Chapter 4:"Welcome to the Board"

"I swear to you, K, if the guy at the counter calls you my big sister, I'm going to have… I don't know. Words," Kate said as she and K stopped by an ice cream shop on the way home from Bishop Publishing. It was the beginning of July and, as Kate said, "way too hot not to have ice cream," after all — and plus, she could really use something sweet after the recent terrorization by her monster-in-law.

"I'll buy him a drink," K laughed. "And you can hire him as your hottest new fiction writer. Obviously."

"Obviously," Kate said, rolling her eyes as she looked over the different flavor options. "I think I'll pick up a gallon to take home too. Krissy's still not over the demon visit on Tuesday."

"No one is," K muttered. "Logan's still in a mood."

"Kurt would be in more of a mood if Hank hadn't had to restitch him," Kate said. "He's too dopey to be in a mood. I'm sure I'll get it later."

"Oooh, maybe that's what I need to do. Bribe Annie to watch the kids so I can try to get Logan drunk again."

"She'd do it too," Kate said with a smirk. And then, just to tease, she added, "I mean, there's a baby Summers without a Howlett. It's Rachel's, but still."

"Oh, don't you start too," she replied with a little laugh.

"Well, I don't think it counts when she's a Drake, but hey, there are Summers genes in there; you can't argue that part."

"Stop," K said as they got up to the counter. "It's not fair that my big sister thinks she can push me to more babies."

"Well, Lisbet's already that way," Kate said without hesitating, her nose in the air but not quite containing her laughter.

"Doesn't mean you gotta be too," K replied. "It's bad enough with the twice a day texts from Wade insisting that my kid count is off and that there need to be more tiny Logan's."

"Did you tell him to work on his own?" Kate asked.

"I did," she agreed. "Multiple times. I even have an auto response programmed in for him."

Kate laughed at that and shook her head. "Wade's a good dad. He needs a tiny little healer. That would be perfect for his paranoia level too."

"Well, no guarantees for those two," K said with a shrug. "Sadly."

"No, but I live in optimism," Kate said, tossing her hair over her shoulder as they got to the counter. "I'm gonna need a double scoop of the chocolate chunk, and another gallon of it to take home, pretty please."

"Double scoop, huh?" K said quietly. "That bad?"

"It's the hottest July in years, a demon almost killed my husband, my daughter is freaking out thinking her grandpa can kill her dad remotely and there's nothing she can do to help… yeah. Double scoop."

"Crazy talk," K muttered.

"Well, I did try to explain to Krissy that at least the remote killing spell isn't a thing anymore, but…" Kate sighed and let her shoulders slump. "When you get kidnapped by an evil grandpa, you kind of remember it."

"Right, I get that," she agreed. "We'll have to take her to do something fun."

"I was thinking of taking her somewhere with roller coasters. She loves heights. It's the Hawkeye genes," Kate said with a little laugh.

"Sounds right to me," K laughed, then looked over at the counter kid. "I'm good. Thanks."

"Well, at least I know you're not carrying number four," Kate teased as she took the bag with the gallon of ice cream and then the double scoop. "Thanks!"

"Worst pregnancy test ever," K muttered.

"Hey, you gotta admit: you have more of a sweet tooth when it happens," Kate pointed out.

"Little bit, yeah," K answered with a shrug. "But it's the insufferable looks that really gets me eating more sweet stuff."

"Yeah, I know. I remember," Kate said with a nod.

"I'm not even talking about the rest of the house," she clarified. "Logan's bad enough on his own."

"You've got no one to blame for yourself for your tastes," Kate sang her way, grinning around her ice cream cone.

"Shut up, Mrs. Blueberry Backstabber."

"Aww, you love me anyway," Kate laughed, draping her free arm around K.

"I have to, you're married to my surrogate dad," K laughed.

"We do have pretty weird family dynamics, don't we, sis?"

"Lil' bit," K agreed with a smirk. "I'd tell 'Dad' about your antics, but he'd likely join in."

"He can't help it. The last ten years have been so good for my little romantic," Kate laughed, catching a dripping bit of ice cream on her tongue. "Seriously. Oh my gosh. We step outside for two seconds and my ice cream is already imploding. Why does July exist?"

"To warm up for August, duh."

"Ugh." Kate pulled a face at K and rolled her eyes. She had barely gotten another two bites into her ice cream cone, however, before a handful of overly large men stepped out from the side street she and K had just passed, and she stopped in her tracks and got honestly annoyed. "Oh come on," she grumbled, glancing to K and fully expecting to see her secretary primed for her "other" job — though the annoyance turned into concern when she saw the green-tipped darts sticking out of her friend. "Oh crap."

