Kate
As much as Kate didn’t want to admit it, her face hurt. Even after a few days she still looked awful. The day they flew back to the city the pain morphed into a headache. She just wanted to be home, in bed, alone. She was so angry at Yelena she couldn’t even think straight. When they got to the city she quickly gave her report and headed for the penthouse, not even bothering to wait for Yelena to walk with her as she normally would.
When she got to the penthouse she dumped all her gear. After staring at it spread across the floor for a minute she realized that once Yelena showed up she would harass Kate about the mess. Grumbling, she moved to put everything away before stripping and putting on sweats. Since she hadn’t been allowed to work after the widow had tackled her, it wasn’t like she even needed a shower. She was on her way to the kitchen for a snack when the elevator door opened to reveal Yelena. Kate glanced over, rolling her eyes. “Why are you here?” she asked, not even faltering in her path.
“I just wanted to check on my girlfriend. That is what we do, no?” It felt like all she was ever doing was checking up on Kate.
Kate spun around. “No, that’s not what we fucking do Yelena!”
“But-”
“Fuck, Yelena I’m tired of being followed.” And that’s what it was. She was tired of being followed, tired of being babied. “You don’t trust me-”
“No! I am scared-”
“Scared of what?” Kate wanted to scream in frustration. “You don’t even let me do my job!”
“That is not true. You did your job in Texas-”
“And then you pulled me out for no reason.”
“I pulled you out because you are reckless.”
Reckless - that seemed to be Yelena’s constant complaint. But, “I had that shot-”
“You should not have taken that shot without scouting-”
“It’s the same thing that Natasha and I had been doing to free the other widows. You don’t have any patience - it’s Yelena’s way or the highway.”
“I am just trying to keep you safe,” said Yelena, stepping towards Kate. Kate stepped back, away from her girlfriend. She knew that if she let Yelena get too close she would crumble. She loved Yelena so much, wanted to keep her so much, but it made her weak, complacent. Yelena’s lips tightened, but she didn’t follow, almost freezing in place.
Kate thought back to the pictures of her mother she’d discovered. While Yelena was busy keeping Kate safe, Kingpin was still free, controlling the city, her city. The frustration overwhelmed her and she was ashamed to realize she was crying again. “I don’t want to be safe, Yelena, I want to find out who killed my mother. I want to make them pay. I want to take down Kingpin. I just want this-” she gestured at the tears streaming down her face “-to go away.”
“Kate-”
She just needed a minute, some time to catch her breath, to find a way to stand up to Yelena. “No,” said Kate, taking a deep breath. “Please, leave.”
Yelena hesitated, her face still stony. After a moment she turned and got back on the elevator. Kate continued to the kitchen, knowing that if she watched Yelena go she would chase after her and fold, would agree to anything.
When she got to the kitchen she rifled through the cabinets until she found something appetizing. She’d just pulled out the bag of chips when she realized that if she was waiting for a chance to escape Yelena’s surveillance, to go after Kingpin, then the chance had arrived. Quickly returning the food to the cabinet, she started making a list of everything she’d need. Bow, arrows, guns, ammo, knives, lock picks, gear, uniforms, clothes, essentials, passport, phone- she stopped. Yelena could use the phone to track her. What would be really handy would be getting her hands on either one of the tablets or computers that Maria used. She would have access to all of the systems, and all of the files that Natasha and Yelena had compiled on the case.
By the time she was done packing, she’d finalized a plan. Everything she needed was in two bags, including all of her weapons. At the last second she grabbed the photo of her mother from on top of her dresser, placing it carefully between folded clothes in her duffel. Pulling on her Yankees cap, she dropped her phone on the table and crossed her fingers that Yelena didn’t have another way to track her.
Ducking out the delivery entrance, Kate kept her head down, aware of how many surveillance cameras existed in the city. First she hit an ATM, withdrawing the maximum amount allowed. Taking off her hat, she made sure the security cameras picked her up, knowing Yelena would be looking at the tapes and trying to find details about what she was wearing or if she had a disguise. The thick crowds of commuters swallowed her back up as she walked away, heading to a luggage storage place to leave her duffel.
The next part was the riskiest; trying to look inconspicuous, Kate headed to Maria’s office. Since they’d just returned from a mission that morning, she assumed that Maria would actually leave close to on time to be with her wife. As she pushed the door open to find only the overnight techs, she scanned the room. No sign of Director Hill, or whatever her actual title was. One of the techs looked up and Kate tried to look rueful, explaining that she’d neglected to complete her mission paperwork and was just there to finish it up. They bought it, and Kate sat down at one of the desks. The crew mostly used tablets in the field, but there were still several laptops in the office. They all would connect to the server’s database, and Kate held out hope that the computers would be untraceable. Slipping one into her bag along with its charger, she pulled out a tablet and pretended to review her report. After a few minutes she stood again, and waved to the techs with a cheerful “Goodnight.”
