Chapter Text
Kate Bishop is just under half an hour outside of Los Angeles when she realizes that she’s running on half a tank of gas and - following a quick check of her wallet, the inside fold of which sports a brand new stain that looks suspiciously like blood - has only twenty-three dollars to her name.
Make that twenty-one dollars and some odd cents, because her water bottle was warm and there was a Circle K right there, okay?
She looks balefully at Pizza Dog/Lucky. “I could probably sell you for a hundred bucks.”
Pizza Dog/Lucky wags his tail and drools on the dashboard in response.
“No, I know Clint would murder me. Think of the expression on his face if I told him that, though.” She reaches out to scratch Pizza Dog behind the ears. “I’ll tell him that anyway, for shits and giggles. In the meantime, we’ve gotta find a way to get some money. Got any ideas?”
There’s a gas station attached to the Circle K, and a shiny black Maserati pulls up to one of the pumps, its tires squealing in protest as it comes to an abrupt halt. Lucky barks once, twice; moves like he’s going to stand up before he realizes there’s not enough room for that and sits down again.
“Shh, Lucky, don’t make the rich man mad. Actually, keep barking, maybe I can get him annoyed enough to pay to shut you up - no, that’s a terrible plan. I was joking. Mostly.”
Kate looks again at the dog. “I can say these things to you because you have no clue how stupid they all sound.”
Lucky pants.
“Good boy,” says Kate.
She is not spoiled, but money sure does make things a hell of a lot easier. Her job as a private eye had sustained her well enough, but going somewhere requires more cash than just staying in one place, especially when you were never even paying rent. And look, she would be delighted to get back to work to earn her money, but she just doesn’t have the time. Somebody out there is looking to put an arrow through Clint Barton’s head. Actually, probably a bullet, because most people don’t use arrows, although that would be ironic.
As far as she can tell, this leaves her with two options: 1) Call her father, which she isn’t going to do, considering she called him less than an hour ago to tell him she wouldn’t be calling him ever again, and 2) figure out a better option.
Kate guesses that being a villain is probably a lot easier, because if she didn’t have a conscience she could pretty much just go rob a bank.
She makes a mental note to figure out how one would rob a bank armed with just a bow and arrows. Maybe she’ll ask Clint; he could probably do it. Not that she’s planning on actually using the knowledge, of course. She’s practically an Avenger.
“Oh,” she says out loud, because therein lies the answer to all of her problems.
-///-
Finding Tony Stark’s Malibu home is ridiculously simple. She’s seen it on the news before, and it’s clearly a popular tourist destination, because the very first person she pulls over to ask is able to give her turn-by-turn directions.
It also helps that it’s impossibly huge and made almost entirely of glass. It’s hard to miss, really.
There’s a lump in Kate’s throat, which makes sense, because her plan is to march up to Iron Man’s front door and demand his assistance. At least she’s not going to her father, aka the man that’s been consorting with the same supervillains that have been beating Kate up a lot lately and are also trying to execute a hit on her best Avenger friend/mentor.
How does one march up to Iron Man’s front door, anyway? Does he even have a front door? And what if he’s not home? Even worse - and entirely plausible - what if he’s not even in the state? The man has an entire high-rise in New York, after all. And probably he has a place in every other state, too, because he’s unreasonably rich and Kate knows from experience that unreasonably rich people really enjoy having an unreasonable amount of unreasonably expensive homes.
Damn. She really did not think this plan through.
“Stay,” she tells Lucky, who seems perfectly content to do just that.
After half an hour of walking the perimeter - or at least what perimeter there is to walk, considering the mansion is built on a cliffside - and getting no closer to getting Iron Man’s assistance than before, Kate tries something she was really hoping she wouldn’t have to resort to.
“Um. Iron Man? Hi?” He’s got AIs listening, doesn’t he? She’s not being completely stupid, right? “I know I have, like, a bow and arrows, but I’m not gonna attack you or anything - I mean, not that you couldn’t handle some arrows, but this is just - okay, I know Clint, you know, Hawkeye, and he’s in trouble, but he doesn’t know, and I have no way to reach him, so...help?”
She waits. And waits. And she would wait some more, but Kate Bishop is impatient.
The only question, then, is this: does Kate Bishop, not-quite-Avenger, have the balls to try and break into the probably very-well-protected mansion of actual-Avenger, Tony Stark?
Sure, why not.
She nocks an arrow and aims at the center of one of the ceiling-to-floor windows that wraps around the house’s exterior, because she’s got a feeling that they’re probably electrified or somehow poisonous or possibly sentient. She lets the arrow fly, and it hits the glass with a rather grating thwank, then bounces off pathetically and clatters to the ground.
Well, her arrow’s not fried, but it didn’t leave so much as a smudge on Stark’s window, either. In fact, when she goes over to retrieve it, she could almost swear the tip wasn’t as sharp as it had been before she’d tried driving it into the glass.
“Is there a reason you’re shooting at my house?”
“SHIT,” Kate says loudly, turning on her heel and waving the arrow she’d just fired as threateningly as she could at whoever the hell had snuck up behind her.
Which, by the way, happens to be Iron Man, hovering several feet off the ground with his arms crossed and a disappointed look on his robot face. (It’s totally possible.)
“Oh! Hi! Uh, yeah! I wasn’t breaking in - well, I was, sort of, but for very friendly reasons that are not at all villainous.”
Smooth, Bishop.
“Ooo-kay.” He does not look - sound? - convinced. Kate doesn’t blame him. “If you want my autograph - even though you look like you’re more of a Hawkeye fangirl, which is honestly quite offensive - there are less creepy ways to get it, most of which don’t involve projectiles of any kind. Have you tried eBay?”
