Daisy had no particular plans to celebrate Christmas. But she'd been going nonstop since the day she arrived in this world — a full six months of running herself ragged — and with everyone else choosing to take a breath, she decided she deserved a day off too.
She had a little money now, which meant the first item on her to-do list was sorting out her housing situation.
Americans and people from Daisy's part of the world had fundamentally different ideas about where to live. Americans liked to build out in the suburbs; the wealthier they were, the more remote they went. Tony Stark's place in Malibu was perched on a cliff above the ocean. Open a window and you were looking straight out at the Pacific. You could hear the waves twenty-four hours a day.
If someone wanted to attack him, they wouldn't even need to try hard. Just charter a helicopter and fly over singing Christmas carols — the place was practically on the shoreline, after all. In Tony Stark's case, it was the billionaire guarding the coastline.
That kind of philosophy was completely foreign to Daisy. She had zero interest in the middle of nowhere. For the sake of her sanity and her commute, she wanted something in the heart of the city.
The problem was that Manhattan real estate was on par with the most expensive addresses in any world she'd ever known. And Daisy had been faithfully studying the S.H.I.E.L.D. playbook — specifically, the noble tradition exemplified by Nick Fury himself — of liberally redirecting production funds into personal accounts.
Through various creative channels, she'd scraped together just over five million dollars. But that still wasn't enough to buy in Manhattan's center.
And besides — the subprime mortgage crisis was coming next year. Buying property right now would be nothing short of idiotic.
She'd rented a standalone house instead. The housekeeper normally managed it in her absence; today was the first time Daisy had actually stayed the night.
She did a quick tour. Downstairs: dining room, living room, bathroom, and a home gym. Upstairs: two bedrooms and a dressing room.
She'd heard that Tony Stark's beachside mansion had a swimming pool, a tennis court, a golf course, and no fewer than fourteen bathrooms. Daisy shrugged off her jacket, silently judged the man for his excess, and headed to the kitchen to put something together for dinner.
Western Christmas called for turkey, cake, gingerbread — the works. She had no patience for any of it. Christmas, to her, was just a day off. An ordinary rest day, nothing more.
She rolled up her sleeves, and in under fifteen minutes had a big pot of tomato and egg noodle soup going on the stove.
It wasn't that she didn't want to cook anything else. It was just too much trouble, and her body needed volume right now. A massive bowl was exactly what she needed.
Daisy was standing at the stove, completely unaware that Grant Ward was watching her from across the street.
Ward badly wanted to walk up and knock on the door — have a conversation, fish for some intel. But they were barely acquaintances at this stage; nowhere near the kind of relationship that justified showing up at someone's place on Christmas. So he watched from a distance.
Then suddenly he spotted a familiar silhouette approaching the building. He ducked back fast. A second later, he decided the spot wasn't safe — too exposed — and abandoned his post entirely, slipping away before he could be made.
Daisy had no idea she'd been under surveillance. She settled onto the couch with her enormous pot of noodles, turned on the TV, and proceeded to inhale her dinner while a holiday special played in the background.
She'd made it about halfway through the pot when she heard a knock.
She opened the door and blinked in surprise. Standing outside was Hill.
The deputy director was out of her usual tactical gear. She'd traded it for a white button-down shirt under a camel blazer, distressed jeans, and short boots. Her face was done up with light makeup, precise and understated.
Hill held a bottle of red wine. Her expression carried just a trace of discomfort. "I don't really have any friends in New York," she said. "So…"
Daisy wasn't entirely sure what the protocol for Christmas visits was. In her past life she'd never paid attention; and the girl she was now had grown up getting harassed by the white kids at school every Christmas, so the holiday held no warmth for her. She'd spent every one of them alone.
She didn't know the rules, but a guest was a guest. She smiled and stepped aside to let Hill in.
Then she scratched the back of her head. A guest arrives — shouldn't she offer food?
"Want me to make you some noodles?"
There was nothing odd about the offer in her mind. She just figured most people probably didn't have noodle soup on Christmas.
Hill's attention had already been drawn to the massive pot sitting on the coffee table. It was more than half gone. If Daisy had already finished eating, there was no real reason for her to stay.
"Haven't you already—"
"No, no, that's just, uh—" Daisy's face went red. She scrambled for an explanation, but nothing came. The pot sat there on the table, wide open, silently mocking her.
For God's sake, she had barely made a dent in what she needed.
The fact that Daisy could eat that much was still technically a secret at S.H.I.E.L.D. at large — but within the small circle of Sharon, Hill, and those who'd seen her up close, it had long since stopped being a secret.
Hill pressed her lips together against a smile. "Your Christmas is a little… casual."
She walked to the refrigerator and opened it to see what was available.
The housekeeper, it turned out, had a gift for domestic management. The fridge was stocked with every Christmas staple imaginable. Daisy had simply been too lazy to deal with any of it.
Food that would otherwise have gone to waste now had a purpose, thanks to Hill's arrival.
The turkey had already been prepped by the housekeeper. Hill rubbed it all over with butter while Daisy chopped the vegetables; then they stuffed everything inside the cavity, set it on a tray, and slid it into the oven.
After that, it was a cycle: pull it out, baste, flip, return to heat. Repeat until the internal temperature read that it was done.
Western cooking had its own rigid discipline. Exact temperatures, precise timing — everything by the book. There was none of the "add a little of this" or "simmer for a while." It was closer to running a chemistry experiment than making dinner.
Which meant that as long as you had some basic motor skills and followed the recipe, you'd end up with something at least decent, even if it wasn't remarkable.
The oven had warmed the kitchen considerably. Hill peeled off her blazer; the button-down beneath had an off-the-shoulder cut that was everywhere this season, leaving her neck, shoulders, and collarbone on full display.
An hour of work later — Daisy had been largely useless on the turkey front — Daisy had set the dining table instead, arranging a spread of cakes and pastries alongside Hill's wine.
They sat down. Daisy poured two glasses.
Glasses clinked softly. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas."
Christmas music drifted through the room, low and melodic. They ate and talked, the conversation easy and unhurried.
Even after demolishing half that pot of noodles earlier, Daisy still outpaced Hill by a significant margin. Hill was hardly a delicate woman — but in the end, most of the turkey found its way into Daisy's stomach anyway.
Hill tilted her head, one shoulder slipping lower to expose the strap of her bra, and studied Daisy with a look that was equal parts curiosity and something more probing. "Can your digestive system actually handle that much?"
Daisy looked back at her. The old "Chinese kung fu" excuse wasn't going to cut it this time — she could see that Hill meant business.
Her current abilities were limited to her original Shockwave and the teleportation she'd spent the past month developing. The shockwave would be too destructive indoors, so she went with the latter.
"Watch closely."
She extended her left hand. A pale blue halo swirled outward in a clockwise spiral, and she tossed an apple into it. Three meters above their heads, a second portal opened in the opposite direction — and the apple dropped out of it, landing neatly in her outstretched palm.
Hill stared. Then her expression shifted into something complicated. "Are you a mutant?"
It wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for. As a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer, she knew the score — the divide between ordinary humans and mutants ran deep, and when push came to shove, S.H.I.E.L.D. stood on the human side of that line.