At a donut shop called Randy's, she spotted the familiar crew.
"Stark's poisoning keeps getting worse. Do you have any way to suppress it?" Black Widow, back in her tactical suit, was conferring with several Science Division agents.
She spotted Daisy approaching and waved her over, clearly wanting help. The sweat-soaked Science Division agents turned their eyes to her as well.
If Daisy had wanted a monopoly on arc reactor tech, she'd have let Stark's condition run its course. He was already showing serious visual disturbances, his life already counting down. Without a suppressant for the toxin, he didn't have the stamina to research a new power source.
She hadn't done that. Stark could be a shameless, obnoxious pain, but he was hard to actually hate—and that came down to his sheer personal magnetism. Unlike Captain America, with his earnest, old-fashioned rectitude, Stark came across like the boy next door. Flaky on the surface, maybe—but when it counted, he charged forward, even at the cost of his own life.
Daisy had put this exact question to Viper some time ago. As the foremost toxicologist alive, Viper couldn't cure palladium poisoning on the spot, but she had a formula that could hold it back. Once Stark got off the palladium, long-term use would steadily flush the toxins.
Daisy skimmed the antidote the agents had formulated, shook her head slightly, and started walking them through corrections.
When the palladium sample in the test tube was visibly suppressed by her formula, every agent in the group threw her a thumbs-up.
"Incredible!" Black Widow breathed out the compliment, then grabbed the antidote and headed for the diner. She was called Black Widow for her methods—not for her poisons-and-antidotes chops. On that front she was fine, but nowhere near Viper.
Daisy followed her in. A week had passed, and here was Tony Stark again—in the Iron Man suit, faceplate off.
Stark's face had darkened. The palladium was wrecking his body.
The diner was empty of staff. The FBI had clearly commandeered it again.
As Black Widow and Daisy walked in, Stark's eyes lingered on Widow's tactical suit a beat longer than necessary. His tone stayed breezy, but there was anger in his eyes.
"This is the sincerity you people bring to a meeting? How many agents are surrounding me at any given time? Is my chef also an agent?" he asked Fury, deadly serious.
Black Widow stepped up and jammed the syringe into Stark's neck. She watched for a moment, confirmed the suppressant was working, then joined Daisy at another table.
Neither of them paid Stark any attention. The ever-solicitous Coulson had set out some food for them.
Daisy had only eaten a bit of baguette and foie gras on the plane, and she was starving. Junk food or not, she grabbed two donuts and dug in.
"Where are you coming in from?" Black Widow didn't share her appetite. High-calorie food was the death of her figure—one bite meant ten more minutes of exercise. She sipped water and watched Daisy keep eating until she couldn't help asking.
"Edwards Air Force Base." Nothing classified about it. Daisy answered without hesitation.
"You went to see Rhodes?" Stark had been making a show of talking to Fury, but his ears were firmly trained on their conversation. The moment he heard "Edwards," he put it together.
Daisy nodded casually.
"Every last one of you has betrayed me..."
"Colonel Rhodes betrayed you. I barely know you."
"You're a shareholder in Stark Industries."
"The U.S. Constitution gives us equal standing. I own stock in your company. I'm not an employee." Daisy waved it off breezily. As in: I don't know you.
Stark pointed at Black Widow. "She should be my assistant. I pay her well, too! Better than you feds pay, I'd wager."
"I'm Ms. Potts' assistant now. Also—I'll finish out the month before I resign." Widow's expression stayed flat.
"Ahem—" Fury cleared his throat hard, as if to physically eject them from the room. You two absolutely came here to blow this up for me!
He looked ready to literally cough up a lung. Through sheer theatrical commitment, he recaptured everyone's attention.
"We're helping you." Fury's eye glittered as he shot his subordinates a look: keep your mouths shut.
Daisy went back to her donuts and listened.
When Fury, that half-literate fool, postured mightily at Stark about not having tried every element yet, she nearly laughed out loud. She seriously doubted the Director could recite the periodic table start to finish.
The conversation eventually wrapped up. At least the first round did.
Fury shot Daisy a look. She stared back, baffled—what am I supposed to do?
Luckily her reflexes were sharp. When she saw flame erupting under Stark's feet as he rocketed south, she thought it through. "To his mansion?"
Fury's expression said: correct. Daisy saw Widow and Coulson walking over, and it clicked—they were all coming. She nodded silently. It was a bigger group than she'd have liked, but the distance was short and she could move them all at once. As for the Science Division agents outside, they could wait at the diner for further orders. A few senior personnel vanishing into thin air might even do wonders for the unit's mystique.
She opened a portal and walked the group through to Tony Stark's half-demolished mansion.
Last night's birthday party must have been a rager. Walking through, Daisy counted more than a dozen shoes in the rubble, plus a scattered archive of phones, purses, and watches strewn everywhere.
Half the mansion was gone—the aftermath of Rhodes and Stark's fight. Damage on that scale would have kept Daisy up for three nights running. But Tony Stark walked through his own home like a tourist, casually kicking aside debris and splintered furniture.
Phase two of the conversation commenced. A team of agents waiting nearby hauled a large crate out of a Quinjet.
Fury said everything Howard Stark had left behind at S.H.I.E.L.D. was in that crate. It had to contain something that could help him.
"I'll be watching you." That was Fury's closing line.
Cosmic rays hadn't done much for Daisy physically, but they'd pushed her control over her own powers up another significant tier. She opened a direct portal and sent Fury back to Washington. Black Widow—per her own insistence—needed to get back to work and finish earning this month's pay. As for Daisy herself, she was busier than anyone.
The three of them went their separate ways. Stark looked at Coulson, who was smiling at him from a short distance off. "Everyone else left. Why are you still here? Did they leave you behind to help me clean up?"
Coulson wasn't offended. He just kept smiling. In his eyes, this billionaire was no different from one of the kids at the school...