At breakfast the next morning, Daisy was treated to a view that brightened her whole day.
Miss Elektra's black top was, strictly speaking, normal—collar, bow, apron, all present. Except that the entire back was open, and above the neckline a heart-shaped cutout framed a deep, eye-catching décolletage. When Elektra leaned over to pour Daisy's coffee, Daisy took the opportunity to look more closely. No bra.
The skirt was another matter. Maki had clearly ordered one size too small, and Elektra was tall—on her, it rode up to something closer to a micro-skirt. White fishnet stockings, black heels. Even Little Lorna, who had grown considerably bolder under Daisy's influence, couldn't help sneaking a second glance.
Daisy gave Maki a quiet thumbs-up. Maki looked deeply self-satisfied. That's how you deal with a shameless vixen like her. Daisy and the rest bore the risk of "secrets" potentially being discovered; Elektra, meanwhile, had to navigate an escalating campaign of harassment. Now they'd see who cracked first.
The lawsuit put sales on hold. Daisy returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. in a foul mood.
"What a pointless circus." The whole mess had been engineered by the arms companies. The way they saw it, Hammer Industries' relentless R&D pace meant they must be running short on capital—the rush to sell to the NYPD was a cash grab. The other major players had joined forces specifically to block the sale and, if possible, strangle Hammer's cash flow.
She pushed open Nick Fury's office door. Fine. The NYPD deal is dead. I'll sell to S.H.I.E.L.D. instead. Nobody can object to that.
Inside Fury's office, Baldy watched her walk in ready to scam her own side, and smiled the kind of smile a man wears when he's already holding the cards. He kept that smile until he brought in Tony Stark.
"Even if you're a beautiful woman, Miss Johnson, I have to be honest with you—those robot soldiers you're selling are garbage." Stark didn't bother softening it.
"My price point is accessible. Any mid-sized team can afford them. Affordable products scale—and scaling matters, because a lot of dangerous operations need expendable units to absorb the risk. Humanitarian considerations... social stability... economic returns..." Daisy knew exactly what she'd built and made no attempt to defend the specs. She talked price, and she talked big abstractions.
Fury wasn't that easy to play. The pitch failed.
Daisy turned to Stark, genuinely annoyed. "What are you doing here?"
Fury cleared his throat. "Mr. Stark has agreed to serve as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technical consultant."
Daisy let that land, then seemed to remember something. "The Technical Department falls under my jurisdiction. Does that mean he reports to me?"
Stark's mustache practically bristled. He spun to look at Fury immediately—one nod and he was walking out the door.
Fortunately Fury didn't oblige. "Mr. Stark is not involved in day-to-day operations. He answers only to me."
It made sense. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technology needed updating, and trust or no trust, Fury needed someone who could serve as a technical counterweight to Daisy. Selecting Stark had taken real thought.
His balancing act. Daisy understood it well enough. Fury would be disappointed, though. Tony Stark did not take orders.
The conflict between Captain America and Iron Man was ultimately a clash of idealism versus realism—two heroes who opposed each other and respected each other in equal measure. Fury's methods and values sat in a very different place from either of them. Daisy could at least put on a heroic act when necessary. Baldy? A hero? Don't make her laugh.
The philosophical distance would only grow.
Back in her office, Daisy reached out through CRISIS, navigating S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network under her Level 8 clearance. Five minutes of searching and she was smiling. She could see J.A.R.V.I.S.'s fingerprints all over the internal network.
Stark had used the consultant position as cover to plant a Trojan horse. With an AI providing camouflage, ordinary analysts would never spot it.
Better not say anything. Stark and J.A.R.V.I.S. embedded inside S.H.I.E.L.D. might actually be useful to her.
With Stark aboard, the Helicarrier retrofit moved significantly faster—and he added a cloaking system on top of everything else.
Daisy had plenty to say about that herself. Even the Science Division was quietly annoyed that an outsider had done their job for them. It made them look incompetent.
To win back some face in front of her subordinates, she very publicly hauled J.A.R.V.I.S. out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network. Artificial intelligence wasn't invincible. She'd written a logic loop designed specifically for the purpose, lured J.A.R.V.I.S. inside it, and sealed the exit. Getting out would take CRISIS around twenty hours; J.A.R.V.I.S. was faster, but he'd still need several hours to find the way clear.
"Tony, what exactly is this?"
"Outstanding work, Chief!" The Science Division agents broke into applause.
Fury didn't follow the technical details, but he knew how to read a room. Baldy's expression went dark. "Mr. Stark, I need an explanation."
Any normal person would have stormed out. Tony Stark was not normal. He shouldered past Fury, put his glasses on, his fingers flew over the keyboard, pulled up a large block of code, and answered with the smug expression of a man who had just made his point:
"Your security was already a sieve. Can you really blame me?"
Fury's gaze shifted to Daisy.
She nodded. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a dedicated Network Department responsible for the overall system, but its technical level was frankly awful. It had been Victoria Hand's problem before—nothing to do with Daisy. But the department now sat under the Science Division, which made it technically hers.
"Patch it. Soon." Fury left.
Patching S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network: tedious, grueling, time-consuming, and completely without upside. Daisy pointed out the major vulnerabilities, left the Network Department to handle the actual work, and sat back in a chair to watch Stark retrieve J.A.R.V.I.S.
Working from both inside and outside the loop, Stark and J.A.R.V.I.S. were seamlessly coordinated. Stark's computing skills were nowhere near specialized enough to best Daisy on her own turf, but they were still far beyond ordinary, and his lateral thinking was considerable. Eventually he found an obscure gap in the loop and pulled J.A.R.V.I.S. free.
Stark departed without a word. Daisy walked back to her office, tea in hand, under the admiring looks of her subordinates. Neither of them had come out ahead. On points, it was a draw.