One hour later, inside the secret base Nick Fury had codenamed "the Cocoon," an agent handed him an investigation report.
"No ID. No Social Security number. No fingerprint records on file." Fury flipped through the dossier and scratched his head. How was he supposed to track someone who didn't exist on paper?
"No social footprint either." Daisy set her laptop aside. Facial recognition was useless—the man was a ghost. Zero social activity. Didn't matter how advanced the software was.
Hawkeye floated a suggestion: trace the target through his clothing, gear, even individual weapon components. Solid in theory, but a slog in practice—a blunt instrument when they needed a scalpel.
"I'll handle this personally." That was Fury's way of telling the two of them they were dismissed. Hawkeye took the jet back to HQ; Daisy waved goodbye and headed home.
She didn't know much about Namor from memory. The man had a laundry list of physical enhancements—superhuman strength, superhuman endurance, underwater speed that left everyone else in the dust. And unlike his DC counterpart Aquaman, he could fly. That part always surprised people.
Daisy's impression of Namor was not a flattering one. Hot-tempered, reckless, prone to what could generously be called intermittent episodes of instability—and on top of all that, genuinely not very bright. He ran with the superhero crowd without a shred of heroic conviction. Flooding Wakanda, killing untold civilians—that was his doing. If it weren't for his title as Prince of Atlantis, he'd never have earned a seat at the Illuminati table.
Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes truth. Daisy had told so many people she was a friend of Wakanda that she'd almost started believing it herself. The flood hadn't happened yet—but her instinctive dislike of Namor felt bone-deep regardless.
The next morning she dressed like a civilian: plain T-shirt, ripped jeans, canvas sneakers. She walked with her phone out like she was doing nothing at all.
Namor was drifting about a hundred meters ahead.
The down-and-out middle-aged man was built like a tank—towering, thickly muscled, radiating coiled power. But his appearance was a disaster. His hair and beard had merged into a single unkempt mass; from a distance he looked like a homeless man who'd wandered off from somewhere.
Daisy studied his ears carefully. They were pointed—she could just make out the unusual profile beneath the dense tangle of hair.
His eyes were vacant. He drifted through the streets in a daze, and only when he caught sight of Human Torch on a television screen did something flicker behind them. Something like thought.
Three days of tailing him, and Daisy was starting to feel like Fury had played her. Yes, Namor reacted to Human Torch—but "reacted" was generous. He wasn't anywhere close to starting trouble. How long was she supposed to keep this up?
Because it was a covert surveillance op, she couldn't hand it off to her S.H.I.E.L.D. subordinates.
With Namor showing no sign of making a move, Daisy ran out of patience. She wanted this resolved quickly—and since a mutant element was involved, she reached out to Jean Grey specifically to talk strategy.
The two weren't close, but Storm had served as a bridge between them. They weren't strangers either.
Daisy picked a coffee shop. Jean arrived looking exactly as she always did—serene, composed, red hair loose around her shoulders, a dress and shoulder bag combination that said knowledgeable and elegant. The picture of effortless refinement.
"Namor?" Jean paused at the name, working through her memory. "He's still alive?"
A figure from seventy years ago—she'd never met him personally. But Jean held doctoral degrees in history, human genetics, and medicine, among others, plus a significant portion of Professor Xavier's collected research files. She could recall quite a lot with only a moment's effort.
"Very much alive. His mental state isn't great, though." Daisy laid it out plainly. "I need him out of New York. I'm worried he's going to tear something apart. Any chance you can use your telepathy to nudge him along—point him somewhere remote?"
If Daisy's own telepathy were any stronger, she'd have sent Namor packing days ago. One well-placed suggestion and he'd be off to Siberia to go bother Ivan Vanko or something.
Professor Xavier's influence ran deep. Years of his particular brand of ethical instruction had made Jean extremely cautious about using her telepathic abilities. She wanted to see the situation herself before she committed to anything.
The two of them shadowed Namor from a distance. As the perfect host body for the Phoenix Force—even with ninety-nine percent of that power sealed away—Jean still commanded a formidable array of abilities. She had her own method for dampening her presence; if you weren't looking carefully, your brain simply passed over her without registering.
"That's a genuinely useful power," Daisy murmured admiringly.
The Phoenix Force was absurdly strong, no argument there. But the whole die, ascend to the White Hot Room, manage cosmic administration for eternity setup—that part Daisy could not get behind. Die and come back, come back and die, on an endless loop? That was torture dressed up as mythology.
She'd already made a quiet decision: the day she became S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, her first internal policy would be when I die, elect someone new immediately. Under no circumstances bring me back.
Neither woman mentioned her own abilities. They stayed focused on Namor.
The Phoenix Force delivered them an unexpected gift.
Namor's daily routine involved nothing more dramatic than drifting through the neighborhood to catch glimpses of Human Torch—television screens, news feeds, whatever was playing. That was it. But today, something found him instead.
"Listen here, kid—!" The Thing's rumbling baritone and Human Torch Johnny's voice rose simultaneously from somewhere down the street—the two of them carrying on like a comedy duo who'd lost the script.
Johnny, ever the instigator, had been poking at Ben for weeks. The Thing looked less and less like himself lately—slower, more confused—and Johnny seemed to find this funnier than he should. Even the mildest soul has a breaking point. Today, Ben hit his.
Mid-argument, his old instinct surfaced: his famous war cry. A hand the size of a dinner plate drew back and connected squarely with Johnny's perfectly sculpted jaw.
"Aunt Petunia says hello!"
The slap launched Johnny straight into his flamed-on state. Fire wreathed his entire body as he struggled to stabilize himself in the air. He was just opening his mouth to ask why Ben had hit so hard—when a gust of wind hit his ear, and combat instinct kicked in before his brain could catch up. He spun around—too late. A kick of enormous force caught him square in the back.
Johnny shot through the air like a cannonball and crashed directly through the front wall of a nearby clothing store. Customers and staff erupted in screams and sprinted for the exits.
By the time Johnny came blazing back out, Ben and Namor were already trading blows.
Ben was furious. Whatever happened between him and Johnny was family business—internal dispute, no one else's concern. Johnny was his little brother in everything but blood. And now some random stranger had kicked his little brother through a wall. That was not something Ben Grimm let slide. His fist came around in a wide arc aimed directly at Namor's head.
On a good day, Namor wasn't much of a strategic thinker. With his memory compromised, the word "good" no longer applied. He forgot entirely what he'd originally come here for and swung back.
Even without the Hulk's raw output, The Thing was a powerhouse—and against an amnesiac Namor, he took control of the fight quickly. The upper hand was his within minutes.
But as the exchange wore on, something began shifting. Seventy-plus years of accumulated combat technique slowly surfaced as Namor's body remembered what his mind had forgotten. His strength sharpened. His speed returned. Old instincts clicked back into place.
The balance of the fight tilted. Then tilted further. Ben, holding back to avoid leveling the block, found himself on the defensive.
Daisy watched from cover and made her decision.
"Jean? Ben's a good person. I think it's time."
She'd had reservations before. Now she had a collapsing building and a street full of civilians. That was more than enough.