Chapter Summaries

Daisy and Xavier’s School’s defenders held off the Chitauri until Hill’s S.H.I.E.L.D. forces arrived. With the school secure, Daisy gave Shadowcat Kitty a secret mission to retrieve the buried Cosmic Cube.

• Colossus, Pyro, and Iceman joined the defense and began fighting the Chitauri alongside Wolverine, Storm, and Cyclops.
• Daisy organized the defenders and helped Cyclops attack from behind improvised fortifications made from Chitauri remains.
• The Chitauri charged the school with energy weapons and explosives, and the defenders held out until Hill arrived with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and mechanical soldiers.
• Daisy offered Kitty a limited-edition game console and tasked her with retrieving the Cosmic Cube using special tongs and a box, keeping the mission secret.

Daisy sent Shadowcat Kitty and Spider-Woman to retrieve the Cosmic Cube while Emma watched over them, and the two successfully stole it from the Chitauri excavation site. With Captain America's forces unable to break through the enemy fortress, Director Fury hired Juggernaut with cash to smash a path through it.

• Daisy sent Kitty and Spider-Woman to retrieve the Cosmic Cube, with Emma monitoring them telepathically.
• Kitty and Spider-Woman navigated the battle, using Kitty's phasing powers to avoid enemies and reach the excavation site.
• Kitty and Spider-Woman found the Cosmic Cube, secured it in a S.H.I.E.L.D. case, and headed back.
• Captain America told Daisy that repeated charges had failed and Doctor Banner had been lured away and lost control.
• Daisy told Director Fury to send Juggernaut to break the enemy's defenses, and Fury offered him eight thousand dollars.
• Juggernaut counted the cash, accepted the deal, and followed Director Fury toward the Chitauri metal fortress.

Juggernaut smashed through the Chitauri fortress, allowing Captain America and the Avengers to advance as the alien forces began to retreat. Captain America disrupted Supergiant’s psychic battle with Professor Charles, and the chapter ended with both armies launching their final assaults.

• Juggernaut charged through the golden arowana and the metal wall, carving a path through the Chitauri before running off west.
• Captain America led the Avengers and United States soldiers through the breach as the Chitauri began to lose morale.
• The Chitauri commander ordered a retreat while Supergiant used the Mind Scepter to suppress Professor Charles.
• Captain America struck Supergiant with his shield, triggering a psychic backlash that exposed Thanos’s secrets to Professor Charles.
• Supergiant set off a thought bomb that forced Professor Charles out of the psychic battle, and Queen White reported its end to Daisy.
• Daisy ordered a full assault as nearly three hundred thousand United States troops charged into New York and the Chitauri retreated.

After the Chitauri invasion began to collapse, Daisy and the remaining heroes assessed the battlefield, recovered the Mind Scepter, and counted Earth’s heavy losses. The battle ended in defeat for the Chitauri, while Daisy secured the scepter under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s authority and checked that her friends and property were safe.

• Citizens, mercenaries, and soldiers attacked the fleeing Chitauri, while Lorna trapped some of them with an invisible magnetic net.
• Daisy and Wolverine joined Captain America after the exhausted heroes regrouped, and Daisy found evidence that Supergiant had either died in an explosion or escaped by teleportation.
• Daisy discovered that Captain America’s shield had absorbed some of the Mind Stone’s power and returned it to him, strengthening its protection against psychic abilities.
• Daisy took the Mind Scepter from a major and kept it under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s authority rather than surrendering it.
• The Chitauri invasion ended in failure, with heavy casualties on both sides and extensive damage to Earth.
• Daisy declined to resume command, called her friends and relatives, and learned that Lorna, Wanda, and Hammer Industries’ facilities were safe.

After the Battle of New York, Daisy argued with Stark over their damaged buildings and attended a White House meeting about rebuilding the city. Meanwhile, the Cosmic Cube disappeared from the excavation site, and Daisy secretly gave it to Wanda to conceal.

• Daisy and Stark blamed each other for the damage to their buildings before agreeing to repair them separately and ignore the Supercomputer fee dispute.
• Daisy represented S.H.I.E.L.D. at a White House meeting where government officials and business leaders discussed New York's reconstruction costs.
• The government failed to secure major contributions from conglomerates and arms magnates, while real estate developers agreed to provide some funding.
• Representatives excavated the research facility twice but found no Cosmic Cube, and most assumed the Chitauri had taken it.
• Thor shared a meal with the Avengers, then took Loki back to Asgard.
• Daisy gave the Cosmic Cube to Wanda and urged her to use a concealment spell from the Darkhold.

