Blackout | Matt Murdock

chapter four | enter: spider-child

How desperate does she have to be to look up the address of Jones' agency so she can pay her a visit and probably (pathetically) beg for her assistance?

Michaela's research skills have, in the past, been compared to that of a rabbit — in that she tends to find herself falling into multiple holes without ever arriving at her prescribed destination. She starts innocently enough, Googling for anything that even remotely resembles the tech she saw the guy using, but after the fourth time she gets linked back to Stark Industries, she changes tracks.

Searching for incident reports that match up with her encounter is a bust, too. Either no one's gone to the police, or this guy is covering his tracks too well. And that's just fantastic, just fucking great. Michaela nearly had her ass handed to her and she can't even find the guy to return the favor. Or, well, call in Daredevil to return the favor. He's quick, he could probably get a hit in on the guy before the shields came up.

This is where the rabbit holes come in, though.

An hour into her search (all the while wearing rubber gloves so she doesn't accidentally cause her laptop to combust again), she resurfaces for air, blinking the dryness from her eyes. And, yeah, what she's been looking into has nothing to do with shield guy. She's got about fourteen tabs open, all of them news articles relating to Daredevil in some way. And — and she's more than a little ashamed of this one — a few about Nelson and Murdock, attorneys at law.

When the news broke about Wilson Fisk getting jailed, Michaela hadn't cared much. She didn't know a lot about Fisk as a person or a businessman because she purposely stuck her nose in her textbooks and ignored pretty much everything that didn't pertain to her school or her work. But Nelson and Murdock had a familiar ring to it, though she's only just now realizing why. They're the firm that took down Fisk! Holy shit! Matt and Foggy (and Karen) are total badasses! How did she not know this before now? What's more, all she's wanted to do is give the three of them high fives or hugs, or, she doesn't even know, she just wants to tell them how amazing she thinks the three of them are.

Except Matt's been absent from the store for a while now. Foggy came in once, about a week ago, more to socialize than act as a paying customer. Not that she minded. It was good to see Foggy, even if he looked like he was one sleepless night from packing it all up and moving out into the mountains to become the most educated hermit in the Catskills. He waved off her concern, though, said he and Matt had a hell of a case but they're fine, really, no need to freak out or anything. Which was not as reassuring as Foggy probably meant it to be.

And now Michaela is sitting cross-legged on her bed, laptop balanced on her thighs, staring at all the evidence of the shitstorms Nelson and Murdock have endured in their short lifespan as a legitimate firm. God, no wonder Foggy sends Matt out for snack runs; she can't believe either of them ever leave the office even to sleep. Matt is also way too fucking chipper every time they see each other; if Michaela had a fraction of the stress he goes through she'd... probably combust on the spot, and she's a vigilante, for fuck's sake. On top of being a college student, too. She knows stress, intimately, and she still can't fathom how Matt and Foggy haven't had like, multiple heart attacks yet.

Sighing, she leans back slightly, squinting at her fourteen tabs. This is not how she planned for her night to go. She's gotta... get back on track somehow. Reluctantly closing out every tab that isn't at least tangentially related to shield guy, Michaela pulls up a local news site. She can page through the recent additions, maybe watch the live feed for a while and see if she has any need to grab her suit.

It turns out to be both the best and worst decision of the night.

Because as soon as she clicks on the link to the live feed, there's that motherfucking shield guy, glowing like he's on his way to the nearest rave and walking into a bank like he owns the place.