The shield hadn't originally been part of the plan.
It was Fitz — S.H.I.E.L.D.'s curly-haired boy genius — who planted the idea. He pointed out, with some exasperation, that charging into a firefight with a broadsword seemed like a poor life choice. What exactly was she going to do in a hail of bullets?
Daisy couldn't exactly explain that she could dodge them. That would raise more questions than she cared to answer. She thought it over and, since Yashida's alloy still had plenty left over, decided: why not a shield?
Adamantium alloy wasn't Vibranium — it lacked that specific energy-absorption quality — but its sheer structural integrity more than compensated. Testing it on the range, the shield held up against grenades, rocket-propelled rounds, and armor-piercing ammunition without so much as a scratch on its face. The only drawback was the weight.
When Fitz watched Daisy hoist the shield — nearly 66 lbs (30 kg) of dense metal alloy — with casual ease, his jaw dropped. She brushed it off with a vague mention of "naturally strong" and moved on before he could ask follow-up questions.
The rest of Silver Samurai's arm-plating went into the soft armor. She ruled out full plate immediately — those iron-shell medieval suits were impractical for field work — and instead alloyed the remaining material with a substantial percentage of titanium. Hardness and density dropped, but workability surged. The result was thin, flexible panels that could be worn close to the body, essentially an armored underlayer.
It held up reliably against standard pistol and rifle rounds.
Unlike Viper — who seemed philosophically committed to leaving as much skin exposed as possible in combat — Daisy kept her critical areas fully protected. For the finishing touch — something that telegraphed her affiliation while still feeling distinctly hers — she had the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle emblem worked into the chest piece.
She stood in front of a mirror and struck a few poses. The effect was striking: longsword in hand, shield on her back, the eagle crest gleaming on her armor. She noted, with mild amusement, that if she added a pair of Vibranium bracers, she could walk into the next DC crossover event and nobody would question whether she was Wonder Woman.
Equipment sorted. Time: August 2007.
By this point, Daisy held Level 7 classification within S.H.I.E.L.D., and she had started making her presence known in internal discussions. The first person to push back — predictably — was Victoria Hand.
The red-haired Level 8 operative seemed constitutionally incapable of agreeing with anything Daisy proposed. It was almost impressive in its consistency.
Daisy suggested extending leave time for female field operatives. Hand countered by proposing that all front-line women should be rotated to desk assignments — subtext: under her supervision.
Daisy pushed for equal pay across agents from different nationalities. Hand delivered a lengthy lecture on cost-of-living variations between countries, the subtext being: this is complicated, you're out of your depth, stay in your lane.
Other proposals — increasing the ratio of medics in strike teams, prioritizing digital infiltration over physical infiltrations, shortening field rotation cycles from three years to two — were rejected without exception. The frustrating part wasn't just the pushback; it was that Hand outranked her. A lot of internal affairs ran through that woman's desk whether Daisy liked it or not.
At the beginning, the objections at least had some logic behind them. By later, it was pure ego — opposition for opposition's sake.
The woman showed up every day in a tailored suit and heels, conducting herself more like a political operative than an intelligence officer.
"Should I just kill her?" The maid-turned-operative — whose combat instincts had been flourishing lately, perhaps a little too enthusiastically — floated the suggestion one afternoon when Daisy was venting with particular intensity.
Daisy was, for a brief moment, genuinely tempted. She filed it away as a thought to not act on. Violence didn't solve institutional problems. She had been willing to work alongside HYDRA's embedded agents and accommodate the neutral bloc; she wasn't going to start calling for people's heads every time she hit resistance. That kind of thinking was a sign of immaturity she couldn't afford.
Victoria Hand was infuriating. She was also, under multiple watchful eyes, untouchable by any means Daisy was willing to use.
A careful look at the situation clarified things. The reason Hand had carved out her "neutral faction" niche — and clawed her way to Level 8 — was that she had cultivated ties to the government so deeply she effectively operated as an extension of the World Security Council. That political immunity was what kept every faction in S.H.I.E.L.D. from moving against her.
To beat Victoria Hand, Daisy would have to work through the government itself.
And with a presidential election underway, the timing could not have been better.
For someone who knew exactly how the next several years were going to play out, getting ahead of the curve was trivially easy.
She picked up the phone and dialed James Wesley. "Make a donation to Obama's campaign office under the Skye Data name."
"How much?" The former mob fixer didn't ask why she was suddenly backing a Democratic candidate — businesspeople picking a horse to back during an election cycle was standard practice.
Having spent most of her time pulling money out of other people's pockets, the prospect of willingly sending it somewhere made Daisy vaguely uncomfortable. She thought about it for a moment. "A hundred dollars."
On the other end of the line, Wesley nearly asked her to repeat herself. This was a presidential campaign, not a school board election. What was a hundred dollars going to accomplish? He tried again, carefully: "I'm sorry — how much did you say?"
Daisy repeated it. "Don't worry. They know who I really am. The number doesn't matter."
Her calculation was straightforward. The amount was irrelevant; what she was actually placing on the table was the fact that a senior S.H.I.E.L.D. operative was extending goodwill. That was worth infinitely more than any dollar figure.
It played out almost exactly as she expected. Three days later, the campaign office sent a warm, enthusiastic reply to Skye Data — along with an invitation to an exclusive private gathering.
"Does this mean I'm a Democrat now?" James Wesley, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit and tie, couldn't quite wrap his head around it as they approached the venue. A year ago at this time he'd run into Daisy while she was washing a car — and he'd been deep in talks with Russian mob contacts about laundry detergent distribution. Now, without ever having read a single word of Obama's policy platform, he was walking into the inner circle of a presidential campaign.
"Relax. It's just drinks and conversation. Play to your strengths." Daisy had dressed for the occasion: precise makeup, designer accessories, a cream-colored skirt suit, and a pair of strappy heels that made her look every inch the polished executive. For once, she hadn't brought a firearm. Her bag had been stuffed with what appeared to be an entire cosmetics counter's worth of supplies — the maid's doing, naturally.
The two stepped out of the car and entered the venue. The gathering was small — deliberately so. An inner-circle affair, nothing more than a relationship-building exercise.
Daisy had been standing in the room for less than a minute when a staffer materialized at her elbow and guided her away, leaving Wesley to charm the assembled donors with practiced ease.
"Ms. Johnson — you're even more beautiful in person than in the photos." Barack Obama was already waiting for her, his expression warm, his confidence apparent. He had clearly made time specifically for this introduction.
They exchanged pleasantries. Daisy skimmed a few surface-level observations about his policy positions, expressed measured approval, and moved toward the point.
"One question," Obama said, his expression shifting to something more deliberate. "Are you here representing S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or in a personal capacity?"
As a candidate, S.H.I.E.L.D. was no secret to him — one phone call had been enough to confirm Daisy's true identity. To the uninformed public, the organization might look like a crumbling institution riddled with leaks, but to people like Obama and the Security Council, S.H.I.E.L.D. still projected the image of the planet's preeminent covert military force.
He had spent two days analyzing the situation before agreeing to this meeting.