A week later and Michaela, without exaggeration, wants to throw herself out the nearest window.

The problem with that (aside from the obvious), is that half the time she's twenty-thousand feet in the air, aboard the Bus, Coulson's charmingly named heavy-duty aircraft in which all of his best-loved agents are housed. Or something along those lines. Skye gave her the run-down at some point, but frankly, Michaela tuned out around minute three, just a little bit consumed with all the other shit on her mind.

Lincoln, though. Lincoln's been a godsend.

Michaela would never say she's happy to see anyone from SHIELD (Skye's great, she is, but Michaela's not a fan of her affiliations even now) – but technically Lincoln's not a part of SHIELD. Or he's only a part-timer? Maybe it's a case-by-case basis, or. Ugh. Whichever it is, she's able to separate him from SHIELD's sorta-sinister vibes and she's grateful for that, seeing as she's had to see him for about twelve hours a day for the last seven days.

Case in point:

"Better, that's better," Lincoln says, grinning at her from across the training room, his hands alight with familiar blue sparks. The slow-claps he's giving her shed those sparks onto the floor, where they dissipate harmlessly against the specially-designed mat they're practicing on.

Better, sure. He's placating her, but sure. Heaving a sigh, Michaela flips onto her back where she's lying on the mat and throws her arms out, letting them smack satisfyingly into the cushy material. She's bruised and battered, and little bit burnt, and Lincoln doesn't have a scratch on him. Typical. Yeah, the man's got years of experience on her and a masterful control of his powers, but. She thought she was... less shitty than this, and it's kind of mortifying to be shown so explicitly that she's nothing more than a novice when it comes to her abilities.

She doesn't even deserve to be called Knock-Off Thor at this point – her name doesn't belong in the same sentence as Thor's, let alone when it's being used as an epitaph. Knock-Off Thor, fuck, she might as well go by Off-Brand Toaster Oven for the rest of her superhero career.

Her eyes rove mindlessly across the ceiling as she considers whether or not she's ready to publicly announce a name change. Every breath aches in her chest, pressing sharply into her ribs on every ragged exhale. She's exhausted, strung out from throwing around so much of her energy daily. Her stamina's been a weakness of her since the early days of her vigilantism, and it's almost gotten her killed fairly recently, so she knows this is training she can't skip out on. But goddamn it might actually kill her at this rate.

A hand appears above her, sans the fireworks. Michaela groans, biting off the end of it because Lincoln doesn't need to hear her complaining, then claps her hand to his and lets him haul her to her feet. He grins, boyish, and Michaela does not deserve this bullshit. Why has every superpowered guy she's met in the last six months been so attractive? Lincoln's no Star-Spangled Man, but he's tall and blond and sweet, and he's so damn smiley while they're attempting to kick each other's asses. Michaela can't not like him, and it'd be more frustrating if he weren't the only thing on this plane-slash-rocket-fuckery that doesn't drive her up the fucking wall.

"I'm still... fizzling out," she says, fluttering her hands to demonstrate. She very much wishes she had literally any other words to describe the fact that every time she tries to maintain a constant, steady stream of electricity like Lincoln manages to do, it's like, like she's got two dying sparklers in her hands. Which is about as lame as she's making it sound. "It's controlled bursts or bust, and that is, uh, not the kinda progress I thought I'd be making by this point."

"It's been a week," Lincoln reminds her kindly, and that's true, yeah, and she's the last person you'd call an overachiever, but. What it really boils down to is this: the longer she's here, whipping her inexperienced ass into shape, the longer she's away from New York and—well. Not having convenient access to the Spider-Kid is both boring and troubling. That kid jumps into danger like he's got a death wish and her blood pressure isn't a fan of leaving him to his own devices for so long.

And then there's Matt.

Coulson didn't confiscate her phone for the duration of her stay here, though he did make it a point to remind her that revealing any of SHIELD's secrets is tantamount to committing treason, so. She hasn't been making a habit of texting anyone, except to tell Spidey that she is a) not dead and b) not currently undergoing torture in a secret government facility. He's been weirdly adamant about that one – that and asking if she's holed up in Area 51, and if so, can she get a selfie with one of the – and this was his wording – inmates?