Daisy hid the Cosmic Cube, secured the Mind Scepter in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s vault, and paid Wade Wilson and Weasel for their claimed losses. Wade then pitched his services to rebuild and fortify Hammer Industries, leaving Daisy to consider his proposal.

• Wanda used an illusion to conceal the Cosmic Cube from ordinary people.
• Daisy and Hill arranged for the Mind Scepter to be sealed in a classified underground vault using their Level Ten clearances.
• Daisy returned to Hammer Industries and encountered Coulson, Wade Wilson, and Weasel seeking compensation for battle losses.
• Daisy gave Coulson an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar check for Wade and Weasel’s claimed damages.
• Wade introduced himself to Daisy and pitched rebuilding Hammer Industries with security features designed to withstand alien attacks and Juggernaut.

Daisy surveyed Hammer Industries’ Chitauri spoils and ordered research into adapting alien weapons, then confronted Nick over S.H.I.E.L.D.’s practice of concealing fallen agents’ deaths. She left Hill to compile the fallen’s names and families while she went to seek military ranks and proper funerals for them.

• Daisy returned to Hammer Industries, found that someone had taken the loose change from her office, and asked the mob strategist to report the Chitauri weapons and equipment they had seized.
• Daisy ordered Hammer Industries to research localized energy weapons using Chitauri technology and Baron Strucker’s materials, then told them to hold back the results until others tested the technology.
• Daisy argued that S.H.I.E.L.D. should stop disguising agents’ deaths as accidents and lottery winnings when paying their families.
• Daisy ordered Maria Hill to compile the names, nationalities, and surviving relatives of every fallen colleague, and said she would seek military ranks and proper funerals for them.

Daisy pushed S.H.I.E.L.D. toward a semi-covert model and began consolidating Pierce’s former influence while he recovered under medical supervision. Pierce appeared delusional, but after a sedative took effect, he unexpectedly opened his eyes.

• Fury complained that Daisy’s proposed victim benefits raised questions about compensation for agents who had died in the past, while Hill supported Daisy’s approach and urged S.H.I.E.L.D. to change.
• Hill left to handle the compensation issue, and Fury considered the consequences of shifting S.H.I.E.L.D. from fully covert operations to a semi-covert model.
• Daisy briefed the Council and coordinated with the Pentagon, then planned to claim Pierce’s Hydra leadership and World Security Council seat.
• Daisy visited Pierce and Crossbones in the medical department, told Ward to guard Pierce, and examined Pierce’s brain with her psychic power.
• Pierce named Hydra agents and insisted he was sane, while the agents kept his condition secret and waited for a sedative to take effect.
• Fifteen minutes after the sedative should have put him unconscious, Pierce opened his eyes.

Pierce escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. by switching clothes and faces with a man who helped him, then tried to flee the city in a bulletproof Chevrolet. He was ambushed by armed pursuers and remained trapped in a failing car as they chased him.

• Pierce pretended to be delirious while planning his escape from S.H.I.E.L.D.
• A middle-aged man exchanged clothes with Pierce and used a facial simulation device to impersonate him.
• Pierce slipped out of S.H.I.E.L.D. and drove away in a bulletproof Chevrolet, then called the Winter Soldier for protection.
• Armed attackers surrounded Pierce’s car and opened fire, but its restart system eventually let him escape the initial blockade.
• Pierce evaded a rocket during the pursuit as the Chevrolet’s computer warned that its windows were weakening and offered no countermeasures.

Pierce escaped Washington with Bucky Barnes after the Winter Soldier rescued him from an attack. Daisy used the Mind Scepter’s effects to reshape Crossbones’s confused identity, then learned of Pierce’s escape and confronted a captured traitor.

• Pierce’s damaged car was attacked by armed pursuers, but the Winter Soldier arrived, killed them, and pulled Pierce from the wreckage.
• Bucky Barnes led Pierce through alleys and helped him leave Washington in an unlicensed car.
• Daisy convinced the disoriented Crossbones that he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. spy planted inside Hydra.
• Grant Ward told Daisy that Pierce had escaped and brought a captured middle-aged traitor before her.
• Daisy’s psychological pressure caused the terrified traitor to kneel and plead for mercy.

