"Who are you?" Stark's tone sharpened as he studied the unfamiliar man standing in front of him. His right hand drifted behind his back, activating JARVIS through the emergency override on his phone.
Nick Fury caught the little move but didn't care. He cut a glance at Daisy — you're the subordinate here, shouldn't you be making introductions?
Daisy turned her head in the other direction and pretended not to notice. She was too busy sizing up the security setup around Stark's clifftop villa. In Iron Man 3 the place basically had no defenses — anyone could blow it apart at will — but at this point in time, fresh off a kidnapping attempt, the compound was locked down tight.
How did Fury get in here in the original timeline? She couldn't quite work it out. Did he actually climb up the cliff face on the ocean side? The man will suffer through anything just to look cool.
Seeing Daisy drift off into her own world, Fury had no choice but to introduce himself. "Nick Fury. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I came hoping you'd consider joining—"
Stark cut him off before he could finish. "Me and you…" He pointed at Daisy. Daisy waved her hand: don't lump me in with him. "Me and you have nothing to discuss. S.H.I.E.L.D. can't afford me. Get out of my house."
Fury didn't turn around — he already knew Daisy would act blind if he did. "Agent Johnson," he said, issuing the order directly. "Give him a demonstration."
That left Daisy no room to dodge. She scowled. "Whatever happened to confidentiality? Is it really fine to blow my cover like this? A demonstration of what, exactly?"
"Anything."
Fury's gaze stayed on Stark. Stark looked over at Daisy, curious what she was going to show him.
Daisy glanced around. The sofa was a big target, but slicing up a sofa wouldn't exactly look impressive. She settled for second best — flicked out her nails and drew them cleanly across the coffee table nearby.
Shick shick shick. A crisp series of sounds rang out, and the table fell apart in neat chunks. Daisy blew off a light puff of dust as if she'd just done something trivial, then looked at Stark with perfect composure.
"Some kind of high-speed cutting tool?" Stark leaned in to examine the edges. The coffee table wasn't exactly reinforced steel, but the cuts were utterly silent and seamless — in his mind, she had to be hiding some kind of blade.
Fury shot Daisy a look: that's not enough, you were supposed to show him the earthquake move, or that fire explosion from the Storm fight — you just chopped up a coffee table, the street buskers outside put on a better show.
Daisy shot him a withering glance and held up three fingers in the universal "pay me" gesture: if I wreck the villa, you're covering the bill.
Fury conceded the point immediately. The money issue was secondary — the villa was sitting on a cliff. Two good tremors and they'd all be having this conversation at the bottom of the Pacific.
Stark missed the whole silent exchange. He'd been studying the cuts for a full minute. As one of the world's top mechanical engineers, he could find no tool marks whatsoever. But he was familiar with Adamantium.
"Adamantium, right?" he said, satisfied. "That metal could absolutely produce this kind of result."
Fury glanced at Daisy: your first trick was underwhelming — one more.
Daisy sighed. If she'd known there'd be a performance required, she would've left already.
She channeled her gravity control — bent her left knee, extended her right leg, curled both fists slightly — landing in the classic female-superhero hovering stance as she lifted off the floor.
Flight had always been humanity's deepest dream. Achieving it without any visible apparatus said everything.
Stark looked up at his own ceiling, checking for wires. Finding none, he was maybe sixty percent convinced.
Having a person he knew suddenly reveal she'd had superpowers all along — and had been hiding them — made the notoriously proud Stark more than a little uncomfortable.
"How fast can you fly?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
Daisy glanced at Fury. He nodded: tell him.
"At top speed — close to Mach 1."
Stark seized on this. "My suit hits Mach 2. How high can you go?"
Daisy smiled. The man had a full beard and still acted like a child. "I know your suit can hit ten thousand meters (~32,800 ft), maybe higher. But roughly three thousand meters (~9,840 ft) is about my ceiling. Go much higher and the energy drain gets too steep."
She made a point of saying suit — one of them relied on a machine, the other on herself. There was nothing to compare.
Stark was arrogant, but he wasn't stupid. He understood the distinction. He simply refused to acknowledge it out loud.
Seeing Stark's ego nudged down a notch, Nick Fury produced what he clearly considered a warm smile. "Our world needs every ounce of strength it can gather. You're not the only one who wants to protect it — there are others."
"Think it over. We'll meet again." He cut a look at Daisy: time to go.
Daisy's regret hit her all at once. She should have left earlier. Instead she'd watched Fury use her as a prop to show off, and she was furious about it. If she hadn't been here, Fury would have had to walk out himself — and Stark's villa was built on a private cliff surrounded by private land. No taxis, no passing cars. It would have taken the man over an hour on foot just to flag down a ride.
She exhaled, opened a portal, grabbed Fury by the arm, and pulled him out of the Stark villa.
Three consecutive teleports to get back to headquarters. Fury staggered out rubbing his lower back, face twisted in pain. Daisy offered zero sympathy. She found Tangbao still running wild outside, grabbed the big cat by the tail, and dragged him home to sleep.
Time moved into February 2008.
Election fever blanketed every corner of the country. Obama's surging poll numbers earned Daisy a fresh wave of praise inside S.H.I.E.L.D. Victoria Hand, backing the trailing McCain, quietly took a small hit to her pride.
It was around then that the underhanded tactics started surfacing.
Daisy's phone rang, and she rushed to the ALS specialist clinic. The administrator met her at the door with grim news: one batch of the prototype drug was gone, and the clinic's database showed clear signs of unauthorized access.
The administrator had known better than to call the police — Daisy's connections were not the kind you ignored. She'd waited until Daisy arrived before saying a word.
There wasn't much of a story to tell, anyway. The intruders had walked straight in — brazen, unhurried. They took the prototype drug, copied the files from the computers, and left without a backward glance.
Every second of it was captured on the surveillance cameras. They hadn't bothered to hide a thing.
"What would you like us to do?" the administrator asked carefully.
Daisy stared at the footage and felt the situation settle into her gut like a stone. It wasn't one or two people. It was twelve. They carried automatic weapons, moved in tight formation, and were clearly trained professionals — the kind who had done this before.
Twelve people, two squads. Clean, quiet, precise. One team extracted the prototype drug. The other copied her database. They moved like it was a routine errand. The team leader even gave the camera a little wave on the way out.