The concern is twofold with that kid.

Matt, though. She's gotten to call him exactly once during this impromptu Inhuman boot camp, and she already knows she's in deep shit with him once she gets back. Matt doesn't get angry all that often, at least not as long as she's known him; he usually puts his lawyerly skills to good use and navigates his way through arguments with pinpoint accuracy. And he's so careful with how he expresses himself, always, cutting himself off from snapping or cracking a joke to lighten his own mood. But when she spoke to him last... he's definitely not a happy camper, though it's hard to know what he's pissed at, her or the situation in general.

Her faulty brain likes to remind her in the middle of the night that this is the second time she's bailed on him for SHIELD, and that Matt has every right to want to dump her for a better superhero sidekick-slash-partner-slash-friend. Like Jessica Jones. Jones probably doesn't disappear for days on end to parley with a not-so-secret, possibly defunct government agency. Hell, Spidey is more reliable than she is, and he has a curfew!

She's flakier than the high schooler. That stings, it really does.

On the more logical end of things, she knows Matt won't hate her for this. Probably. She's not ditching him on purpose, or even specifically ditching him. It's just. Unfortunate, you know, that this is the situation she's found herself in, not once but twice, with Matt taking a lot of the fallout on his own head. Blackout gets shit-talked in the papers when she's not spotted for a week (which is no different from when she's out there every night, but she's not bitter about that, no sir, not Michaela, that'd be petty), but Matt – Daredevil – ends up picking up her slack, putting himself more at risk, more than well aware that the police have taken to staking out vigilantes for kicks.

Speaking of Matt picking up her slack, she did get him to tell her that he found Grace that night, huddled outside Michaela's apartment building. He's taking care of her, he says, figuring out a safe space for her where hopefully she won't be on the wizard's radar. Michaela didn't have the words to thank him then, and she hasn't come up with anything better in the meantime. Fuck, she owes Matt so much, how is she ever going to make this up to him—

Faint pressure at her shoulder startles her out of her thoughts, and there's Lincoln, brows furrowed and mouth quirked into a concerned frown. His hand squeezes her shoulder again, as if confirming she's back with him, and she offers up a sheepish smile.

"You good?" he asks, lowering his voice a little. She's not naïve; she's aware SHIELD's got this room wired for audio and video, tracking their training sessions and possibly her intentions with Lincoln, which is a little stupid, she thinks, given that, at her current level, Lincoln could probably stop her heart with a well-placed bolt from across the room before she could even think to counter. Regardless, she appreciates his attempt at maintain her privacy, unlike some people she could name. "You're a million miles away, Michaela. That's not what I'd call good strategy."

She huffs, unable to argue that point. And really, she's not used to being so distracted, or, well. That's not it, exactly. She's used to being distracted when she's anxious about something, used to having it eat away at her attention until she's mostly doing things on autopilot (and therefore probably incorrectly). This is... different, somewhat. God, she's not dissociating, is she? It's never happened before, but that doesn't mean anything.

In the end, she shrugs, gently dislodging Lincoln's hand. She steps back, lifts her hands in a battle-ready stance that probably makes her look more than a little cartoonish, but it has the desired effect: Lincoln grins and backs up himself, hands sparking as he brings them up to mirror her, though he looks about eighty-percent less ridiculous, she's sure.

"You think you're okay to keep going?" he asks, nonetheless.

She bares her teeth, half grimace, half smile. "How far from New York are we right now?"

That gives him pause, and she watches his expression flicker, confusion fading into calculation. "About... two hundred miles, give or take? Why?"

This time the smile is more pronounced, though she'd wager it's pretty humorless. "I'm not a million miles away, is all. Two hundred's a lot less daunting."

Realization hits him, and he chuckles, running a hand through his hair, mindful not to let things get too staticky. It's something she forgets about a lot, honestly, and it's led to some truly spectacular bad hair days at work that even Emmett doesn't find flattering.

"Two hundred, huh? Let's work on cutting that down to zero."

"You any good at convincing Coulson to turn possible-assets loose?"

