Chapter 2
Kate should not have drunk coffee that morning.
While Agent Hill starts the debrief meeting, Kate can't stop her leg from bouncing. At one point, Cassie looks at her, stares at her leg and gives her an annoyed look.
Kate mutters an apology and makes sure both her feet are steady on the ground. She manages to keep it that way until the meeting moves on to the pictures they were able to take of the meeting in the park yesterday between Collins, Yelena and the mystery woman.
Although they might not have any new information that can help them stop the assassination, they have photos of people involved in this mysterious criminal organisation.
Agent Hill explains how they pass along the case of Collins to the FBI and how SHIELD will continue their work on the actual organisation.
While she says this, the photo of Collins moves away and the other two pictures are enlarged. The other woman is pictured from the side, the bun in her hair easily recognisable.
Yelena is a bit harder to recognise. She is positioned exactly in a way that makes it hard to point out any distinctive features. Kate wonders if Yelena did this knowingly, or if she just got lucky.
"We have a feeling that this woman is a key member in the organisation," Maria says, pointing at Yelena's boss. "Right now we are busy identifying her, as well as the woman who appears to be her bodyguard of some sort."
Kate swallows and tries to make herself smaller, so hopefully, nobody suspects her of knowing anything. She's not sure why she doesn't come forward with the information that she has.
She could tell them that she knows her, that Natasha Romanoff's sister is somehow involved and that Kate might help get said sister to spill information about the organisation SHIELD is after. Or that she might be able to get in touch with the organisation through her mother, who hired Yelena to kill Clint.
She could do all that, but she doesn't.
Maybe it's because those confessions only raise questions about the nature of her relationship with a Black Widow assassin and she is not even that sure about that herself. Or because she doesn’t want any more rumours regarding the criminal activities of her mother to spread around the compound.
And somehow telling them about Yelena feels like she's betraying her. If she thinks rational, she doesn't owe Yelena anything while she does owe SHIELD a lot, but for now, she will keep that information to herself.
Or at least partially.
"I think she is a black widow assassin," Kate eventually says, speaking up for the first time during that meeting, which earns her some surprised glances and makes Maria halt in the middle of her sentence.
She is silent for a moment, but then immediately regains her composure. "What makes you say that?"
Kate shrugs. "You can't see it on the photo's, but I noticed yesterday that she has widow bites around her wrists," she decides to offer as an explanation.
Once again, everybody in the room looks at her with surprise. Only Cassie, Agent Hill and Agent Hartley look at her with suspicion, wondering how she knew this and could recognize widow bites this easily.
Maria slowly nods, thankfully deciding not to question her further – even though Kate knows that Maria will come back to this at a later point. She’s just grateful that it’s not in front of everybody else.
“So we have an unknown organisation that has been murdering, kidnapping and spying its way to the top, with apparently a Black Widow assassin in their midst,” Maria summarizes. Her tone is thoughtful, but Kate can hear the dread in it too.
She’s sure she just made their mission a lot more complicated, which Maria probably didn’t expect.
“We need to get them, and we need to do it fast,” Maria orders them. The whole room agrees of course. With some last instructions, everybody gets into motion. Maria leaves without any explanation and with Hartley right behind her.
Kate watches how all the agents start working on whatever is expected from them. Some will focus on trying to make contact with the organisation by putting out a fake request for a hit. Others will try to figure out what other assignments have been ordered or try to get a better idea of the organisation in general.
Everybody has a clear mission, except Cassie and Kate. They are looking around them feeling lost. They know the other agents are too busy with their tasks to give them something to do.
“I feel like we’re in crisis mode,” Cassie whispers.
Kate nods. “We definitely are.”
“Bishop!” Maria calls when she returns. Kate jumps from her seat, slightly bumping into the table. It hurts her leg more than she wants to admit, but she doesn’t let it show. She’s a Young Avenger, no table can hurt her.
With a slight wince, she follows Maria out of the room towards her office. She gives Cassie one last glance. Are they going to fire her? It sure feels like it.
In Maria’s office, Hartley and Maria give her a solemn look. “Please, sit down,” Maria orders.
Kate immediately takes a seat, trying to be on her best behaviour as if that’s going to prevent whatever is about to happen from happening.
