Chapter Text
Yelena stared at her laptop screen in seething silence, twirling a pen between her fingers while she contemplated smashing the device sitting in her lap, her legs stretched out down one side of the large couch. ACCESS DENIED covered the screen in red letters, taunting her hacking skills, a reminder of the information that sat just beyond her grasp. Silently cursing Spider-Man for dangling this small—though admittedly slightly larger than first impressions had suggested—potato in front of her and managing to actually catch her interest, she reached for her phone. Glancing around the living room of the Watchtower, she fought an internal war over who she should call for a minute, but eventually tapped on her contact ‘Old Man,’ and sent him a message.
A few minutes later, Bucky, rubbing some sleep from his eyes—what a loser, it was barely midafternoon—walked into the living room. Sans left arm. It was probably in the dishwasher.
“Yelena, what do you need? Why are you sending me a message that just says ‘SOS’?” Bucky asked. He didn’t look or sound grouchy. She’d have to fix that.
“Hello, Bucky, you sound happy today, did you and Sam finally bury the hatchet, reunite, and go on a date?” Yelena asked, smirking.
“What do you want?” Bucky asked.
“I need you to convince me not to get in touch with my ex,” Yelena said.
“Your ex.”
“Yes. Like Sam is to you, except we were never married, so no custody battle, or—”
“I know what an ex is, Yelena, I’m surprised you have one,” Bucky snapped. There it was, now he was grouchy. That was much better.
“It was a long time ago,” Yelena said, with a shrug.
“Okay. And they were… a bad partner? I don’t know why it’s important I convince you not to call them,” Bucky said. Hm. Less grouchy, more exasperated. That wouldn’t do.
“She was a pretty good partner while we were dating, but unfortunately, she’s a very capable hacker, and also very liable to hold it over my head if I admit I can’t do something,” Yelena explained, “But also unfortunately, I believe I am at an impasse and may need her help.”
A few seconds passed in silence, until eventually Bucky sighed, heavily. He did a lot of that.
“Are you aware that you have made so many jokes about Sam and me being divorced, that the other Avengers earnestly believe that he and I used to be married?” Bucky asked.
“Including Walker?” Yelena asked, a grin splitting her face.
“Yes. Very much including Walker.”
“That is hilarious, Bucky, that made my day much better, thank you,” Yelena said.
“Yeah, I’m not helping you,” Bucky said, and was about to leave, but paused. “Actually, matter of fact, I’m not only not going to help you, I think I need to bear witness to this.”
“Please don’t,” Yelena blurted out, before she could think through what she was saying.
“Oh, now I’m definitely staying,” Bucky said, dropping onto the couch near Yelena, and kicking his feet up.
“You know what? This thing I was looking into is actually a much smaller potato than I thought,” Yelena said, reaching to close her laptop.
“You’re a good liar, Yelena, but you aren’t that good,” Bucky cut in.
A long minute—which felt like an eternity to Yelena—passed in silence as the two of them just sat there.
“You’re really not going to leave?” Yelena asked.
“Definitely not.”
“And you’re not going to help me?”
“Definitely not.”
Groaning, Yelena slid lower in her seat, and begrudgingly reached for her phone. “I hate you.”
“Put it on speaker.”
…
“What the hell are you doing?! It’s just one girl!” a masculine voice shouted through a walkie talkie on Daisy’s belt, as she burst into a surgical suite, slamming the doors against the walls with loud, near-simultaneous bangs, and immediately vaulting herself up and over an operating table, boots slamming into the chest of a man holding a rifle. He went flying back into the wall, Daisy hit the ground, and rolled, popping to her feet and throwing a hand out. The room shuddered, vibrations leapt from her hand, another gunman was thrown back into another wall, and Daisy spun, ICER drawn, aimed, and fired all in the span of a single breath. A third gunman dropped to the ground in a heap.
The fourth managed to squeeze a few rounds off right as she fired, and her round caught him right on the chin. He went spinning, finger still squeezing the trigger, and plaster rained down as submachine gun rounds ripped a line across the ceiling. Daisy fired at the two men in crumpled, groaning heaps on the floor, and they stilled, leaving her as the lone person in the room still conscious. After a few seconds, she reached down to her belt, and smirked, pressing the call button on the walkie talkie.
“That one girl is kicking your ass,” Daisy said, her smirk widening when she heard the man on the other end cursing.
“How goes it, Agent Johnson?” Nick asked, the first time in a while that he’d checked in.
Daisy took a moment to glance around the room. As far as surgical suites went, it wasn’t remarkable. Sheet vinyl floors, cabinets of surgical implements, maneuverable overhead lighting, and plenty of free space. “I’m getting close,” she answered, heading for a different pair of swinging double doors than the ones she’d entered through. A quick peek around the corner with a handheld mirror revealed nobody in the hallway, so she slipped out, ICER raised.
