Ajax and Lady Deathstrike had expected the hostility. They didn't rise to it. In their minds, ordinary soldiers resented what they couldn't have. Ajax ran his tongue slowly along the blade of his axe.
Idiots. That was Daisy's verdict.
Stryker had miscalculated. If his two fighters put on a dominant performance here, the DoD would start worrying about the power he held. If they failed to drop the Abomination after all that investment, the DoD would write him off as incompetent—all that funding for this? He was staring straight ahead as if he hadn't noticed the standoff between his operatives and the Delta soldiers.
Daisy didn't add to it. She pulled out her phone and started playing a game.
She was mid-run when Stryker's voice reached her.
"Miss Johnson has a remarkable scientific mind," he said, tone pleasantly calculated. "Spending it as an agent seems like a waste. Have you ever considered research?"
She glanced up and gave him a faint smile. She didn't bother working out whether he was trying to sow discord or had some other ulterior motive. She answered with a line she'd borrowed from Stark: "You can't afford me."
That was simply a fact. SHIELD's operational budget versus Weapon X's—there was no comparison. Go work in that lousy program and spend every day torturing kids? No thanks. And even setting money aside, agents could move into the public sphere—Secretary Gates was a perfect example, from the CIA straight to the Department of Defense. Daisy could follow that same path. Going to work in a program built on human experimentation, though, would be a permanent stain. The kind you couldn't wash off regardless of how you tried. Anyone with options chose differently.
Her refusal surprised no one on the transport.
The aircraft landed. Delta split off one squad toward the Leader's last known position; the main force followed blood trails and satellite coordinates to track the Abomination.
They caught up with him thirty minutes after the missile strikes.
Ajax went in first.
The Abomination was in rough shape—one arm hanging at his side, unresponsive. His regeneration wasn't at Hulk's level; between the base super-soldier serum and an incomplete transformation, his body couldn't patch itself fast. He was operating on veteran instinct and spite.
"Die!" Ajax had been sitting on his rage since the Pentagon. Now he had somewhere to put it. He gripped the alloy axe in both hands and drove it straight down at the Abomination's skull—no feints, no setup, full commitment.
Lady Deathstrike came in like a metal cyclone beside him, five adamantium claws slashing toward the Abomination's eyes.
The fight went white-hot immediately.
At full strength, the Abomination could have handled both of them without much trouble. Even now, he was barely coping—mostly relying on experience to stay in the fight.
But he was struggling.
"Get. Off."
He forced his damaged arm back into service, drove both palms together in a thunderous clap. The pressure wave hurled Ajax off his feet; the shockwave broke Lady Deathstrike's rhythm for a critical half-second.
He shook them loose and turned to run—
—and walked straight into a wall of gunfire. Delta Force had anticipated his escape route. Every barrel was aimed for the eyes, the mouth, the throat.
From a comfortable distance, Daisy and Fury were contributing their own shots. Symbolic contributions, more than anything. She only realized when she looked left that Stryker had done exactly the same—pistol in hand, shooting from well out of danger.
The three of them happily slacked off. They caught each other's eye and kept firing.
Ajax and Lady Deathstrike closed in again. Delta did what it could at this level of engagement, which wasn't much—mostly rocket fire whenever the Abomination tried to break containment.
Daisy knew the Delta unit. As a career soldier, Blonsky knew them too. With his full strength, he could have wiped out the hundred-plus troops around him—but Ajax and Lady Deathstrike were keeping him pinned, catching him with adamantium every time he tried to push through. He was being worn down.
Neither of them had shown everything yet.
Ajax hadn't opened with his real top speed. Lady Deathstrike hadn't exposed the fact that her body could take hits that should end a fight. They were waiting for the right moment.
Then the Abomination grabbed a soldier.
One hand on the man's head. One hand on his boots. He pulled.
The sound was wet and final. Blood soaked into the dirt. He reached for a second man—
Lady Deathstrike stepped into his path.
He didn't think. He punched.
She took it square to the body—no dodge, no deflection. Five claws punched five holes through his abdomen in the same motion.
He hadn't expected that. Ajax brought the axe across his neck while he was still processing it—brutal, arterial. Blood sprayed in a wide arc. The Abomination lost the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Fury had lowered his pistol and turned to Daisy.
"You know Johnny Storm?"
She wasn't sure where this was going. She fired twice in the Abomination's general direction and kept her eyes forward. "Yeah. Why?"
"Know anything about the original Human Torch?"
She thought for a moment. Jim Hammond—served in World War II, a couple of lines in a history book. She'd read them. She gave a nod.
Fury fired twice as well. His shots, like hers, were precise—better aim than Stryker, who had nearly winged Ajax.
Fury unlocked his phone and held out a photo. A middle-aged man, hollow-eyed, unkempt, wearing the expression of someone who hadn't slept well in a long time.
"That's Namor. Mutant—served in the Second World War. He and the original Human Torch have a long history, and not a good one. One of our agents spotted him in New York recently. I think he may be moving against Johnny."
He seemed to feel that wasn't enough context. "By Steve Rogers' account, Namor comes from the ocean—the lost civilization of Atlantis. Even after seventy years, his appearance hasn't changed much." A nod at the photo. "His mind seems... off. He's been wandering the coastline for some time now."
Fury sharing classified intelligence at this level—Daisy understood what that meant. They were building something between them. In the comics, Daisy Johnson and Nick Fury had a relationship somewhere between mentor and surrogate daughter; they were naturally, instinctively compatible. They weren't there yet, but the foundation was being laid.
She studied Namor's face and said the word Atlantis quietly to herself, absorbing it. The existence of a civilization like that was a lot to fold into her model of the world.
"Keep an eye on it," Fury said. "If they don't get into it, no need to involve yourself."
"Understood."
She took the assignment. Maintaining what they'd built mattered more than the inconvenience.