“Kate,” Hartley starts. “How were you able to identify a Black Widow assassin?”
Her voice is softer than ever, and it confuses Kate. Is she in trouble or not? Is Hartley trying to soften the blow that will come after this?
Although Kate doesn’t know what is going to happen, she’s sure it’s better for the outcome if she’s honest right now. Well, honest up until a certain level.
She tells them about her adventure with Clint last Christmas, which they know about of course. However, this time she includes that a Black Widow was after Clint. It’s something that she had left out before, in agreement with Clint who wanted to protect Yelena from SHIELD. Besides, it doesn’t make a good impression on your future employers if you tell them that your mother hired a Black Widow.
“Why didn’t you disclose this to us in your earlier debrief?” Maria asks with suspicion.
Kate shrugs, trying to downplay it. “It had nothing to do with the Tracksuit Mafia.”
It’s clear Maria doesn’t believe it. She nods and folds her hands in front of her on the desk. She leans forward and smiles encouragingly, probably trying to create a safe atmosphere for Kate.
“Kate, it is in your best interest to tell us the truth right now.”
It’s not an order, but it also doesn’t sound like something she can refuse. It takes her back to the meeting with the dean who was trying to get her to confess to ruining the bell tower, although that one was a bit harder to deny.
Kate looks at Hartley and Maria and takes a deep breath. She hears the clock ticking, a bit further away, probably from outside, she can hear the shouts she has come to associate with SHIELD training. It makes her realize she is here, at the Avengers compound, training to be a Young Avenger – something she has wanted for a really long time.
Her mother isn’t here, she is in jail for actual crimes. Yelena isn’t here either, she is off somewhere, probably still murdering people. But the Young Avengers are right there, within her grasp. It’s time Kate chooses her own future.
“My mother hired a Black Widow Assassin to murder Hawkeye,” she eventually confesses, the words fall out of her mouth – making one long sentence.
Maria raises her eyebrows, but it’s clear that this doesn’t come as a big surprise. She likely already suspected it. They are both silent, forcing her to continue. Kate hates how they use the interrogation techniques she has been taught to her.
They really are effective, because Kate continues giving them the full version of what happened before Christmas. There is one detail she leaves out, and that is the identity of the Black Widow. Somehow, she still feels the need to protect Yelena.
Maria, of course, catches on to this. “And the assassin somehow decided to give up after a nice chat with Hawkeye?”
Kate nods, trying to convince them that it is the whole story.
“Well, at least he didn’t bring in another Russian assassin,” Maria mutters, Kate instantly understanding the reference. It takes a lot for her not to show how close to Natasha Romanoff the new assassin actually is.
“Thank you for telling us,” Hartley speaks up for the first time. “You and Cassie are dismissed for today.”
Neither of them says anything else, which Kate takes as her cue to leave. Dismissed for today? Does that mean they have the afternoon off? She could definitely use that time to process everything that happened yesterday and that morning.
She decides to find Cassie and do exactly that. Secret organisations and Russian assassins are a problem she can deal with later.
The week after that is spent continuously tailing Collins and spitting through all the available data for possible information about the organisation. It doesn’t give them much. They find the name “Thunderbolts” but aren’t able to connect it to anything else.
Kate is starting to get restless, and restless leads to impulsivity, which is why she finds herself back in an office with Maria Hill at her own request. This clearly took the stern agent by surprise, but she welcomed Kate in any way.
“What is it you wanted to discuss?” she asks her while reorganizing the files on her desk.
Maybe it was more to hide them from Kate’s view than organizing. It distracts her for a second. It’s a welcome distraction because it gives her some time to once again doubt the reason she decided to visit Maria Hill.
“I assume there is something to discuss,” Maria adds impatiently.
Kate nods. No going back now. “I can visit my mother. She contacted Thunderbolts before, maybe she can tell us how.”
She has to admit, she is surprised that she has to offer this herself. After her confession a week ago, she expected Agent Hill to order her to go visit her mother immediately. Without a doubt Maria thought about contacting Thunderbolts through her mother, she is too good of an agent not to come up with such a plan.
