I never was a troublesome child. It's not like I had much to get in trouble for. I only had my sister, Susan, growing up. My mom got sick when I was little, so I don't have much memory of her. My dad wasn't really around during that time, Susan said it was because he sad, that he surrounded himself with work cause that was the only thing he had control over. Now a days, dad isn't around much and Susan was always off with her boyfriend, so I try and make sure I get as much attention as I can. For example, today at Danbury Preparatory Academy, in about ten minutes, a tape of this year's homecoming queen bribing the headmaster with her "feminine wiles" and then becoming homecoming queen. You may be wondering, how did a wealthy Manhattan socialite come across this tape? I have many tricks up my sleeve, stealth is one, and black mail is another. Danbury is just another prep school trying to form me in the high-class mold. It's also my fourth chance this year. My father is just trying to get rid of me so then he can spend more time with work and his new wife Heather. Who, may I mention, is three years older than me. Five minutes.
"Ms. Bishop," my English teacher says. "Mr. Haze would like to see you in his office." Right on time. Little background, I am blackmailing the headmaster. I know it will get me expelled, but that's what I want. Danbury bores me, but then again so does most things. That's why I do them.
"Tell him I am on my way," I say standing up, gathering my stuff. I walk through the lavish halls of Danbury Prep. Dad thought that Danbury would be the perfect match for me; Heather thought that her Alma matter, Hawthorne Academy, was better. I walk into the headmaster's office, and am greeted by the man himself, Headmaster Jones. Three minutes.
"Miss Bishop," he is angry. "Please step into my office." I walk in and he shuts the door.
I check my watch. "Better make this quick, only two and a half minutes left." he scowls at me.
"I hope you know that you could be arrested for this."
"I know. And I also know that you could be coming along too. Having sex with a minor on your desk? Not very good on a resume, Mr. Jones." The taunting is my favorite part. "One minute."
"Miss Bishop, tell me your terms, please."
"You are staling. I know, I used the same tactic to draw this out too. You have a bunch of tech nerds trying to hack my phone, where the video will leak. Only problem is that, my phone isn't the only place that it will leak from." Suddenly, the phone rings. He picks it up with haste.
"Hello," he says. "Yes, I have her here. Well, okay then. You know that… I see. Okay. See you soon." Mr. Jones looked over at me. "Good news, you have been bailed out." Susan. I knew she would come through eventually. She'll come and grab me from this hellhole and then take me back home to New York, where I belong.
"That's great news." I stab back. I delete the video from all of my devices. "There, now you're safe."
"If you could go wait outside," he stands to open the door. "That would be great." I walk over to the couch in the lobby of his office area. I sit and open a magazine. Just as I open to the first page, a voice rips through the hall.
"KATHERINE!"
"Shit." I mumble. I knew that voice and it wasn't Susan's. Derek Bishop walks through the door, with Heather and Susan tagging behind.
"You," he points at me. "I will get to you later." Then he storms into Headmaster Jones's office, Heather tagging behind him.
"He is really pissed isn't he?" I look over to Susan. She laughs and sits next to me on the couch. Then she stops.
"Blackmail Kate? Really?" I roll my eyes at her. "They wouldn't let me come in and advocate for you. This is it. They have to find a new school for you now."
"What have they lined up for me now?"
"Nothing yet." She is still wearing her gloves. "Damnit Kate. You always have to upstage your big sister. Don't you?" and with that, she takes off her gloves and shows me her left hand.
"Collin proposed?" Susan nods. I stand and hug her. "I am so happy for you! So, when is the wedding?"
"A month from now," she sighed sitting back down. "Dad is going back to the office for the next couple months."
"You mean he wants to make sure I don't get myself kicked out of another school," I sit back and laugh. I have been to three different prep schools in the past two years. Susan has tried to keep me in one school for a long period of time, but they just don't work. They want the Kate that they see in the lifestyle or business sections of every paper in New York, but that's not me. That's the girl my parents wanted for good publicity, which I was. I am not that girl. I sneak into headmaster's office's to get top-secret security tapes to blackmail them.
"Kate," just as Susan was about to finish her sentence, another "KATHRINE" ripped through the office. Susan and I stood up to see my father coming out of the office, with Heather following shortly behind.
"The limo is out front," Heather piped up from behind him. Susan and I followed them out to the car.
"Do you realize what you did?" Derek Bishop is not normally a happy person. Not since our mother died.
"One count of breaking and entering and," I counted on my fingers for a moment. "Sixteen counts of blackmail?"
"What would your mother say?" he mumbled as he sipped his scotch.
"I don't know, maybe she would tell you to actually pay attention to your kids instead of going on a whirlwind trip with your newest fling and leaving Susan to raise me!"
"She is not a fling, she is your step mother!"
"Did you ever ask Susan about how she felt about you scheduling her wedding for when it was most convenient to you?"
"Don't bring her into this," He yelled back.
"Well, you brought mom into this!" I look over to Susan. She is on the edge of tears. She hates it when dad and I fight, especially about her and mom. We have a quiet moment before I hear Derek Bishop say a rare "sorry".
"I am sorry about the school too." I mumble. "I will try harder next time not to get kicked out."
"Well," Heather pipes in. "I think it would be a good time to propose the idea of Hawthorne again."
"I think that is a good idea," Susan looks over at me. "Heather does have some leverage to get her in there with her record."
"Kate," Heather turned to me. "What do you think?"
I don't know about this. It could be another of those cookie cutter schools, which it most likely is, but I need to give it another chance for Mom. She would want me to stay in school and give it another try. "I'll take the chance." I say. The car stopped and we all stepped out to ride up to our apartment, which was also labeled as the penthouse. As soon as we arrived there, Heather walked off to my father's home office to call Hawthorne Academy, and I threw myself down on the couch. Susan came over and sat next to me.
"Thank you for trying again," she whispers.
"It's what mom would have wanted." I smile at her.
*One month later*
I started school about a week after I got kicked out of Danbury. I made a few new friends, I live at the apartment, and life is good. No more dorms, no more corruption, and no more troublesome Kate. Today I am even going to try on my bridesmaid's dress. You would think that I would be Susan's maid of honor, but I am on the straight and narrow, which means no fake ids to get into bars for Susan's bachelorette party. That doesn't mean I am not going, just that I have schoolwork and need to leave early. Susan chose one of our family friend's Jessica Jones for her maid of honor. I ended up leaving school to find that there was a limo full of Susan's friends waiting to drive me across town to take me to the bridal shop. I hop in and we head off to a tiny bridal shop in the middle of Manhattan. They were all drinking champagne, and I was sipping on a glass. It's not like this is the first time I have had it.
"So," Susan's friend, I think her name is Emma, said. "What color are we wearing?"
"I had picked purple for the dresses," Susan said. "But I had a few other colors for options."
"You are staying with purple," Jessica piped in. She looked over and smiled at me. Jessica's adoptive mother had known my mother for a long time, and this caused Susan and I to be her first friends when she got adopted. We arrived at the shop and when I walked in, there was a whole rack of the same dress just different colors. I picked a purple dress off the rack and looked at it.
"That would be perfect one," Jessica said from behind me. "Go show it to Susan."
I turned around and said, "Susan what about this one?"
"Oh my god," Susan came towards me. "That one is amazing, and your size! Go try it on!" she shoved me towards the dressing room. I slipped into it. I stepped out to see all eight of Susan's bridesmaids staring at me. It was the perfect fit and it did look amazing.
"Susan," Jessica said. "I think that is the one. It is amazing."
"Kate?" Susan look toward me.
"Susan, this is the one." I said smiling at her. She went to the clerk to pay for the dresses and we all left with our dresses. We headed back to the car and handed the driver our dresses. Susan got lucky they had all of the sizes in stock in purple. It was about 6:30, which meant that we would all head back to the apartment and get ready for Susan's party and the be off by eight o'clock. Then, Susan would have her day of recovery/spa day with the girl's/ part two of the party, and then get married the next day.