Returning to the storage place, she picked up her duffel. She’d left a small trail all over Manhattan and now she wanted to disappear, so she hailed a cab and directed the driver to take her to a cheap hotel in one of the outer boroughs. Checking in, she paid in cash and avoided giving a name. The room was dark and dank, but it was off the radar, which was all she could hope for.
Pulling out the computer, Kate considered her next steps. The money she’d gotten would only hold her for a few days. She needed to go to her actual bank and make a withdrawal. There were still five guards from the prison to find and interrogate. And if Yelena found the number of the cab she’d been in, she would be able to trace Kate, so she needed to find a new place to stay.
The tech on the computer was beyond anything Kate had ever even used at Bishop Security. She tried not to get sucked into all the possibilities, settling instead for finding as much information on the five guards as possible, writing it down on the beat-up pad of paper she found in the bedside table. She wasn’t sure if Maria would immediately notice the computer missing, but if she did Kate wanted to have a way to save as much information as possible without relying on continued access to the database.
Plan made, Kate eyed the bed. It definitely was the grossest place she’d ever considered sleeping. Slipping into a loose t-shirt, she debated for a minute before crawling under the covers, hoping she was the only thing there. In the darkness she was left alone with her thoughts, no phone to scroll on, no Yelena to hold her tight. She started to cry again, the tears soaking the sheets. Everything felt wrong. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
In the morning she was dressed and at her bank by 9:05, withdrawing almost ten grand in cash. Her plan was to stash it all over the city in case she needed it, and she started by leaving a cache in a locker in Manhattan, a knife tucked in, too. Kate spent the day leaving caches, checking into another motel just before 5pm.
The night shift at the prison started at 11, so once the sun set she would have time to scout and maybe follow one of the guards before they went to work. Kate bypassed her uniform and pulled on more subtle black pants and a black jacket over a simple t-shirt. Checking one of her guns, Kate tucked it into her waistband, making sure the jacket covered it. Instead of her Yankees cap she pulled on a dark beanie. She expected that as soon as Maria, Natasha, or Yelena realized she had left, they’d come looking for her, so the longer she could spend out of her uniform the easier it would be to fly under the radar.
Making her way to the first guard’s address, she loitered in the shadows across the street. She hadn’t been there long when her target walked out of his house and turned down the block. He only walked for three blocks before ducking into a neighborhood bar. It didn’t seem too rough, so she decided to follow him in quietly and get a beer to nurse at the bar. That turned out to be the right decision. Her target wasn’t drinking, instead eating before his shift while a group of friends all drank after the end of theirs.
He was there for over two hours and gave nothing useful away. His voice was loud and he was outspoken, bragging to his friends about everything under the sun. It was hard to tell whether his bravado would make him valuable to Kingpin or if his big mouth would endanger his work. When it looked like he was getting ready to finish up Kate paid and left, walking ahead of him back towards his house. He walked home a few minutes later, ran inside to change into his uniform, came back out, got in his truck and left.
Kate glanced at her watch. The other four guards were probably already on their way to Rikers Island. She still had time to patrol the city, but she was 99% certain she’d get caught if she did. Instead she returned to the hotel room, slightly dejected.
In the hotel room she turned on the computer and tried to find more information about Kingpin. All of his dealings stayed under the radar, but he didn’t. There was news of him from December 2024 going back for over a decade, including his marriage to one Vanessa Marianna. He hadn’t been seen publicly since their battle on Christmas. Kate pulled up Marianna, hoping for something. Fisk had ties to everything in New York City, it seemed, both above board and not. He’d spent time in rural Vermont as a child, and then eastern Asia as a young adult. There wasn’t anything that could help Kate at first glance. He’d met Marianna sometime in 2015, and after a short courtship she’d been forced to flee the country to avoid criminal charges. While on the run she'd spent a lot of time in Spain.
But since their marriage in 2017 there were no trips out of the country. However, a private jet that was loosely tied to Fisk was listed as leaving New York and flying to Burlington, VT almost every weekend for the previous year. Wait- not the previous year, the previous school year. That lead seemed too good to be true, but Kate had to remind herself the database she was looking at probably contained more information than anyone else in New York could ever hope to access. Her estimation of the crew’s capabilities went even higher.
The next night started the same, except the second guard didn’t go out with his friends, instead staying home and watching TV until it was almost time for work. At 10:40 he stepped out and looked around, obviously waiting for somebody. A few minutes later, the guard she’d tailed the night before pulled up. Did they ride together every night? Her inability to drive was making it more difficult to gather information. If she’d been able to tail them in a car, she would have had her answers. If Yelena had come along, she could have driven... Once Kate’s thoughts turned to her girlfriend, she couldn’t stop. As she trekked back to the hotel she wondered what Yelena was doing at that moment, even while hoping she wasn’t close to finding Kate.
The next two nights followed the same pattern; a guard getting up in the evening, puttering around or meeting friends, and then heading to work. They all seemed equally suspicious in their movements.
