“Mom this is a little too close to super villain even for you, what the hell is going on?”
(Kate’s POV)
“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t take the motorcycle.” Kate sat in the passenger seat of a black Range Rover driving down a 2 lane road that has gotten less busy the further they are from the city.
Yelena drives one hand on the wheel and one hand on the stick shift, blonde hair down, with a pair of black Ray-Bans tucked up on her head keeping the hair out of her face.
She snorts at Kate’s comment, “I am not riding on a motorcycle 3 hours to a federal prison in Upstate New York Kate Bishop,” She looks over at Kate bemused and continues, “Now you tell me, Why do you have so many cars if you do not have a license to drive them? Hmm?”
Kate rolls her eyes, “They aren’t really mine, they are just all a part of the Bishop estate,” Kate cringes slightly because she is doing that thing she hates that other rich kids do, which is ‘Oh, it’s not my money it’s my family’s money.’ She adds quickly in correction, “I mean they all just sit in a garage under the Penthouse building, easy to kinda forget they are there most of the time. I just don’t have my license because I’ve never needed it, having lived in New York my whole life, and access to a driver never hurts.”
Yelena considers her for a moment nodding along, understanding Kate’s worry implicitly through the bond that she does not mean to come off spoiled, just that this has always been the reality of her own life.
“I will say it is nice that this one is manual,” she scoffs jokingly, “you Americans and your automatic transmissions,” then she softens and Kate can feel through the bond her concern, “But still Kate you should learn to drive, it is an important skill, especially in the line of work you seem to insist on going into.”
Kate nods, “Yeah I know, I always figured we would get to it eventually.”
The car fills with a comfortable silence for a moment, allowing Kate to think more about what they are doing. Seeing her mother was a stressful scenario in itself, but Yelena insisted on coming with her to ‘ensure Kate’s safety.’ she’d said, but Kate knew that Yelena was less concerned with the many assassins and hitmen hired to kill her and her mother, and more concerned with the emotional turmoil this conversation would likely cause Kate.
They’d talked it over and they decided it might be best for Kate to try to get the information they needed from her mother organically before telling her about the bond. However, something in Kate knew that she and her mother’s relationship had always been about an exchange.
Kate knew from a young age that her mother cared more about perception than almost anything else, so she would bargain for good grades in high school for her own freedom regarding her personal life. Her mother bargained full payment of school in return for Kate attending her alma mater.
So at the end of the day, Kate knew, that if she wanted to find out what information her mother knew that had King Pin wanting her dead, she would need to be able to bring something of equal or greater value to drag it out of her.
The only real leverage Kate had was the fact that she had bonded with the assassin her mother had hired to kill Kate’s mentor. It did not help that Kate could not predict what her mother would prefer regarding her daughter’s reception to the other high families.
Her mother could feel determined for Kate to announce it to the high families due to the high regard for the traditions of announcement ceremonies and the wedding and the inevitable favor that will be given to the Bishop family name in regard to successful business dealings that happen during those events.
This would bring about the issue that Kate is in no place to be announcing her relationship to everyone. It isn’t as though Yelena would even be able to do that, due to the fact that her entire career choice revolves around anonymity that would immediately be blown when the press finds out she is dating ‘New York’s most eligible bachelorette. ‘ she rolled her eyes at the title.
Kate’s heart sinks at the other possibility: her mother’s disapproval of her partner. That she will worry about the tainting of the Bishop’s name by bonding with someone of Yelena’s stature. It is almost unheard of for a high family member to bond with someone who isn’t at least known by others. Kate can’t help but feel this is the most likely scenario.
“You do not have to tell her about us.” Yelena startles Kate out of her own thoughts and reaches her hand over to lay on Kate’s thigh instantly relaxing her body’s tenseness through the soothing touch.
“I know, and I am hoping that I don’t have to.” She shifts in her seat slightly looking over at Yelena whose aura changed slightly at Kate’s comment.
She can’t pinpoint what it could be that caused Yelena’s mood to change, so she continued on, “I am worried I will have to though, and I am not completely convinced that she won’t ‘just know’ by looking at me the moment I walk in.” Kate waves her hands around noncommitted, “She just always has this way of getting under my skin… Making me feel small… like I don’t know what I am doing.”
