Nick Fury sat in silence, thinking.
Just as Daisy started wondering if she could excuse herself, he spoke again. "Will that lake island in Costa Rica cause any particle dispersal? Are there any remaining mutated specimens? Hill's team can't show their faces there right now — you're fresh. Go deal with the loose ends, and then you can head to Yale."
Not a suggestion. Daisy turned it over briefly, then accepted.
This was nothing like Puerto Rico. She had S.H.I.E.L.D.'s banner at her back now — their headache, her network. Using this chance to build some contacts wasn't a bad deal.
Back in her room, she found Hill sitting there waiting.
They weren't as close as Fury and Frank, but Daisy and Hill had been through enough together to call each other comrades — maybe friends. Daisy didn't stand on ceremony. She poured herself a glass of water and waited for Hill to speak.
"The scar removal last time..." Hill started, then stopped. Her expression was strange.
Daisy felt the awkwardness bloom. Even by American standards, this was a deeply personal topic.
"There are two more. Can you do it again?"
"Of course."
"Could we... go to my room?"
Daisy agreed immediately. She followed Hill out, feeling several of her fellow trainees watching with unreadable expressions.
Hill's room was nothing like Daisy's. Daisy's space was — not messy, exactly, but far from tidy, with clothes and books scattered everywhere. Pretty standard for the female trainees, Sharon's room included.
Hill was different. Everything in its place. Bookshelf arranged by category — military history, biographies, language guides, etiquette manuals. The kind of books that gave Daisy a headache just looking at them.
"So how do we—" Before Daisy could finish the sentence, Hill started unbuttoning her shirt.
Daisy nearly bit through her tongue. The "walk in and immediately undress" scenario dealt a thousand points of psychic damage straight to her deeply male soul.
She reined herself in quickly. Physician's perspective. Medical context. Probably.
Hill sat with her back to Daisy, in her undergarments, on the chair.
The scar on her shoulder blade from last time had completely vanished. But the gunshot wound on her waist was still very much present.
Daisy hesitated. If the shoulder blade scar had made Hill that... reactive, what was a waist treatment going to look like? The waist was considerably more sensitive — anatomically speaking, proximity to the nerve center alone made it a completely different matter.
She also had no idea about the room's soundproofing.
Should I suggest a towel to bite down on? No — this isn't surgery. That's probably overkill.
"Starting now," Daisy said. Hill nodded.
She pressed her fingertips against the scar, the faintest thread of vibration feeding in through her touch. The necrotic cells shattered on contact. But vibration carries — force always propagates — and no matter how precisely Daisy tried to contain it, some of the wave transmitted outward...
"Mm—" Hill's mind went white. A deep, resonant hum seemed to rise from somewhere inside her, and the pleasure it carried almost tore a sound from her throat. She slapped her hand over her mouth, face flushed crimson, jaw locked.
She held it. She held it by sheer force of will.
But sensation doesn't negotiate with willpower. It proceeds on its own schedule. Daisy's fingertips kept moving — the vibration oscillating through her — ten seconds, twenty, a full minute — and the string pulled tighter and tighter until, at some invisible threshold, it snapped clean.
Her muscles seized. Her mind went blank. She came back slowly, piece by piece.
She looked at Daisy — who was wearing an expression of wide-eyed innocence, gaze pointed carefully at the ceiling.
Hill wanted to bite something.
She was an elite operative. She knew precisely what had just happened.
(There was actually a third scar — on her thigh. But Hill was done. She needed Daisy gone immediately, followed by a shower and fresh clothes. Further treatment could wait.)
Some women in this era wore those moments as a badge of liberation. Hill was not one of them.
"That one's fixed at least." Daisy caught Hill's look and understood instantly. Her eyes slid sideways. "The Director had some follow-up tasks for me anyway — let's schedule the next session later."
"Sure. Thank you." Hill said it sincerely. But even after Daisy left and the door closed, she still hadn't gotten up from the chair.
Was my vibration frequency too high? Daisy stood in the hallway, staring at her own fingers with genuine confusion.
Honestly — the whole time, she'd been focused purely on the treatment. Not a single wayward thought. She turned it over for a while and came up with nothing. Maybe she needed to find some willing test subjects back in New York.
For the Costa Rica follow-up, Daisy started at the archives, pulling records on how previous agents had handled similar situations.
The common thread: cover it up. Gas leaks. Chemical plant pollution causing genetic mutation. The go-to fallback: pin it on terrorists. That Manhattan attack? Terrorists. Some pipeline explosion in the Baltic? Terrorists. Every bad thing in the world could be dumped on their doorstep — they weren't going to object.
She could follow the template. But doing that left all the benefits on the table, and a rare opportunity to leverage S.H.I.E.L.D.'s authority for something useful felt like a waste.
She had the seed of an idea. It just needed some groundwork first.
First stop: Leo Fitz, the mechanical engineering prodigy who'd modified her sidearm. No Tony Stark, but talented enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. Slightly anxious in social situations, but no real flaws otherwise.
"Costa Rica?" Fitz stared at her, completely baffled about why she was dragging him across the hemisphere.
Daisy explained the mission — the parts she was cleared to share — and finished with: "The Director's concerned about residual particle dispersal damaging the local ecosystem, so..."
"So the Director thought of me?" Fitz went red in the face, curly hair practically vibrating with excitement.
Daisy laughed politely. The Director doesn't know you exist. I thought of you. She kept the Mona Lisa smile going — no confirmation, no denial.
"Your girlfriend Jemma Simmons is a biochemistry specialist, isn't she? Bring her along. We leave immediately."
"She's not — she's not my girlfriend—" Fitz protested.
He looked absolutely delighted about it.
Daisy sighed and told him to go call her.
Jemma Simmons at this stage was still young, a little unformed — honey-blonde hair to her shoulders, clutching two textbooks thick enough to concuss someone when she showed up, every inch the classic bookworm. But she had more composure than Fitz; she spoke clearly and calmly even in front of Daisy, who was something of a celebrity among the trainees.
No time to waste. Daisy gave them the short version — Director's orders — and herded both of them onto the Quinjet.