By Kate’s math they were due for a day off. Sunday night she was back outside a guard’s house, hoping they would lead her somewhere. It was pointless. They drove off early in the evening and didn’t return until almost two. They could have gone anywhere, and Kate knew it. She returned to her hotel room to try digging through evidence. It seemed like she’d gathered all she could on Kingpin, so she returned to the guards, hoping to catch a snippet she’d missed before. When she went to the folder containing all the evidence from her mom’s case, it was locked. Dammit. She hadn’t checked it in a few days, so she had no way of knowing exactly when Maria had realized Kate had taken the computer. But since she hadn’t yet been discovered, hopefully the computer itself was untraceable. It was time for desperate measures.
The next night Kate dressed in her Hawkeye uniform and added more weapons to the gun she’d been carrying. At sunset she tucked herself into the back of the first guard’s pickup truck, sliding into the shadows under the toolbox. She’d set herself up for a long wait. It wasn’t until well after midnight that the guard finally came out and got in the truck. Ten minutes later he stopped, and the truck shifted as someone else got in. They drove for another 20 minutes before stopping. Both people got out of the truck and walked away, chatting. Once they were far enough away Kate slid out, cautiously peeking above the edge of the truck bed. The truck was parked in a mostly empty parking lot between two dilapidated buildings. Four people were gathered about 20 feet away, chatting quietly. They were facing towards the road, away from Kate’s hiding place. She slipped out of the truck and scrambled behind the next car to try and get close enough to listen. They seemed to be chatting about sports. Kate rolled her eyes.
When she glanced out again, she recognized two of the other people as guards she’d been following. The fourth person still had their back to her, making it impossible to make an identification. A few minutes later another car pulled into the lot and she could hear doors slamming as two more people arrived. She waited until they’d reached the group of guards before chancing another look. They’d parked directly in her line of sight and she tried to memorize the license plate number, wishing she’d followed Yelena’s example of carrying a pencil and paper.
It quickly became clear that these were likely the guards that had murdered Eleanor, Kingpin’s inside men at the Singer Center. She idly wondered how many people who worked on Rikers Island were loyal to Fisk. It would have been nice if they’d confessed to killing Eleanor, then Kate at least would have felt justified in taking them all out. But as it was they were connecting her to someone higher up the command structure, so considered herself lucky.
She tried to grasp every scrap of information. The guards' names were mentioned a few times, but she also got names for the two other people; Christopher Marino and something Russo. She also heard them mention a ‘Big Tony’ and almost rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. It felt like an episode of the “Sopranos.”
Marino and Russo left and the guards stayed to chat for a few minutes. She was getting ready to slip back into the truck - she didn’t want to get left somewhere unknown when she didn’t have a phone - when the guards scattered, cursing wildly as they jumped in their cars. Kate stayed hidden, trying to imagine what would scare them that much. Once the three cars had peeled out of the parking lot she listened carefully, trying to get a gauge on her surroundings without giving her position away. Everything was silent except her panicked breaths echoing in her ears.
Taking a chance, she peeked up and around the car. Nothing. When she turned back a figure stood 20 feet away, watching her. Her bow was up and drawn before she even thought about it. “What do you want?” she asked, trying not to sound as startled as she felt.
The figure stepped forwards, into the light of a streetlamp. Fucking vigilantes, Kate thought, trying to ignore Clint’s voice in her head pointing out that was exactly what Kate was, too. The person wore deep red, a mask covering their face, tiny horns protruding from the top. “I’m looking for information,” said the figure simply.
“And you are?”
“Daredevil,” said the man, leaning forward.
The name rang a bell, but Kate couldn’t recall much. It seemed there had been a time after her dad died where her mom had been really scared about Daredevil, but in light of who Eleanor had been working for, Kate had to wonder how grounded in reality those fears really were. Kate lowered her bow slightly. “Hawkeye,” she said, hoping it wasn’t a mistake to introduce yourself.
“Nice to meet you, Hawkeye. It seems we might have similar interests for the moment.”
Kate still wasn’t ready to show her hand completely. “What kind of interests?”
“If I had to guess, I would say you are hunting for someone. Who are you after in the Italian Mafia?” Kate hesitated. “No… it’s not the Italians you’re after. It wouldn’t be higher than that, would it?”
Trying not to react, Kate locked her muscles. She wanted to raise the bow and fire an arrow at this person who seemed to be almost reading her mind. But what if Daredevil actually had information? “No, I’m not looking for the Italians.”
“You’re looking for Kingpin.”
“Yes,” she finally admitted, letting the word fall into the silence between them.
“I can help you.”
Kate tightened her grip on her bow. “What’s in it for you?”
“I have been trying to take down Kingpin for a decade. I wouldn’t say no to some extra help.”
Kate reeled. A decade? She’d been at this for less than two months. What chances did she have if they'd been trying for that long and still hadn’t succeeded? But if it would bring her mother’s killer to justice, she couldn’t say no. “Okay.”