Four Times Kate helped a Defender
And one Time they all helped her
1.
Kate met Danny Rand first. Not, as she expected at a Museum Benefit Gala or something, but rather, on a rooftop in Harlem.
In all honesty, she'd been following a guy Hawkeye – the other Hawkeye – had warned her about, some arms dealer who had ties to human trafficking a few years back before some massive crime lord had been taken out by another of New York's vigilantes. Kate honestly thought that the sheer size of New York's vigilante population spoke volumes about its crime rate. She'd been leaning over the edge of a nightclub's roof, looking into the back alley behind it, practicing her lip reading on the two guys making some dodgy weapons deal, when there were sounds of a scuffle behind her. They weren't very loud sounds, but they were directly behind her, definitely on the same rooftop as her. Slowly, with her hand on her bow and an arrow nocked, Kate turned to face the fighters who'd invaded her vantage point.
One was dressed as an honest-to-goodness ninja – what the fuck? – while the other was dressed in truly eye-watering green and yellow spandex. Well, it was a lot less neon and shiny than spandex, but it clung to his body in a truly ridiculous fashion. The two grown men fought without almost any sound – kind of like Nat and Clint when they sparred, and Kate kinda resented that, because if anyone should be able to fight like Clint, it should be her, but she just couldn't get the hang of the whole 'light-footed, sweeping, flexible, aerodynamic" ninja bullshit. Kate was a solid heavy-hitter, despite her extensive martial arts training. The two men fought like they were dancing, and like they were more focused on showmanship than killing each other, which was either stupid or impressive. Like, they cared so little about the fight they were in, that they wanted to make a point with their fighting style. Actually, whichever way Kate thought about it, that was more stupid than impressive. It clicked, after about twenty seconds of watching them, that the guy in green and yellow was probably the Iron Fist – Kate had sooo many questions about that name – one of New York's vigilante population.
"Hey Iron Fist!" Kate called, hoping the guy had recognized the purple uniform and the bow as friendly. "Duck!"
The guy ducked, fast enough to miss Kate's arrow, which she released before she'd even finished yelling a warning at him. The arrow stuck in the ninja-guy's neck, who passed out as soon as he pulled the arrow out of his body.
Iron Fist stood and looked at her disapprovingly. "I don't know who you are, but generally we don't kill people."
Kate picked up her tranc-arrow and slung it back into her quiver. "Relax man, it's a tranquilizer. Your ninja-nemesis will be fine in like, four hours, tops. Stark never gives me the strong stuff."
The guy's eyebrows shot up. "You know Iron Man?" He went from badly-dressed, badass vigilante to excited puppy in two seconds. He already had so much in common with Clint.
"Of course I do. I'm practically an Avenger. I'm Hawkeye." She shifted her bow from her right hand to her left, and held out her hand to shake. Instead of taking her hand, he eyed her suspiciously until she rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'm the other Hawkeye. Clint's playing domestic in the Midwest or something." Kate knew exactly where Clint was, but she wasn't going to say that, obviously. She could keep super spy secrets too – although Clint had like, the most boring super-secret ever. It wasn't even like, a national security kind of secret. Kate was kind of bitter about how well-put together his home life was, actually. She'd been under the impression that being a human disaster was a Hawkeye pre-requisite. Apparently, Clint was only sometimes a human disaster. Not cool.
"There are two of you? Are you like his sidekick?"
Iron Fist was asking for a fist to the face.
"No, I'm…sometimes I'm his partner, is all. We just share a codename. You should probably do something about your ninja." Kate tried to redirect the conversation.
"He's not my – oh man, Luke's gonna kill me. I promised him no Hand business in Harlem."
"I understood all of those words individually," Kate commented, itching to glance behind her to see if the deal was over already. Oh, who was she kidding, Turk was long gone. "You totally interrupted my operation, by the way."
"Sorry about that, I'm Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist," He held out his hand this time, and Kate shook it.
