Felicia Hardy (Earth-21399)

Early Life
Felicia Hardy was the daughter of wealthy socialite Walter Hardy and his wife, Julia, unaware that the Hardy family's fortune was amassed by Walter's career as a burglar. With all the comforts of wealth and privileged education, Felicia lacked direction in life until Walter was arrested by police one day and later allegedly died while attempting to escape prison.

Becoming the Black Cat
During her early college years, Felicia became obsessed with solving her father's disappearance. Combing through his personal belongings, she eventually pieced together the true circumstances behind it:

Hardy used to work for crime lord Wilson Fisk, stealing whatever was demanded of him. He usually worked solo, but sometimes also worked with other professional robbers: his most lucrative job was a heist with Flint Marko and Herman Schultz on an OsCorp shipment that yielded a stash of advanced prototypes.

Fisk wanted to sell the cargo as part of his weapons trafficking operation, but Schultz saw greater potential in the SHCR gauntlets, and wanted to use them as gear for an even bigger heist on OsCorp itself. Fisk saw Schultz's ambition as a potential liability and made an example of him and his crew by sending an anonymous tip to police, who swiftly arrested them all.

Felicia swore revenge on Fisk for his role in Walter's death. Honing her athletic talents and learning the ins and outs of crime, she eventually got a job with Fisk's organization, burglarizing Kingpin's rivals as the Black Cat. Although Fisk grew to favor Felicia over most of his other "employees", Felicia intended to use her position to destroy Fisk from within.

Along Comes the Spider-Man
Felicia's main role in Fisk's organization was to distract the vigilante known as Spider-Man from Fisk's more lucrative criminal enterprises. The two had their first face-to-face meeting during a museum heist, where Spider-Man chased Black Cat and her cargo across the city, though Felicia escaped due to a streak of bad luck plaguing Spidey. J. Jonah Jameson later ran an editorial in the Daily Bugle alleging that the two of them were partners in crime.