K was already starting to sink when the first big guy stepped in to make a grab for Kate, and while he was rewarded with a knee in the groin, the fact of the matter was that they were too big and too many to handle, and it wasn't more than a few moments later that Kate felt her feet leave the ground as the big guys bodily removed her from the street.

By that time, K was entirely unconscious, and between the big guys manhandling Kate and the laid-out feral, both women were loaded up into cars with familiar green trim to them, each of them sandwiched between men who looked like they could snap an arm in a second flat.

"Okay," Kate muttered to herself. "This looks bad."

On the plus side, seeing as there had been no red smoke or creepy comments about her kids — and K hadn't been attacked with claws and snarls — the most obnoxious suspects on the list were out of the playing field on this particular kidnapping. (Kate could hardly believe sometimes that she lived the kind of life where there were levels to kidnapping.) And the green-tipped darts gave away at least one of the players, though the question now was if this was a Hydra move, a Viper move or … well, Kate had blown off the Board recently.

Finally, the car pulled to a stop, and the big guys manhandled Kate and K into a building that, Kate saw briefly, was just a few blocks away from Avengers Tower. So Hydra or Viper or the Board or whoever could definitely see the comings and goings there. Great.

The manhandling went from carrying to just holding Kate and K in place when they hit the top floor, where the familiar green woman was smirking more than Kate felt was necessary. "Nice place you have here," Kate said, trying to squirm to get her feet to touch the ground, but no, apparently, that wasn't happening.

"It suits my needs," Viper said, though Kate saw that the smirk seemed to be more directed at the still-drugged K.

"So what… you wanted a girls night this badly?" Kate called out, halfway to redirect her attention from K because it made her nervous.

Viper smirked at her a bit wider. "I wanted to make sure that you wouldn't be foolish enough to ignore another of our invitations," she replied, though she made her way over to retrieve her darts.

Kate let out a frustrated noise. "You have got to be kidding — my husband was shot. I wasn't gonna go anywhere, especially not to the futzing Board meeting."

"Oh, well. He's perfectly safe now, isn't he?" Viper challenged before she gave her guard holding K a few muttered instructions and watched him disappear into the next room with her. "You have nothing holding you back now."

"I'm not joining your stupid treehouse club," Kate said with her chin thrust out.

"Fine. Get out then."

Kate squirmed pointedly, already knowing she wasn't going to get out of the guy's grip that was holding her off the ground. "I'd love to."

"What do you weigh, Hawkeye?" Viper asked in her most conversational tone. "I don't want to give you too heavy a dose."

Kate's eyes widened, and she shook her head lightly. "That's … an impolite question. Especially in mixed company."

"In context? I think not," Viper argued. "And you can't think that I'd simply let you get a head start to go tattle to your little star-spangled friend, do you?"

"It's sporting?" Kate offered.

"Hardly," Viper laughed. "Though your sense of humor is quite charming."

"I like to think so," Kate said with a little smirk, squirming a little more as she looked around the room for something — anything — she could use, but there wasn't anything within reach.

Viper smiled as she approached her, vial and needle in hand. "My men's lives depend on them doing their job efficiently. They don't make mistakes. So you can whisper the number to me if you're shy."

"How about… you don't do that? And … okay, what's it gonna take to walk out of here with my friend?" Kate said, leaning back and away from the needle.

Viper's smile stretched wide. "That … is a separate matter — one that you have no business in."

"She's my best friend and my secretary," Kate argued.

"America Chavez is your best friend, and you don't have an actual secretary," Viper said. "Don't try to oversell it to me."

"Can't a girl have more than one best friend?" Kate asked. "Come on. I'll go to your super secret treehouse club and everything."

Viper shook her head as she stalked across the room and took a seat. "Our negotiations are for your attendance at the meeting."

Kate nodded. "Right. And I'm negotiating that I'll go if K walks out with me when it's over."

But the green-haired woman just shook her head. "That's not your negotiation to make. Not for simple attendance."

Kate shook her head lightly. "I'm not — look. I'll go to the treehouse club. I will. The Board doesn't even want her; you don't need her."

Viper blinked several times. "What makes you think the Board has anything to do with that?"

Kate frowned. "So… this is two separate kidnappings," she surmised.

"That's what I tried to tell you," Viper laughed. "You really don't listen well."

Kate's frown turned into a little glare as she started to shake her head. "So nothing I offer will get you to back off on her — so why the heck would I deal?" she pointed out.