"That's not in my wheelhouse, but Skye, on the other hand..."

"Skye. Okay, yeah, I can get Skye on board!"

"I'm glad you're excited, Michaela, but you may wanna tone it down—aaaaaaand your gloves are on fire."

"Fucking shit."

____________________

"This... wizard—"

"Coulson, let me make something clear to you, 'kay? You can call him an enhanced individual all you want, or meta human, or whatever strikes your fancy at the time, but he's a wizard to me. Though it's debatable whether he's more Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Haven't hashed that one out fully with Spider-Man yet."

"Wizard is fine, Blackout. I'm just trying to understand exactly what went down in that warehouse. And, seeing as you might find it pertinent, the library you described to us the other night? There's no signs of anything like that inside the building."

"You think I'm lying?"

"No, I don't. Agent May might be skeptical of your story, but Skye and the others made a convincing case for you. And more than that, I'm good at reading people. You told us your truth."

"...but you think my truth isn't exactly accurate."

"It's possible you were manipulated into seeing things that weren't there, yes. It's also possible this wizard can do more than just move people through space with his portals."

"I... hadn't considered that."

"Sometimes an outside perspective is useful."

"Uh-huh. What else do you need to know about what happened? I thought I talked Skye's ear off that first night."

"The woman you went in to rescue. We were able to identify her and we're reasonably sure she's another Inhuman."

"I... definitely told you she was an Inhuman. Cato, the wizard fucker, basically said as much during the fight."

"We like being thorough here, so we checked up on her hospital records to make sure she matched up with the others."

"Can I assume you're not going to tell me who the others are?"

"That information is on a need-to-know basis, and as of right now, you're not on the list."

"Right. Sure. Trust me to be out and about on my own as a vigilante, but don't let me in on people who might be in the exact same situation I was, people I could be helping. Makes total sense."

"We have our reasons, Blackout. Now, if you could tell us more about Grace's abilities—"

"You are so fucking relentless, you know that?"

"It's what makes me so good at my job."

"...ugh, alright, so hers are pretty freaky..."

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________

"Lincoln, Lincoln, I have an idea! Potentially a dangerous one!"

Lincoln looks up from where he's shrugging off his track jacket, his expression dubious but not totally against whatever it is she has to say. Michaela grins, rubbing her gloved hands together, feeling all the mad scientist vibes.

"What's the idea?" he asks, cautious, sure, but his eyes are glinting with curiosity. He's a little hooked already, she can tell; dude definitely enjoys practicing with someone whose powers are so similar to his own.

"You ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender?"

"Nope. TV wasn't exactly a priority for me, growing up."

She winces. "Right, sorry, shoulda maybe guessed that one from what you've told me. Anyway, point is: lightning-bending."

"You're going to have to give me more details than that."

"Okay, simple version? You shoot lightning at me and I try to redirect it by letting it pass through my body."

His eyebrows lift at that. "That could kill you. Could completely fry your nervous system, or short out your heart."

"...so that's a no?"

"Not a no, but... let FitzSimmons run a few simulations first, test the waters. And we'll start small if we get past that point. Okay?"

"You are so much more accommodating than Daredevil."

"Skye's been a bad influence, what can I say?"

_____________________

Michaela bites back a very unprofessional whimper as Simmons dabs at her burns, tsking all the while and muttering under her breath, something along the lines of how could Coulson authorize something like this and having powers doesn't make a person invincible! Michaela would say something, but, eh, Simmons isn't wrong. The lightning-bender training has not been... overly productive, unless in this case productive means Michaela walks away from every session missing a layer or two of skin. Because if you're going by that definition, then Michaela is golden.

Her palms have taken the brunt of it, even with her new specially designed gloves dispersing the electricity that hits them into something a little more manageable. Lincoln's pinpoint accuracy means he only misses when she deliberately dodges, and since she's trying not to do that, she takes more of his bolts than not. The skin of her palms is burnt and blistered and overall unpleasant to both feel and look at, and Skye has expressed her opinion about it on more than once occasion. Mostly that she thinks Michaela's an idiot, which is nothing new.

