Melinda May trained with Daisy for two hours, stamped her with a mental "satisfactory," and left without another word.
No promise to return next week. No secret manual handed over. Just like that — May had appeared out of nowhere, decided Daisy was worth a few pointers, and vanished just as abruptly.
This had Fury's fingerprints all over it, and Daisy was certain of that. What else could it be? Just because they were both Chinese-American? Please. There were plenty of Chinese-Americans at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. Melinda May didn't have time to personally train every one of them.
Before the cafeteria closed, Daisy swung by and grabbed two slices of pizza, then headed back to her room.
Evening had settled in. In any city, eight or nine o'clock was prime time — but the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, while not a military base, still had most of its students retreating to their rooms by now.
Full and content, Daisy showered and went straight to bed.
Over the next few days, she eased into the rhythm of life here. Her relationship with Sharon Carter warmed gradually — both suspected the other was spying on them, so in a mutual effort to keep their respective handlers happy, they'd started putting on a convincingly close act. Somewhere along the way, it had become almost real. They talked about everything.
The Academy had no formal orientation ceremony. You showed up, and you started learning. The instructors followed their own syllabi without bending for anyone.
Missed something from last week? Don't understand a concept? Too bad — go teach yourself.
Daisy struggled. Nearly everyone else here held a college degree, sometimes two. She was a high school dropout wedged in among them, and the pressure was suffocating.
Still, her past-life knowledge gave her a foundation to stand on. Add in the minor cognitive boost from the Terrigen crystal exposure, and she could at least follow the classroom material — most of it, anyway.
The more time she spent with Sharon Carter, the more she realized Sharon's boasts — "I can learn anything, master everything" — were mostly hot air. Half the questions Daisy asked her, Sharon couldn't answer either.
"I watched you nodding along in class this whole time — I thought you understood it!" Daisy stared at her friend with barely-concealed frustration.
Sharon scratched her head sheepishly. "Quantum mechanics... look, it's not really practical, okay? I never dug into it much. So... sorry..."
She genuinely couldn't figure out why someone like Daisy — wild energy, knockout looks — would be studying quantum mechanics of all things. Wasn't that the domain of old men in lab coats?
Still, her boosted intellect helped. Even theory she didn't fully grasp, she could brute-force memorize, then retreat to her room and work through it in relation to her ability — hunting for overlaps, resonances.
Upgrading her sidearm was next on the list. Daisy signed off on the paperwork and drew a Chiappa Rhino revolver from the equipment office.
For the modification work, she turned to another familiar face — a stranger she knew all too well: Leo Fitz. Currently just another new student like her, but enrolled in the science track.
At this stage in his life, Fitz was a bit awkward. When Daisy knocked on his door, the curly-haired young man was tinkering with some gadget. He looked up once she explained what she needed, then immediately launched into it:
"That's a terrible weapon for practical use — especially for a woman. The recoil is excessive, the cylinder capacity is limited, and the mechanical failure rate is significantly higher than alternatives. Are you sure you don't want a small-caliber sidearm instead?" When it came to weapons and engineering, Fitz lit up like a circuit board, his voice carrying the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was talking about.
Daisy had expected this. She fed him a story — that she'd trained from childhood under a master of breathing techniques and internal cultivation, resulting in naturally exceptional wrist strength. The recoil was no issue for her.
"I see..." Fitz wasn't thrilled about taking the job, but he didn't know how to refuse. He took the revolver without another word.
Daisy pulled out her tablet. She'd drawn up a design herself — the external look lifted wholesale from Harley Quinn's Love/Hate revolver: white grip, black body, the word "LOVE" engraved on the left side of the cylinder, "HATE" on the right. She didn't need two types of ammo. Or the engraving, really. It was ninety-nine percent aesthetic.
With the gun in Fitz's hands, Daisy threw herself back into the grind of coursework.
One month later.
"Come on, move — war tactics class, now. Word is there's a big-name new student showing up today." One afternoon, while Daisy was buried in a textbook on wave function analysis and applications, Sharon Carter dragged her out of the library.
"Who? Someone more famous than you?" Daisy asked.
Sharon gave a self-deprecating smile and dodged the question.
When they reached the classroom and Daisy saw who stood at the center of the crowd, her brain stalled.
Maria Hill.
Wasn't she Nick Fury's deputy — the one he kept by his side for personal mentoring? What was she doing here, sitting through classes?
Hill wore the same standard-issue combat uniform as everyone else, hair in a ponytail, pale blue eyes fixed on the instructor. Her manner wasn't cold exactly — she could exchange pleasantries with anyone, and she did, politely. But there was a faint distance about her, the kind that made people think twice before getting too close.
Daisy and Sharon huddled to one side and whispered.
"You know who she is, right?" Sharon asked.
After more than a month here, playing clueless would be overdoing it. Daisy nodded. "Maria Hill. Wasn't she supposed to be the Director's deputy?"
A glint of satisfaction crossed Sharon's eyes. "Maybe she got fired."
Daisy doubted it. In her memory, Hill had served as deputy for a long stretch, then went on to become Deputy Director, and later Acting Director. Getting sacked now didn't fit the timeline.
In one version of events, Daisy herself had been Director — until an unauthorized assassination of an A.I.M. executive got her suspended, and Hill stepped in to cover. Hill didn't obey Fury blindly, either. She had her own principles. Stubborn, clear-eyed, impossible to push around.
Hill's arrival at the Academy became a welcome break from the relentless academic grind — entertaining gossip for students who had no stake in executive reshuffling, who only cared about what was right in front of them.
Daisy was the same. She shelved the Hill situation within the day and buried her nose back in physics texts.
But on the third day after Hill's arrival, Daisy's composure cracked.
Phil Coulson — earnest-faced, the look of a man everyone's first instinct was to trust — had come to the Academy as a guest instructor. His stated purpose was sharing field experience. In practice, it felt closer to a patriotism seminar. He talked at length about the history and legacy of S.H.I.E.L.D., its founding ideals, its historic missions.
"We are the shield standing between the ordinary world and the unknown."
"A legacy carried forward, generation to generation, to this very day."
"Protecting the truth, preserving it — so that ordinary people can live in peace."
Coulson delivered every word with conviction. Clearly this wasn't performance — it was what he believed.