"Well," Viper said, smirking again. "You can go of your own free will — or I can drug you and give you to someone more interested in playing games with you. I'm sure you haven't made any enemies."

Kate unconsciously leaned back away from Viper at the thought. "Well, when you put it that way, the Evil Treehouse sounds like a picnic," she muttered.

"I had hoped you'd see sense," Viper said.

"So you can tell your flying monkey to put me down now," Kate said, trying to reach her toes to the ground.

"And let you make some stupidly noble move like trying to run away or leap out of the thirty-story window? Don't be ridiculous. I doubt you could even hit a dumpster from this height."

Kate narrowed her eyes. "So the 'going of my own free will' thing is more semantics than anything at this point, isn't it?"

"A bit, yes," Viper admitted. "You have to understand: there are several interested parties with offers out there in exchange for you. Dead for some, alive for others. But I'd hate to see the point when you found what my price would be to trade you in myself."

"I'll be honest. I'm trying to decide if I'm offended I don't meet the snob assassin requirements or relieved that I don't? It's a toss-up for my pride," Kate said.

Viper smirked wider, very nearly breaking into a smile. "You should only be flattered when I put out my own money to make it happen."

"Well, now I have life goals."

"Life-ending goals, how charming."

"Hey. I'm a superhero; you're a supervillain, I feel like this is a reasonable life goal to have," Kate pointed out. "Not like I don't make a living pissing off the anti-mutant crowd already. Can't know I'm doing it right unless someone wants to kill me, apparently."

"Like I care about the anti-mutant crowd," Viper countered.

"Your boss does," Kate shot back as the man started to carry her after Viper.

"My boss?" Viper said with her eyebrows raised. "Who would that be?"

"Oh you know. Red face. Real ugly. Probably dead, but that seems to be a temporary thing, like, all the time…"

Viper just started laughing at that. "Please," she replied, purely amused. "Continue. You really are amusing."

Kate glared her way but said, "And I'm cute too."

"You are," Viper agreed, pausing to give Kate an appraising look over her shoulder.

Kate closed her mouth and lightly shook her head. "And married. Happily, happily married."

"Like that means anything these days," Viper said with a wave.

"And Catholic?" Kate added, still shaking her head.

"Historically, the worst offenders."

Kate squirmed a little more as they rounded a corner. "I think I liked this better when there was the threat of death and destruction," she muttered.

"That makes two of us," Viper agreed as two large double doors opened for them at the end of the hall. She swept in and took her spot at the long, glass table overlooking midtown — and Kate noted, the Avenger's Tower was easily in view. Wilson Fisk was already seated at the table opposite Viper. "Find a place, Mrs. Wagner."

For the first time, Kate had her feet on the ground, but she didn't make a move to sit down. "You guys have a weird escalation policy. The first invite was much nicer," she said, her arms crossed over her chest as she stayed back toward the wall.

"Yet you ignored it all the same," Viper said, leaning back and inspecting her nails.

"I told you — my husband got shot," Kate said, blowing past the fact that she was going to ignore it anyway. "Sorry, but Nightcrawler trumps you creeps every. Single. Time."

"Good to know," Viper said. "Only him, is it, dear?"

Kate took a slight step back but kept her chin thrust out. "Actually, I'd take anyone over you, really."

"Just trying to determine who's expendable," Viper said airily.

"Please, Mrs. Wagner," Fisk cut in. "Take a seat. We have business to discuss that doesn't revolve around the X-Men."

Kate took a deep breath, swallowed, and found a seat a respectable distance from Fisk but close enough that she didn't look too… well. Intimidated. Not that she was doing a good job of not looking intimidated, but there it was. "Alright. Fine," she said. "Let's just… get this over with."

She didn't have long to wait before the next couple of board members trickled in … the always-charming Dog, followed shortly by Arcade and Mentallo — all of whom kept their gaze on Kate with a glare. And still, two chairs remained unfilled.

Viper was set to start complaining when, finally, a pack of tracksuits appeared on the other side of the glass doors — and only one continued inside. The ones outside took a look down the hall and scattered as the sound of heels clicking on the hardwood floor echoed down to the boardroom. Madame Masque strutted right down the hall, clearly focused on Kate as she did so — ultimately taking the seat directly across from her.

"I see you replaced the body with the cigarette up your nose. Good call, good call," Kate bit out Masque's way when she finally couldn't stand it anymore.

Viper smiled outright at that, enjoying the entertainment if nothing else; Masque's sneer was almost heard behind her mask. "You're just lucky it was Viper who came to get you, Hawkeye," Masque shot back.