“Good. Remember, we need the doctor alive, he’s our best lead on figuring out who the Power Broker is,” Nick said, in her earpiece.
“I’m using ICERs, Nick,” Daisy reminded him, as she drew level with the last door in the hallway. She pressed her hand against the door, and vibrations rippled out, through the door, down into the floor, across, up into everything in the room, and then back. She felt three men inside, all carrying weapons, all pointed at the door. Taking a step back, she was thinking through her strategy when she heard a ringtone in her earpiece.
Glancing around quickly, Daisy snuck her phone out of her pocket—just for a second, just to check who was calling—then shoved it back. “Hey, Nick, I gotta take this, I’ll call you right back.”
“Daisy, are you about to take a personal call in the middle of a mission?”
“Uh… yeah? Why, am I not supposed to?” Daisy asked, smirking, already bringing her hand up to her ear.
“No!”
“Wild. Anyway.”
“Motherf—”
Daisy tapped her earpiece before Nick could finish. A voice with an audible Russian accent replaced him a second later.
“Hello, is this still Skye’s number?”
“Oh, hello, Mara,” Daisy answered, “Or do you prefer Yelena Belova, these days?”
A moment passed in silence as Yelena slowly slid lower in her seat, sinking into the couch cushinos, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You have done your research,” she said, while Bucky gave her an incredulous look, mouthing ‘Mara?! Really?’
Searching through one of the pouches on her waist, Daisy pulled out a pair of metal disks, each about the size of a sticky note, and took a step back from the door. “Well, yeah. Not everyday that your ex shows up on TV as a member of the Avengers. Kinda felt like I needed to.” She brought her foot up and kicked, the hallway shuddered, and the door exploded, shrapnel filling the office on the other side.
Before anybody could react, Daisy tossed the two disks into the room, turned away, squeezed her eyes shut, and covered her ears. A second later, they went off with a pair of loud pops, and she spun back around, rushing into the room. One gunman was already on the floor, groaning, while the other two were recoiling, obviously disoriented. Firing twice, they both dropped to the floor in a heap, before she turned and made sure the third wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
“Sorry, are you busy?” Yelena asked, all too happy to jump on the chance to end the phone call, despite Bucky’s deadpan stare, “If this is a bad time—”
“No, no, you’re good, don’t worry about it,” Daisy said, examining the office. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a call from an Avenger?” The office wasn’t remarkable. Small, most of the space filled by a desk, or the bookshelves behind it. Except…
A few seconds passed in silence while Bucky’s stare bored a hole in the side of Yelena’s head, until eventually, she sighed. “I have been… looking into something. And have hit a dead end. I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me,” Yelena said.
“What have you been looking into?” Daisy asked, tracing her fingers across the spines of the books on one of the shelves. Suddenly, her eyes caught on a book. In a sea of medical journals and texts, a single copy of The Odyssey. A grin slowly crawled across her face as she reached out to pull on the book. Somewhere far back, behind the bookshelf, something clicked.
“Someone is attacking the DoDC,” Yelena said, “Spider-Man is very concerned and brought his concerns to me because he was hoping that I would help him. I told him that the New Avengers only deal with big potato problems, and that this Leshy he is trying to find is small potato.”
Hands on her hips, Daisy watched—with no small amount of satisfaction—as the bookshelf slowly slid backwards, then to the side, disappearing into an alcove cut into the wall. On the other side was another, larger office, populated solely by a bespectacled white man, hurriedly grabbing files from a cabinet and shoving them into a briefcase.
“Let me guess,” Daisy said, and the man’s head whipped up and around to look at her. His eyes had barely had a chance to widen before she’d squeezed off a few shots, and his white button-up was stained blue in several spots before he crumpled to the floor in a heap. “You were lying.”
“I was not lying!” Yelena exclaimed, “I told the truth. The Leshy is small potato. However, it is also interesting potato.”
“Right. But you can’t get into the DoDC servers,” Daisy guessed, walking over to the man on the ground. Grabbing his chin, she tilted his head to get a better look at his face, nodded to herself, and sent a message to Nick that read ‘All clear. Got Dr. Burstein.’
“…No. No, I cannot,” Yelena admitted, after some silent prompting from Bucky.
“And you want my help,” Daisy said.
“Yes.”
“Because I’m a better hacker than you,” Daisy said, eyebrows rising when silence followed.
“Do you see what I mean?” Yelena asked, after muting herself.
“But she is a better hacker than you?” Bucky asked.
“I refuse to admit that,” Yelena said.
“But she is.”
