Synopsis
This starts Hawkeye (Kate Bishop)'s independent issues of this mag, to alternate with Hawkeye (Clint Barton) issues. It follows on from the the overlapping #8-13, and begins with the scene where Kate leaves her working partnership with Clint, which we've seen fragments of in #11 and #13.
Kate tells Clint she can't stay and be his verbal punching bag anymore. She's sick of seeing him dig himself into depression and refuse her help. He promised the people in this apartment block he would defend them and now he needs to step up. She picks up her stuff including her bow and arrows, Clint warns her that he's left some of his trick arrows in there including some remote-control explosive ones which he gives her a keyfob device to detonate. He thinks she's going back to rich daddy, but she says she's going to the West Coast, probably Los Angeles. And she takes Lucky, the dog Clint rescued from the Tracksuit Draculas.
But there's a 2-part flashback that indicates she didn't go *straight* to LA, so I'll insert it here. She *does* go to see Derek Bishop and we find that he's remarried to a girl Heather who's only 3 years older than Kate and went to the same school as her. Needless to say the girls don't get on. She tells daddy about splitting from her mentor and he invites her to come on a world yacht cruise with him and Heather (and lots of staff). She declines and says she's going to make her own way in the world. As she leaves he reminds her that he pays *all* her bills.
So she *does* drive her car and Lucky to LA. But we see Madame Masque wanting revenge for what Kate did to her in Madripoor (#4-5). Her people are tracking Kate. And when she tries to claim her reservation at a hotel she finds her (only) credit card declined. She asks them to contact her father and they give her a complimentary drink to sip by the pool while it gets sorted out. But the manager is told to destroy the card and lose her stuff. (Of course Masque is behind this.)
A beautiful woman named Whitney Frost exits the pool and asks to borrow Kate's towel They begin to chat but then Lucky runs off barking and Kate follows. She sees her car being towed away by a repo company, and bellhops stealing the contents of her suitcases. She fails to stop them taking her bow and arrows. The manager gives her the pieces of her card and claims she owes the credit card company a lot. He also claims the men weren't his bellboys, they must have been a local gang. Finally he tells her to leave the premises.
Whitney takes her to lunch. Kate tries to Google her but her phone is drained. Frost gives her a potted history. Daughter of an Italian Count. Had to take over the family business when he died. She pops to that hotel occasionally to get away from all that. She offers to put Kate up until she sorts her life out. Kate doesn't like needing help and offers to pay (but she's only got $80). Whitney refuses that but suggests K stay for 1 night free at least. But when she asks Kate for a cigarette K recognises her phrasing as exactly the same as Madame Masque in #5.
Whitney drives Kate and Lucky to her modern mansion. While the guests settle in she contacts her people and orders everyone who saw her at the hotel liquidated. And she's going to take a couple of days to punish Kate for the Madripoor incident. Meanwhile K talks to herself summarising:- Whitney obviously knows who Kate is but now *she* knows who Frost is, and Frost doesn't know that.
Whitney prepares a meal and slips something into Kate's wine. But K only pretends to drink it and tips it in a plant pot. Then she pretends to feel really tired and W shows her and Lucky to their room to kip.
But then the duo sneak down to the basement where they find Kate's car and her stuff, along with a row of Madame Masque duplicates. Our heroine grabs her weapons and drives her car through the garage doors. However Madame Masque is waiting for her with the 'bellboys' and a big gun. So she reverses back into the garage and smashes into the MM duplicates (which MM refers to as her decoys). However now she's trapped and the bellboys grab her. But Lucky bites Masque's gun arm as Kate backflips to kick the BBs in their faces. And she uses Clint's keyfob to set off the explosive arrows.
Kate has lost her car and weapons and other stuff, but she and Lucky escape. Masque survives and swears to kill her.
Next day Kate puts up a passionate case to 2 old hippie ladies to give her a job. They take her on to house-sit their trailer on the beach and look after their cat while they go to a festival. Then K goes to a sports shop and uses the same spiel to blag her way into getting a bow and arrows cheap. And we leave her, dog and cat sitting atop the camper watching the sunset over the ocean.