While everyone got dressed, I worked on an essay that was due tomorrow, since I was still am a student in school for another couple months. After I finished off the final paragraph, I realized I had more work than I thought. I headed out to tell Susan that I wouldn't make it to part one of the party, but I promised that I would be there for part two tomorrow. Then I headed off back to more homework.
I had been working for about six hours before I finally got exhausted enough to decide it was time to call it quits. I had finished a majority of my work, but I am sure my teachers would give me an extension because of the wedding of the century this weekend that I had to attend. I showered and climbed into bed just to hear the very drunk partygoers enter the apartment. They all passed out on the couch and it was quiet for me to fall asleep.
I woke up at six to get in a car to ride for a half day at school. It wasn't like I was going to miss anything. Heather and my father had paid the headmaster and the school board to make it a half-day, just so I could joint the rest of the bridal party in day two of the bachelorette party. I walked out to see the limo waiting again, full of hungover women. Well, everyone except Jessica is hungover. I tried to shut the door quietly, but ended up earning eight moans.
"It's okay," Jessica whispered. "They should be better after the spa day."
I laughed.
We arrived at the spa which was "super Zen" according to Emma, who booked the spa day. We were greeted at the door with robes and cucumber water. I ended up getting a back massage and a hand massage. Then I went and sat in the sauna with the rest of the bridesmaids. Susan hadn't come out from her full body massage, but Emma said that's probably because she fell asleep on the table and they just let you sleep here.
"Plus," Jessica said. "She will need her sleep for her wedding tomorrow, cause you know she won't get any tonight."
"Do you think she'll get cold feet?" another one of Susan's friends said.
"No," I answered back. "She has been waiting for this for a long time." Then Susan walked in, looking refreshed from her nap.
"That was so relaxing," she said stretching and sitting down. "I feel so refreshed for my wedding day tomorrow.
"Don't forget the rehearsal dinner tonight," Jessica piped in.
"How could I forget it? My father is putting it on tonight at the apartment."
"What? I thought we were going to The Four Seasons?" Emma yelled shocked.
"I wanted a home style meal with no cameras in our face." Susan smiled. Emma just sighed. She was pissed.
Emma was one of Susan's elementary school friends, but she hated me. When Jessica was adopted and became friends with us, Emma got very jealous and tried multiple times to leave Jessica in the dust and be Susan's best friend. She got super mad when Susan chose Jessica over her. But still, Emma tries to take over the maid of honor duties from Jessica. Like arranging this part of the party today, but none of us minded it.
We had arrived back at the apartment to a catering team setting up for dinner and Heather bossing them all around. Derek Bishop came out of the kitchen smiling and laughing.
"My girls," he said. I could smell the scotch on his breath. He hugged us and kissed us each on the cheek. "I can't believe you are getting married. Well, you two better get ready for dinner. Heather invited some photographers over for both the press and the memories. So look your best."
Susan and I turned around and walked toward our rooms. Susan sighed, "I can't believe heather did that. I told them no press."
"I am so sorry," I would be pissed off too. " I am going to get dressed. I will see you out there." I put my hand on her arm. She walked off to her room as I entered mine. Heather had set out a black dress on my bed with black stiletto heels. I slipped into the dress and the heels and threw my hair up in a high ponytail. I looked in the mirror and touched up my makeup.
People had already begun arriving to the party. I walked out to see our foyer was filled with people, press and guests. I walked down the stairs and my father grabbed me and pulled me through the crowd, till we stopped at a man who had his back to us.
"Mr. Stark," my father said to the man as he turned around. "Thank you for coming."
"No problem Derek, I love a good opportunity to celebrate," He clasped my father on the shoulder.
"Oh and this is my daughter Katherine," he said. He was star struck. I could hear it in his voice.
"Very nice to meet you, Katherine." He held his hand out and I shook it.
"Very nice to meet you too Mr. Stark." I smiled. One of the people who were on the security detail for the party came over and whispered something in my father's ear.
"Excuse me," he said as he dashed off.
"So," Mr. Stark said. "I hear that you are enrolled at the Hawthorne Academy?"
"Yes," I nodded. "My step mother, Heather, suggested it after the last school debacle."
