brighter than anything on the street besides maybe Michaela's own lightning.

Gritting her teeth, she ups the voltage and brings her hands forward, the electricity crackling bright and loud and, hopefully, menacing.

He's dressed in dark clothes, his face obscured by a hood, though she thinks the clothes beneath the sweatshirt aren't standard issue. The material doesn't look familiar in the light of his projections, the shadows falling in all the wrong places. There are rings on both hands, gold and bronze, some of them inlaid with jewels. He doesn't speak at first, but he does halt at the sight of her powers. Not surprised, necessarily, but contemplating.

Michaela doesn't appreciate the scrutiny.

She thinks she's being sneaky, tossing another bolt at him without doing him the courtesy of warning him ahead of time like before. But she's not fast enough, or he's just plain faster, throwing up another shield and redirecting the blast into the asphalt at his feet. Again, deflected; again, slashed apart into harmless, fizzling static by his shield.

What the fuck.

"What the fuck," she hisses, falling back now that he's insistent on closing the distance between them again. "What the fuck, what the fuck. Who are you?"

She thinks he might laugh, but it's drowned out by the shriek of lightning bursting futilely against his shield. Michaela doesn't want him getting close enough for her to grab him, but she's not making a dent this way and she's running out of ideas at this point. Is this tech or someone else with powers? Either way he's leagues above the assholes with firearms she's squared up against so far, and she's slowly realizing that she might be completely outmatched here.

This is why I wanted that fucking Devil Signal!

"You gonna let me in on just what you were trying to do here?" she says, hands up and at the ready, even as she's steadily backing away from his approach. "You're not exactly some run-of-the-mill mugger with those things."

He definitely laughs this time, low and gravelly. "No, I am not that, you're right. I'm not average by any means, and apparently, neither are you. Blackout, was it? You fancy yourself a hero?"

"I mean, I'm no Iron Man or Thor" — un-fucking-fortunately — "but I do what I can with what I have. What are you? A Stark fanboy? Made yourself some fancy gadgets and now you're taking them for a spin?"

The man stops in the center of the street, projections burning brighter for a moment before they disappear completely. Michaela's brow furrows. "Stark and his toys. He wouldn't know real power if—" He shakes his head, turning on his heel, angling himself back towards the alley. "I thought it was only that Devil haunting these streets. I'll make sure to remember you the next time I'm in the area, Blackout."

"Oh, hey, no, no, no, you're not going anywhere—"

The blaring of sirens cuts through Michaela's words, and she whips her head around, startled to realize that two police cruisers are rounding the corner, almost on top of them. On the one hand, great, she can wash her hands of this guy, let the police process him and send him to whatever jail they have for almost-supervillains, if that's even what this guy is. On the other hand, they might want to arrest her, and that's not on her agenda for today.

But when she looks back, the guy is gone. Vanished. No trace of him left. She blinks, stunned. She hadn't heard him running or anything, maybe the sirens covered it, but. Shit. She does a perfunctory sweep of the streets, looking for any last glimpse of him, but no dice. Double shit. She can't stay here, can't explain to the police what just went down, and she's not even sure they'd believe her if she could.

Muttering curses to herself, Michaela makes herself scarce, extinguishing the light show so that they can't track her that way as she launches herself into an alleyway, mentally mapping her way back home. She's gonna have to make a few detours, just in case anyone is on her tail, which is going to be so much fun.

She needs to talk to Daredevil, see if he's met this guy before, because she is remarkably out of her depth here and she's not afraid to admit to her failings, not this time.

The only comfort she takes from this is that the woman made it out alright. Michaela clutches that information close to her heart all the way home, desperate for it to mean something.