Killing Pierce now wouldn't help her absorb that faction. By her read, Sitwell's branch she could fold in cleanly—but if any of the leftover holdouts got picked up by another HYDRA heavyweight, S.H.I.E.L.D. would tear itself apart.
She also couldn't roll over. Crossbones offers a truce and she just accepts? Not very HYDRA.
"I want to see Pierce. He owes me an explanation in person." Her tone left no room for refusal.
Crossbones didn't even pause. The demand was completely reasonable. He gave a short nod and accepted the role of intermediary.
The HYDRA shooters Pierce had whipped up into this hit were now also confused. They weren't brainwashed Bucky. They had their own minds. The moment Crossbones rolled up, they'd all been left blinking. Wait—who exactly were we shooting at, again?
Pass on the gunmen and Ward the white knight for a moment.
Fifteen minutes later, Daisy was face to face with Pierce. The old man's acting was as polished as ever. Realizing Crossbones had soured on him, he pivoted fast—tears in his eyes, voice cracking, the full sympathetic-victim routine. The story he sold: he was old, he was tired, he'd been deceived by his own people, and that's why this awful incident had happened, hurting friends and pleasing only enemies.
Daisy asked: where's the man behind it? Pierce gestured to one of his subordinates, who carried in a body. Daisy recognized him—a Level 6 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, secret HYDRA, on track for a Level 7 promotion this year. Now thrown to the dogs as the scapegoat.
This kind of dead-men-tell-no-tales convenience was peak HYDRA. Everybody pulled this trick. There was nothing for her to say.
But the other side was in the wrong, which meant she got to set terms. Daisy thought it over.
"Agent Sitwell needs a reassignment, doesn't he?"
Pierce had never had high hopes for Sitwell. He nodded easily. "By chain of command, he's yours."
She'd absorbed Sitwell smoothly. She moved to her next ask. "I want a position commensurate with my standing. After the November election, I want the Deputy Director slot. Start putting the pieces in place now."
Pierce's expression went bad. Being asked to actively help an enemy hollow out his own organization, to his face—he hated everything about it.
He stalled.
Crossbones leaned in and quietly suggested, "Sir. I don't think the request is unreasonable."
For Crossbones, Daisy in the Deputy Director seat would peel some of Pierce's authority away. From HYDRA's overall standpoint, though, it was a step forward. As a true believer who never weighed personal cost, he saw it as the right call.
"Fine. Done." Pierce had been a politician his whole life. Thirty years undercover and all he'd produced was the leaky Project Insight. He didn't have the appetite for a death-or-glory move. After deliberation and Crossbones's quasi-coercion, he caved and agreed to leverage his network on Daisy's behalf.
A small hope was already taking root in his head. He was rooting for Obama to lose the election. Daisy's reputation would tank with him. Her promotion would then look like a misjudgment, and most of the HYDRA branch would still answer to him.
Self-deception was a politician's bread and butter, and Pierce was deep in that particular trap. Compared to a real bloodbath, he could live with this outcome—starting today, the HYDRA branch inside S.H.I.E.L.D. was no longer his personal kingdom.
Both sides reached an understanding. Cleanup was handled in-house by HYDRA's professionals.
Daisy filed a report saying her car had been in an accident. Pierce signed off and archived it. Vehicles fell under Sitwell's Operations Department, and Daisy walked into requisitioning like she was visiting her own home—signed for a brand-new replacement. The transaction left no ripples. Nobody even noticed.
The dead Level 6 agent and the others killed in the firefight were Pierce's problem. Their personnel records would still show them alive—deployed somewhere remote, like Siberia, on long-term assignment.
The speed of Sitwell's pivot was honestly stunning. He reported to her three days running. Daisy then ran the same psychological reinforcement play she'd used on Justin Hammer—not absolute loyalty, but enough conditioning that he wouldn't flip on her unless his own life was on the line.
Ward's people, who had previously been only loosely affiliated with HYDRA, also began drifting toward her once they confirmed there was a real heavyweight backing her up.
She accepted everyone who came. Operating through HYDRA's existing scaffolding, her support base started spreading into other departments. Pierce, for his part, started laying the groundwork. Deputy Director wasn't an aide-de-camp position—it touched every part of the organization, with significant negotiation and trade-offs.
The seat required a unanimous Council vote to take effect.
In return for his help, Pierce demanded Daisy do something for HYDRA in turn.
Sitting in Pierce's discreet villa, she didn't say yes immediately. A loyalty test of this kind required her to know exactly what was being asked.
"It's a recruitment problem," Crossbones said, plain as ever.
As Pierce's authority shrank and Daisy's surged, Crossbones, occupying the awkward middle, had originally meant to act as buffer. In practice he'd ended up as a third faction in his own right.
By Daisy's own read: she was playing the role of someone with direct orders from upper HYDRA leadership, which from a HYDRA-internal perspective meant she had the heavens on her side. Pierce, after thirty years, held the ground. Crossbones, willing to fight and die, held the people...
"Recruitment?" She shook her head. Didn't track yet.
"Yes, sir." Crossbones treated her as superior. Daisy didn't correct him.
"We're having trouble onboarding new members. Director Pierce believes the emotion regulator you developed has real potential. But we..." Crossbones picked his words carefully. They'd spent days dissecting it on their own. The thing looked simple—just a flashing colored light. Without the right pairing, the only effect they'd reproduced was dazzling the target's eyes.
It took Daisy a moment to remember the device. Could that thing actually brainwash? Built off Professor Charles's research, the brainwashing potential was honestly top-tier.
"Hard to say. I'll need to run some experiments. You provide the test subjects. I'll send the design plans to Sitwell to manage."
Building from a low-trust foundation, having Sitwell—a known quantity to all parties—run point made everyone comfortable.
Brainwashing tech was not something she was handing to Pierce. She'd dump a dozen color-combination variants on Sitwell to test, and stretch the timeline by a couple of months minimum.
—
Sunday morning. Daisy changed into casual clothes and walked down Bleecker Street with a light step. She matched the addresses against the buildings and stopped at 177A.
The street was busy. Pedestrians flowing. Cars rolling past. Tucked between the others, the New York Sanctum was anything but imposing. It looked like an ordinary residence. Plain. Unassuming. Easy to miss.