“It’s funny you mention Hawkeye, actually,” Kate says, feeling confident that he doesn’t see her as a threat, considering she hasn’t been blasted into the neighboring solar system yet, “because that’s why I’m looking for you-”
Iron Man holds up a red-and-gold hand. “Pause. You do realize that the Avengers don’t have constant slumber parties, right? You’re not going to find Legolas here. And I’m not going to give you his number,” he adds, seemingly as an afterthought. “Scratch that - I might give you his number, if you ask nicely. That would be hilarious. You know what? Let’s do it. Just promise me you’ll act as crazed as you can. Tell him you watch him sleep. Wait, no, don’t say that, he might track you down. Ready? Two-oh-”
Jesus Christ, the man could talk. “No no no no wait no stop,” Kate interjects, a little more forcefully than was probably necessary. “I don’t need Clint’s number, I have it already! I’m Kate Bishop, I-”
“Bishop?” Suddenly, Stark sounds interested. “As in Derek Bishop?”
“Yes, he’s my-”
“Hold on, did you say you already have Birdbrain’s number? And you’re on a first-name basis? Is that a delusion? Because that’s really freaky and also impressive.”
“OH MY GOD PLEASE LET ME TALK.”
She definitely, definitely did not mean to say it out loud, but it seems to be effective. Stark’s thrusters cut off abruptly, and he lands on the ground, somehow looking even more imposing than when he was airborne. “That’s rude of you. You have thirty seconds. JARVIS, be a dear and set a timer. All right - fly, Hawkgirl.”
Kate takes a deep breath.
“Okay-so-my-name-is-Kate-Bishop-and-yes-Derek-Bishop-is-my-father-but-we’re-not-talking-as-of-like-three-hours-ago-because-he’s-doing-business-with-supervillains, like real, actual supervillains.” She takes another breath. “Which-I’m-involved-with-because-Clint-Barton-is-pretty-much-my-mentor-I-guess-and-we-shoot-arrows-and-stuff-together-in-New-York-but-I-got-sick-of-him-and-stole-his-dog-and-came-to-LA-and-got-beat-up-by-this-crazy-lady-with-a-mask-and-a-lot-of-freaky-body-double-machine-things-then-I-found-out-about-my-dad-” - one last breath - “-and-also-there’s-a-hit-out-for-Clint-but-I-can’t-get-back-to-New-York-cause-I’m-broke.”
There’s a few moments of silence, during which Kate thinks the all-in-one-breath plan might not have been such a good idea, because the ground is sort of starting to tilt in a way that it really shouldn’t be.
Then, the slightly-distorted voice from inside the Iron Man suit - “And with ten seconds to spare! Four out of five stars, you stumbled over your words a little at the part about body machines, which I’ll bet you my net worth are Life Model Decoys.” He pauses, apparently considering this. “Do not expect me to follow through with that if I’m wrong.”
“You actually set a timer?” Kate asks, a little incredulous, although she doesn’t really know why she’s surprised. This is the first time she’s met Iron Man/Tony Stark, but it’s not as if she’s oblivious to his reputation. (She thinks he might be even more infuriating than everyone says he is, if that’s possible.)
“More accurately, JARVIS set the timer, but yes.”
She decides the identity of this mysterious JARVIS isn’t a pressing enough issue for her to ask about. She doesn’t exactly want to risk another tangent, although she has a feeling they might be inevitable with this dude. “Um, yeah. Right. So, uh...any questions?”
“Sure. JARVIS, is she legit?”
“I’m totally-”
“I’m sorry, is your name JARVIS? You left that out of the debriefing.”
Kate taps her toe in exasperation and tries with every ounce of her self-control not to chuck the contents of her quiver at Iron Man.
A few seconds later, Iron Man’s faceplate slides up. Kate’s just as familiar with Tony Stark’s face as she is with his suit, thanks to his constant presence in the news. (Also, Natasha was over at Clint’s one time and showed them an absolutely priceless candid shot on her StarkPhone.)
“According to my very reliable sources, you are a real person and probably not lying in order to extort, sleep with, spy on, kidnap, kill or otherwise take advantage of me. Though I should warn you that if you do try any of those things, I will be forced to defend myself, and also call your father.”
“I’m twenty-one,” she points out.
“I don’t care,” Stark replies cheerfully, flashing her a billion-dollar smile and gesturing for her to follow him. She realizes the suit has completely dismantled while he was talking, and can’t figure out where the hell it would have gone, until she sees a red-and-gold briefcase at Stark’s side. Okay, Iron Man is officially awesome. Hawkeye confirmed. Also Hawkeye confirmed: he may just be more annoying than Clint.
“Oh!”
“What?” Stark asks, wheeling around to face her. Kate notes that his tone is definitely way past acceptably annoyed for just one nondescript outburst.
“My dog,” Kate explains, debating whether or not to offer a sheepish smile. “My dog - Clint’s dog - there’s a dog in my car.”
Stark stares at her.
“What, are you going to make me leave him out in the sun by himself?” she asks accusingly.
Stark blinks at her. Kate thinks she sees his expression crumple a bit, which is weird, because his face is quite blank.
“Oh, what the hell,” he says finally, shaking his head slowly like people do when they’re severely disappointed with the state of the world today. More to himself, he mutters, “An animal? Honestly? I am so going to regret this.”
Don’t tempt me, Kate almost says, but doesn’t. She may be enough of an idiot to try breaking into Iron Man’s house, but she doesn’t have a death wish.