"Avengers Tower?"
"Or Stark Tower, whatever. Did he ever like, legally change the name of the building?"
"I don't think incorrect labeling of architecture is the major issue here, but—"
"Fuck, no, you're right. Sorry. I just – I think you made a good point before. About Cato."
Matt's arms uncross, dropping to his sides. She's thrown him for a loop, she can tell, because he doesn't immediately say anything, just. Studies her. Cato was not originally even in the ballpark of this conversation, so she's not surprised – truth be told, she hadn't really understood how he factored into it at first, either. But Michaela's had a long while to think this through, and seeing as it's been a few weeks since Mordo unceremoniously dropped them from the wizard case without any tangible results, she figures it's time they bring in the big guns.
Meaning the Avengers. If that wasn't already desperately obvious.
"I can't handle him myself. I admitted to that," Michaela says, sitting up from where she's been sprawled across Matt's unfairly comfortable couch. "Karl says he's got it covered, but I don't know him and I don't trust him. Which means I'd like to see this through myself. But, like I said, doing this on my own is only going to end badly."
"And you've decided that we're going to ignore the three other supers we happen to have an in with already?"
Ah. Yes. Michaela's considered that, Luke and Jessica and Peter, all of them gearing up together and having a go at Dumbledore's distinctly evil cousin. And she's not even opposed to it, really – she's done big jobs with all of them before and they work together like a dream. They get all the teamwork points, especially Luke and Jessica. It's just. Well.
"I think this is... bigger than us. Less small-fry, more trophy-fish-mounted-over-the-fire-place."
There's a pause. A lengthy one.
Michaela contemplates the merits of shocking herself unconscious, then turns her head to groan into the back of the couch. "You know what I mean," she says directly into the cushion, knowing Matt'll pick up on it regardless of how muffled her voice is.
The couch dips beside her, signaling that Matt's abandoned his post staring with brooding intensity out the window (never mind the fact that he can't actually see out the window). His warm hand slides around to squeeze reassuringly at the back of her neck, and she sighs, the tension already starting to bleed out of her.
"He's that dangerous, huh?"
"Pretty sure he fits right in with the usual band of world domination-seeking assholes the Avengers take down on the regular, Matty."
Another squeeze, and Michaela's a fucking touch-starved loser, but she latches right on to the feeling of each individual finger, the prickling warmth against her skin, the grounding pressure. A shudder runs through her and she'd be embarrassed – more embarrassed, anyway – but Matt barely reacts beyond adjusting his grip on her and scooting to close the gap between them on the couch, pressing their thighs together. Her mouth quirks into the faintest of smiles; Matt's too good for her, he really is, but hell if she's going to be the one to tap out of this relationship. Matt's stuck with her until he decides otherwise.
"I trust your judgement," he says, and Michaela looks at him, at the soft, determined smile he's wearing, the openness of his expression. "I trust you, Michaela. If you say this is Avengers-level villainy, then we'll take a trip to Manhattan."
"I love you," she says, because it's true, and because it might never have been truer than it is in this moment.
Matt's smile turns more or less blinding, and she's saying that with full knowledge of what the Mighty Thor and Captain America look like when they're being their happy-golden-retriever selves.
"I love you, too." He lifts his hand from her neck only to brush the hair out of her eyes, tucking it neatly behind her ear, his hand lingering as it drags down the line of her jaw. "I wouldn't consider haranguing the Avengers for just anyone, you know?"
She does know that. Forget the teasing for a second – she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Matt cares about her just as much as she does about him. Foggy is Matt's best friend, there was never any competition about that, but he loves her. She might've been insecure about it in the beginning, might have worried she was wading in much deeper than he was willing to go, but. Matt's an all-in type of guy when he loves someone, she's come to realize; he's not coy with his feelings once he's decided to act on them. Which she appreciates. A lot. Because god knows she's been with enough people who didn't like to spell things out for their partners.
She isn't always sure she deserves Matt, but she doesn't question him. Ever. Not about this.
Laughing a little, Michaela leans forward to press a kiss to Matt's cheek, to which he chuckles and turns his head to catch her mouth properly. She can't help smiling, her happiness plain and unfettered, bubbling up quick in her throat; Matt lets her laugh it out, resting their foreheads together, his warm hands rubbing gentle at the pulse points on either side of her neck.
"Someone's gotta invite the kid along..."
That draws a sigh out of Matt, though he's grinning with fond exasperation while he's doing it. "What a scene we're going to make. Blackout, Daredevil, and Spider-Man walking into Stark's ridiculous tower..."
"There's a joke in there somewhere, but I have a feeling it'd somehow be at my expense so I'm not gonna dig for it."
"That's kind of you. For once."
Michaela let outs a half-hearted ha of disbelief, but, well. He's not wrong. It's not exactly on-brand for Michaela to pass up the chance to make a self-deprecating quip. Now isn't really the time, though, and even her pitiful self-esteem seems a little quicker on the uptake because of it.
