[ Daisy's House, Washington D.C. ]
After receiving the three core instructions, Danger finally stopped spiraling in logical conflict. With Daisy's word codified as law, the AI no longer needed to ponder grand philosophical dilemmas.
And Daisy made sure it stayed that way.
She restricted Danger's access: no books on sociology, no theories on war, no human development manifestos. That wasn't her job. Danger didn't need to guide humanity or command armies. Those fields were a distraction—a waste of processing time.
Instead, Daisy directed her toward what truly mattered: genetic engineering, biology, and mechanics. Cold, calculable, and far less open to moral ambiguity.
Given her original function in mutant battle simulation, Danger had already built a strong foundation in genetics. The shift felt natural. She wasn't just compliant—she was curious.
Daisy transferred every bit of data she'd stolen from the archives of the old devil Yashida and cross-referenced it with Professor Charles's far more advanced archives. The idea was simple: compare, contrast, evolve. Learn from both. Rise above them.
The workload was astronomical. Processing it all would take time. But Daisy instructed Danger to move slowly, deliberately—and above all, remain invisible to Charles.
Whether Xavier's next electricity bill would triple wasn't her concern.
For now, Danger would stay hidden in Charles's digital shadow. Not ideal, but until Daisy could afford her own supercomputer, it was the only option. Building one would be… expensive. Even with all her ingenuity, she couldn't fund it yet. The drops she was throwing into that ocean didn't even make ripples.
So Charles's houseguest Danger would remain—for now.
Meanwhile, Nick Fury had finally met with Black Panther. The diplomatic bridge was built. If Fury wanted to communicate with Wakanda further, that was his responsibility now.
...
[ S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, Washington DC ]
With the Danger situation stabilized, Daisy resumed her official duties with a carefully curated mix of effort and negligence—three days fishing, two days casting nets.
As a Level 7 agent, she now held quasi-senior authority in S.H.I.E.L.D. The position required her to shoulder important tasks like Strategic tasks, high-level briefings, political interference, or occasionally doing someone else's dirty work without leaving fingerprints and overall expanding her influence.
Daisy was in SHIELD for power—pure and simple. Without it, she didn't lift a finger. But that didn't mean she'd turn down leadership roles like those held by Black Widow or Hawkeye. She just knew the difference between commanding from strength and being used as a figurehead. And she had no intention of becoming anyone's pawn.
There were, however, elements of fieldwork she found intolerable. The mindless violence. The forced charm. The occasional assignment where seduction was a tactical strategy. Worse, the entire field sector was riddled with Hydra moles. Every mission risked being watched, logged, and exploited. She had no desire to dance in front of a two-way mirror for them.
The Science Department was no better. Too isolated. Too detached. You could bury yourself in research for months, step outside, and suddenly find the eagle insignia replaced by a hydra. Not ideal.
The Operations Division was the worst kind of chaos—endless responsibility, zero boundaries. Agents on standby 24/7, jumping like trained dogs the moment the comms buzzed. "Hello, this is Agent XXX, how may I serve you?" Daisy didn't have the patience—or the obedience—for that kind of leash.
The Training Division was a glorified daycare, half-retirement home, half-reform school for undisciplined recruits. A dead end dressed in tactical gear.
So she chose the Information Department.
It wasn't locked down, wasn't swamped with fieldwork, and—most importantly—it touched every thread of intel running through the organization. A bridge between internal operations and the outside world. Perfect for someone like her, who preferred pulling strings to being strung up.
Though her new body had dulled some of her former edge, Daisy's technical skills were rapidly sharpening. With her foundation in code, memory, and AI, and with relentless self-discipline, she was rising fast. Not quite the world's top hacker—yet—but enough to stand alongside them. The Information Department would give her tools and access. The rest, she'd take.
If only her direct superior wasn't so unbearable.
Victoria Hand—a bureaucratic relic with a control fetish. Technically an eighth-level agent, and oversaw three major departments: operations, information, and weapons. A perfectly placed leash for Daisy's seventh-level clearance. A spinster with no ties to Hydra, but also no loyalty to Fury. A cold administrator, more Council than S.H.I.E.L.D. Properly categorized, she was a careerist who'd climbed the ladder not by bleeding for the mission, but by merging into policy.
Victoria Hand had a checklist for subordinates: solid experience, a steady temperament, and, ideally, a face that didn't draw attention. Daisy checked none of those boxes.
Naturally, the old woman loathed her.