Nevertheless, Kate appreciates that she didn’t make it an order. It gave her some time to mentally prepare herself.
Maria looks at her intently. “Thank you, Kate. You can go this afternoon, take agent Hartley with you.”
Definitely no going back now. “Yes, sir,” Kate responds, dread creeping into her voice.
She saw her mother once, during the trial a few months ago – but other than that she has steered clear from her mother. Never visiting, not taking her calls, not even responding to the letters her mother had started writing her.
It’s not that she doesn’t want any contact with her mother. She’s her mother after all. The woman who raised her all these years. Sure, she would have appreciated a bit more support or warmth at certain times, but all in all her mother wasn’t a bad mother.
The problem is only that said mother was also a criminal, and Kate simply doesn’t know how to deal with that. So, by avoiding her mother, she can avoid the awkwardness that would take over their conversations without a doubt.
Going as a Young Avenger hopefully helps her with keeping their meeting a bit more business-like. It is also the reason why she’s grateful that agent Hartley will accompany her. Having a legit SHIELD agent with her will set the tone and keep her mother from being the overbearing mother she can be.
Kate is dismissed by Maria, and she hurries out of her office. Cassie is already waiting in the hallway. “And?”
“I’m going to visit my mom this afternoon,” she tells her reluctantly.
Cassie doesn’t say anything, she just puts her arm around Kate’s shoulder and guides her towards the cafeteria to have lunch together. Kate welcomes the distraction Cassie offers her.
They trade stories about the small superhero moments they had as a child. Cassie is particularly proud of preventing some boy from destroying the small bee hotel she had made herself in an attempt to save the bees by directing the bees to attack him – or at least that is what she implies. Kate follows Cassie’s story by recalling how she punched a boy in the face because he kicked a dog.
Their laughter quickly dies down when Kate sees Hartley approach them. She doesn’t need to say anything, Kate quickly stands up, grabs her stuff and follows Hartley towards the parking garage. This time, they get to drive the fancy SHIELD-issued SUV.
Too bad that she isn’t yet allowed to drive one herself. On their way towards the prison her mother is being held, Hartley instructs her what to ask and what to focus on. Kate doesn’t need to focus on remembering what her mother tells her, it’s enough to just get her to talk.
After discussing all the possible questions she can ask, they fall into a comfortable silence. Or Kate assumes Hartley is comfortable with being silent. Kate herself is far from being comfortable. In her head, she keeps going over all the possible different outcomes, the next one worse than the previous one.
With a sigh, she lets her head rest against the window and stares outside, not really noticing what she’s even looking at. She breathes out a bit harder and watches the condensation appear on the window.
“Why didn’t agent Hill order me to visit my mother after last week’s meeting?” she eventually asks Hartley the question that has been occupying her mind the whole day.
Hartley chuckles, amused by the fact that it took the young archer this long to start asking questions.
“It would have made sense, right?” she replies vaguely.
Kate hums in agreement, waiting for Hartley to continue.
“We send agents to talk to her a few days ago. And we tried it again yesterday, but she refuses to talk,” Hartley informs her. “Since you’re still a rookie agent, it was a bit of an administrative mess to have you go on a solo mission.”
Solo mission?
Talking to her mother is a mission. It makes everything even worse. Her mother is that much of a criminal that asking her for information is considered a mission.
Still, there is some part of her that can’t ignore that this is thus her first solo mission. Trying to see the bright side of things, Kate clings to that notion.
Her first solo mission and she is going to nail it. She will come back to the Avengers compound with all the information they need to catch the woman linked to Thunderbolts.
Kate keeps repeating is a sort of mantra while they enter the prison up until she enters the room where she will see her mother.
Even though the whole reason they are there is to see her mother, it still catches her off guard to see her mother enter the room. She is in a standard prison outfit, but if you ignored that, no one would think her mother was in prison. Her hair is still as stylish as ever, and her make-up is immaculate.
Kate doesn’t know if she should be glad or disappointed. It should have been no surprise that her mother was able to keep up her high standards, even in prison. Yet, this isn’t how she envisioned her mother. She thought she would be devastated by the loss of her freedom. Desperate to have any interaction with her daughter. However, she almost appears annoyed – like she did when Kate would interrupt an important business meeting as a child.
