Tony Stark strode into the room with quick, easy steps, scanning every face in a single sweep. Wesley got a glance and was filed as irrelevant. Maki earned a fraction of a second's consideration and was passed over. Then there was the woman sitting in the center, and that was where his attention landed.
He smoothed his jacket — an almost reflexive performance of composure — and extended his hand toward Daisy.
"Miss Johnson. Pleasure to meet you."
Daisy felt the unmistakable twitch of a vein above her eye. The man radiated one thing from every pore: look at me. Like a peacock whose entire evolutionary purpose was to display its feathers at all times. She wanted, briefly and sincerely, to drop him with a shockwave.
She did not do that. She shook his hand with the minimum of engagement required, and assessed the situation. Next to Pepper's polished efficiency and Obadiah's genuine gravitas, Tony Stark read as a nuisance. A vain, roving-eyed nuisance. His mind split cleanly into two categories — machines and women — and when the machines won, he forgot what he'd been trying to accomplish with the women.
Apparently needing to establish his dominance, Stark started the moment he sat down, lobbing rapid-fire questions. Daisy fielded them one at a time.
Then: "Data analytics — not exactly cutting-edge, is it? Your approach to information processing is pretty crude, honestly. Now, if I were handling this..." He abandoned all pretense of diplomacy and proceeded to dismantle their methodology in front of everyone, point by point, with calm certainty.
Daisy let herself have a quiet, cold laugh. Of course he looked down on data analytics — he had JARVIS. Must be very comfortable up there.
While Stark held forth, the energy in the room quietly deflated. Fortunately, the analysis completed soon after.
The result gave Daisy pause.
The region currently offering Stark Industries the highest expansion potential: Afghanistan.
He went to sell weapons in Afghanistan. And my analysis sent him there.
She sat with that for a moment. She'd thought of herself as a participant in this story. Now she was beginning to wonder if she'd co-authored part of it.
"You've been overlooking the Afghan market entirely? No prior business in the region?" she probed, keeping her tone neutral.
"Our focus has historically been the Americas and Africa," Obadiah said, his phrasing measured, several things carefully left unsaid. Daisy sensed there were internal reasons — and none of them were her business.
She pointed to the output on the screen. "Based on the model, local conflict intensity is escalating. U.S. forces have already contracted their defensive perimeter to a handful of major cities. Local militias are in urgent need of weapons — specifically anything capable of deciding a fight in a single decisive strike. Missiles, primarily."
"As the conflict deepens, that demand expands. Radar systems, rifles, armored vehicles — anything that belongs on a modern battlefield. This region will generate consistent returns for Stark Industries over a sustained period."
She delivered it cleanly. The fate of ordinary Afghans wasn't part of the analysis.
Clap. Clap.
Obadiah applauded, slow and deliberate. The assessment was precise. It aligned with instincts he'd been nursing quietly for some time. Hearing it articulated by an outside party gave it a clarity he found useful — it provided language he could use in other rooms.
He didn't wait for Tony. "Stark Industries will retain Skye Analytics as a formal consulting partner at one-and-a-half million dollars per year. For today's session, we'll add three hundred thousand as a one-time fee."
Tony's expression flickered with mild irritation. A simple data run — he could produce the same output in an afternoon. It wasn't worth applauding. But Obadiah had decided, and one-and-a-half million was pocket change. He didn't object.
Business done. Handshakes. Departure. A company Skye Analytics' size didn't get wined and dined by Stark Industries. They went home.
On the way out, Tony fell into step beside Daisy and asked, with the ease of someone accustomed to yeses, whether she'd like to get dinner. She declined before he'd finished the sentence. He shrugged — apparently unmoved — and turned back.
First contact with Tony Stark: concluded. Neither side was particularly impressed with the other.
Back at the office, the team held a brief debrief.
Big data as a model was becoming visible. Other actors were already studying their approach and developing competing algorithms. Daisy told Wesley to start adjusting their strategic direction — yield ground in the general market where necessary, and use their early-mover advantage to drive hard into the medical sector.
People would pay a premium for quality healthcare guidance. Life was finite and irreplaceable. That made it the most captive market of all.
"Recruit aggressively. We have money now. The company has to scale up." She wrapped up with that, glanced around, and asked if there was anything else.
Wesley cleared his throat. "A capital investment firm reached out a few weeks back — they expressed interest in funding us."
"Which one?"
He checked his notes. "Echidna Capital Management. Headquartered in the northeast. Focused on genomics, new media, and nanotechnology. Very well-funded."
Daisy paused. Something shifted in her expression — not quite amusement.
She recognized that name. Shortly after arriving in this world, she'd done deep research on HYDRA's financial architecture. Typhon Group, Echidna Capital — names straight out of Greek mythology. HYDRA always loved the symbolism. Echidna's two founding partners were nominally S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on the surface.
Now Daisy herself was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. That changed the calculus.
Absorbing an obscure startup was one thing. Absorbing the company of a newly enrolled S.H.I.E.L.D. operative was something else entirely. People still hidden in the shadows wouldn't burn their cover for a deal this small.
"They didn't follow up after that first contact, right?"
"Correct."
"Noted. Nothing to worry about. Everyone dismissed."
She finished the New York business, sat down to a dinner Maki had spent hours preparing, and drove back to the Academy.
Half an hour later, a five-hundred-word report materialized on Nick Fury's desk.
October. Washington was still warm outside, but the office was air-conditioned to the edge of cold. Fury sat behind his desk in his leather coat and felt none of it.
He read the report twice, from beginning to end.
Daisy had eviscerated Stark.
Petty. Vulgar. Lecherous. No capacity for cooperation. Obsessed with reputation over substance. Every line pointed toward the same unspoken conclusion: this man is a liability. If something happens to him in the field, do not send anyone in. Let him go.
Fury had no intention of treating this as the final word. But cross-referencing her assessment against everything S.H.I.E.L.D. had gathered through other channels — it wasn't inaccurate. More editorialized than a standard field report, but not inaccurate.
He signed off on it and filed it.
Then he turned to the real matter.
Three female students. All high-potential. All requiring careful thought about how and where to deploy them. He needed input from the elite agents who had observed all three up close.
To prevent any of them from coordinating their answers beforehand, he opened encrypted video channels and interviewed each one separately.