"You really shouldn't go around sharing your-" the name he'd given suddenly registered, "Dude! The Danny Rand? Like, spent fifteen years living with monks?"
"Uh…yeah?"
"No wonder your fashion sense is shot to hell. I'm Kate Bishop, if my father ever offers you a business deal, say no, he's fucking crooked."
2.
Kate wasn't even looking for trouble when she met Jessica Jones. She'd been hanging out with Tommy when shit went down. They'd been eating the world's greasiest pizza ever – Tommy didn't seem to get that frying and greasing foods did not always equal good – when the window Kate was facing blew inwards. Both Kate and Tommy were out of their seats and in fighting stances when the guy who'd just flown through the window – apparently, he'd been thrown through the window – scrambled to his feet, panicked and scared, waving a gun about like it would save him from the truly terrifying woman climbing through the window after him. Her dark hair framed her bored and slightly pissed off expression, and she wore ripped jeans, combat boots and a leather jacket like she wasn't trying to look like a badass, but still was, which impressed Kate simply because that was not a look she could pull off.
The guy – clumsy, panicked, dressed in a classic thug hoodie, stumbled backwards past Tommy and Kate, and made a desperate grab for Kate, holding the gun to her temple and wrapping an arm around her neck. If Kate had been in Hawkeye gear, or in the mindset of superhero/vigilante, the guy would never even have gotten close to her. As it stood, Kate calculated four practical ways to take this guy down before he even twitched his trigger finger. Tommy nodded at Kate, knowing that it would be better to let Kate sort this out rather than cause a scene as Speed. New Yorkers were a lot less chill about superpowers than the people in LA, given the whole alien invasion thing back in 2012. The woman who'd climbed through after the guy though, her expression had changed from slightly pissed to nervous and exasperated.
"Look asshole, you asked me to do my job; you can't shoot a girl because you're pissed off with your wife," She tried to talk the guy down. He was trembling, but the gun remained firmly against Kate's temple.
"I'll do it, I swear I'll do it! Don't come near me, you freak!" The woman rolled her eyes.
"You came to me, I didn't –" While the guy was focused on the woman, Kate moved her foot backwards, bringing her heel to his crotch. As he let her go in shock, she reached up, and with a twist of her wrist, wrenched the gun out of his hand. One more well placed kick to his abdomen and the guy went crashing to the ground, accompanied by the sound of Tommy's applause and everyone else's shocked gasps.
"A girl's gotta know how to take care of herself in New York," Kate shrugged, and handed the woman the gun.
"Nice moves," she grunted. Barton teach you those?"
When Kate responded by dropping her jaw, the woman smirked. Kate got the feeling that was about as close as she ever came to smiling.
"Jessica Jones, Alias investigations. Danny mentioned you, I looked you up. Nice job, Hawkeye."
She climbed back out the smashed window, telling one of the waiters over her shoulder "Don't just stand there, call the cops,".
"Did I ever mention that I used to want to be a PI? I could so be a PI." Kate whistled between her teeth as she and Tommy watched Jessica Jones saunter off.
3.
Kate found Matt Murdock in a dumpster.
She hadn't been looking for him – Daredevil – specifically, and to be fair, she'd been in the dumpster when she found him – well, he landed on her, and given the lack of light, her concussion and the sheer amount of Kevlar the guy wore, she'd thought for an embarrassingly long time that it was Clint in the dumpster with her. He'd been half-conscious, muttering about Ella or something. Eventually, after they'd spent too long sitting opposite each other in the filth, Kate decided they both needed medical care, and her best bet was probably the tower. "Alright, not-Clint, let's go get some help." Kate lifted him out of his slumped position, and he helped by throwing the top half of his body over the side of the dumpster.
"Claire c'n help," He slurred, and Kate tried to push him over the edge. "Who's Claire?"
"Nurse. Phone."
Kate stopped trying to shove the guy over the side of the dumpster and searched his –ridiculously elaborate – suit for his phone. So maybe if she found out just how firm the guy's muscles were under the suit, well that was her business – or his? Whatever. She eventually located the phone – a burner, old, and ugly and tasteless - and dialed the contact labelled "C", because Claire probably started with a C. Maybe.
"Matt, I've told you we can't keep doing this."
"Uh, Claire? I'm Kate- shit, no, you never heard that. I'm Hawkeye and Not-Clint is uh, kinda passed out in a dumpster."
"Did he tell you to call me?" The voice was calm, and carried the tone of a woman who had dealt with something like this too-many-damn-times.
"Sorta? I think I'm concussed too, I was gonna try get us to the tower, but he started muttering about you and his phone and –shit, Not-Clint, stop moving, no wait, you're gonna-" Matt – Kate assumed his name was Matt - successfully flipped himself out of the dumpster, landing flat on his back, before breathlessly muttering "parkour" and something less intelligible.
"He just jumped out the dumpster. And now he's telling the weather to fuck itself or something. Look, we're…uh, I need to figure out how to get out of this dumpster and then I'll text you our location when I know where we actually are? I don't know how you usually do this?"
"You're just outside my building, I can see both of you from my fire escape. Figures, M-Daredevil likes this dumpster in particular, the dumbass."
Kate thinks she might like this Claire woman.
It takes the woman a while to get to them, but not like, that long because she only had to climb down stairs, not take the subway. Kate realizes maybe a minute after the woman makes her appearance that she could have just called Tony and he'd probably have sent someone to help her. Oh well. Claire seemed nice, calm and smart, with really pretty hair, and she smiled when Kate told her that her hair was pretty.
"I thought Hawkeye was a man?" She asks later, once she and some kid who had helped carry Daredevil up an unholy number of stairs had settled the two dumpster-vigilantes in her apartment. She's got a sprained wrist, a cut on her forehead that Claire decided wasn't too deep, and a gash on her leg that needed like, three stitches, not counting the minor concussion. So she's practically in stellar shape.
"You and everyone else in this damn city. I'm the other Hawkeye, okay?" Claire decides not to comment on that, and continues to coax water down Daredevil's throat slowly. He's suffered no surface injuries, just a really bad blow to the head and some bruises – probably – but that's about it. Kate's kind of pissed that the guy who regularly lands in dumpsters is better off than her in injury count. Clint's normally the idiot with a concussion and open wounds, but maybe Kate's just upholding the Hawkeye tradition.
"Who's Clint?" Daredevil asks when Claire finally stops force-feeding him water. "You kept calling me that in the dumpster."
"I called you Not-Clint. Because you're obviously not him."
That is…not an answer." Daredevil answers slowly.
"Well, who's Ella? And what do you have against fog?" Kate shoots back, trying to prove that anything said in the dumpster should not be repeated. Deciding to be a little shit for the sake of it, she adds; "and what's with the devil motif anyway?"
Claire and Daredevil laugh, which…was not what Kate was going for. At least, she didn't think she was.
"Uh…yeah, maybe let's just agree to be dumpster buddies, and we'll forget anything mentioned under duress or injury?" He finally manages awkwardly. "Thanks for calling Claire though, and thanks for…literally everything, Claire."
"Yeah, thanks. Can I…I don't know, compensate you for your time and first aid skills and equipment?"
Claire looks taken aback by that. "You…want to pay me?"
"Yeah, I mean, you obviously know the horned demon here, but I'm literally an idiot with –shit, my bow!"
"It's standing by the entrance under the coatrack, I fished it out while you were helping Daredevil up."
"Shit, now I don't even care if you want money or not, I'm gonna pay you. I'll figure out how." Kate picks up her bow, gripping it tightly to keep from hugging a literal stranger.
"I don't- "
"No, it's done. Damnit, I sound like Tony, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna force anything on you. If you ever need anything though, like, I'd give you my fucking kidney for saving my bow."
"I uh…don't think I need a kidney," She starts, but Daredevil's laughing now.
"I remember now, Danny and Jess mentioned they ran into you. Kate Bishop, right?"
"You confide in one vigilante…" Kate bemoans, and Daredevil chuckles.
"Yeah, don't tell Danny secrets. He can't keep them."
4.
Kate didn't mean to keep in touch with Claire, but Claire, it seemed, was like the New York vigilantes' secret, exasperated protector. It started with Danny Rand calling her (she wasn't even going to ask how he got her number) to make sure she wasn't dead, after Hawkeye had been in the news. He ended the – fucking weird – call by telling her "Claire just worries, y'know?" like this was a totally common occurrence. Soon, Kate was carrying a burner with Claire's number – and Tommy's, Billy's, Cassie's, Clint's, America's – when she went out at night.
So it wasn't totally unexpected when Kate – with a probably broken arm – climbed through Claire's new apartment window. What was unexpected though, was the Very Big Man with Very Big Muscles, wearing a hoodie, sitting in the arm chair facing the window Kate was now leaning against. His facial expression was impassive, with a single, unimpressed eyebrow lifted. He almost looked like Steve that one time Kate nearly blew him up by accident. Except this guy wasn't…well, he probably wouldn't be as nice as Cap.
"Uh…look, I'm looking for Claire, I probably have the wrong apartment, she just moved, and this is my first time visiting her in Harlem and…please don't call the cops, I'm practically an Avenger, I promise."
The guy kept his impassive-stare-with-one-raised-eyebrow trained on her for long enough for Kate to second-guess every choice shed ever made, before he let out a sigh, stood and approached her.
"I'm Luke Cage, Claire's boyfriend. I'm going to assume you need help with that arm?" He gestured to the arm Kate was cradling protectively.
"You ass!" Kate punched him with her left hand before very suddenly remembering why Luke Cage sounded familiar. "Fuck," She hid her now sore hand under her armpit. "I thought I was gonna die!"
Luke smiled at her, in a weird, enigmatic way that said everything about how amused he was by this. Kate swore there and then that Steve and Harlem's Hero would never meet. They were both secret trolls and she was having none of it. When she said as much, Luke outright laughed.
"Claire's visiting her friend in Hell's Kitchen tonight- "
"What's that horned asshole got up to now?"
"So she told me to help you out if you stopped by. I'm not a nurse, but I've got basic first aid training, and Claire's taught me a few things."
"Uh…thanks. Um, my arm's broken, so…that's, I mean, Claire really told you to help me?" Smooth, Katie-Kate, she berated herself.
"She worries about you. Says you're too young to be mixed up in this shit, but it's not her place to tell you to stop."
Kate eyed Luke wearily as she sat down, and he gently examined her arm. Her face pinched into a defiant expression. "Age isn't something I have any control over. I can control the rest of my life, just not that aspect." She tried to explain.
"I didn't say nothing about control." He replied carefully.
"But I did. It doesn't matter that I'm only twenty-one, okay? I have a skill set that means I can do something about this shitty world. So I'm gonna use it." Kate knew she sounded like a petulant child at this point, but she couldn't help it. Age was a sensitive topic. You're never too young to change the world. Even when the world tells you that you are.
"Fair enough." Luke's eyes flashed with what Kate hoped was respect, before he dropped the conversation and slowly let go of her arm. "I can splint this until you can get proper medical care, but you probably shouldn't parkour all the way home or whatever it is you do. I can give you a ride, if you'd like?"
"Are you-okay, thanks." Kate liked Luke, she decided. The guy was more enigmatic than you'd think a guy with his own app could be, quiet, and stoic and he looked like he hid a million secrets behind his dark eyes. But, also like, if given the right circumstances, Luke was probably the best guy to do shots with at a party or something.
"Listen, most of us didn't want to be heroes, you know, we were forced- "
"Bullshit." Kate interrupted, and Luke paused in his careful wrapping of her arm. "You didn't ask for powers, or some asshole villains who picked you to have a vendetta against. But you didn't have to fight back. You didn't have to pick yourself up and act, fight, protect. My teammates tried this on me too, okay, and it's not cool. You made choices, maybe not the kind you'd have liked to be able to make, but where you stand today, you chose to be here. So did I. I don't have a tragic backstory of experimentation or family death, but I chose to help people. So do you. I'm not different just because I don't have powers, because I'm young, or because I didn't start out with a nemesis out to kill me, okay? Okay?"
Kate was breathing hard, and Luke was absolutely still for almost a minute before he nodded, said "okay," and went back to fixing up her splint.
They didn't speak again until later, when Luke was driving her back to the tower, her bow stashed in the back of Claire's mom's car. "What you said," Luke started, "I know we chose this life, but people like you, people like Claire, you have…I don't know, you can get out of the fire, the danger, but you stay anyway, and it scares me because…I want everyone – I want Claire safe. I'm sure there are people who want you safe."
"Exactly. There are people who want me safe, and I want them safe. This shit isn't one-sided, there is no guy saves girl nonsense. The people who want me safe, they do that by having my back – by trusting me to have theirs. It's a mutual win-win. We trust, we share and we believe in each other. Claire's a badass, she can handle whatever you're throwing her way. And if she gets hurt, she knows what she signed on for. I told you, it's a choice. Why should you have the right to take that choice from her?"
Luke didn't respond, not until she was standing on the sidewalk, facing the steel-and-glass monstrosity that was Avengers/Stark Tower. He stuck his head through the open window. "Kate,"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Watch your back."
5.
Okay, this looked bad.
Kate was so fucked. How the hell was she supposed to know ninjas held grudges for being shot with arrows?
She was tied to a chair in a shitty abandoned apartment, probably in like, Hell's Kitchen or Midtown or something. Heaven forbid she get kidnapped to the Upper East Side for once. The windows were boarded over, and the exposed brick she was looking at made her think Hell's Kitchen, because a lot of buildings looked like that there after it got hit in 2012 by damn aliens. There were three ninjas guarding her, and apparently, they didn't appreciate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jokes, because she had a blossoming black eye and blood in her mouth from where her lip had split. They hadn't demanded anything from her or anything, just tied her to a chair and then punched her when she antagonized them. They didn't even speak to her, and that pissed Kate off the most, because, really, at least acknowledge the superhero you just kidnapped, it's only polite.
Kate's left eyebrow was itching, she could feel the blood from a cut on her calf – now sticky and half-dry – against her jeans every time she shifted her leg. She was thirsty and all she could taste was her own blood. Part of her – the part of her that was a little shitty – echoed the words she'd said to Luke Cage. You chose to be here. Kate had never had a really good sense of time. She couldn't tell the difference between ten minutes and five, let alone an hour or six, seven. She couldn't even check the sun because there wasn't any shining through the cracks in the boards, which meant either the windows been blacked out as well, or it was dark out, which just…fuck. She'd given up trying to mouth off after the guy had sliced her leg open. It had hurt so much more than the usual cuts and scrapes she got, she was surprised by how little blood there had actually been. It was probably some ninja torture method. Clint would know. He's had some weird connections to ninja-terrorist groups over the years. Or at least, Kate thinks he has.
Finally, something happened. An elderly Chinese woman walked calmly into the room, shuffling along with a cane. She was diminutive in height – Kate thought she looked like a cartoon grandma.
"Kate Bishop." She greeted, and one of her pet ninjas placed a chair in front of Kate. "The Iron Fist likes you."
Kate never doubted that the Iron Fist was a good guy, it never even crossed her mind that he might be – but, well, Luke cage and Daredevil and Jessica Jones all trusted him, so the chances of him being a ninja-cult leader are slim, right?
"I've literally met the guy once." Kate gurgled.
"But you made quite an impression," she laughed – a creepy, old lady laugh that made Kate want to punch her vocal cords. "You are here because you were unprepared for us. He didn't tell you who we were, a fatal mistake on young Mr. Rand's part." She sounded like she was imparting the wisdom of the universe upon Kate, and she hated it. This woman looked and talked like a walking cliché. She probably had some mystic ass powers too.