Her mother gives her a small smile and takes a seat opposite her. The rattling of the cuffs around her wrist is a reminder that her mother is in fact in prison if the grey room and guard stationed at the door wasn’t enough of a reminder.
“My dear Kate,” her mother begins, her voice weirdly affectionate.
Kate smiles at her and mumbles a hesitant greeting back. She bites her lip, frustrated with herself that the moment her mother entered she lost control over the meeting. She’s here to get information out of her mother, not to be the intimidated daughter.
“Hi mom,” she says a bit louder this time, looking her mother straight in her eyes.
She feels Hartley behind her, observing everything that is happening.
“After I refused to talk to their agents, SHIELD decided to send my own daughter?”
Offended isn’t what Kate expected her mother to be, but yet here they are. “I am basically a SHIELD agent, so just tell me what we want to know,” Kate cuts to the case.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” her mother feigns.
Kate clenches her jaw. She has not even been there for five minutes but she already wants to leave. “Cut the crap, mom. Tell me how you hired an assassin to take out Hawkeye.”
Her mother looks at her attentively, searching for something. Whatever it is she was searching for, she found it and she starts telling Kate how she made contact with someone who arranges these kinds of things for Kingpin. This person, called Rick Mason, put her in contact with an unknown person who eventually put out the hit for her. The only thing her mother can tell about this unknown person is that it’s a woman – only having spoken to her once on the phone. It’s a shame, but at least they have the name of someone who is in the middle of everything.
‘Rick Mason, SHIELD is coming for you’, Kate thinks to herself.
As soon as they have all the information her mother is willing to offer, they leave. Kate doesn’t feel the need to fill in her mother about everything that has happened recently. She knows that Kate is there as part of SHIELD, and that’s all she needs to know.
The feeling of success pushes away the hurt of seeing her mother again, resulting in Kate returning to the Avengers compound with a smile on her face.
Later that evening, Kate finds herself alone in the cafeteria drinking some hot cocoa. Cassie went to bed an hour before that, claiming that the constant thinking about assassinations made her tired.
Kate couldn't agree more, but unfortunately for her, the thought of assassins keeps her up at night. Especially a particular blonde assassin that is linked to both her mother and their current case.
"Can't sleep?"
Kate's heart makes a jump and she lets her mug drop on the table, her cocoa sloshing over the edge a little bit.
"Did I scare you?" Maria asks as she takes a seat on the other side of the table, but immediately across from Kate. Kate wonders if it's a conscious decision, it makes it feel less like a meeting
"Does it affect my status as Young Avenger if you did?" Kate asks, feeling a little bit embarrassed to get scared too easily.
Maria laughs. "No, in fact, I'm glad there is still somebody in this building filled with powerful people that I can scare."
Kate is not sure it's a good sign that she apparently is the only one here who still gets scared, but she will take it. They don't talk for a few minutes after that. Kate finishes her hot cocoa while Maria nurses her tea.
Maria is eventually the one to break the silence. "You did well today."
Kate tries her best to stay composed, which is hard when you get a compliment from none other than Maria Hill. "Thanks," she squeals.
"I talked to Clint today," Maria adds, ignoring the way Kate starts to get flustered. "He's proud of you."
This makes Kate practically jump in her chair. "He said that?"
She's amazed. She just asked her mother some questions, but it turns out that's all it takes for Clint - Hawkeye! - to be proud of her. Maybe being a Young Avenger isn't that difficult after all.
But of course, Maria has to disappoint her. "Well, he didn't explicitly say so."
Kate has to laugh anyway, she can imagine how that conversation went. Being annoyed with someone is Clint's way of showing that he cares about them. At least, that is how Kate interprets his annoyance with her.
She looks at Maria, wondering how she shows her appreciation. Is this how? Short, small compliments offered at random moments during the day? It feels like her style.
It certainly is different from Clint.
"It would have been nice to have him here," Kate says, it's not a heartbreaking longing, but she has to admit that she misses Clint sometimes.
Maria immediately understands who she means. "He would have been annoyed with how incapable we are at tracking down the organisation."
"So annoyed," Kate agrees with a chuckle.
