Sharon's expression flickered. She stared at Daisy's sling bag with obvious disbelief. "That's all you're bringing? You'll run into all kinds of situations on a mission. Being underprepared can get you killed."
Daisy looked at the enormous pack. "What did you even put in there?"
"Clothing, firearms, communication equipment, lighting gear, rope, emergency rations…" Sharon Carter started counting on her fingers, rattling off a list that went on and on.
Daisy had a sudden flashback to her first trip to Puerto Rico — she'd packed heavily that time too, and had ended up ditching most of it.
This girl still has a lot to learn.
She didn't say it out loud, though. No point crushing someone's enthusiasm before they've even started. She just shrugged and said weapons were all she needed.
At the assembly point, Black Widow was waiting with the ease of someone who had nowhere better to be — hands-free, no gear, completely unbothered. She'd even put on a little makeup. The other students had all seen her custom tactical suit, which she wore under her clothes at all times; if a fight broke out, ten seconds was all she needed to be ready. Her usual weapons were tucked in her tactical belt. Most engagements, she didn't even need them.
Maria Hill had clearly done this before. She moved with a steady, practiced confidence, a travel bag in hand.
"Hey, can you carry some of my stuff? We're practically best friends…" Sharon was already regretting her packing choices, and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper at Daisy's shoulder.
Daisy's smile was radiant and completely merciless. She pulled her sling bag open just wide enough for Sharon to see inside. "Look — mine's completely full. You're on your own. Ha."
Hank Pym's last confirmed location was in Hungary, but that didn't mean he was still there. Based on available evidence, the last eyewitness saw him ten days ago. Their job was to gather intelligence, so they were all in civilian clothes.
The four of them boarded a Quinjet. Black Widow punched in the coordinates, activated the stealth system, and switched to autopilot. Hungary-bound.
Before the wheels were even up, Daisy had commandeered Sharon's tablet and was already skimming through Dr. Pym's files. The man's record was enormous — she tore through it at a glance.
Dr. Pym's depth of research in modern physics was nothing short of staggering. He had discovered subatomic particles capable of altering the size of matter — particles he named after himself. The Pym Particles. By compressing the relative distance between atoms, it could shrink an object while preserving the full physical strength of its original mass. Even Howard Stark, Tony's father, had reportedly been in awe of that achievement.
Pym's wife had been a biologist. She'd developed a bio-linked helmet capable of interfacing with and commanding ants. Combined with the Pym Particles, she and her husband had become the original Ant-Man and the Wasp — a couple who'd protected the world together, whose bond most people would envy.
But happiness rarely lasted. During a missile crisis, the Wasp disappeared into the Quantum Realm. Every year after that, Pym spent several months in Hungary, where his wife had been born — a pilgrimage of mourning that had eventually led him to move some of his research equipment there as well.
Even after leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., the old man had never stopped his work. This mission might well be connected to that research.
Daisy lost herself in the files. Hill was field-stripping a pistol at the seat beside her. Sharon was quietly going through her giant pack, trying to cull it down before they landed.
Black Widow watched all three of them going about their own business with zero coordination and pressed two fingers to her temple. She'd need to at least look like she knew how to run a team. Fine.
She dropped into a seat near them and made her voice casual. "Since we're working together, we should probably know each other's capabilities."
She went first. "I specialize in firearms, close-quarters combat, piloting, and intelligence gathering."
Silence from the other three.
Come on.
Then Hill finally spoke up. "I cover all weapon types and hand-to-hand combat, plus command coordination and intelligence analysis."
Sharon, when her turn came, launched into a full breakdown — personal combat capability, reconnaissance, languages, field medicine, the whole package. It went on for a while.
By the time it got to Daisy, she felt obscurely obligated to match the effort. She racked her brain. "I'm proficient in hand-to-hand combat, firearms, hacking… cooking, maybe?… I'm also extremely fast — parkour's kind of my thing…" She trailed off, quietly mortified.
The veteran agents all assumed she was sandbagging. Nobody this far through the S.H.I.E.L.D. pipeline was genuinely mediocre.
With everyone's baseline established, the next step by standard field protocol was mission planning. Romanoff's first instinct was to send all three of them to the back of the plane and handle it herself. Not realistic. She had to actually lead.
"What's everyone's read on the mission?" she asked.
"Make contact with anyone who interacted with Dr. Pym — neighbors, students, colleagues. Broaden the search radius. The lead will be in there somewhere," Hill said. By the book, crisp and correct.
Daisy scratched the back of her head. "That's right — but I already covered that step. You know about my data analytics firm? I ran an algorithm — cross-referenced a bunch of data sources, and narrowed it down to three locations where Dr. Pym was most likely to have been taken. A private medical clinic, a bar — the name's in Hungarian, I can't pronounce it — and a park in the city center. All three see heavy foot traffic. The data shows the old doctor visited each of them more than once, which makes them prime spots for a grab."
"You're writing off the lab?" Black Widow asked, watching her with interest.
"We can swing by, but I don't think it'll yield much. The local assets already searched it and came up empty. With ten days gone, anything that was there would be long cold."
She wasn't exactly a master detective. A missing person ten days out — she doubted even the world's greatest consulting detective could pull a fresh lead out of that scene. Still, Black Widow wanted to check, and Daisy didn't argue.
The Quinjet set down in the outskirts of Budapest. Black Widow made contact with a local intelligence handler, who left them two Chevrolets loaded with all the relevant files, then drove away.