"Good. James, I'll wait to hear from you."
They hashed out the specifics. Wesley was generous—quoted cost price on everything, which was an enormous boon to Fisk, who was short on cash, short on weapons, and short on territory.
"I'm happy, James—truly. I'm glad you found your place." Deal done, Fisk clapped Wesley on the shoulder, a touch of real feeling in his voice. He'd always thought of Wesley as a close friend. Now that friend had landed in a position that put him several social tiers above Fisk himself. There was a little envy in it, but more of it was honest gladness.
As the future emperor of the underworld, Fisk had the capacity for that. He chose to read Wesley's success as motivation—a spur to push himself harder.
Whatever else happened, he couldn't afford to fall behind his friend.
After the three of them wrapped up, no one noticed the faint wisp of smoke in the corner that drifted out of the basement alongside them.
Meanwhile, five and a half hours of flight later, Daisy's plane touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Reading the Maid's update, Daisy allowed herself a small smile. She knew the former mob consigliere well—a capable man, a genuinely ambitious one. Fisk could definitely put him to good use down the line; no question about that.
But Fisk was still too weak right now, and in the early going, without Wesley there to smooth relations and broker deals, he was in even rougher shape than in the original timeline. Without flexible diplomatic tools, he could only come out swinging. That was exactly why he needed a stockpile of weapons.
And what could Wesley actually do for him at this stage? Fisk had already declared war on several rival crews. What the next stretch demanded was Bullseye. It demanded that Fisk take the field personally. What it did not demand was Mr. Combat-Lightweight Wesley.
It was early July now. The California heat had a parched edge to it. Daisy was wearing a sleeveless sundress. Her tolerance for heat and cold was unusually high, but that didn't mean she wanted to tan her arms.
The stretch from the landing strip into the base had zero shade. She slipped on sunglasses and pulled out a parasol.
"Here, let me!" Whatever internal journey Justin had just taken, he'd switched gears completely. He snatched the parasol from her like a good lap dog and raised it above her head with a fawning smile.
Having someone shade her with an umbrella was a new experience. Daisy smiled at him cheerfully and accepted the gesture without comment.
Waiting for them at the base was another familiar face: Colonel Rhodes, the Air Force officer who'd gone to Afghanistan with her to rescue Stark.
Six months ago they'd been in the same trench, shoulder to shoulder, fighting to get Stark out. Now they were standing together again—this time to move against Stark.
"This wasn't my call. I'm a soldier. I have a duty to the country." Rhodes had intended to stay professionally detached, but he hadn't expected Daisy to show up personally. And from the way Justin was acting, she was clearly running the show?
He was either explaining himself, or trying to convince himself. Either way, the words came out unbidden.
Daisy looked over at the Mark II standing a short distance away and answered with a cryptic smile of her own. "This isn't personal. Tony's still my friend. We're here to do business. I'm representing Hammer Industries on the weapons upgrade."
"Right, right—Tony's still our friend. Howard Stark was like a father to us!" Feeling invisible, Justin suddenly blurted out something utterly ridiculous.
Rhodes grimaced. Daisy was momentarily speechless. Old Stark never had such a clown of a son. Still, Justin's non-sequitur had broken the tension, and everyone's attention could get back to the matter at hand.
"Let me look at the armor first. We'll talk after." Daisy pulled out her laptop and jacked a cable directly into the Mark II's internal systems. She needed full telemetry before she could plan the next step.
Rhodes felt the whole business of selling out a friend cut against everything he believed in. Daisy's all-business manner was, by contrast, exactly what he needed. As head of Weapons Development, he had the technical background to assist, and he threw himself into a support role.
"It really is a work of art. Tony's engineering talent is absurd—there are a lot of things here I can't even parse." Guys like Hank Pym or Reed Richards—those cheat-tier geniuses—could probably read this like a grocery list. She still had a long way to go.
But she didn't actually need to understand it. The power system was staying the same. Stark hadn't locked Rhodes out of the operating system. All she had to do was bolt on whatever weapons the Air Force wanted.
She turned her nose up at Justin's original modification plan. Seriously? Strap a handgun and a shotgun onto an Iron Man suit? The thing came with its own power supply and energy cannons. Justin wanted to downgrade it to firearms? No technical sophistication whatsoever.
The so-called "Ex-Wife" missile—she'd reviewed it on the plane. The design concept and specs weren't bad; the problem was that the fuse's detonation parameters had been set so elaborately that it wouldn't detonate unless every preset condition was met. That was exactly how, in the movie, it ended up flying out and ignobly fizzing into the ocean.
If the warhead had been a dummy, the Air Force would never have signed off on mounting it. And Rhodes, as head of Weapons Development, could tell the difference between live and inert even on his worst day. If he'd approved it as his finishing move, then the "Ex-Wife" deserved some credit.
Daisy started reworking the arc pulse cannon on the suit's wrist. The original pulse cannon would still function, but by adjusting the output frequency, it could double as a sonic cannon.
"The sonic cannon emits white-noise waves. When you need to capture a high-value target without collateral damage, this weapon will put your target to sleep. Forty-five-degree cone of effect in front of you. Effective range is fifty meters." She narrated as she worked.
"The shoulder-mounted shotgun array is getting swapped for a miniature missile battery. I'm loading it with incendiary rounds, flash rounds, and Hammer Industries' proprietary Sidewinder missiles—which, yes, are your 'Ex-Wives.' I'm also adding a beacon—as long as the suit's on Earth, the Pentagon gets a signal. Plus a life-support rig. Whether you take a heavy hit or end up in deep space, you're covered for one hour..."
In short order, she'd retooled the whole suit, which the military had christened "War Machine." She personally thought the additions were mostly useless, but if they kept the brass happy, they served their purpose. At Justin's suggestion, she even added a Gatling gun to the shoulder.
"You handle the rest of the cost negotiations. I've got other things to take care of." Once the design work was done, her job was finished. She wasn't Stark. She wasn't Ivan Vanko either. She didn't have the tier-eight welding and machining chops to grab a screwdriver and a hammer and actually mount a Gatling gun.
She told Justin to call her if anything came up, walked back toward the plane, and when no one was watching, teleported to Malibu. Nick Fury's attempt to persuade Stark still wasn't getting anywhere. It was time for a familiar face to soften him up.