Kate sees the nostalgic look cross Maria's face, the corners of her mouth slightly curled upwards, a soft look in her eyes. Suddenly, Kate feels sorry for Maria Hill. It can't be easy rebuilding a whole government organisation without the people you have worked with for years.
"I'm glad I now work with the less easily annoyed Hawkeye," Maria jokes, but it means a lot to Kate that somebody even acknowledges her as Hawkeye. It was something she agreed on with Clint, and they even discussed it during her intake. After that, however, nobody ever brought it up again.
"Plus, I'm even a better archer than him," Kate brags, only half-joking.
Maria laughs at her bragging before telling her to get some sleep. They have some interesting days ahead of them.
It’s starting to smell delicious in the kitchen. The rich scents of a perfect noodle soup start filling her nose when she hears someone enter. The sound is very soft, but she wouldn’t be a Black Widow assassin if she wasn’t able to pick it up.
In one smooth motion, she grabs the sharpest knife on the bench, turns around and throws the knife at whoever decided to intrude on her “me-time”.
“Yelena,” Val drawls. “Always so hostile.”
Val looks unimpressed at the knife that has embedded itself in the door frame. Yelena intended to miss, but she wonders if it would really have been so bad if she didn’t intentionally miss for once.
The thought of Val falling to the ground with the knife embedded in her heart instead of in the doorframe brings a small smile to her face, which she immediately transforms into an annoyed smile – letting Val know that she doesn’t appreciate being interrupted during her time-off.
She says as much too.
Val just purses her lips. “The last time I did, you decided to get buddy-buddy with your mark.”
“My employer has been locked behind bars anyway,” she defends herself without any conviction. Val can’t afford to lose anyone from her time. This new guy she brought in, U.S. Agent as they hilariously call him, is too unreliable.
Yelena’s curious if Val also regrets recruiting their ‘own’ Captain America. She would. Without a doubt, she was better than him at the age of 12.
Val takes a step closer, and Yelena picks up another knife – pretending to cut some garlic, but she just wants to show Val that she has her next weapon ready if she decides to do anything funny.
“You need to work on your manners, Yelena,” Val exclaims offended.
Yelena clenches her jaw. She just wants Val to leave. “Just tell me what you want?”
Val nods and takes a seat as if Yelena is cooking them dinner for a girl’s night. Although Val is the last person she wants to have a girl’s night with right now. She would choose that talkative archer – not Clint Barton – over Val any day.
“That’s what I like about you, always down to business,” Val says, just prolonging their already unnecessarily long conversation.
“Too bad I can’t say the same about you,” she retorts, deciding that she is definitely done with this conversation. To make her point, Yelena turns around again and in one swift movement, she pushes the knife in the table, right next to Val’s right hand.
She just loves the small scared reaction that is visible on Val’s face.
“Fine,” Val finally relents. “I know you know SHIELD, or whatever their little organisation is called now, was intruding on our meeting with our sweet Collins.”
If her face wasn’t schooled into an indifferent mask, she would have raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure if Val picked up on that too because Yelena had to give credits to SHIELD – they actually did quite a good stake-out. She didn’t notice it immediately. However, they are not good enough to escape her watchful eye.
And apparently not good enough to go unnoticed by Val.
“Amateurs,” Val adds. “Such a shame that your sister decided to waste her talents with them.”
Yelena is ready to straight-up murder the woman in front of her now. How does she manage to always bring up Natalia?
“This is just me giving you permission to take out whatever SHIELD agent or Avenger, or whatever you run into during your future assignments,” Val eventually cuts to the case, which surprises Yelena. Not only that she is explicitly given permission to kill somebody, the Red Room didn’t really work like that, but that she also found it necessary to come all the way over to tell her that. Besides, Yelena told Val she was done with the murdering people – with exception of annoying handlers.
Val stands up, takes a look in the pan in which Yelena’s food is slowly starting to burn. She looks at Yelena with a warning expression, informing her that her food is indeed about to burn. She says her goodbyes and moves towards the door.
Just when Yelena thinks that she is free from her unbearable presence, Val halts.
“Oh, and Yelena. If they stupidly try to recruit you, I expect you to put your marvellous espionage training to good work.”