They went to Pym's lab first. Each of them searched in her own way.
Daisy focused on the equipment — not the newest or most cutting-edge, but every piece was spotless. The lab assistants confirmed that the old doctor treated every instrument like it was one of his children.
Her field forensics training had never been a strong suit. She walked through the space, took it all in, and came away with nothing.
She wasn't the only one. The other three found just as little.
Black Widow interviewed the assistants separately and confirmed the specific places the doctor had regularly frequented — which, after filtering, left exactly what Daisy had already identified: a private medical clinic, a bar with a name she couldn't pronounce, and the city-center park.
"That algorithm of yours is something else," Black Widow said, with genuine admiration. "The intelligence division is going to save a lot of time with something like that. Impressive."
Three locations, four people.
"The park is large — I'll cover that. Sharon, pose as a nurse and probe the clinic. You two take the bar."
No hesitation. They moved.
Pairing with the notoriously unsmiling Maria Hill was going to be a test in itself.
But someone had to do it.
In the movies, you kick the door in, rough someone up, and walk out with your intel in five minutes. Real life didn't work like that. Any bar operating in a busy commercial district had connections — local law enforcement, organized crime, or both. They couldn't just throw punches and stroll away clean.
Hill was a perfectionist about mission execution. Daisy had no interest in starting a firefight either.
Which meant they needed to look the part.
Daisy had only her sling bag. Hill's travel bag had nothing even close to bar-appropriate. But Black Widow had clearly accounted for the timing — the window before the bar opened gave them room to shop.
When Daisy found out Hill was carrying a no-limit black card, they headed straight for the mall.
Daisy studied how local university students dressed and assembled an outfit: a spaghetti-strap top, frayed denim cut-offs, and open-toe heels.
Hill probably decided two people in shorts would look strange and went a different direction — an off-shoulder blouse, a patterned mini skirt, strappy heeled sandals.
They grabbed a few accessories, nothing expensive. The total came to well under a hundred dollars.
The bar wouldn't open until evening, so they were far from idle in the meantime. They booked a room nearby. Daisy used the local network to dig into Dr. Pym's personal transaction records. Hill impersonated an FBI agent at the local precinct and pulled recent incident reports.
They regrouped in the room that evening — and that was when Daisy registered the obvious problem.
Both of them needed to change clothes. At the same time. In the same room.
Hill didn't appear to notice the awkwardness at all. She just started pulling off her top.
Daisy told herself retreating to the bathroom would look weird, so she pulled off her shirt too.
A silent, involuntary comparison crept in anyway — even between two people who genuinely couldn't care less about appearances, there was a brief moment of mutual inventory-taking as the clothes came off.
Her core is incredible…
She's built like a wall — couldn't tell under those clothes…
"You actually carry a pistol that large?" Hill said.
Every nerve in Daisy's body short-circuited for a full two seconds before her brain caught up and registered that Hill was looking at the Chiappa Rhino sitting on the table.
Oh thank god.
She let out a quiet breath and kept her expression flat.
Hill pressed on, oblivious to the misunderstanding. "Can you actually handle the recoil? Even modified, that caliber isn't designed for smaller wrists. You'll injure yourself."
Two years older, clearly feeling entitled to the senior role.
"…My wrists are naturally strong. It's just how I'm built." Terrible excuse. She didn't especially care whether Hill believed it.
Neither the shorts nor the heels left room for a hip holster, so Daisy packed the Rhino and her extra rounds into a clutch. Hill handled her weapons the same way.
The classic thigh holster had its tactical merits — a flash of bare leg pulls a man's attention, giving you the half-second you need to draw. Whoever designed that rig really understood human psychology. But neither of them needed it tonight.
They stepped out into the hallway.
And both of them paused, feeling strangely off.
"We should walk closer together," Daisy said. The spacing between them was wrong — too far apart to look like strangers leaving at the same time, too distant to look like they actually knew each other.
And two women heading into a bar on their own carried a very specific kind of energy that neither of them wanted.
"What does that even look like — two women walking into a bar?" Daisy asked, genuinely stuck. Holding hands felt juvenile. Linking arms might come across as too intimate.
She searched it on her tablet. Big data was useless.
Hill mentally reviewed her training. Nothing in the curriculum on this.
"Let's link arms," Hill said finally. "That's what everyone on the street is doing."
"Those are couples," Daisy pointed out. She thought about it for another moment. "Okay, but — do you take my arm, or do I take yours?"
Hill assessed them both. "You're taller. Your mannerisms read a little more… assertive. I'll take your arm."
Daisy extended her arm. Hill slipped hers through it. Both of them were in sleeveless tops — smooth skin against smooth skin, and both of them registered an odd little jolt before decisively burying it. Neither mentioned it.
Small problem solved, no visible tells — they set off toward the bar.
That was when the next strange thing happened.
Their heels on the pavement — tap, tap, tap — and both of them were in perfect lockstep. The height of each lift, the angle of the stride, the sequence of footfalls — identical. Two people moving like a drill team.
The synchronization felt wrong. Daisy immediately changed her rhythm.
Hill adjusted at exactly the same moment.
They corrected simultaneously and landed right back in sync.
"Ha — these shoes are a little uncomfortable," Daisy offered, trying to dissolve the weirdness.
"Yes." Hill's cheeks had gone faintly pink. "This skirt is a bit tight."
The harder they tried to de-sync, the more perfectly they matched. Budapest at night was quiet — not many people on the streets — and the crisp, unified click of their heels rang out with embarrassing clarity.
"Okay — I'll lead with my left, you start with your right," Daisy suggested.
They tried it. It became a disaster. Arms still linked, fighting each other's rhythm, they nearly pitched face-first onto the pavement together.
Right when Daisy was seriously considering just using her powers to close the distance faster, the bar appeared ahead of them.
The music hit like a wave. The footstep problem vanished under the sound, and both of them exhaled at exactly the same moment.