Blackout | Matt Murdock

chapter two | make or break

It becomes glaringly apparent that Michaela can't continue on without some sort of — she hesitates to use the word costume but the only other term that really applies is uniform, and she's not sure she's disciplined enough for that to work for her. She's seen Diego from the store twice now while out on patrol, and god, she's starting to feel bad for haranguing the Spider guy about his voice because she plummeted her own into an octave that made her sound like she hadn't spoken aloud in a year just to throw him off the scent. Her current get-up isn't doing it for her anymore, likely never has contributed much to her image anyway — sweats aren't as good as hiding her figure as she thought they'd be, and the hood-scarf combo gets in the way more than it ever really helps her.

She doesn't want to go to Daredevil's lengths (while his suit is badass, it's... gimmicky, and not her style; he's just so on the nose with it) but she'd like to maybe go a step farther than Spider-Man, who may also be relying on sweats but has a color scheme and a sigil going for him. Michaela likes his look, and yeah it could be improved upon, but who has money for that?

Which, where the fuck did Daredevil get his body armor from? That shit is custom made for sure, and unless he made it himself... well, it's not like she knows him. They've crossed paths a few more times in the aftermath of the gang shootout, sure, but they don't stand around and chitchat. So maybe he's secretly a billionaire like Stark, or. She would say funded by the government but, uh, that's unlikely, especially seeing as the news has been covering the grumblings of Congress over the validity of a group like the Avengers.

All this to say, she's in desperate need of a wardrobe change.

She's thought about it, considered her options. Luke Cage and Jessica Jones don't hide behind catchy hero names, and from what Michaela's seen of them in the news, there's no costume protecting their identities, either. They're not so much flaunting their powers as... reminding the world that they exist, that they're people, and Michaela respects the hell out of them for it. But she can't do that. She needs the alter ego, the barrier between her everyday life and the time when she's removed from that, doing what needs doing as best as she can.

God, her sanity wouldn't last two days if she pulled a Stark and just screamed that she's... well right now she'd be admitting to acting as Knock-Off Thor, because those assholes in the news have yet to give her a less insulting moniker. She'll work on that — she has plans for that fucking reporter, so many plans.

Unfortunately, for all her wishful thinking, the opportunity for a costume upgrade doesn't magically drop into her lap. So she shelves it for the time being, puts her energy into the problems she can solve right now. Namely, figuring out why Glasses has been coming into Cody's so often.

It's been a while since she first saw him, three months maybe, and she can't recall him ever coming in before that. So it's mildly strange that he's started visiting with any sort of consistency.

Michaela has her days, but when it comes to this, she's got her head on straight. He's not here for her, like romantically. From the chats they've had while she's ringing him up and trying not to offensively trip over his blindness in conversation, she's pretty sure he's got the hots for... Karen, the woman's name is Karen, but Michaela hasn't been able to piece together whether she's his secretary or what.

Glasses, aka Matt Murdock, is a lawyer, alongside his partner Foggy Nelson (who came in with him once, and Michaela had to admit that her throwaway assessment of him had been right on the money — he's nice, charmingly so, and he and Matt are clearly thick as thieves; their gentle ribbing of each other nearly gave her cavities it was so cute). Karen is there, in their firm, but she juggles a lot of tasks, apparently, and assists on cases when she can, so Michaela doesn't feel right relegating her to secretary; sounds like she's a lot more important to their work than that.