Kate thinks back to the last time they spoke, the conversation that triggered Kate’s genius plan that got her shot in a back alley of the underground casino posing as a bar. Her mother had been upset at her for beginning to tear apart the criminal lining of Bishop Security after she had somehow heard Kate had been firing all of the Ex-Shield (hydra) agents, and cutting their physical security department.
Realization dawned on Kate suddenly, “She has an informant.”
“What do you mean?” Yelena answered confused at the change in subject
“She has an informant,” Kate sits up in the seat of the car, “A month or so ago right before I got shot, I spoke with my mom and she basically knew about everything that I had been doing in Bishop Security, Clearly someone in the company is letting her know what is going on, at the time I thought nothing of it and frankly of all the problems I have, one of my employees telling my mother about the decisions I have been making is very low on that list.” Kate is rambling she knows but she feels like she is close to a solution of some sort, a thread that she can’t quite see yet that she has been missing this whole time.
Yelena picks up when her voice putters out, “I figured she had someone telling her what is going on but that doesn’t help us with the information we need from your mother, I doubt she is going around telling some random employee all of her secrets,” She pauses thinking then Kate sees an Idea come across her face, “What about that guy with the sword from Christmas eve?”
“Jack?” Kate laughed a bit for a moment, “He doesn’t know a thing, my mom essentially used him as a himbo scapegoat to throw under the bus the moment people started sniffing her way.”
“It isn’t nothing. We should try to find out who she has been talking to.” Yelena turns the wheel of the car as they pull up to a large gate with a sign on the front telling Kate they had arrived at the prison. They pull up to the window by the Gate and hand over their IDs telling the guard why they are there and whom they want to see.
As they pull away Yelena continues, “I could get the files of all of her visitors, calls, and security footage.”
Kate sits there gaping at Yelena, who just said it as though she was offering to pick up milk on the way home not as though she was suggesting breaking into a federal prison.
Kate can’t help but look back over her shoulder at the little guard house they had just driven past, as though he could hear them through a closed window, “Yelena,” Kate whispers but at the crack of a smile on Yelena’s lips making fun of her, she corrects her voice to normal volume, “Yelena, I don’t think it is appropriate to just run an unplanned mission to go steal records from a federal prison.” Kate is almost shocked at her own restraint and adds, “And that’s me saying that.”
“What? It’s not as though this is some huge heist, this prison is not even close to being the most secure building I have gotten in and out of unseen,” She pulls into a parking spot in the visitor lot ducking her head slightly to get a better look at the building, “Frankly, it is almost embarrassing your mother has not broken out of here, I would have been out in 20 minutes, tops.”
Kate can barely tell that Yelena is joking as the blonde turns to her with mirth in her eyes, “Well it is certainly not her goal to break out, she has respect for the criminal justice system,” Yelena narrows a look at Kate’s comment, which has her correcting herself, “OK… good point… she has faith in the best lawyers money can buy.”
Yelena nods chuckling but turning her attention back to the conversation at hand, “That being said, It is really a non-issue, I was waiting in the car anyway so that you could talk to your mother… so while you are in there I will just pop in, and get the files we need.”
Kate gives an exasperated glance at her, before rolling her eyes, “Ok, fine, but be careful, I am already dreading the press finding out I was here seeing my mother, let’s not add the suspicious circumstances of me being here when someone was caught breaking and entering into the prison she is being held at.”
Yelena’s face changed to exaggerated shock as she gasped, “Kate Bishop, again with the ‘breaking and entering’ I will not break anything…”
Kate interrupts her with a peck on the lips as she grabs her things and opens the door to the car, leaning back against the closed door to take a breath and compose herself before taking the first step toward the doors to the prison.
…
Kate is walked into an empty room, a large metal table sitting in the center of it with two empty chairs on either side.
There was a large glass mirror on one wall. The alarming amount of Law and Order: SVU Kate has watched told her it was a two-way mirror.
Kate assumed they would be under surveillance, there was no way her mother and her were going to be able to have a private conversation.
Kate hoped that her mother’s connections and corruption however would at least keep most of it away from a courtroom or the front page of the tabloids.
The guard that had brought her to the room mumbled out a phrase Kate mostly understood as “sit down, the prisoner will be brought in soon” and immediately turned around and left.