"So, what, I'm bait? You know I've got my own people looking for me, right? I'm with the Avengers."
"The Avengers have never paid us any mind, they have always been too preoccupied with their politics and aliens and their own mess. We have been around long before them and we will still be here long after."
Kate definitely should have asked Danny more about the ninja that night. By the way, does that guy happen to work for a ninja cult that might want to kidnap me in the future? Great thanks. "You sound like a cult leader."
"The Hand is no cult, girl. We are as ancient and powerful as the earth itself."
"So's Christianity, if you believe them, lady. That doesn't mean you have the right to burn women at the stake."
"You are too smart-mouthed, girl. My warriors tried to teach you. Silence is a virtue."
"Sure, when you get kidnapped, why don't you see how quiet you feel like being." Kate growled. The absurdity of being lectured by a Chinese grandma on being quiet while she was bleeding and bruised and tied to a fucking chair was not lost on her. The woman then introduced herself as Madam Gao in the most obnoxious way possible ("You may call me Madam Gao, child,") and Kate was reminded as to why she hated old people that looked down on people younger than them so vehemently.
She carried an aura of understated elegance about her, Kate thought, as she and Madam Gao regarded each other. She didn't seem the type to monologue, which sucked - Kate would've liked her if she wasn't the bad guy who'd just had her kidnapped. She was working on getting her wrists loose – had been since she was tied up, but the knots were tight, secure. Kate would bet that even Natasha would struggle to get out of these bonds. What was that thing she did with the chair? Literally just kept fighting with the chair attached to her until she splintered around her? Yeah, Kate was good, but definitely not Natasha good. She was stuck waiting for F.R.I.D.A.Y to realize she hadn't checked in, probably. Or maybe Claire would get worried and send one of her Vigilante minions.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, the wooden boards covering the window closest to Kate flew inwards, and Jessica Jones landed in an ungraceful heap in front of Kate.
Danny and Matt launched themselves into the window after her, the two ninja-parkour freaks coming from above where Jess, and Danny grinned at Kate. "Luke has to take the stairs."
The five of them made short work of Madam Gao's warriors, but the woman herself had disappeared as soon as Jessica had launched herself through the window.
Danny looked murderous as he stood next to Luke, regarding the carnage they'd left behind. "This was another of her tests." Danny's hands were balled into fists and his expression was murderous. "She wanted to test my loyalty to Kate." He looked over at Kate, who now had bloody fists as well as a bloody leg and a bloody mouth. "Who are they? Who is she?" Kate asked. "All Gao said was that I was too much of a smartass and that I need to learn the virtues of silence. And she insisted that she wasn't a cult."
"Trust me, the Hand is definitely a cult." Daredevil grunted, the half of his face not covered by as mask expressing nothing short of fury. Kate ignored that (it was either ignore it or shit herself), and snorted.
"I totally called it." Luke gave her an incredulous look, Jessica rolled her eyes, and Daredevil and Danny continued to glower.
"I'm sorry Kate, but you're on Gao's radar now as one of Danny's allies. You'll have to watch you back from now on." Daredevil explained gravely.
"I'm on like, six different terrorist organizations' shit lists, including A.I.M and Hydra. I think I can handle a ninja death cult – now that I know to watch out for them." Kate shrugged. "At least you guys had my back."
"Well, you had mine," Danny shrugged.
"You've had all of ours, so we kinda owed you anyway," Jessica shrugged. "Don't think this a team thing though, these assholes are just more tolerable than the Avengers."
"And me?" Kate grinned. "Am I more tolerable than the Avengers?"
Before she got her answer, Daredevil moved towards the window, head cocked to the side, "Cops on their way, we might want to get out of here."
And with that, they dissipated, leaving behind an empty apartment in a crumbling building – and hey, Kate was right. This was Hell's Kitchen.