"Anyway," Matt says, sitting back a bit, his hands sliding down to grip lightly at her wrists. "Should we? Suit up for this, I mean. A few of the Avengers know you out of your costume, right?"
Michaela blinks. "But they don't know you. Or Peter."
Matt only just got properly introduced to the kid, once Michaela had convinced him that Matt was as trustworthy as they come. Peter had met him as Daredevil, obviously, but he's wanted to know Matt Murdock the lawyer/boyfriend, and he couldn't really do that as Spider-Man. Or, well, he could have, but the kid's so damn earnest that he would have felt entirely too guilty about the supposed power imbalance, so. The three of them are in on each other's secrets these days, but entrusting them to the Avengers is – a different beast altogether.
Then again... Michaela's thought about this. Tony Stark (probably through hacking facial-recognition software from SHIELD or the CIA or whatever) figured out her identity from a half-masked photo of her with Thor, because curiosity may not have killed the cat but it definitely drives the billionaire super-genius insane. She's regularly thrown in with Daredevil and the others in the news, it wouldn't be all that odd (well, beyond how fucking weird it already is) if Stark went ahead and outed the rest of them. Michaela would feel like a total asshole if that were the case, but it would make things a little simpler for their current situation.
Fuck, maybe texting Thor is actually the best thing she could do right now.
...maybe making Matt text Thor would work, too.
"Michaela?"
Ah, shit. She blinks again, shaking herself out of her thoughts. Matt Murdock really does have the patience of a saint when it comes to her. "I'm... shit, I'm sorry, I just. That's asking a lot from you two, to ditch the suits."
"I'm willing to do it if it means you're more comfortable. I know how much you hate the tabloids going after Blackout. And I doubt Parker would mind since he'd be getting to play nice with Stark in exchange. But it's your call."
Right. Her call. That's great and all, but she doesn't know what fucking call makes sense here. What's going to net them the best outcome? It's true Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff have met her – met Michaela King – but the others only know her through Stark's frankly unwarranted meddling. And yes, she hates the tabloids with a passion, she told Rogers as much when he suggested she stop by. But. It's selfish, isn't it? Forcibly ripping off Matt and Peter's mask just so she isn't the butt of another superhero conspiracy theory. Then again, walking in there as themselves, without their personas hanging over their heads... maybe it would un-complicate some things in a viciously complicated situation.
"We could—" Michaela starts, only to cut herself off when she feels her phone vibrating against her thigh. "Shit, sorry," she mutters, fishing it out and squinting at the screen. It's her regular phone, so it's not Peter—
"Ah," she says, strained. "Fuck."
Matt tenses beside her but she hesitates on simply blurting out the headline of the Google alert she's just received; instead, she lightly taps his thigh with her unoccupied hand, silently asking for his patience, which he gives willingly and without complaint. Michaela clicks into the article the alert leads to and skims over it, her heart sinking further into her stomach with ever line.
"Scratch that," she says, just shy of a groan. "We're not meeting the Avengers any time soon. Something's, uh, happened. With the twins? Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are" – Michaela frowns, swiping up to reread the last paragraph – "or, I mean, they were in Europe for something, along with Captain America and the Falcon. Now they're in Asia and they apparently called in the rest of the team to back them up. Fuck, I haven't been paying attention to the news recently, I didn't even know any of them were out of the country..."
What's even more annoying is that she'd ignored something involving the twins. Michaela's been a little obsessed with them since they made their so-called debut a few months back, single-handled (or double-handedly? Since there's two of them?) infiltrating and subsequently wiping out a Hydra cell in South America. Scarlet Witch – likely on orders from one of the more senior Avengers – took a moment in the wake of the battle to introduce herself to the local news crew who picked up the scoop. She'd been calm and composed, her lilting voice soft but admirably resolute. Her brother, on the other hand – well, he hardly appeared on camera at all, just fucking whizzed by, paused a moment to back up and drop his hero name and wink at the audience, then went right back to chucking Hydra goons into SHIELD transport vehicles.
They've done a handful of interviews since announcing themselves as the newest Avengers recruits, and Michaela is struck every time by how young they are. They can't be older than twenty, even with Quicksilver's silver-gray-white hair and Scarlet Witch's soulful eyes, and that's – not strange, necessarily, not when Michaela has seen Peter's heroics in person, but it's mildly concerning. The two of them are powerful, Scarlet Witch especially, and yet.
And yet Michaela has to wonder who the hell signed off on them being Avengers at their age. They've shared only minor details about their backstory, inconsequential tidbits about how they got their powers (clearly not the full story given their penchant for involving themselves in every Hydra take-down the Avengers have gone on since they joined the team), and Michaela knows they're likely mature beyond their years because of whatever they've gone through, the same way Peter is on his best days. She just feels – off about the whole thing. Weirdly protective.