Kate sat down opposite the two-way mirror, taking a moment to stare at her reflection. There she was looking back at herself, Kate noticed the slight angling of her facial features and the sharpness of her eyes. The bonding hadn’t changed her appearance per se but there was certainly a stronger prominence to her demeanor and it showed in her face, her eyes in particular.
Before Kate could worry too much about how her mother would almost certainly notice these changes immediately, the door was swinging open and three prison guards were leading her mother into the room.
Kate was struck by how regal she still looked, hand-cuffed and in a bright orange jumpsuit. She could practically still hear the clicking of her red bottoms against the concrete even though when Kate glanced down at her feet she saw the prison-issued blue slip-ons that adorned her feet.
Their eyes locked and already Kate saw her mother’s eyes take her in. They softened, obviously, from a mother seeing her daughter after such a long time, but Kate still saw the calculated once-over she was always subject to when she sat before her mother.
Kate couldn’t help but get up and give her mother a hug. She surprised herself by the instinctual action of it. Even after all she had done, even under the pretenses of Kate’s decision to come to see her, she was still her mother. “Hi Mom,” she whispered into her hair as she pulled back.
“Kate,” her mother said voice slightly strained as she sat down, “I’m surprised you came to see me.” Her mother waived her hand and the three guards that brought her in walked out of the room at her order.
Kate’s eyes were already squinting slightly at that and she decided quickly that if she wasn’t confrontational her mother would know something was up, “paying off the guards Mom, really?”
Her mother took a deep breath followed by a long sigh, “Kate, honey, I hired the guards, do you really think that I would risk my own safety in here with everything going on,” she said to Kate like she was speaking to a child and Kate couldn’t help but sink in her chair slightly, her mother continued “and you must know already with all of your investigating that there is a bounty on both of our heads.”
A look of guilt flickers across her mother’s face clearly still worried for her daughter. And then she leaned in both arms on the table, mouth thinning into a straight line before she spoke again, ” Let’s not waste each other’s time Kate, I know you are here to ask me for information so you can go after King Pin, and fulfill your hero’s fantasy.”
Kate’s mouth briefly falls open as she lets her mother’s words fall over her. Her mother’s tone of voice had been so flippant but her eyes remained focused on Kate’s face. Kate knew that look, even though she clearly saw straight through Kate in regard to her primary purpose of coming to see her, her mother was still searching for something in Kate, she still needed something from her, and all Kate had to do was figure out what that was.
“It isn’t about my Hero’s fantasy mom, it is about undoing our family’s mistake,” Kate countered calmly, “it’s about ensuring that the bishop family name isn’t dragged further through the mud, and it is about keeping people safe, how many people died as a result of our company’s work alongside criminals?”
Eleanor’s eyes flared with anger listening to Kate but her face remained neutral, “Kate this unrealistic grandeur of doing things for the greater good is childish and I always assumed you would grow out of it. I thought when you finally bonded that the shift in your brain would finally clear your focus to realize the only true way to leave a legacy and maintain the Bishop name is through one thing and one thing only,” her mother paused leaning over the table towards Kate, before whispering one word across the table, “Power”
“you already know.” They are the only words that she can bring to the surface as her brain works in overtime to shift her strategy upon the information that her mother clearly knew that Kate had bonded long before Kate had walked into the room today. “How? We have been careful, Yelena barely even exists, she is a ghost.”
“A ghost I had already hired once, Kate.” her mother leaned back in her chair, “A ghost that has been given full access to the executive suite at the bishop security building” Her mother rolled her eyes “A ghost that certainly has no business being a member of the high family.”
Kate’s heart dropped but this was at least one of the outcomes she had a plan for, “Mom, you have no control over who I bonded with, this was decided for me long before I even existed, by whatever cosmic force has set the universe into motion, but I can offer you one thing,” Kate’s mother raised her eyebrow at that, Kate continued “I can keep it under wraps for as long as possible, keep it away from the press, if you give me all the information you have on King Pin, I won’t immediately go to the press.”
Kate held her mother’s eyes, trying her best to not lose her nerve, trying her best not to reveal how unwilling she was to actually follow through on this threat.