“You are a bastard,” Yelena said, pointing angrily at Bucky, who just shrugged. Groaning, Yelena finally unmuted. “Yes, I want your help because you are a better hacker than me.”
“I know, I just wanted to hear you say it,” Daisy said, grinning.
Yelena turned to give Bucky a deadpan stare and gestured wordlessly at her phone.
“Do you want to give me a hint at what you’re looking for on the DoDC servers, or do I just get to play ‘Where’s Waldo?’” Daisy asked.
“The leshy has attacked at least four DoDC locations. At the latest attack they looked for something called ‘V-Max.’ I do not know anything more than that,” Yelena answered.
“Fun! I get to go digging through the files of a government organization, looking for records of their misdeeds. This is gonna be just like old times,” Daisy said.
Yelena tilted her head to the side, like Fanny did when Yelena said any of her favorite words. “Old times?” she asked, “Has Skyenet gone white hat?”
Glancing at the unconscious man at her feet, Daisy laughed. “More like gray. I’ll call you when I find something.”
…
“There, was that so bad?” Bucky asked.
“It was torture.”
…
“Good job, Daisy,” Nick said, when she walked into their base. As far as secret bases went, it wasn’t bad. Although maybe she only thought that because she didn’t sleep there. Once upon a time it had been an apartment, but Nick had bought and renovated it not long after the Blip. It was pretty spacious, though it was lit solely by long, ballast lights that were either harsh or too dim, nowhere in between. The single window that looked up onto the New York sidewalk outside had long since been blocked off, not that Daisy would have been interested in watching millions of people walk by every day, on their way to and from the queer bar above them.
“Thanks, Nick,” Daisy said, heading for her desk, and her laptop—she’d give Nick credit, she didn’t agree with everything he said or did or his reasons for it, but the man definitely didn’t skimp on hardware—and plopping down into her office chair. Not far away, Maria was elbow-deep in cleaning a rifle, all the moving parts splayed out on a mat in front of her.
“Dr. Burstein is on his way to be interrogated, hopefully he’ll give us information, and we’ll see some meaningful movement on our investigation into the Power Broker,” Nick said, standing from his desk in the far back corner of the base to walk over and stand between Daisy and Maria’s desks, arms crossed, “If we don’t, Maria, you and I will probably have to go shake some trees.”
“Yeah, I’m not holding my breath on Burstein flipping,” Maria said, as she cleaned the bolt of the rifle.
“Hey, what do we think of the DoDC?” Daisy asked, in the momentary silence, leaning back in her chair, arms crossed. Maria stilled, glancing at Nick.
“Us, personally? Or SHIELD?” Nick asked.
“SHIELD, first,” Daisy said.
“The Department of Damage Control performs an important and vital purpose for American society,” Nick said, after a second of thought, “And SHIELD is committed to helping them serve the American people, same as we are committed to helping similar organizations do the same around the globe.”
“Sure,” Daisy said, eyes narrowing slightly, “And if I asked about personal opinions?”
“I’d tell you that my mother told me when I was young, that if I didn’t have anything kind to say, to keep it to myself,” Nick said.
“Mhm, got it,” Daisy said, spinning to face Maria and pointing at her, “Any opinions on the DoDC?”
“I think Bill Metzger is a liar and a jackass,” Maria said, without looking up from cleaning her rifle parts.
“You think everyone is a liar and a jackass,” Daisy shot back.
“And I have yet to be wrong,” Maria responded, blithely, “Are you defending a government agency?”
“Just pointing out a fact,” Daisy said.
“She’s right, you even think Carol’s a jackass,” Nick said.
“Well, to be fair, Carol’s kind of a jackass,” Daisy said. Maria finally raised her head to point wordlessly at Daisy, and Nick put his hands up in surrender.
“Why do you ask?” Nick asked.
“Because somebody called and asked me to dig into the DoDC, see what skeletons they’re hiding in their closet, and try to figure out why someone might be attacking them,” Daisy answered.
Nick nodded his head slowly. “Of course, officially, SHIELD maintains an amicable relationship with Damage Control, and I would obviously never sanction anything that could jeopardize that relationship. And I would certainly never tell you to maybe take a look first at Damage Control’s satellite detention centers.”
“What do you think they’re doing there?” Daisy asked.
Shrugging, Nick said, “I don’t know. I just know they seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure nobody knows. And I know facilities with building permits to construct on-site crematoriums are rarely above board. It just… raises some eyebrows.”
“Got it,” Daisy said, sitting forward and opening up her laptop. “Want me to tell you if I find anything?”
“No, I definitely don’t want you to keep everything you find on an external file that we keep here.”
Daisy gave Nick a thumbs up. “Got it.”