"Why Florida? What's there—classified project? I need to see this."
News from the East Coast traveled west at an embarrassing speed. Tony Stark, currently in a research lockdown studying the Destroyer Armor he'd obtained from Asgard, was immediately suspicious. This many senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agents mobilizing at once—there was absolutely a scheme involved. He was coming.
Which meant Pepper and Happy came too.
Final roster: a small traveling city.
Men: Stark, Happy, Coulson, Hawkeye, Peter, Harry, Tyrone, and Hawkeye's six-year-old son.
Women—more of them: Daisy, Hill, Sharon, Maki, Elektra, Black Widow, Pepper, Audrey (Coulson's girlfriend), Laura (Hawkeye's wife), Lorna, Mary Jane, Jessica, and Dagger.
Too many people, including a child. The little lion had to stay home with Rhino for company.
Before boarding, Black Widow—lightly dressed and already at the controls—relayed a message: Baldy was calling.
Daisy looked at the screen, at that stone expression, and preempted. "If you're asking to come too, I'm canceling the whole trip."
Baldy's jaw tightened. "That many senior agents in one place—you're certain this is a vacation?"
She had no remedy for Baldy's and Stark's matching paranoia. She assured him, once and again: a scenic island, a group of people, food and drinks, sun and games, no threat activity.
Villains generally didn't work holidays.
---
Zephyr One justified its reputation. Second only to the Helicarrier in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fleet—command center, operations room, ten private cabins, a compact lab, training floor, machine shop, dining hall. Every facility accounted for.
S.H.I.E.L.D. at its operational peak: a colossus assembled from piled resources. An organization that could simultaneously commission three flying aircraft carriers had capabilities matching mid-tier nations.
Hydra had the resources on paper—but theirs were locked in hidden accounts and buried installations, useless to Daisy in any practical sense.
The plane became its own moving city: kids in the lounge running through game consoles; Pepper, Audrey, and Laura gathered in comfortable conversation; Maki and Elektra running drills in the training bay. Stark and Happy worked their way through every corridor on a mission to locate classified intelligence.
The agents settled in with drinks.
"This aircraft is something." Coulson's appreciation was immediate. "Latest model?"
Daisy gave a diplomatic non-laugh. She couldn't explain that in another life, this was the exact aircraft he'd used to recruit her into S.H.I.E.L.D. on day one—and then the organization had collapsed less than twenty-four hours later.
She had genuine affection for Zephyr One. The thought had crossed her mind that it would make a reasonable personal transport.
"Come here a second." The agents were in good spirits, the rare gathering producing easy conversation, when Black Widow tilted her head in Daisy's direction. Daisy followed her into one of the private cabins.
What happened next caught her off guard. Natasha came in, closed the door, and pulled her top off. The undergarment beneath was minimal—barely there—and a generous stretch of pale skin was suddenly very present.
"Hill mentioned your ability can remove scars." Natasha indicated her lower abdomen. "This one—can it go?"
Right. Daisy exhaled.
The scar ran across the front of her abdomen like something had tried to unzip her—a rough, jagged track like a centipede's path, vividly visible. Not small. Definitely affecting the view.
"How'd you get it?"
She ran her fingertips lightly along the scar's edge. Natasha lay in her minimal coverage and answered without ceremony: "Central Asia, last year. Tracking Stane's missiles. The locals found me before I found them."
She said it like a weather report. But the information was loaded.
Obadiah Stane had been selling weapons on the side, quietly, without Stark's knowledge. Recovering those sales had been one of Tony's conditions for joining S.H.I.E.L.D. His word alone had already cost the organization more than twenty lives. Western faces were identifiable targets in that region; only Black Widow had ultimately been able to complete the operation.
"This might sting a bit—" Daisy wasn't sure how to frame it.
Natasha gave a small smile. "I can see what's going on between you and Hill. I wouldn't mind joining that particular arrangement—"
"We are decent people," Daisy said firmly, both hands up.
Her control was a hundred times finer than when she'd worked on Hill. No unplanned vibration, no overshoot. Her palm settled against Natasha's lower abdomen and the resonance began—slow, even, precise.
"Hurts a little. Hill said it was supposed to feel good." Natasha lay completely flat, one eyebrow fractionally raised.
Daisy said it was a matter of precision calibration. Clearing dead tissue and old clotting wasn't complicated at this level.
No repeated passes needed. No extended process. The ability functioned like a scalpel now, addressing each obstruction in sequence and moving on.
She also mapped what lay beneath the surface—Natasha's internal landscape, which was not healthy. Old trauma layered on old trauma throughout the body. And no capacity left for bearing children.
"You're clear. The skin tone's a bit uneven still, but a couple of days of sun will bring it back." She withdrew her hand and stood.
"Remarkable ability." Natasha touched the smoothed skin. The sensation had been like an injection—a sting, followed by the odd feeling of having shed weight. Lighter than before.
Daisy weighed her words. "The Science Division synthesized a new therapeutic compound. Your internal injuries are significant. Even with the Red Room's genetic modification reinforcing your resilience, you still need proper treatment—a full course of care, addressing everything."
Going through Natasha's injuries made her think about the other agents. Natasha at least had enhancement. Regular field operatives had nothing—their damage would be worse, not better. The Kree-derived compound the Science Division had produced was nowhere near sufficient. A drop in a very large bucket.
She'd originally brought up the Kree option to Baldy half as a joke. Now she was seriously considering whether she needed to go out and collect some. The Kree genetic material ran in her blood, which was beside any meaningful point—she was human, Earth's, always had been. Using Kree biology for medicine didn't give her any particular hesitation.
After the vacation, she'd have a proper conversation with Baldy about this.
Two hours of flight. Zephyr One descended toward an unmapped, unmarked island in the Bahamas, east of Florida—an island Daisy's Level 10 clearance had flagged as pristine, currently uninhabited, zero development on record.