Her mother’s face shifts to that of regret, and for a moment Kate thinks that she has won and that she won’t have to take steps to fulfill her half of the mutually assured destruction in the ultimatum she has offered to her mother. “Kate, honey, unfortunately soon you will have nothing to tell because she will likely no longer be our family’s problem anymore, as usual, I will take care of it.”
Kate didn’t understand what her mother meant but the way she said it made her bond lash out uncontrollably in a way that she didn’t think was possible after the bond had fully taken. So much for using some tact here to draw the information out, Kate was tired, and she was angry at her mother, she stood up from her Chair, “What do you know about King Pin, Where is he keeping the Widow he has hired? And when does he plan on moving her to a new buyer?”
Eleanor remained in her chair, “Guards?” she raised her voice so they could hear her outside the door but she brought it back down to the regular volume as she turned her face to Kate, as three large guards entered the room, “I promise Kate it has always been my aim to do what is best for you,” two of the guards each grabbed one of Kate’s arms as the other came towards Kate with a syringe,
“Mom what the hell are they doing” Kate kicked her feet out trying but failing to break the hold the two men had on her, they easily picked her up so that she was unable to gain any leverage to loosen their grip, and the man with the syringe approached and quickly was able to draw kates blood, “Mom this is a little too close to super villain even for you, what the hell is going on?”
“Kate I promise it will all be over soon, don’t hurt yourself.”
She felt Yelena nearby, thinking certainly any moment now the Blonde would have noticed her bond in distress and she would come crashing through the door to show these men what five feet of rage can do.
She was momentarily distracted by the two-way mirror flickering off, what was revealed was so insane that she was convinced all of this was a nightmare and she was going to wake up.
Yelena was locked in a focused fight in the small adjacent room with another woman. Clearly another widow, and clearly a subjugated one. Kate could do the math on it being the one King Pin had under his thumb. “Mom, how could you? You are still working with him?”
Yelena was losing, she was fighting with an even greater strength than Kate had ever seen but she seemed distracted. Kate wonders if she is distracted by Kate’s distress. She was so enthralled with worry watching the fight play out before her that she barely noticed the guard with her blood in the corner injecting it into a red vial of a gaseous liquid.
Kate’s eyes widened as she began fighting even harder against the Guards who had each of her arms she watched the guard in the corner walk up to what looked like an outlet that would fit the very red vial that contained the Subjugation serum that Kate had assumed was far from being able to be recreated by anyone else ever again.
“Kate honey, it is ok, this will solve everything, we can find you someone else, it won’t be someone you have bonded with but they will be much more helpful to the family trust me, we can even put time aside to do more charity work to scratch your altruistic itch.” Her mother’s voice was a cruel attempt at soothing Kate’s distress.
“You knew we were both coming the entire time, you planned this,” Kate screamed at her mother,
“I will never forgive you for this,” there was venom in her voice although she couldn’t help but plead “Mom please, Stop this now, this is insane. you can’t do this.” But her mother just set her jaw and stared down at the table, clearly set on completing her plan.
Yelena landed a string of effective punches on the other widow, sending her flying into the window. The guard brought the vial up to the outlet. Kate screamed. The widow recovered quickly locking Yelena into an arm bar against the window.
Yelena and Kate’s eyes locked through the window, Kate tried to communicate through the bond the true danger that the blonde was oblivious to as she was dealing with the widow.
Kate had tears streaming down her face, she somehow shook one arm free. She landed one punch into the throat of the man who once had ahold of her right arm and was able to leverage her body up and over the back of the man still holding her other arm. She was able to switch the grip so that she now had a hold of the guard’s arm and she immediately kicked her feet up to the table in front of her to flip up and over the man while still holding onto his arm. She twisted and heard an almost sickening pop as the guard’s shoulder was dislocated from its socket. His scream of pain was barely audible over the blood rushing in Kate’s ears.
Kate had fought her way out of the guard’s grip, but before she could move on to the final guard holding the vial he had already plugged it in, and Kate’s stomach dropped as she watched Yelena panic as she breathed in the red smoke that flooded the room she was in.
The guard she had throat punched recovered from his shock from his injury and he hit Kate over the head with the butt of the gun he pulled from the back of his waistband. Then all Kate saw was the world fading to black, losing consciousness, as she felt her bond fade to a dull painful pulseing in the back of her brain.