Daisy fired an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who had tried to protect Pierce, then protested to the White House after a gunman attacked him in Washington. That evening, Daisy took Wanda for a drive through a devastated New York, where the Avengers were still rescuing civilians.

• Daisy questioned the agent who had helped Pierce, fired him, and threatened him and his family if he spoke about the incident.
• Ward reported that a mysterious gunman had attacked Pierce in Washington and the Winter Soldier had rescued him; Daisy suspected the NSA was responsible.
• Daisy complained to the Department of Homeland Security at the White House, and Pierce faced additional accusations of colluding with foreign forces and selling state secrets.
• Wanda asked Daisy to go for a walk, so Daisy helped her choose an outfit and drove them around New York.
• Daisy saw Black Widow rescuing a girl from a burning building and pulled her clear of a collapsing structure before driving on.
• New York officials withheld their casualty estimate despite pressure from the White House because civilian deaths were too high.

As New York mourned the dead and descended into looting after the alien invasion, Daisy sought an unofficial way to restore order by making a deal with Kingpin. The chapter ended with Daisy attending funerals for the fallen, while Kingpin accepted her offer to arm and unite the city’s underworld under strict limits on political corruption.

• Wanda and Daisy walked through mourning streets, where Wanda laid flowers and Daisy saw families honor the dead.
• Daisy watched crime and looting spread after nightfall and concluded that the city needed an unofficial response.
• Daisy entered Kingpin’s headquarters unseen and offered Fisk advanced Hammer Industries weapons to unify New York’s underworld, on the condition that his organization stop bribing police and government officials.
• Kingpin accepted Daisy’s offer, though he and Bullseye focused on its immediate advantages and failed to see its wider implications.
• Daisy spent the morning attending funerals for fallen agents and other victims of the Battle of New York.

Daisy pushed reforms to S.H.I.E.L.D. despite resistance from veteran agents, while Stark voiced his support. Stark also offered to fund New York’s cleanup with the government, helping address the enormous cost of rebuilding the city.

• Stark supported Daisy’s S.H.I.E.L.D. reforms as she explained proposals for fairer pay, equipment, and treatment of agents.
• Daisy learned that veteran agents opposed her changes and had sought Peggy Carter’s help preserving S.H.I.E.L.D.’s traditions.
• Daisy asked Stark why the Avengers were staying separate from S.H.I.E.L.D., and Stark revealed that Secretary of State Ross had represented the government’s position.
• The White House pressured insurance companies to help compensate New Yorkers, but the funding gap remained enormous.
• Stark offered to fund New York’s cleanup alongside the government.

Daisy and Lorna searched for Jessica Jones after discovering she had vanished from the hospital, while New York’s chaotic reconstruction continued under Tony Stark’s control. The hospital footage suggested Jessica had been taken by a woman who might be her mother, but Daisy had no way to confirm where she had gone.

• Tony Stark established and led the Disaster Control Department, which coordinated government and corporate efforts to rebuild New York and voided earlier civilian cleanup contracts.
• Daisy and Lorna visited Jessica Jones in the hospital, where Jessica had been left in a coma after her family died in a car accident.
• Daisy and Lorna found Jessica missing, and hospital staff said her mother had taken her away.
• Daisy reviewed the hospital footage and signature records, which showed an unidentified woman and two men carrying Jessica and handwriting resembling Jessica’s mother’s.
• Daisy and Lorna searched Jessica’s home but found no sign of her, leaving Daisy to promise she would send people to look for Jessica.

Daisy recruited Phineas Mason and Herman Schultz to develop weapons for Hammer Industries, but Adrian Toomes had already joined Pierce. Pierce pressured Toomes into preparing his aircraft for reconnaissance and combat support.

• Daisy's agents failed to find Jessica, while Dagger and Cloak's relatives took them back to New Orleans and Harry Osborn went abroad to study.
• After Peter Parker woke at home, Daisy suspected his Spider-Genes had been triggered and instructed her strategist to recruit Adrian Toomes and his team.
• Daisy learned that Pierce had recruited Toomes, but she hired Phineas Mason and Herman Schultz, who proposed developing Judas Bullets and a shockwave gauntlet.
• Pierce demanded that Toomes provide aerial reconnaissance and rapid assault support, then threatened his wife and daughter to stop him from resisting.

Pierce secured Vulture’s help in completing the Mechanical Wings and tried to rebuild his intelligence network after losing his former power. His attempt to lure Jasper Sitwell into a meeting failed when Sitwell recognized the scheme and prepared to confront the caller.

• Pierce promised Vulture alien materials in exchange for his cooperation, while secretly relying on the Winter Soldier to gather supplies.
• The Winter Soldier helped Pierce seize territory in Harlem, and Vulture completed the Mechanical Wings, which only he could operate.
• Pierce tried contacting his trusted associates, but they avoided him, and one friend warned him that intelligence agencies had orders to kill him on sight.
• Pierce called Jasper Sitwell using a voice changer and Dr. Whitehall’s name, intending to kidnap him for information.
• Sitwell recognized the call as a likely scam like one that had tricked him before and decided to teach the caller a lesson.

Baldy killed Pierce during an ambush, then Daisy arrived and took control of the aftermath. After confirming Pierce was dead, Daisy protected Baldy from Hydra’s retaliation and summoned government and intelligence leaders to inspect the body.

• Baldy shot Pierce at the meeting, and his hidden special operations team opened fire on the factory.
• The Winter Soldier dragged the mortally wounded Pierce behind a wall, where Pierce ordered him to retreat and recover his memories before dying.
• Daisy arrived, captured the fleeing Vulture with magnetic control, and questioned Baldy about the ambush.
• Daisy confirmed Pierce was dead and told Baldy she would shield him from Hydra, while ordering him to avoid Hydra gatherings.
• Daisy summoned Director Fury, Hill, intelligence chiefs, and senior officials, who examined Pierce’s body and left after offering condolences.

At Pierce’s funeral, Daisy defended S.H.I.E.L.D.’s role in a world of superheroes. Black Widow spotted her former Red Room instructor, the Winter Soldier, and confronted him, ending with him recognizing her.

• Pierce received a state-style funeral, where Daisy praised his service and argued that S.H.I.E.L.D. remained essential to protecting the world.
• After the funeral, Hawkeye asked Black Widow whether their decision had been right, but she hurried away after spotting a familiar figure.
• Black Widow followed the figure and recognized him as Instructor 01, her former Red Room instructor and the man she had loved.
• The Winter Soldier ambushed Black Widow, disarmed her, and seized her by the throat during their fight.
• Black Widow asked whether he recognized her, and the Winter Soldier’s grip loosened as he stared at her face.

The Winter Soldier and Black Widow joined forces to travel to Russia and recover his memories, while Daisy arranged for Vulture and his former associates to work at Hammer Industries. The Winter Soldier and Black Widow left without Daisy knowing, and Vulture began rebuilding his research team.

• The Winter Soldier watched Pierce’s funeral from a distance, and Black Widow recognized him after Daisy had left.
• Black Widow pretended to kiss the Winter Soldier to keep Hawkeye from learning about her past, then asked him about his identity and memories.
• Black Widow invited the Winter Soldier to Russia, borrowed money from Hammer Industries, and set off with him to search for his memories.
• Daisy learned that the Winter Soldier had disappeared and ordered Baldy to have S.H.I.E.L.D. branches watch for him.
• Daisy made the captured Vulture an equipment engineer at Hammer Industries, where he reunited with Tinkerer and Shocker and rebuilt his research team.

Daisy continued consolidating S.H.I.E.L.D. while the Avengers dispersed to their separate lives. She found and erased Hydra’s artificial intelligence Zola, then the story moved to a flight test of Vulture’s Mechanical Wings at Hammer Industries.

• Daisy’s reforms progressed as the Avengers left their roles, with Thor returning to Asgard, Banner moving to the suburbs, Stark focusing on work, Black Widow departing, Captain America planning a trip to the UK, and Hawkeye going home to his family.
• After Baldy’s reminder, Daisy teleported to an abandoned New Jersey military base and used Pierce’s credentials to access Zola’s system.
• Daisy judged Zola’s algorithm and obsolete database to be of little value, so she had Danger copy the records and ordered Zola to delete itself.
• Daisy confirmed Zola and its data were erased, removed evidence of her visit, and teleported away without destroying the base.
• One month later, Daisy, Justin, Queen White, shareholders, and Air Force generals gathered at Hammer Industries to watch Vulture’s Mechanical Wings flight test.