At full throttle, the Iron Man suit was untouchable—forget Daisy, even Storm or Magneto couldn't keep pace. Their bodies simply couldn't handle those speeds. Thor could, but the rest of them? Not a chance.
She had her own advantage, though. A short-range teleport closed the gap instantly, putting her right on top of the accelerating Stark.
She grabbed one-handed at his bright red leg armor.
Hm? Daisy blinked. The streamlined design wasn't just for aesthetics—the shape kept the friction coefficient extremely low, and the surface coating boasted an entire suite of heat-resistant, corrosion-resistant properties.
Her first grab slipped. She extended her nails and clawed at a seam in the plating.
Stark's reaction was faster than she'd anticipated. His leg repulsors fired, and the surge of thrust launched him over three hundred meters (roughly 1,000 feet) away in an instant.
The blast of energy from the repulsors forced Daisy to pull back.
Having gained the upper hand on the very first exchange, the perpetually cocky Stark was absolutely thrilled. He chattered nonstop: "How are you flying? The human body can't do that without some kind of device—are you an alien?"
Daisy was starting to think everyone in a red suit loved to run their mouth. Stark climbed to higher altitude, and she followed. The ascent took a real toll on her body—the air grew thinner, and breathing became labored.
But if he expected her to concede after a single move, Stark was dreaming. Their combat experience wasn't even in the same league.
Still, his constant high-speed maneuvering created serious visual interference. He was clearly calculating her performance data in real time.
Spotting what he thought was an opening, Stark used his blistering speed to swing through a wide arc, found Daisy's blind spot, and dove straight at her.
"That's a little too basic—did JARVIS come up with that for you?" Daisy scoffed. She threw a punch into empty air behind her. The air compressed violently. Starved of oxygen, Stark's repulsors sputtered—and although he switched propulsion modes almost immediately, Daisy had already seized the moment.
"Come with me!" A shimmering, water-like portal opened and she dragged Stark back to ground level.
"So that's your power? JARVIS has been analyzing your vibration frequency—how are you teleporting between two points?" Stark talked and fought simultaneously, dodging her straight punch while firing a repulsor blast from his palm.
Using her bracers to block the energy beam, Daisy spread the fingers of her right hand and prepared to rip the armor open by force.
A piercing screech filled the air—her nails on the plating sounded like fingernails on glass, loud enough to make her ears ring. The suit was undamaged; only the faintest five scratches marred the outer coating.
"Not bad, those abilities of yours. The nails are part of your power too, right? Ever since you scratched up my coffee table, I reinforced the armor. Ha!" Stark was riding high—like a level-one alt in endgame gear, watching a max-level boss throw everything and come up empty. The feeling was fantastic.
"Uh—" But the next second, his grin evaporated. The max-level boss had gear of her own.
Daisy drew her Adamantium dagger and lunged straight at him.
Her plan was simple: exploit his weakness in close combat. Stark was a playboy who'd only ever trained in martial arts to look good. After his recent ordeal, he'd probably buckled down and put in serious practice.
But fighting instinct was something you either had or you didn't, and Mr. Tony Stark clearly didn't.
Fortunately, Daisy wasn't trying to kill him. She held back on speed, and with JARVIS's analysis, Stark managed to block the dagger with his forearm armor at the last possible instant.
The blade carved a deep gouge into his vambrace and wrecked one of the arm-mounted missile launchers.
"Guess your armor isn't that tough after all!" Daisy grinned. Stark could easily afford Adamantium, but the alloy's terrible mechanical transmission properties made it impractical for a full suit. Adding some for hardness was fine, but building the whole thing out of it would cripple every other performance metric.
"Your hand-to-hand is lacking!" Those slippery outer panels were impossible to grip, but Daisy seized the damaged section of his arm armor, dropped into a bow stance, twisted her hips, whipped her shoulders, swung her arms—and slammed Stark into the ground with a thunderous over-the-shoulder throw.
"Way too reliant on speed. You've still got a lot of work to do on this armor!" She grabbed him again like a heavy bag and smashed him back and forth against the ground, Hulk-versus-Loki style, for several rounds.
"You're not that impressive either!" Stark wasn't entirely helpless. He'd been biding his time, and when Daisy let her guard slip mid-sentence, both palms snapped up, repulsors charging.
Daisy doubted she could tank a point-blank repulsor blast. She threw up her bracers in defense—but the charge was a feint. His boot repulsors were already primed, and combined with the arm thrust, he rocketed over two hundred meters (about 650 feet) into the sky in an instant.
"Sneaky!" Despite her disadvantage in aerial combat, Daisy chased after him.
The air battle was a different affair entirely. Stark's maneuverability was limited, but his speed still exceeded hers. His plan to open distance, however, was dead on arrival—Daisy's combination of flight and teleportation kept her perpetually within five meters of him.
Stark had lost on the ground, and now in the sky he could only manage a stalemate. Every metric said his suit was superior, yet he couldn't capitalize on any of it. The frustration was eating him alive.
At least he wasn't fighting alone. This so-called one-on-one was hardly a fair duel—JARVIS was effectively half a combatant, making it one against one and a half.
JARVIS had been running continuous behavioral analysis on Daisy, computing variables, searching for a way to crack her powers with the tools at hand.
"Sir, Miss Johnson appears to employ some form of detection method. She isn't tracking us visually—she senses our position through unusual vibrational frequencies in the surrounding environment."
"Great observation. Got any solutions?" Stark narrowly avoided Daisy's dagger, then unloaded a burst of shotgun rounds to finally put some distance between them.
"Infrasonic waves could disrupt her force field," JARVIS's electronic voice replied.
"Love it. Too bad this suit doesn't have that hardware. Log it for R&D. Give me another option." Stark accelerated again, dodging a quake wave.
Their exchanges had shifted from close-quarters to mid-range energy attacks. Daisy's quake waves were powered by her own body, while Stark's repulsor beams drew from his arc reactor.
They traded seven or eight volleys in rapid succession. In a war of attrition, Daisy was the obvious loser—no matter how formidable she was, she couldn't outlast a reactor.
Just as she was about to switch tactics, she noticed Stark behaving erratically, zigzagging through the sky as if he'd gone haywire. His boot repulsors were running at maximum output, and the vibrations throughout the area had been scrambled into chaos.