Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This last issue again begins with the young Kate Bishop flashback.
Knowing that her father was involved in shady dealings but still believing that he'd just fallen in with a bad crowd teen Kate followed him to a meeting with the villain Matador where she learned that Derek Bishop had hired Matador and his goons to 'persuade' tenants to vacate a building he wanted to renovate, but he wasn't at all happy with progress and was thinking of hiring the Shocker instead. After daddie left Matador found Kate ...
... and now he rings Mr Bishop demanding a ransom. He hands the phone to Kate who tells her dad she's OK and she's got things under control. Then she throws the phone back to Matador, jabs a leg of her chair on a foot of the man holding her from behind, whacks Matador's face with her backpack and dives under the table, upending it to hinder pursuit while she dashes out of the door with a parting remark that her dad *should* hire the Shocker.
'Meanwhile' in the present day part of this issue the Hawkeyes (Clint Barton and not-quite-so-young Kate) plus Clint's brother Barney Barton have just rescued the 3 Project Communion kids from SHIELD (with Kate and Barney grabbing them posing as Hydra Agents and Clint deliberately messing up stopping them in such a way that 'Hydra' and the kids appear to die in an explosion).
Now they've reached an escape plane and the brothers banter/bicker until Kate points out that the real Hydra is attacking them wanting the super-kids back. (The Hawkeyes originally rescued them from Hydra in the previous mini-series.) Clint tells Barney to look after the kids while he and Kate go and do what Hawkeyes do.
Back in the past Kate exits the building with a goon right behind her. But an arrow in the shoulder deters him and she looks up to see the figure of Hawkeye on a nearby building. She stops in amazement. Then a whirling shield KOs Matador behind her and she's joined by Captain America, then Iron Man and then Thor to mop up the rest of the gang. Kate finds them all obviously impressive but she's most impressed that a man with only a bow and arrows ranks amongst them.
Clint-eye and Kate-eye are using arrows, fists and boots to deal with the hordes of Hydra. But then a big Hydra guy with a power amplifier on his back demands a rematch with Clint (you may remember him from #2 of the previous series). Clint has lost his bow and is being strangled. He calls to Kate for help and she prepares to fire an arrow but is tackled by another Hydra Agent, losing *her* bow. As she fights him and Clint gets more strangled an arrow hits the big guy in the shoulder. Everyone's astonished to see it was fired by Barney using 1 of the dropped bows.
In flashback the police have arrived to take the bad guys away. It transpires that Hawkeye had been surveilling the gang and had called the Avengers in for backup. Derek Bishop is there and he and Kate are driven home in his limousine. Kate assures her dad that she didn't tell the police about his involvement with Matador. He tries to tell her she'll understand these things when she grows up. But she says that she *won't* lie for him again so he'd better make sure that she doesn't know anything about his shady dealings in the future. And in return she expects him to not want to know what *she* does. And that's how their life will be from now on.
The Hawkeyes and Barney must have polished of the Hydra troops because we next see them on Barney's Pacific island. The Hawks and the kids arrive by helicopter (the same 1 Clint used in #3) to be greeted by Barney, Cheryl and *her* 2 boys. Kate wants to know why Barney is calling his partner Simone Cheryl. Simone says it's because Barney thought they ought to have aliases, but she thinks it's stupid.
While the kids get to know each other Clint and Kate take time to reconnect after their time apart. Clint says he's going to get the Avengers on board and get some proper security for the island. Kate thinks the Communion kids are a big responsibility for Barney and Simone. Clint agrees but says Barney owes him after he stole the money from Clint to buy the island.
Finally they get round to the subject of their Hawkeye partnership. Clint thinks everything will go back to how it was. But Kate doesn't think that suits her anymore. She chose a Hawkeye identity in Young Avengers (while Clint was dead between Avengers Disassembled and House Of M) because he inspired her (as we've seen in the flashback). Becoming Hawkeye was her way of *not* being like her dad. But now she just wants to be herself. Clint says that being Hawkeye is the only thing he's ever been good at, but he thinks *she* could do whatever she set her mind to. He says he's never been good at being alone but that can't stop her going solo.
Now they agree to part as friends. And in the past we see young Kate vowing to be something better, and drawing an arrow in her diary.