Blackout | Matt Murdock

chapter twelve | it had to happen sometime (1)

Turns out, Michaela doesn't have to even go looking for the wizard. Which, hey, that's great, right? No late-night internet trawling required (consequently, it means she doesn't have to stumble onto what Spidey has deemed the dark web – the irony, Christ -- or one of a dozen porn sites that people like to link to for shits and giggles).

Spoiler alert: This is not a fortuitous occasion for her.

It starts out simple enough – Michaela's practically crawling out of her skin with the need to do something and working two jobs isn't giving her many chances to make use of the excess electricity zipping around in her system. So she's back to lounging out on her balcony, legs hanging down from between slats of the railing, cradling the police scanner from her not-cousin and trying not to wish for something interesting to happen in her neighborhood.

And then something interesting happens.

Michaela stows the scanner and slips down from her apartment, clinging to the shadows as she makes her way to the address the 911 call was made from. It's not that far of a walk for her; she knows the area pretty well after all the nights she's spent cutting through alleyways and trailing after Daredevil, which means she's got a good handle on the best shortcuts in Hell's Kitchen. Better than the police, anyway, though to be fair they've kind of got to stick to the main roads. Can't have cops hopping the curbs just to shave a few seconds off their response time.

Still, she makes it there only a few minutes after the police, slinking her way up an adjacent fire escape so that she doesn't get caught in the red and blue flashes of light spinning out from the street. She tracks the officers to the fourth floor of the complex only because the people above and below that floor are hanging out their windows, searching for the disturbance and coming up empty.

Michaela crouches on the fire escape, peering through the open window across from her position. Men and women in uniform pass by her sightlines every so often, doubling back and thoroughly searching the room Michaela has access to after a few minutes; it's the bedroom, or one of them at least, judging by the scarce décor Michaela can make out. The edge of a bedspread; a cluttered nightstand stacked with books and picture frames alike; a cracked door that presumably leads into a closet, or an ensuite bathroom. Frowning under her mask, Michaela leverages herself upright and leans out over the railing, straining to catch even a snippet of conversation between the officers.

Should she call Matt? His hearing would be such an asset right now, she'd actually have an idea of what the fuck is happening in there. Michaela skipped out on the chatter after she heard that there was a possible break-in at this address, that a woman called in a panic, desperate for someone to come out right this second because a man she didn't know was in her house. Shit, why didn't she bring the scanner with her?

Caught up in her thoughts as she is, Michaela nearly misses the movement inside the apartment. Abnormal movement. Her eyes catch on an officer backing out of the bedroom, calling out to the others as he goes. He doesn't close the door as it hadn't been closed to begin with, so Michaela watches as the three officers who responded to the call all file out through the front door. She blinks.

That's it?

They're on street-level within minutes. One of the officers, a woman, sticks around to pacify the curious bystanders and residents of the complex, but the men get into their squad car and drive off without even a backwards glance at the building. Once she's satisfied the nosy neighbors, the woman follows suit.

Seriously, that's it?

The cool, rust-pitted metal of the railing bites into Michaela's exposed fingers as her grip on the iron flexes, her shoulders still hitched up around her ears. She's not as much of a stranger to standard police procedure as she was when she started – she learned the basic ins and outs of it from Daredevil originally, and then Matt-the-lawyer felt comfortable delving into the nitty-gritty aspects of it with her later. (Prior to that her working knowledge of police procedure came from crime dramas, so. Matt was doing the city a real service and he didn't even realize) But no matter how she looks at it, something's off here.