Fury, of course, knew perfectly well where Daisy's father was. He'd been sitting on that information as a card to play — playing dumb and refusing to breathe a word of it — and he listened to her cover story acting genuinely interested.
Once she finished, she made a point of mentioning that Storm and T'Challa were currently in New York — almost certainly at the Professor's school, if he wanted independent confirmation.
This was where Daisy made a discovery: she wasn't the only one who found the idea of visiting Charles Xavier nerve-wracking. Fury had his own reasons to avoid the old man. A career's worth of secrets doesn't accumulate unless you're very careful about who you let read you. Steeling yourself against a telepath of Xavier's caliber with nothing but iron willpower and an assortment of technological countermeasures — betting everything on the man's professional ethics — was not how Nick Fury preferred to operate.
"Miss Johnson," Fury said, getting back to business, "in your assessment — does Wakanda harbor hostile intentions toward the outside world? Does the dominance of Western powers bother them?"
Daisy saw no reason to shade her answer. "Wakanda is internally divided on the question of opening its borders. There are factions that openly discuss conquering the world by force."
Then she shifted. "That said, I don't think it will ever happen. Their advanced weapons are locked down extremely tightly. Ordinary citizens are still carrying spears and machetes. Without a viable fighting force, a handful of elders can't conquer anything."
"And any attempt to invade them would be equally costly. Their defensive infrastructure is formidable. Going in hard with conventional weapons would mean unacceptable losses."
She was, if anything, understating it. Wakanda's defensive systems weren't merely strong — they were a nightmare. Getting through them without a massive, heavily armed military commitment was essentially impossible.
Fury absorbed this as useful intelligence, without committing to anything.
Daisy's account would be treated as one data point. He intended to go hear it directly from T'Challa — Wakanda's current position on the wider human world, in the prince's own words.
Which meant Fury needed to go to Xavier's School. And since Daisy was involved in all of this, she was coming too — she was the old king's point of contact, after all.
"Thirty minutes. My office." He turned to leave, then paused — he had preparations to make: clearing his mind, checking the concealed anti-mind-control device he'd been wearing since he got the call.
Daisy caught him before he could go and gestured pointedly at the rhino.
Fury waved a hand. "Keep it here for now. Submit the feed receipts at the end of each month."
He considered Juggernaut. The man was still sedated. "I'll send people for the big one."
Four agents arrived shortly after, grunting and calling out counts as they hauled Juggernaut out of the garage. As for the rhino — that was Daisy's problem, apparently. Fury was gone.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" Daisy squinted at the rhino. "Butcher you for the meat?"
The rhino began shaking its head vigorously.
"I'm joking," she said — probably. The thing didn't look appetizing anyway.
She pointed at the floor. "Stay here. Don't go anywhere. I'll be back."
The rhino settled down obediently — but not before she caught a vague, insistent impression from it.
Hungry.
"So am I. Keep it up and I really will eat you."
The rhino went still.
Daisy headed back inside. Maki could look after the cub for a few hours — the rhino was another problem entirely. Rhinoceroses were herbivores; where exactly was she supposed to find grazing land in New York? She made a mental note to ask Maki to order several dozen pounds of carrots.
"Maki, I'm back." Daisy set her bags down in the living room. She only had a few minutes, but she wanted to hand off the animals and go.
She pushed open Maki's door — and stopped.
Maki was lying in bed, very much undressed, fingers engaged in activity that was, in itself, entirely normal and unremarkable. What was not unremarkable was that she was staring fixedly at the wall directly across from her. Daisy followed her gaze on instinct.
The wall was covered in photographs.
All of Daisy Johnson. Front-facing shots, side profiles, candids — clothed and unclothed — dozens of them.
Daisy stood there for a moment, internally calculating whether it was more tactful to back out quietly or to simply pretend nothing had happened. She hadn't reached a conclusion before Maki was already on her feet, back to her usual composed posture, bowing a greeting as if the last thirty seconds had not occurred.
The only reasonable option was to act like she hadn't seen a thing. She reached behind herself and produced the lion cub like a magic trick, hoping the animal would do the work of defusing the situation.
"I brought back a pet from Africa. Her name is Tangbao. Could you feed her something in a bit? Oh, and there's a rhinoceros in the garage — look up what they eat and get some in. That's everything, thank you."
She introduced the cub to Maki, then hurried out.
For her visit to Charles Xavier, Daisy reasoned that any outfit would technically work — but wearing her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform would signal institutional affiliation, and that might make the Professor slightly more cautious around her, which suited her fine. She changed into her senior agent combat suit, left her sword, shield, and full armor in her room, and tucked the vibranium bracers under her sleeves.
She said a quick word to Maki and teleported to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters to meet Fury.
"Your coat looks different from before," she remarked when he arrived. She could detect several completely distinct signal frequencies coming off him.
"Let's move," Fury said, not explaining.
Daisy let it go.
Her range had expanded considerably. She could now teleport directly from Washington to New York without effort — minor drift at the destination could be corrected in transit. She had, however, decided against simply jumping them into the school grounds. Who knew what kind of anti-teleportation systems Xavier might have installed?
The man's neural development had been pushing the limits of human capacity for decades — he'd earned a stack of doctorates fifty years ago and hadn't slowed since. He was brilliant, wealthy, and had nothing but time. Just as Daisy could use her abilities to reach places that conventional science hadn't caught up to yet, Xavier had access to a library of black-box technologies accumulated through a lifetime of connections, enough to make every major faction in the world hesitate before crossing him.
Daisy called Storm first to give them advance notice. Storm sounded genuinely pleased that they were coming.
"Your range has really grown," Fury commented. "Washington to New York on a direct jump now?"
Daisy made some vague, noncommittal sounds. She pulled up the school's coordinates in Westchester, New York, ran the calculations using three reference points, opened the portal, and stepped through with Fury in tow.
"Any chance of making this less unpleasant?" Fury asked on the other side, pressing a hand to his lower back, his expression somewhere between pained and aggrieved.
Daisy spread her hands. That was just how string vibration worked. The longer the jump, the more oscillation — and the more the body felt it on arrival.
[Author's note: Best of luck to everyone sitting the university entrance exams — may you get exactly the results you're hoping for!]
[Additional note: Updates tomorrow will go out in the afternoon rather than the morning. Apologies for any inconvenience. And as always — if you're able to, please consider supporting the story through the official platform. The first-chapter subscription numbers really do matter more than you'd think. Thank you.]