Daisy couldn't do much about Baldy. Seeing everyone as a suspect was just his nature. The paranoia ran too deep.
From the intelligence she'd quietly assembled: Mister Hyde—her biological father—had almost certainly been taken into Fury's custody at some point, tucked away without a word, kept on the shelf as leverage for a critical moment. Classic Fury. He'd never mentioned it, and neither had she.
He'd gone out of his way three times to bring Tony Stark on board—that was meaningful, as gestures went. But then he hid every card, shared no real information, extended no genuine trust. Stark's goodwill toward S.H.I.E.L.D. eroded a little further each day.
Same playbook with Cap. Surveillance. Silence about Bucky.
Fury had managed to turn a lot of friends and comrades into acquaintances through this method. He probably had his reasons. But reasons didn't make it a workable way to operate—and it left him increasingly alone.
Through Daisy's negotiation, Captain America's treatment improved modestly from what the original timeline had looked like: constant surveillance downgraded to periodic check-ins. The assignment fell to Sharon Carter.
Sharon's feelings about the assignment—and its premise—were clear. But the subject himself was not a problem, and a weekly report was a perfectly standard professional duty. She agreed.
With official business done, the conversation turned personal.
"You and Hill—everything okay?" Sharon ventured.
Daisy made a small face. Hill still had feelings about the Deputy Director appointment. Even with full preparation, watching a newcomer move above her stung. She'd framed it as a competence question, but that wasn't really what it was.
Daisy couldn't explain that her appointment had nothing to do with conventional competence rankings. "It's complicated."
"Invite both of you out shopping?" Sharon offered.
"Sure. Your call to organize." Daisy handed the project over.
---
Elektra had spent a month and a half drifting along the West Coast before she finally abandoned her cover and reappeared at the Long Island villa.
She didn't have a choice. Danger controlled all her money. Not a cent available outside Daisy's authorization.
Watching a dangerous, striking woman making her most cooperative expression, Daisy was struck once again by the profound illness of poverty. A disease without a clean cure—and she counted herself among the patients.
She honored the agreement. Daisy didn't go back on her word. Elektra received her thirty percent cut of the advertising revenue—scattered across various deals, Danger had wired approximately forty-five million to her accounts. Fury had received thirty million. The remainder was Daisy's own hard-earned cut.
None of it was traceable money. Elektra didn't care—the Chaste had channels for cleaning funds, and forty-five million was serious money for the organization. Host and guest parted in excellent spirits, and even the memory of three months of enforced domestic service stopped being quite so painful.
Elektra still needed to lay low at the villa for a few more days while the noise outside settled.
After settling Elektra's accounts, Daisy remembered: Captain America wasn't on Skye Pictures' payroll. His wages and residuals had to be processed as a personal contractor arrangement. She handed Steve Rogers a bank card.
For a man reportedly tough enough to trade punches with gods, Rogers' face lit up like a child on Christmas morning. New York rents were genuinely brutal.
"Oh—could you write down my number? I just got a phone." He produced a device that looked like it had been designed at least fifteen years ago. For Steve, that was almost fashionable.
"Uh, sure. Okay." She'd started to wave it off, but one look at his completely earnest expression—genuinely pausing and waiting for her to take out her phone—and the dodge wouldn't stick. She pulled out her phone.
"678-136-7092. Got it? And give me yours—in case I need to reach you."
Cap's particular brand of earnestness defeated her entirely. That absolute, thoroughgoing kind of defeat. She exchanged numbers with the man, checked them twice over, and saw the great American hero out with a quiet sense of resigned amusement.
---
That weekend, Daisy made an announcement.
"Let's go on a trip. Christmas is coming, New York's getting cold—two weeks somewhere south."
"Really?!" Lorna's eyes went comically wide. She knew Daisy's temperament intimately. This was a woman who would rather take a nap than leave the house. "Are you sure?"
"Completely sure. We have a very large aircraft. Anywhere we want."
She'd originally planned to purchase a private jet and a yacht—had scouted suppliers, started preliminary price negotiations—but those plans dissolved entirely the moment she took the Deputy Director position. Why buy when the role came with a vehicle? That would be wasteful.
Zephyr One. Coulson's aircraft in another life, just off the assembly line, now being requisitioned as vacation transport. Her Level 10 clearance would file it under "inspection tour" afterward. Nobody was going to argue.
"Can I bring some friends?"
"Of course."
After confirming this twice and satisfying herself that Daisy hadn't said it under some impaired state, Lorna launched into organizing.
Mary Jane was the first call. Then Jessica Jones, then Peter Parker. The second joint expedition of the unofficial girls-and-friends squad was officially underway.
News that Daisy welcomed a larger group turned a controlled invitation into a cascade. Mary Jane brought Dagger. Peter invited Cloak—Tyrone Johnson—and Harry Osborn.
That many kids going anywhere generated the inevitable parental chain reaction. Ben Parker reached out to the school. Which meant Principal Coulson was informed.
"You're coming too?" Daisy's expression fell slightly when she learned Coulson intended to join her Christmas celebration. The event had a scope problem.
"Many of the students' parents have work commitments and can't travel. As school principal, it's my responsibility to provide guardian supervision during the trip." His reasoning was entirely sound. His name went on the list.
"That said..." He paused, trying his luck. "This isn't a briefing, is it? I don't suppose I could bring one more person?"
The cellist girlfriend made the list.
Then the roster hit its vertical phase.
Daisy invited Hill—Sharon's advice, goodwill maintenance. Sharon herself wasn't returning to England for Christmas and slipped herself in. Black Widow appeared with a simple announcement: "I need to talk to you. I'm coming." Hawkeye added himself, his wife, and his kids.