"That's something no one ever says, ever," Dog muttered from across the room.

"I'm Hawkeye," Kate said as if that explained everything. "Breaker of rules and norms and current kidnap victim. Hello."

"No one cares," he replied.

"If that were true, I wouldn't be here," Kate pointed out. "I could be eating a double chocolate chunk ice cream right now."

"As usual, Dog doesn't speak for anyone but himself," Fisk said.

"Then spill. The theatrics are great — my husband the drama teacher would give you all top marks — but the substance has been particularly lacking."

"Oh, I like her," Viper said, nodding. "Yes, she should join immediately, if nothing else, to irritate Masque."

"I do that for my day job," Kate pointed out. "I'm not joining your super secret club just to entertain you either. That's just not a thing."

"You may want to rethink that position," Fisk said. "We're still sorely missing your father's presence, and we'd like to you join up — at the same cost, with the same benefits." He gestured to Masque and the tracksuit leader seated at the table. "It would make the threats your fellow Board members could make to you disappear, among other things."

Kate shook her head. "I already told you. I'm not my father. I don't owe you anything."

"We're well-aware," Fisk replied. "And we don't think you owe us — exactly. But I'd like to point out how simple it was to get you here and explain to you in easy terms how vulnerable you've been these years to the threat any one of our members might pose."

Kate glanced around the room and particularly at Masque. "Yeah. Well. See. It's sort of a code of superheroic honor of not dealing with crooks, so…"

Viper chuckled at that. "And who is your model citizen superhero for that little code? Your half-demon husband, or his crime lord best friend?"

"Or the guy who taught me how to take even the most impossible shots... or the star-spangled man with the house across the street…"

"Yes, well. That's not who you've got your time lodged with the most, is it?" Viper asked primly.

"I'm a grown woman. I can have my own code," Kate said, her arms crossed over her chest. "And besides, it's not even possible for you to dip into my company. I've already had the legal team write it up so I can't sell off without a few key people signing off, and you know they won't. After what you guys pulled with my sister, you won't get any legal hold anywhere. I've made sure of it."

"We don't want control; we don't even want a share. Just … a donation," Fisk replied. "Something that your company can do without legal involvement — and large enough to ensure our continued protection to you and your family." He pushed a single, folded sheet of paper her way.

As Kate scowled at the paper without touching it, Masque picked up a remote and flicked on the television on the far end of the room — which filled the room with the laughter of the little ones at Xaviers playing outside the institute.

Kate's eyes widened despite her best efforts to have a measured and calm reaction, and she glanced down at the paper in front of her, then closed her eyes. "So... is there a membership patch or a school song I need to learn or…"

"Nothing so mundane," Viper replied for Fisk. "We're all here. We all would know if one of our own was stupid enough to make an attempt on another."

Kate nodded at that, her gaze on the single folded sheet with details on just exactly what her father had been paying — as a percentage, so that the board would get more as profits went up — as well as details on how the board members would invest in each other's endeavors as they came up. She folded the sheet back up and nodded once. "Alright," she said at last. "I'll… send you the, ah, membership fee."

"You have twenty-four hours," Fisk told her.

She nodded again and brushed her hands off on the knees of her pants. "Is that all?"

"For now, yes," Fisk replied.

Kate started to stand to leave and then paused. "This might be a long shot, but hey, I'm a Hawkeye," she almost muttered as she looked Viper's way. "K. I consider her to be part of my family."

"Deep feelings aside, that's just not a legal precedent," Viper replied. "Oh, and before you try anything foolish: the building won't allow teleportation, and by the time you return, she will be elsewhere."

Kate gave Viper a tight smile. "What, me? Teleport in here? I'm part of the Board now; I wouldn't do that to you."

"Oh, yes," Viper said with a little frown. "Your husband and his little friends, though? This is not my first encounter."

"I can tell; you're scared of him," Kate said with an impish grin.

"Of Nightcrawler?" Viper asked with a growing smile. "Oh … certainly. He's terrifying."

"You're gonna have to stop agreeing with me, because it's freaking me out," Kate muttered as she headed for the door, not taking her eyes off the group as she opened it and then, as soon as it was closed behind her, positively barrelling down the hallway toward the elevator.

She was on the bottom floor several agonizingly long seconds later, and at Avenger's Tower after an even longer time than that, panting and wide-eyed and much more obviously freaked out than she had been when she was facing down all the creeps in one board room. And when Steve was the one to greet her at the door, looking concerned, she practically flung her arms around him in a relieved hug.

"I need so, so much help right now."