And yet, she doesn't want to stop.

She's in pain, yeah, and it's made that much worse by shocking the nerves of her hands into over-sensitivity, but. She wants this, she wants to prove that she can improve. Be more than what she's been this whole time. Maybe have a trick up her sleeve for the next time she and the wizard have a showdown. She also wants something to show for her time her, so she feels at least a smidge less guilty when she eventually makes it back to New York and has to face the consequences of her unintended trip.

Not that Matt's going to be impressed with her or anything. She has a feeling he's going to call her dumbassery into question and then silently judge her for a while. Could be worse. Probably.

While she's been musing, Simmons seems to have finished patching her up, and Michaela glances over to her when she clears her throat pointedly. Simmons – Jemma, but everyone refers to her as one half of FitzSimmons, so Michaela's gotten into the habit of last-naming her – stands with her hands on her hips, disposable gloves disposed of, her face pinched with an emotion that Michaela can only guess at. Annoyance, maybe, for wasting her time with her superficial injuries? Michaela's pretty sure Simmons has like, infinitely more important things to be doing than tending to her (more or less) self-imposed wounds.

So she's kind of surprised when Simmons says, "Please be more careful, Blackout. You don't want to overdo it and risk not being able to use your powers properly."

Michaela blinks. She subtly flexes her hands, hissing slightly at the burn of her skin stretching; it's better than it was before, though, now that Simmons has applied some sort of burn cream and wrapped them neatly in gauze.

"Um," she says, blinking again. "I'm... sorry?"

"Sorry? That's—Oh, don't be sorry on my account, I don't mind doing this, and really, I'm more upset with Lincoln for not holding back with you, but that's... neither here nor there. Just. Go easier on yourself, yes? You won't get anywhere if you're always laid up in the infirmary."

She has a point, and a solid one at that. And she's on a tight schedule now that she's gotten Skye to get Coulson to agree that they're making their way back to New York in the next couple days. Coulson's gotten whatever information he wanted from her (with the assistance of the impressively terrifying Agent May) and has no real qualms about letting her loose in the city again, so long as she promises to keep them updated on the wizard situation.

They have eyes in New York but not as many as they'd like, and they're having a hard time tracking his energy signature, or... something else science-fiction-y that she only half understood. So she's essentially another agent (without all the perks, apparently), feeding them intel when she gets it. She'd mind more about them having a direct line to her if it didn't also give her a resource for when she runs into other Inhumans. Skye's going to be their go-between since she's made the best impression on Michaela (and Lincoln is still, sadly, only a part-timer), so it won't be all terrible, at least.

Anyway, all that to say, Michaela doesn't have much more time with Lincoln to work on her powers. So, Simmons is right; the less time she's nursing her wounds, the better.

Mustering up an approximation of a grateful smile, Michaela glances back at Simmons. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, really, for doing all this for me. I know we're not teammates or anything—"

"You're a good person, Michaela. That's more than enough reason for me to help you."

Michaela's blushing, fuck, this needs to stop being her default reaction to pretty people being nice to her. At least it's not that common of an occurrence. "You seem... way too nice to be a SHIELD agent. Or, I dunno, a government agent, anyway."

Simmons smiles, ducking her head as she sets about putting her supplies away in one of the glass cupboards lining the wall. "It's true some others in my professions can be... a tad too aggressive. But I think overall we're a good bunch, if you get to know us."

Michaela can't say she's thrilled about the time she's had to spend here on the Bus, mostly because of the circumstances that led her being here at all, but. She likes Simmons, and Skye, and Lincoln, and while May scares the shit out of her she's someone Michaela admires a helluva lot. Fitz she doesn't know as well, or the other members of Coulson's team, but she thinks Simmons is right about this, too. Coulson is an ass, she's not changing her initial assessment of him, but, well. He's grown on her a little. He's not evil or anything, just. Not someone she'd really consider getting any closer to. She could've done a lot worse with her first brush with SHIELD – she could've met someone before Cap came in and cut Hydra out at the root.

Yikes. That's not a thought she wants to entertain at fucking all.