It's probably residual mom-vibes from her being so freaked out over Peter's continued wellbeing, but. It's a thing for her. So, she's been pretty studious about watching out for them in the news, never mind the fact that she's never met either of them.
Matt thinks it's cute of her, so there's that, at least.
Er, regardless of her mildly creepy fixation, this throws a serious wrench into their plans. Fuck. With the Avengers out of town, their options are limited; they could wait for them to get back, sure, but there's no telling how long this particular mission will take, and Michaela would rather start in on the Cato problem sooner rather than later.
"I, uh, I guess we're back to square one, huh?" she says, dropping her phone into her lap with an audible smack.
"It was a never a guarantee they'd be able to do anything for us," Matt points out reasonably.
"You're right, yeah, but. Was a nice thought, ya know? That they might be able to track the bastard down for us and kick his ass once and for all."
"There's always the chance that Mordo comes through..."
Michaela laughs. Loudly.
Which, okay, isn't super warranted. But come on! Mordo had literal months to find this guy and deal with him, and Cato managed to avoid him all that time, despite appearing on the news more than once. In broad daylight. Whatever Mordo was doing clearly wasn't enough, and again, Michaela doesn't know the guy. She's got no reason to believe in his abilities to counter Cato and bring him to justice, or however he phrased it. He could be fucking around as they speak for all she knows, and really, Michaela doesn't—
Her phone vibrates again. Violently.
Matt looks down at the same time she does, and she pauses, her eyes flicking up to his face as he pulls his phone out from his pants pocket. It's still vibrating, and, uh, shit. Making noise. She knows that sound, and not just because her phone is making the same exact one. That's the tell-tale whine of an emergency alert. With a heavy exhale, Michaela picks up her phone, already dreading whatever event is happening just when the Avengers are out of reach.
As her phone shakes with a vengeance in her hands, she mutters a quiet, vehement fuck under her breath.
Enhanced individuals spotted fighting in the area of Hell's Kitchen. Caution is advised.
Michaela reads the message aloud to Matt, then immediately unlocks her phone to pull up the news site she has permanently opened in her browser, the one she likes because it's usually got a live feed up of whatever current disaster as stricken New York.
This time is no different.
"Call Jessica and the others," Michaela says, once she's swallowed back the rising panic that flutters quick and spastic in her throat.
"How bad is it?" Matt asks even as he's smoothly rising to his feet, his phone at his ear as he moves towards the trunk he stows his Daredevil gear in.
"Ah, not too bad. Cato's just, ya know, beating the magical shit out of Mordo in the middle of Hell's Kitchen. With civilians caught in the crossfire. The usual."
"The usual," Matt repeats, grim. She hates the look on his face, the tightness around his mouth, the way all traces of laughter have been erased from his expression. She knows she has to look much the same, though, so she doesn't bother trying for comforting words, just tucks her phone away and follows Matt's lead, grateful she's taken to keeping a spare suit at Matt's place with how much time she spends here.
She listens to him on the phone with Jessica, then Luke, who both seem to at least be aware of the situation, though it's debatable whether they were planning on doing anything about it, seeing as it's out of Luke's usual jurisdiction and Jessica usually has other things on her plate. They both agree to meet them at the site of the battle, though, so Michaela focuses on the positives, meager as they might be, and sets about calling Peter herself once she's appropriately dressed. She'd usually waffle back and forth on whether or not it's worth bringing him on something as dangerous as this, but she thinks it's becoming some of an all hands on deck problem, and as young as Peter is, he's one of the best of them, in terms of both his skills and his heart. She can trust him to evacuate civilians if nothing else.
For a half-second Michaela thinks of Bailey, of their incredible power, of what an asset they could be. Then she dismisses the thought and slides her phone into her pocket. She's risking the life of one minor today, she's not going to talk herself into bringing the count up to two. Especially not when Cato poses such a threat to Inhumans as a whole. He might not have found Bailey yet, and Michaela isn't about to deliver them straight into his power-tripping hands, nope, not happening. Over her dead fucking body.
"Ready?" Matt asks, all kitted out now, the softness long gone from his face.
Michaela tugs at her gloves, pulling them down tight against her wrists and flexing her fingers. Sparks are already zipping between her fingers like a Jacob's Ladder gone haywire, and she has to put a conscious effort into not letting them run free from her skin. Matt has flammable things in his apartment, the last thing she needs is to start a fucking fire right before they duck out to do their do-gooding.
"As I'll ever be," she says, feigning a smile more for her sake than his. Her next breath stutters out of her, and she clenches her hands into fists, then relaxes them, screwing her face up as she concentrates on beating back the anxiety that's crawling up from the base of her spine. She has a bad feeling about this, but she has a bad feeling about everything these days. It can't – it won't stop her from doing what she can for her city and its people. "Let's avada kedavra the fuck out of this guy, Matty."