She had to admit the deal wasn't bad. Daisy's hard-earned money didn't come easy, and dumping several hundred million dollars on Stark genuinely hurt.
That kind of money was pocket change for a loaded tycoon like him, but for her it was practically everything she had.
Still, the idea of being defeated by money felt beneath her. She was worth over a hundred million, for crying out loud.
Pepper knew Stark well and believed she had a decent read on Daisy too. In her assessment, supercomputers were absurdly expensive—unless you were a mega-conglomerate or a national laboratory, you had no business touching one.
She didn't know what Daisy wanted a supercomputer for, but it was easy to guess she wasn't exactly swimming in cash.
After running a quick mental calculation, Pepper leaned in and whispered, "The mid-phase costs alone will run about two hundred million dollars."
Daisy's expression soured. She refused to bow to money, but these days, earning it was a nightmare.
Her Life of Pi screenplay had been shot down by Baldy, who decided it had absolutely nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. and refused to invest a single cent.
The supposedly loaded Black Panther and Storm had gone off to England. The prince claimed he wanted to "experience everyday life," but in reality he was delivering takeout across the UK. Getting movie money out of him was like squeezing blood from a stone—he was flat broke.
Without film production as an income stream, all she could do was sit tight and wait for her share of box office returns, plus the modest consulting fees Skye Data earned from its handful of corporate clients.
Back when she'd first transmigrated, a few hundred thousand—even a million—would have kept her up all night with excitement. Now she barely blinked at those numbers.
A few hundred thousand? Against the bottomless money pit that was a supercomputer, that wouldn't even cover the scraps.
Shorting Stark was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the three hundred million she had on hand was every last dollar to her name.
So. Damn. Broke.
Sensing her wavering, Tony Stark pulled out a new trick.
He produced a sheet of paper, held it up to the camera, and read aloud: "Tony Stark is a vulgar, lecherous individual who is narrow-minded, works without method or organization, treats his employees harshly, and lacks team spirit…"
He rattled on and on. At first Daisy thought he was doing some kind of public self-criticism, but the words grew increasingly familiar until it hit her—this was the report she'd written to Nick Fury after her very first meeting with Stark. Had it been five hundred words or eight hundred? Was there a single compliment in the entire thing?
Five hundred–odd words didn't take long. By the time Stark finished, his expression was thoroughly sour. He waved the printout at the camera. "Fight me—a real match—and I'll let this slide."
Daisy had no idea whether Baldy had handed him the report or whether he'd hacked in and found it himself, but either way, getting caught talking trash to the man's face left her a little embarrassed.
To be fair, the Stark who'd come back from Afghanistan was a changed man. The arrogance might still linger, but he'd transformed from a playboy drifting on clouds into a mature, responsible adult.
Never one to back down, Daisy fired back without hesitation: "Did you ever ask Colonel Rhodes who helped rescue you? Did you ever ask Coulson who saved Pepper from those mercenaries?"
Having scored a verbal point and evened the playing field, she weighed her options internally, then finally decided to accept.
Win or lose, it didn't really matter. She'd treat it as an after-dinner workout.
"Fine, I accept your challenge. But remember one thing—any property damaged during the fight is on your tab."
"You're going to fight Tony? Against his Iron Man suit?" It wasn't until the call ended that Pepper voiced her bewilderment. She was convinced either Stark and Daisy had both lost their minds, or there was some secret code between them she wasn't privy to.
In her estimation, it had to be the latter. Who in their right mind picked a fight with the Iron Man armor for fun?
Seeing Pepper's I-didn't-go-to-school-for-this-so-don't-try-to-fool-me expression, Daisy could only hover in midair to demonstrate she wasn't exactly defenseless.
Pepper clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You have superpowers? Have you always had them?"
Daisy scratched her head awkwardly, which was answer enough.
Pepper wanted to watch the fight. Stark and Daisy rejected her in unison.
Stark said the site would be too dangerous.
Daisy echoed the sentiment—an aerial battle might be manageable, but if it turned into a ground fight, all bets were off. After a lengthy effort at persuasion, they finally talked the eager assistant out of spectating.
Daisy headed back to her place, ate a meal, played with the lion cub for a while, then watched with amusement as the maid fed carrots to the rhino. Only when Stark messaged that he was nearly there did she leisurely change into her S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical suit, strap on her bracers, and head to the rendezvous point.
No helping it—Stark just loved hanging around Los Angeles, constantly jetting back and forth between the coasts.
Even with the Iron Man suit at full power, covering over four thousand kilometers (about 2,500 miles) still took a solid two hours.
Daisy waited another twenty minutes before this so-called "almost there" gentleman arrived with a hiss, touching down at their chosen battlefield—a vast stretch of empty wasteland that satellites wouldn't pick up.
"So? What do you think of my latest upgrade?" Stark's voice came through the faceplate, virtually undistorted, as if they were talking face to face.
Daisy studied the armor. She couldn't identify which Mark generation it was, but the body was painted in vivid crimson, with the upper arms, thighs, and faceplate finished in bright gold. The lines were sleek, the metallic finish unmistakable—Stark had poured every ounce of his mechanical engineering genius into this thing, forging it into a weapon of elegant brutality.
It was a step up from the suit he'd worn against Iron Monger, but still lacked the jaw-dropping refinement of his Avengers-era designs. Too many details were rough around the edges—the stability issues during flight, for instance, and that shoulder-mounted shotgun array that had only ever managed to kill a few nameless grunts.
In Daisy's assessment, none of Stark's pre-Avengers suits were particularly formidable. That was the main reason she'd agreed to this fight.
"Looks decent," she said—and in her eyes, decent was all it really was.
Catching the underwhelming tone, Stark landed and snorted. "Can you dodge bullets?" His shoulder-mounted shotgun array popped into position. He was actually being cautious—worried Daisy might not handle it. In his worldview, humans dodging bullets was still the stuff of movies.
"Try me."
Stark fired three rounds, each trajectory deliberately offset from her body. Daisy sidestepped twice to the left, raised her silver-white bracers, and deflected all three bullets with effortless ease.
Stark flipped up his visor, visibly surprised. "What are those bracers made of? That metal looks like—"
"Vibranium. Same metal as Captain America's shield. Come on, I'm on a schedule!" With that, Daisy rose into the air, ready to begin.
Stark snapped his visor shut, pressed both palms downward, and rocketed skyward on his repulsors.