Blackout | Matt Murdock

interlude ii | captain america is a SAP and michaela can prove it

"Holy fuck, that's Captain America."

Michaela, in her infinite wisdom (and apparently having learned nothing from her encounter with Thor) says this out loud. In broad daylight. Surrounded by dozens of jaded New Yorkers who give not one shit about anything she has to say. Aside from the little old lady she's in the middle of helping transfer her belongings from her apartment into a moving van.

"You're drooling, honey," the little old lady says, her mouth twisted with wry amusement. She sets down the box she's holding on the truck bed, freeing up her hands to pat Michaela consolingly on the back, though Michaela senses a shred of condescension in the gesture, which she chooses (graciously) to ignore for the sake of the woman's... reputation. Or something. "He looks even better now than he did on those posters when I was young, yes, but have a little decorum. You're a superhero, too, no?"

Michaela grimaces. Ugh. She doesn't want to be compared to Steve Rogers. The man is a literal living legend; Michaela's lucky if she can pay her rent each month, and she hangs out with what is presumably a high schooler and the so-called Devil of Hell's Kitchen in her spare time. Rogers lunches with the fucking president (probably – it sounds like something they'd make him do, anyway). If he's in the major leagues of this superhero gig, she's still playing swing-and-a-miss off a t-ball stand. She feels insulted on his behalf just to have their hero personas mentioned in the same sentence.

"Ma'am," Michaela says, then yelps immediately after when the lady smacks her bicep with her purse, because apparently she's not old enough to be called ma'am, okay, sure, let's go with that. "Uh, shit, miss—"

"It's Faith, Blackout, no need to be so formal."

Michaela has a very uncomfortable flashback to her first time meeting Spider-Man. At least there's no chance of her getting launched off the side of a building in this scenario. "Okay, Faith it is. I appreciate the, uh, support? But me and Steve Rogers are not the same, like, at all."

As if to prove her point, several store fronts down from them, Steve Rogers is currently posing with a group of college-aged kids, grinning beatifically into the camera and giving the cheesiest victory sign she has ever seen in her life. Again, living legend, leader of the Avengers, the moral backbone of America even when the government is being led by a bunch of corporate-pandering shit-heels. The man is so far beyond her in every sense of the word that... well. She doesn't have a set metaphor for this, it's never come up before in her idle daydreaming about befriending the Avengers.

Point is, he's amazing, and she's just. Not.

Faith seems to agree with her, judging by the way she's eyeing the way Rogers' shirt is straining over his mountain-esque shoulders. And hey, Michaela appreciates the man, he's as godly as a mere mortal can get (Thor being the obvious exception), but she's more interested in that steely moral center of his.

Also, his eyes. Fuck, those lashes are insane, Michaela would kill for eyelashes like that! And he just lucked into them! She's seen the pre-serum pictures, she knows those came with the original model. Goddamn him for being so pretty, even if she is partial to brunets these days.

Shaking herself out of her starstruck stupor, Michaela hefts the last of the boxes from the stoop of Faith's apartment building and slides them into the truck, tucking them neatly beside what's already inside. The furniture was a bitch to get out onto the street, especially that coffee table that Faith claims is from the 1890s; Michaela's just grateful that her nephew stuck around long enough to haul the armoire down with her, because Michaela may actually have gotten herself squished to death if she tried maneuvering it down the stairs by herself.