In the face of Hill's very emphatic request, Daisy found it difficult to refuse.
The awkward part was the geography. They were face to face, very close, and while the room wasn't brightly lit, Hill's expression was in full view. Daisy could see every detail.
If Hill wasn't worried about it — why should she be?
Fine. Let's go.
The charged encounter eventually wound to a close. Hill was flushed and breathing hard, and the sensation that rolled through her afterward was one she couldn't quite describe — the particular release that comes after a long, slow buildup. There was something to be said for delayed gratification after all.
Just as Daisy was heading to wash her hands, Hill caught her wrist.
"We're good friends, right?"
Daisy nodded. The friendship had materialized out of nowhere, but Hill had genuinely become someone she cared about. That wasn't in question.
"Then since I've completely embarrassed myself here," Hill said, "doesn't it seem only fair that you…" The wine she'd been drinking had made a full circuit of her blood by now. Her cheeks were flushed bright, a deep red.
"You must be under so much pressure," she continued. "Here — let me return the favor."
Daisy was still turning the idea over when Hill had already closed the distance. The next thing she knew, they'd both ended up on the floor.
Well, she thought, settling into it. It's Christmas. Consider this a present to yourself.
She let go of any lingering hesitation and gave herself over to the moment completely.
Not bad at all, as it turned out. Hill looked cold, but she clearly hadn't been idle in her private hours. Daisy threw herself into it with genuine enthusiasm.
The next morning.
Daisy was still asleep when she felt a nudge.
"Mmph…"
"I'm heading out. Don't mention this to anyone. Keep things the same as before — just treat it as a one-night stand."
The deputy director was already dressed, already composed. She left cleanly, without looking back.
Daisy surfaced slowly sometime after, blinking at an empty pillow.
She sighed.
What did their future look like? Honestly — there was no future, and she knew it. Hill was the kind of woman who ran on pure ambition. Given the choice between her career and a relationship, she'd pick the career without blinking, every single time. And what they'd had wasn't quite a relationship to begin with.
A one-night stand is still something, she told herself.
She poured herself a glass of milk and noticed, on the counter, that Hill had left a Christmas gift before slipping out. A shoulder holster — professional quality, built for daily carry. Worn on the left side, it would shave precious seconds off her draw time.
Daisy didn't have a habit of exchanging gifts. She'd owe her one later.
So Christmas passed, quiet and self-contained. The two of them had agreed without words to let time handle whatever came next. Keep it cool. Let things settle on their own.
Unfortunately, the universe had other ideas.
Christmas was barely over when Fury called them both in. Fury, Daisy, and Hill packed up and flew to England to pay a visit to the legendary Peggy Carter.
Under normal circumstances Daisy might have rolled her eyes at the exercise — visiting a venerable former colleague felt distressingly similar to the kind of pro forma corporate elder-worship she'd left behind in another life. But she wasn't in the mood for jokes right now. Hill didn't know how to look at her. So she sat in the aircraft with her eyes fixed somewhere neutral and her face deliberately blank.
Hill sat across from her, equally arctic.
Fury watched this with visible interest and zero intention of doing anything about it. His staff not getting along? That was a management feature, not a bug.
Sharon Carter, who'd met them at the airport, was visibly startled by the temperature drop. She and Daisy were on reasonably good terms, and she pulled her aside with a hushed "What happened to you two? You were fine before Christmas."
Daisy nearly burst out laughing. What was she supposed to say? It's an act. We're actually closer than ever. We recently took each other's measurements. She shook her head and said nothing. Let people fill in the blanks.
The visit with Peggy Carter went well enough. The legendary woman was in a wheelchair now, but her mind was razor-sharp, her wit intact. She got in a few good jokes at their expense before the formalities were done.
After that, things returned to something resembling normal.
Except they didn't, quite.
Within days, a rumor was circulating in quiet corners of the organization: Daisy Johnson and Maria Hill had fallen out. Badly. They'd allegedly come to blows. The relationship was now described, in hushed, authoritative tones, as irreparably hostile.
The two people at the center of it were baffled.
Daisy, with all her foreknowledge, still hadn't seen this coming. What she didn't know was that Grant Ward had filed a report after spotting Hill arrive at her building. He'd bolted before Hill could see him — hadn't stuck around long enough to observe anything — and had simply logged what he'd seen.
But Alexander Pierce, the mole, had given HYDRA's leadership access to a great deal of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal information — including Fury's personal assessments of his key personnel. Hill's ferocious career ambition was on record. Combined with Ward's report of the two women meeting privately and then suddenly behaving like they hated each other, HYDRA's analysts had drawn the obvious conclusion: a falling-out, possibly over a power struggle, with Hill coming away the aggrieved party.
Orders went out. Agents embedded throughout S.H.I.E.L.D. were instructed to fan the flames — spread the rumor, widen the rift. If they could peel one of the women over to HYDRA's side, so much the better.
A flood of whispers began moving through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s corridors. Fury, for his part, was content to let the narrative run — a little internal tension kept people from getting too comfortable.
The two women at the center of it all were increasingly confused. Then, one evening, Hill appeared at Daisy's door again — edgy and oddly furtive — and the two of them had a very candid conversation that clarified matters considerably.
Their agent instincts said the same thing: someone is orchestrating this. The decision was unanimous: maintain the act. Keep the apparent hostility in place, and see who flinched first.
And so the lie became the truth, by sheer repetition. The more Daisy and Hill declined to deny it, the bolder the rumors grew. By the end, the story of their feud was an open secret — universally known, universally accepted.
Hill responded with characteristic silence, which everyone read as cold fury.
Daisy was a decent actress — but with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. returning to active duty, she had a convenient excuse to escape the drama. The production was relocating to Costa Rica, and she went with it.
The island where they'd fought, not so long ago, had changed less than expected. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s people had worked with what they had — the plants that had grown to enormous scale during the incident were left in place, giving the location the feel of a prehistoric wilderness, a landscape where the oxygen was thick and everything grew wild and enormous.
Daisy had signed a deal with the Costa Rican government to develop the island. Once the film released, it would open as a tourist destination.
Costa Rica wasn't in a position to say no to American requests — and once the government ministers heard the word S.H.I.E.L.D., two of them reportedly turned visibly pale on the spot.
Daisy hadn't squeezed them too hard. The revenue split she'd negotiated was considerably more generous than the island's previous arrangement. The local government would receive five percent of site income going forward — with the caveat that all financial reporting would be handled by Skye Films' own accounting staff.
Which meant, in practical terms: they'd get what she decided to give them. How much she decided to skim off the top before that point was entirely a matter of personal discretion.
Considerations of young talent meant filming schedules had to shift. Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy weren't idle like the rest of the crew — they were teenagers with school to attend. The actors' union called regularly to check in: Were they being treated appropriately on set? Were they keeping up with their coursework? Were they getting enough rest? And — phrased with diplomatic vagueness — had anyone made any unusual requests of them?
Fielding these calls was exhausting. Daisy prioritized their scenes first, just to get the union off her back.