It wasn't even subtle. From the very beginning, Victoria had looked at Daisy like she was a walking HR violation—too young, too bold, too confident, and far too attractive to be taken seriously in her book. Daisy, for her part, found the feeling mutual. Victoria Hand was the kind of fossilized bureaucrat that made real agents grind their teeth: smug, rigid, and addicted to red tape.
The tension nearly boiled over on day one.
Their argument came dangerously close to open hostility before Agent Coulson, freshly thawed from his return trip from Antarctica, stepped in. The man had the patience of a monk and the diplomacy of a seasoned negotiator. He sat both women down, forced a temporary ceasefire, and tried to coax some civility into the room.
To Victoria, he appealed with hierarchy and professionalism: lead by example, set the tone for junior agents. To Daisy, he offered advice framed like mentorship: respect your seniors, even the ones who think outdated suits equal competence. Use tact. Work smarter.
Neither woman appreciated the lecture. They listened, tolerated, then promptly walked out in opposite directions without a word.
Daisy returned to her station and did what any reasonable, strategic seventh-level agent would do: she pulled up everything she could on Victoria Hand.
With her clearance level, digging up blackmail material was practically a sport. Bureaucrats always left trails—financial irregularities, inappropriate communications, conflicts of interest. It wasn't about finding dirt. It was about finding the right kind of dirt.
Three days later, she marched into Nick Fury's office with a curated portfolio of damning evidence—only to find Victoria Hand already there, holding her own neat stack of papers.
The timing was almost poetic.
They stared at each other for one frozen second—then the gloves came off.
Victoria declared, with righteous indignation, that Daisy had embezzled millions from S.H.I.E.L.D. operational funds, making her a corruption scandal waiting to explode. Daisy, without missing a beat, accused Victoria of leaking intelligence to certain senators in exchange for political leverage.
"Didn't you use your position to back the Democratic candidate? S.H.I.E.L.D. has a policy of neutrality. Have you forgotten that?" Victoria Hand's voice cut sharp as a scalpel, and with a deliberate flourish, she slammed her file down onto Nick Fury's desk—loud enough to startle Fury out of whatever bureaucratic haze he'd been drifting in.
Daisy didn't even flinch. If Victoria wanted to bring up O'Neal, she'd play along—with interest. She mirrored the old maid's move and slapped her own folder down, her expression flat but lethal. "And how do you explain your dinner with Senator McCain?"
"That was personal. Nothing to do with work," Victoria snapped, folding her arms tightly.
Daisy's mouth curved in a cold half-smile. "Then O'Neal and I are just personal friends too. Hope he sends me a fruit basket when he wins."
Their words cracked through the room like gunfire—two women locked in a war of documentation and implication, each accusation escalating, neither giving ground. What had started as workplace friction now teetered on the brink of a full-blown political scandal.
Nick Fury, seated in the eye of the storm, looked like he was reconsidering every career choice that brought him to this point. The shouting, the paperwork, the potential involvement of rival presidential candidates—it had all gotten out of hand. Fast.
If they were just two ordinary agents, he would have kicked them out of his office one after another. But neither of them were ordinary. Victoria Hand was entrenched in the power corridors of the Republican elite, and Daisy had her claws wrapped tightly around O'Neal's rising campaign machine. Fury didn't have the luxury of picking a side. Not yet.
So, he did the most director-like thing he could: pretended to be dead and watched the political carnage unfold.
Eventually, sensing the train was about to derail completely, he picked up the phone and dialed Alexander Pierce. The former director, who was enjoying his time with newspapers and overpriced tea, was summoned under the guise of "mediating" a minor internal conflict.
Pierce arrived with a knowing smile and read the room in an instant. It didn't take him a minute to sense the undercurrent. Always a sharper politician than soldier, he cast the entire squabble through a broader lens.
To Pierce, this wasn't about workplace tensions or even interdepartmental conflict—it was a symbol. A reflection of newcomer discontent against the established power structure.
Daisy had aligned with the Democratic candidate who is also rising from the bottom, was quickly placed in one ideological corner. Victoria, on the other hand, was the model of embodiment of old-guard institutionalism—naturally aligned with the Republican's Candidate who is already at the peak of his career.
Of course, real politics weren't that shallow. But optics mattered. And in Washington, perception often trumped truth.
Unfortunately, all his analysis led nowhere. Showing political bias was out of the question. In the end, he silently dragged a chair next to the one-eyed director and sat like a stone-faced statue, watching the storm rage.
Every so often, an agent approached with a report, only to glance through the door and retreat immediately. No one wanted to step into a live minefield.
The two directors were boxed in, caught between politics and practicality. With no clear winner yet, the only choice was to split the two women apart and let them operate independently—for now.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]