[ Abandoned Warehouse, Tokyo Outskirts ]
Seeing Daisy's slender palm once again gracing her skin, Madame Viper's composure finally cracked.
"I say, I say!" she blurted, voice tight with barely masked panic.
Madam Viper mentally weighed her rapidly dwindling options. With a dry lick of her lips, she finally croaked, "Someone in your SHIELD wants you dead."
Daisy tilted her head, intrigued but not entirely surprised. The theory made enough sense. It wasn't the answer she was fishing for, but she played along. "Who is it?"
Names flickered through her mind—Alexander Pierce, her old pal Bald Brother Sitwell, even Grant Ward, who was now more famous for outrunning dinosaurs than telling the truth. All of them were potential backstabbers. But they couldn't command Madame Viper.
After all, Madame Viper wasn't some mid-tier assassin. She wasn't just a pawn—she was Madame Hydra material. Someone of her standing wouldn't take orders from anyone beneath her, certainly not from Pierce. It was like asking the CEO to fetch coffee.
Daisy, cautious of a surprise poison spray, repositioned herself behind the infamous serpent. With a gentle touch, she began tracing the elegant curvature of Madame Viper's spine, a ghost of pressure trailing down to make her flinch just enough.
"Who asked you to kill me?" she asked softly, voice dipped in silk and threat.
Madame Viper clenched her jaw. It wasn't the touch that unsettled her—though being caressed like that by another woman did trigger some internal alarms—it was the memory of being zapped. She wasn't eager to relive that shocking experience, literally or figuratively.
After a quick inner debate on who she could afford to throw under the metaphorical bus, she settled on a name and groaned theatrically. "Maria Hill! It was Hill. She sent me the mission."
Daisy blinked. Hard.
What?
She almost laughed out loud but managed to mask it. Maria? Her Maria? The woman who screamed "I'm gonna die!" during horror movies and blushed like a schoolgirl when Daisy teased her? Yeah, right. The woman couldn't even lie about finishing her coffee, let alone pull Hydra strings behind SHIELD's back.
But Daisy played along, curious how deep the rabbit hole of lies would go.
"Maria Hill and I are pretty close," Daisy said, her voice airy but carrying an edge of amusement. "Why would she want me dead?"
Madame Viper, blind to Daisy's growing sarcasm, charged ahead like a hopeful con artist. "Because you took her position as adjutant. She was furious and decided to use me, an outsider, to get revenge."
Daisy raised an invisible brow. "I took her position? That's funny—I don't remember a promotion."
"Nick Fury has a set of secret files," Viper rushed. "You're listed as his top priority. He values you more than anyone."
Ah, now that was new.
Sure, it was hard to believe she'd become Fury's golden girl, especially when he treated her more like an accidental intern than a rising star. But it made sense in a twisted way. SHIELD was a crumbling mansion held up by lies and secrets. If she had more authority, she could finally make things move her way.
Viper, sensing she'd struck a chord, began to embellish. She wove a tale involving seduction and stolen intel from a SHIELD higher-up—spicy, colorful, and almost believable if Daisy weren't already ten steps ahead.
Daisy smiled to herself. The Hill story was nonsense, but she noted the rest. Most of it checked out, especially the part about Fury's files.
Then came the bargaining.
"Let me go," Madame Viper said, mustering every drop of charm she could summon. "My connections can help you rise quickly within SHIELD. I'm… persuasive."
Daisy blinked.
Wait a minute… wasn't this the same garbage she had fed Bald Brother Sitwell a year ago? Word for word, even! Honestly, if Madame Viper was going to recycle her lines, she could at least add some flair.
Sure, using Hydra's ladder would be an express route to the top, but it came with venom. And mutual trust? That didn't exist between vipers and quake-powered badasses.
She could've asked about the Yashida family's goods, but honestly? Work stuff. Meh. Not urgent.
Instead, Daisy had something else in mind—something personal.
She leaned in, voice low. "I'll let you go. But I have a condition."
Madame Viper straightened. The tension in her body was sharp enough to slice titanium.
"Name it."
"You help me find someone," Daisy said, eyes narrowing, "and then come with me to a location. That's your ticket to freedom."
A long silence followed. Thirty seconds of total stillness, like the calm before a really dramatic monsoon.
Finally, Viper asked, "Who are we looking for?"
Daisy pulled out her tablet, tapped swiftly, and flipped it around. A photo of a dark-skinned man in military gear stared back.
"Eric Killmonger."
Madame Viper had prepared for the worst—maybe being asked to betray Pierce, or track down Baron Strucker himself. But this?
She scrutinized the image. A military man. Huh.
She sighed with relief.
Nope. Didn't know him.
"Graduated Annapolis at nineteen. Master's from MIT. Navy SEAL. Served in Afghanistan and Iraq," Daisy continued. "His unit's buried under military black ops. I can't get his location. But you can."
Military secrecy was a pain. SHIELD and the Pentagon had an uneasy truce, not much info flowed between them. But Hydra? Oh, they had eyes and ears in places Daisy couldn't reach. If anyone could find this man, it was Madame Viper.
"As long as he's still on Earth, I can find him," Viper said, her voice shifting back to confidence. "Then what? Where are we going?"
Daisy smirked but said nothing. Wakanda wasn't a name she was ready to drop yet. Too many variables. Too many risks.
Dragging Viper along served two purposes: a bodyguard and a convenient scapegoat. If things went sideways, well… she could always blame the snake.
Her real plan was elegant in its chaos: let Madame Viper stir the pot, swoop in as the savior, grab some vibranium, and leave with a few new allies. Simple. Clean. Bloody, maybe. But effective.
If things went south and Wakanda ended up fighting Hydra's Japanese branch in a river of blood? That wasn't her problem.
Not her circus. Not her samurai.
She had a mission—and a snake on a leash.
For now.
To be continued...
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[ POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS ]