Daisy's theory was completely sound. The lab director on the other end was baffled — why had the general asked such a basic question and then hung up without another word?
"Dereliction of duty! This is dereliction of duty! They had the research and never told me!" Ross slammed both fists on the desk.
Daisy kept her expression neutral, though inwardly she scoffed. More likely you never thought to ask, General.
Departments weren't sharing intelligence; laboratory findings weren't being translated into battlefield capabilities. The Pentagon had been thoroughly bureaucratized. But she said nothing, content to watch the old man's performance.
Ross put on an Oscar-worthy display of righteous fury. Whether anyone believed him was beside the point — he had no choice but to play the victim. Anything less, and the years of fruitless pursuit, the staggering cost in military and civilian property... add it all up and hanging Thaddeus Ross wouldn't have been an overreaction.
With the operation imminent, Ross consulted several military scientists. He didn't mention the Hulk — he simply asked about the effects of color on brain function. Every answer was essentially the same: This is well-established science. There's nothing to debate.
"Fine. Colonel Fury and Major Johnson will join the operation. And shelve the full-scale plan."
Fury nodded. That god-forsaken air-land-sea assault plan had been fed to the shredder long ago. Cold-blooded as he was, even he wouldn't throw soldiers' lives away when a simpler option existed.
"Remember our priorities. Remember an agent's first duty," Baldy reminded Daisy as they prepared to move out.
First duty? Daisy thought for a moment. Self-preservation. Right? Baldy was telling her that if the capture went sideways, Step One was getting him out alive.
Satisfied she understood the boss's intent, Daisy smiled and nodded.
Ross's personal troops were elite to a man — they assembled fast, moving like wild donkeys at a gallop. Then again, the slow ones had probably been killed by the Hulk already.
Among the ranks, one man drew the eye. Middle-aged, square-jawed, average build — the kind of unremarkable figure who'd vanish in a crowd.
But the moment he shifted into combat mode, his entire bearing transformed. His eyes blazed with a predatory intensity; every glance carried the aura of a lone wolf — fangs still sharp, hunting instincts sharper than ever.
Nick Fury knew every elite soldier on the planet. He could recite American military dossiers in his sleep.
The newcomer in the group, however, needed an introduction. Apparently keen to show off his forces, Ross gestured toward the man and told Daisy: "That's Captain Blonsky. With his record he could've made colonel years ago, but he's turned down every promotion to stay on the front line. A fine soldier."
Daisy nodded politely. Blonsky didn't impress her much. Before the serum he'd been a top-tier soldier, nothing more. He'd clearly received the watered-down Super Soldier serum by now, but without gamma-ray exposure he was just an oversized infantryman. Nothing to write home about.
The weakened serum had boosted his physical capabilities beyond his former peak. Impressive on paper — but a closer look revealed the side effects already taking hold. The dark impulses Blonsky normally kept buried were starting to surface; for now, brute willpower held them in check.
This cut-rate Super Soldier couldn't hold a candle to Captain America. Daisy could handle ten of him.
Ross was cautiously optimistic, but decades of habit kept him disciplined. He assigned tasks to his men following standard operating procedure, then invited Fury and Daisy to participate in the capture operation.
The Pentagon sat just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., technically within Virginia state lines.
And the Hulk's current location? The University of Virginia. Ross had pinpointed Bruce Banner's whereabouts.
The group boarded two C-17 transports and touched down at the target zone before long.
Daisy watched soldiers fan out to set up ambush positions, and frowned. She turned to Ross. "General, are you sure you want to execute an apprehension operation on a university campus?"
It wasn't Yale, Princeton, or Harvard, but the University of Virginia still ranked among the New Ivy Twenty-Five. Engaging the Hulk — a walking nuclear weapon — in an environment like this? If there were casualties, the political fallout would be catastrophic.
Daisy had been aggressively building her reputation in political and academic circles. She refused to let her name appear alongside a headline reading Virginia Campus Massacre.
Ross said nothing. Blonsky, standing at his side, couldn't contain himself. He still hadn't figured out what Fury and Daisy actually were. Military? They weren't in uniform. Government? Possible — Daisy certainly looked the part.
"Do either of you understand the concept of following orders? This is a military operation!" The bootleg Super Soldier serum was making him irritable, though he still had enough self-control to keep it in check.
Daisy ignored him entirely and held Ross's gaze. If the general insisted on engaging inside the campus, she would withdraw from the operation on the spot.
"All right. Abort Plan A. We go with Plan B." Ross had originally been prepared to burn everything — career, reputation, the works. Now that the situation looked less dire, political consequences mattered again.
When Blonsky tried to argue, Ross cut him off.
"Plan B. That's an order!"
Blonsky snapped a reluctant salute and stalked off to pull his men back. As he turned, a flash of bitter resentment crossed his eyes — the frustrated aggression of a man with no outlet for his anger. Beneath it lay something rawer: contempt, and the conviction that he knew better.
Apart from Nick Fury — who had been hiding in the shadows the whole time, doing his best impression of a transparent man — Blonsky now resented both General Ross and Daisy.
"A fine soldier indeed." Daisy wasted no time putting in a bad word, echoing Ross's earlier praise with dripping sarcasm.
White-haired and white-bearded, Ross had naturally caught Blonsky's expression. He wasn't concerned. Plenty of people resented him. One more hardly mattered.
He leaned in and lowered his voice. "I need you to protect my daughter during Plan B. That's my only request."
Daisy, of course, knew exactly who his daughter was — Betty Ross, the future Red She-Hulk. If memory served, Betty would marry Coulson's buddy, Air Force Brigadier General Talbot, sometime soon. That marriage would eventually fall apart, and she'd circle back to Bruce Banner.
But this was foreknowledge she shouldn't possess. Even a senior agent wouldn't necessarily know the identity of General Ross's daughter. So she turned to Fury.
"I'm told the Hulk is currently with Betty Ross," Fury said, his tone carefully vague — as if the tangled family dynamics were someone else's problem. "This one's yours. You're both women; you'll have more to talk about."