"I'll take your word for it," is what she settles on saying to Simmons, hopping down from the bed and carefully stuffing her hands into the pockets of her SHIELD-issued hoodie. "But really, thank you. I wouldn't know what to do with these" – she fists her hands and pulls the hoodie taut around them to draw Simmons' attention to them – "so I'm... ya know, glad you were here so I didn't destroy my hands."

"Try not to do that with Lincoln and we'll call it even?"

"You've got yourself a deal, Simmons."

______________________

Naturally, Michaela nearly kills herself the next time she and Lincoln go at it.

But it's worth it! Totally, one hundred percent worth it, because at the end of her last day with SHIELD, she's standing in the modified training room, exhausted down to the marrow of her bones, bleeding from several scrapes and bruised from head to toe, staring wide-eyed at the charred patch on the wall directly opposite her.

Her hands are still smoking, Christ, the gloves blackened but mostly intact, her skin all along her arms tingling and flush with goosebumps. She's not dead, she feels so fucking alive actually, and more to the point, she got the electricity to go from Point A to Point B. Not her own electricity, oh no, Lincoln's electricity.

She whips her head around, finding Lincoln across the room, staring at her. It takes a second, both of them silent and still apart from Michaela's heaving chest and trembling limbs, but a slow, blinding smile spreads across his face.

"Holy shit," she breathes, unable to staunch the smile pulling at her own mouth.

"Holy shit," he agrees, laughing, "holy shit, you pulled it off!"

"Suck it, Azula!" Michaela whisper-shouts, punching the air because she is, as previously discussed, the biggest of nerds. "I think I almost had a heart attack but oh my fucking God it worked!"

She nearly throws herself at Lincoln when he walks closer, practically high from her far-fetched victory. He stumbles a little under the force of her hug but returns it easily, laughing with her. Michaela would be a little more inhibited with the touchy-touchy, but a) she's stoked right now and needs to share that with someone, and b) she and Lincoln figured they're in some way related, even if distantly, and hell if Michaela isn't going to take advantage of having family around when she's so damn excited.

She pulls back, her face flushed, her breathing still more than slightly erratic (perfectly in time with the wild beating of her heart, at least), just so pleased with the world in this moment.

"Fuck, thank you," she says, "I couldn't have asked for a better mentor."

"I'm just glad I could help," he says, still beaming, like he's just as proud of her as she is of herself. "You did all the work, Michaela, you're the one who got yourself this far. And in only a couple weeks? That's an insane amount of improvement."

"Desperation's a great motivator. And coming in off a near-death experience doesn't hurt, either."

"Take the compliment, will you?"

"Can do, Lincoln, can do."

She's going to feel like death warmed over tomorrow (who's she kidding, she'll be wishing for death in about an hour), but she doesn't even care right now. She did that. She's officially a lightning-bender, which is, suffice it to say, one of her childhood dreams crossed off the list. What the fuck. What the fuck, her life is pure madness at this point and she's ecstatic about it.

Plus, even better, she's going home.

Michaela hasn't felt this accomplished in years, and tomorrow she gets to tell people about it, people who she knows and cares about so fucking much, Spider-Child is going to literally pee himself in excitement. God, she can't wait to get off this damn Bus and go back to her rat-trap of an apartment, sleep in her own bed, and probably short-circuit another one of her kitchen appliances. She gets to see Spider-Child in the flesh and—

Matt.

Yeah, that's up there with sleeping in her own bed, getting to see Matt again. She hasn't gone this long without physically interacting with him since Daredevil and Blackout first teamed up, and she's missed him like she would a limb. At least, that's the analogy she's going with, seeing as she's never lost a limb before. It applies. Probably. Maybe.

Whatever, her overworked brain can come up with something more appropriate when she's not running on fumes and questionable energy drinks FitzSimmons plied her with.

For now, she's content with grinning like a loon at Lincoln while he goes over everything else they've practiced, trying to ensure she keeps up with her training when she's on her own. She will, she'll do that for sure, but. Hell, she's happy, and he can tell, so she doubts he's upset he doesn't have all of her attention at the moment.

Tomorrow. She just has to hold out until then.