"Debacle?"
"I caught the headmaster in an incriminating position and I used it to my advantage."
"You hacked the equipment in his office and blackmailed him?"
"Yeah, but the way I say it, it sounds cooler." He laughed.
"You know," He said. "You should come and visit Stark Tower. We could use some people like you on my team."
"Thank you," I smiled. "But…" and then Jessica showed up next to me.
"Hi Tony," she waved to him. "Mind if I steal Kate?" he gestured to do so, and then I was off zipping through the crowd with Jessica. "There are some people that I want you to meet."
We continued to push through the crowd until we reached a large African American man and a shorter, blonde haired man.
"Kate, this is my fiancé Luke and our friend Clint Barton." I shook both their hands. Above me on the stairs were Susan and her, soon to be, husband Collin.
"Hello," Susan said after the room quieted. "Food will be served soon, so find your seat. We would like to thank you all for coming and helping us pre celebrate our marriage." Everyone clapped and we found our seats. Jessica and I sitting next to Susan and Emma, who was sitting where Jessica is now, is next to me now. She wasn't happy to be next to me. Dinner was served and so was desert. They were both good and toasts were made as the servers cleaned off the table. The toasts were hilarious as always, and then people began leaving. A security person who I didn't recognize came over to me.
"Hello, Mr. Stark would like to speak to you." he said.
"Oh, okay, just hold on a second," I rushed over to Jessica. I whispered, "Do you recognize him?"
"Yeah, that's Tony's driver."
"Oh, okay." I walked back over to Tony Stark's driver and followed him to the group of people filling out of the party. And standing there, with Jessica's fiancé and Clint Barton, was none other than Tony Stark.
"Katherine," he said, "I wanted to give you my card before I left, just incase you wanted to use your powers for good."
"Thank you," I smiled again. "I am sure my father will be happy to have you at my sister's wedding tomorrow."
"Of course, as long as nothing comes up tomorrow," he looked toward Clint, and then the three of them got on the elevator with Jessica, who dashed over at the last minute.
"Bye Kate," she waved. After they left I went upstairs, showered and went to bed. I needed the rest for tomorrow.
"Kate!" I felt someone land on top of me. "Wake up!" It was morning and the person on top of me was Susan. "It's my wedding day!"
"I am up," I sat up and walked to Susan's room, where her eight bridesmaids were getting ready. We had our hair and makeup done and we put on our dresses and hopped in the limo to the church. We rushed in to the lobby of the church and hid behind the doors that led into the rest of the church. One by one, the bridesmaids walked in, till it was Jessica's turn.
"Don't get cold feet," she whispered before she walked through the doors. Our father and Heather were at the front of the church, because Susan wanted me to walk her down the aisle.
"Are you ready to do this?" I asked her as we walked toward the door.
She smiled at me "yeah, it's my turn to live now." And we walked through the doors and down the aisle. Neither of us could stop smiling as we walked. I gave her away to Collin and she handed her bouquet off to Jessica. They said their vows and exchanged rings and kissed and ran off down the aisle to the waiting press and limo to take them away. The rest of the bridal party got into our own limos, then the guests in to theirs. Then we went to the reception, which was held in tents in central park. There was a path lit by string lights, all the way to the reception. There was food and over 200 guests. Susan and Collin were dancing and having a great time. After dinner, everyone began dancing, and it got a bit too much for me.
"Jessica," I tapped her on the shoulder. "I am going for a walk. I'll be back in a bit."
"Okay," she smiled. "Have fun and be safe!"
I walked out and past the lights and walked along a path in central park looking up at the stars and moon through the trees. It was relaxing looking up at the sky and then just being in the quiet. I walked a bit father, figuring I had been gone for long enough and should head back. I turned around to see a man.
"Hello," I couldn't make out his face.
"This will be easier if you don't scream," he said. Suddenly I heard a sound coming from the bushes behind me. I whipped around and screamed as loud as I could. Then the man who was in front of me moments ago held a cloth to my mouth and the last thing I saw were the stars in the sky as the world around me faded to black and I felt someone catch me.