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.

She and Daredevil need burner phones or something, or smoke signals, or something.

___________________

The good news: Michaela lasts longer than two minutes against him this time, and she even manages to clip his shoulder with a bolt of lightning.

The bad news: Michaela is so overcome with smug satisfaction at having clipped him in the shoulder that she fails to notice the portal he opens up in mid-air, that he then promptly shoves her through.

The badder bad news: That portal? Real deal. And it spits her out about two hundred feet above some random New York street.

Michaela screams, she's not ashamed of it.

She will, however, vehemently deny that she pissed herself, because she has some class.

___________________

"Uh, Miss Blackout?"

"That's a little formal but okay, yeah, what is it, Spidey?"

"What were you even doing here? Aren't you, um, usually on the ground?"

Michaela, from her undignified position dangling from one of Spider-Man's webs a good twenty stories above Flushing Avenue, lets out a gust of a sigh. The winds at this height are bitter and cutting and Michaela is not dressed for this, okay, she doesn't know how Spider-Man deals with it because his costume is not, from what she can tell while she's close to him, padded in any way, shape, or form. Maybe that's another of his powers — heat retention. Electricity burns, right? She's gotta be able to make that work for her somehow, otherwise she is never going to survive a New York winter in her current costume.

But that's for another time; the Spider boy asked her a question.

"Would you believe me if I told you a wizard teleported me here?"

"A wizard?" Spider-Man squeaks, pausing in his attempt to hoist Michaela up onto the ledge he's perched on, not unlike a sack of flour. He seems to be having about as much difficulty holding her weight. Yup, super strength confirmed. God, Michaela would kill for that, instead of the teeny-tiny boosts she gets from stimulating her muscles. She also notes casually that he doesn't remember to deepen his voice. Teenage Spidey, also confirmed. Fuck everything. "Like, Dungeons & Dragons? Or more of a Gandalf? Yer a wizard, Harry?"

As much as Michaela was a fantasy nerd in high school, she has a feeling Spidey here could out-nerd her in every conceivable way. Cute. "He's kind of in his own category. Although..." She considers for a moment, then nods. "DnD probably comes the closest. No wand or anything like that, just... whoosh-y hand movements."

Spidey finally realizes he was in the middle of saving her ass and hauls her up the last ten feet or so, depositing her gently beside him. She scoots back the second she's settled her weight on the ledge, tucking her legs in against her torso. She's not afraid of heights, necessarily, but despite her banter with Spider-Man, her heart hasn't stopped jack-rabbitting in her chest from suddenly plummeting out of the sky to her (then certain) doom, so she's not taking any chances. Spidey would catch her again, most likely, but still. She might as well try not to be a useless hero while she's got the kid with her.

This close, she can also tell that Spider-Man's sweats are painstakingly stitched together by someone who was not particularly adept at hand-sowing. So probably he did it himself. His eye... things might've been lids to something once upon a time. She wonders idly if he sharpied the spider insignia onto the hoodie's chest.

"Is he dangerous?" Spider-Man asks, and now he's back to the voice thing. What a shame, it's a lot more difficult taking him seriously like this.

Michaela puffs out her cheeks while she thinks that one over, her gaze determinedly on the sky above her rather than the drop-off right in front of her. This high up, the sounds of the city aren't nearly as deafening. "Yeah," she says eventually. "Yeah, he's dangerous. He just whooshed his arms and a... a portal, I guess, appeared? It looked sort of like when you twirl a sparkler in a circle really, really fast, that afterimage effect, ya know? But then I was looking through it and down at the street, and then he shoved me into it and I... well, you saw."

She'd been damn lucky that Spider-Man was slinging around in the area, because she'd had no way of breaking her fall. She swallows, tipping her head back against the cold glass windows of the building they're sitting on, letting herself feel the weight of her body, the chill spreading gooseflesh over her skin, the hiccupping sob that she won't let past her windpipe. Just takes a moment to exist and adjust to the reality that she's not dying just yet.

Spidey lets her have her moment, crouched next to her with his arms resting on his bent knees, head cocked to the side as a sign that he's paying attention to her. She appreciates it, more than she could put into words.

When she can finally breathe a little easier, she says, "This is the second time I've seen him. I thought it was just, like, party tricks before. Special effects, some tech or something I couldn't see. But nope, he's a red-blooded wizard, and I don't know what the hell kinda campaign he's on but he's been hitting banks and god knows what else in Hell's Kitchen." Micaela snorts quietly. "In Hell's Kitchen, of all places. Think you'd take those skills to Manhattan at least, rob the high-end stores blind and teleport yourself out of there waaaay before the cops get involved."

"You want backup?"

Michaela eyes him curiously, a little awed at the sincerity in his voice. Now that she thinks about it, he kind of reminds her of an overeager puppy, looking for any and all chances to please. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, so she can't quite staunch the smile that quirks at her lips. It makes her notice that she's lost the mask over the lower half of her face between Hell's Kitchen and here, which. Not ideal, no, but she doubts she needs to worry about Spidey recognizing her.

"You've got your hands full with Queens, Spidey, and I've already got a vigilante buddy back in Hell's Kitchen." She has yet to contact Daredevil about this wizard problem, but she's working up to that. Besides, Spider-Man doesn't need to know; he's probably got school and family to worry about, she's not gonna load another thing onto his plate.

"Aw, but I don't just protect Queens!" Spider-Man says, gesturing wide with both arms. "New York is my home, I can't have a favorite borough."

Michaela wrinkles her nose. "Yeah, okay, that's where I draw the line. We've all got a favorite borough. You think Captain America doesn't keep his heart in Brooklyn like the giant sap he undoubtedly is?"

"You think Captain America is a sap?"

"Uh, you ever do any reading on that guy? Like from the war? He's a sap for Bucky Barnes. Or," she adds, wincing, "he was a sap for Bucky Barnes."

On a lighter note, she says, "Also that man stops to take pictures with people like all the fucking time. Especially if they have dogs. He's tagged on Instagram and Twitter and Buzzfeed every other day. Sap, of the extra-thick variety."

That gets Spider-Man to laugh, which makes her preen, a little.

"Point is, you're good here. You're doing good here. Don't stop that on my account. But, uh, if you wouldn't mind giving me a lift down to ground-level...?"

"I can do better than that, Miss Blackout!"

"Okay, the first time was funny but now it's just weird— holy shit please don't let go!"

Michaela clings to Spider-Man with all her limbs and her face tucked into the crook of his neck, stifling the next scream by biting into the collar of her jacket, as this child grabs hold of her and launches them down off the side of the building. There's a terrifying few seconds of free-fall, the wind deafening all other sounds besides her blood roaring in her ears, and then there's a loud thwip that must be Spider-Man letting loose one of his webs, and then the sudden body-shuddering jerk of them changing direction mid-air. It takes a considerable amount of her willpower not to flood Spider-Man with electricity, and he should be thanking her for that because her soul almost just left her fucking body, and oh my god she is never doing this ever again, fuck you, Spider-Child!

Spider-Man slings her all the way back to Hell's Kitchen, laughing in her ear the entire time. If Michaela static-clings all of his clothes in retaliation, well, it's not like he doesn't deserve it.

Where's one of those godawful Captain America PSAs when you need them? So, on the inside, you're really a little shit—