[ Restaurant, New York ]
Daisy was momentarily stunned. Wait—they also wanted to invest? Pepper Potts, the soon-to-be powerhouse behind Stark Industries, really did have a sixth sense for business. The movie had absolutely zilch to do with her current industry, and yet, she'd sniffed out potential like a truffle pig in Louboutins. There hadn't been any public audience tests or box office predictions, yet she saw through the fog. Brilliant woman. Pity SHIELD had looked at Daisy like she was pitching a Sharknado sequel.
Daisy glanced down, considering. Should she take the money? Or flex her own queenly bank account?
Tony leaned over to whisper to Pepper, skepticism all over his smug billionaire face. "You sure this has commercial potential?"
Pepper didn't even blink. She simply nodded. Just one nod. Confident. Chic. Game-changing.
Tony cleared his throat dramatically, did a complete 180, and declared, "We're in. How much are we talking?"
Daisy raised a brow, amused. "I've already raised 55 million dollars…"
That number hit Tony like a hammer in the ego. Sure, he had money, plenty of it, but most of it was still tied up under the ever-watchful, sweaty hands of Obadiah Stane. Anything above pocket change needed board-level clearance. A few million? He could do that with flair. But tens of millions? That was paperwork, meetings, groveling. Ugh.
Small shareholder status? His pride gagged.
Daisy couldn't resist the urge to immortalize this moment. She almost reached for her phone. When he finally took Obadiah down, she was going to make a scrapbook of his most awkward moments.
Cue the unexpected savior: Happy Hogan, the faithful bodyguard with a surprisingly sensitive soul and a not-so-secret love for the arts.
"If I go off to make movies, who's gonna protect Mr. Stark?" he said with genuine worry, though there was a twinkle in his eye. The man was tempted.
Daisy chuckled inwardly. Happy was sweet, loyal—but let's be real, Fitzsimmons probably had better takedown skills. Still, she respected his loyalty.
Tony clapped the man's back with his usual dramatics. "Go do something that makes you happy. I'm headed to Asia anyway. The Ministry of Defense boys can babysit me for a bit."
With Stark's blessing and Daisy offering him the assistant director spot (she had a flair for knowing how to hook people), Happy agreed. And just like that, Hollywood had a new recruit.
Tony strutted off and Daisy chatted a bit more with both Happy and Pepper.
While Pepper couldn't invest directly, the gears in her genius brain were turning. She saw gold in merchandising.
Daisy was impressed—again. Maybe too impressed. "Who needs psychic powers when you have Pepper Potts?" she muttered to herself.
They agreed the details could wait until post-production. Merchandising was a beast of its own.
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[ A Week Later ]
Negotiations with the Costa Rican government wrapped up quicker than a SHIELD cover-up. All they needed was permission to rent out an island. Compared to SHIELD's previous excuses of nuclear waste and biochemical leaks, "We're shooting a movie" sounded downright wholesome.
The SHIELD agents assigned were unexpectedly enthusiastic. Even the external hires were top-tier talent. It was shaping up like clockwork. Less than two weeks in, and the set was already humming with productivity.
Sure, there was still construction work needed to shape the island into a cinematic dream. But with SHIELD's "get-it-done-yesterday" efficiency, they were miles ahead of schedule.
Daisy left her capable friend Sharon in charge as assistant director to run the island show, while she and her team zipped off to Yale to film the interior scenes.
Coulson and Happy—dubbed "the odd couple of the director's chair"—were surprisingly effective. They didn't know what they were doing, but they had heart, and somehow that translated into smooth coordination. Filming was flying.
With things stable on set, Daisy turned her attention to her side hustle: quantum mechanics with one very enthusiastic old man.
Dr. Hank Pym had pulled a few strings and gotten her an official student identity at Yale. If she stuck it out long enough, she could flaunt a Yale degree on her résumé. And let's face it, that looked a lot shinier than "freelance queenpin."
She split her days between sneaking onto set and cozy dinners with her black-haired goddess of an agent, Maria Hill—who always had the uncanny ability to look devastatingly hot while being terrifyingly competent.
The rest of Daisy's time was spent nose-deep in theory with Dr. Pym.
"Quantum mechanics," Hank Pym began one day with the gravity of a man announcing the apocalypse, "is the foundation of all modern science. Remember this. It's the language of art, the spine of civilization!"
Hank continued. "Our chemistry, biology, medicine, even the electronics revolution—everything traces back to quantum theory."
Honestly, his speech wasn't new. Daisy had read similar manifestos in more than one theoretical physics paper. But she appreciated the passion.
Then he caught her off guard.
"What's the nature of your superpower?"
Daisy's eyes flicked up. Damn. She hadn't exactly been hiding it, but she hadn't been waving it around either.
"I've seen plenty of special people," Hank said calmly. "When you took down Dr. Eggman using what you claimed was 'creative tactics,' I started suspecting. Pym particles aren't exactly child's play. If you really beat him... then you've got something up your sleeve."
She scratched her head sheepishly. "Vibration manipulation."
His eyes gleamed. "Vibration? Fascinating. Can you scale it—large or small?"
"In theory, yes. But I've been focusing on micro-control. Less stress on the body, more finesse. Trying to avoid... exploding."
Pym grinned, eyes twinkling like a mad scientist on Christmas. "Planck's radiation law. Total energy of a vibrating system can't change continuously. It jumps. That's how quantum works. Now tell me—can you prove it?"
Before she could answer, he was off like a shot.
"Einstein's 1905 paper on light quanta proposed that light doesn't just flow—it moves in packets. Photons. Energy equals frequency times Planck's constant: E = hv. If you reverse-engineer that with your power, measure the vibration frequency by dividing energy by Planck's constant…"
He scribbled furiously, muttering under his breath.
"If we can validate this through your ability," he said, "we're not just pushing science—we're kicking it into warp speed. Space tech, medical applications, even new weapon systems. A leap."
Daisy leaned back in her chair, arms folded, lips twitching in thought. He was nuts. Brilliant, ancient, unstoppable.
And he wasn't wrong.
Her green eyes glittered, deep in thought. Maybe she could use her power to validate quantum assumptions. Maybe she'd start publishing papers under a pseudonym. Maybe "Professor Quake" had a nice ring to it.
She didn't interrupt. Dr. Pym was in his element, scribbling calculations with manic joy.
And she? She was thinking about the theories that Dr. Pym had told her with her supernatural powers.
To be continued...
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[ POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS ]