Oh. God. It takes a moment for Daisy herself to realize what she's just said but when she finally processes how badly she's just stuck her foot in her mouth, the feeling of mortification is immediate. Heat rises to her cheeks and she blushes HARD as the tall, blond beefcake of a man in front of her blinks owlishly.
If Natasha Romanoff hadn't known she was pregnant before Daisy's first faux pas, then of course Thaddeus Cummings wouldn't know he'd successfully impregnated the gorgeous red head either. So basically, she'd just gone and told him he was going to be a father with zero warning.
Talk about a stellar first impression… but maybe it could still be salvaged if she acted fast. Plastering a smile on her face, Daisy takes a step forward and lifts up her arm to offer a handshake.
"I am so, so sorry… can we do that over? I'm Agent Johnson, codename Quake and-!"
"No, sorry… back up a bit and explain your initial outburst please. You sounded… absolutely certain there."
Daisy's forced smile becomes downright plastic as she stops in place and winces. Yeah… in all fairness, she probably wouldn't let herself get away with that sort of thing either. And especially not when the information she'd so thoughtlessly blurted out was directly tied to him.
"R-Right… well, um… Natasha Romanoff is pregnant. And I know enough to suspect that you would be the father. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding your dynamic with the Black Widow and someone else knocked her up…"
Thaddeus blinks slowly, clearly needing a moment. Daisy just squirms, hoping he's not about to get angry or upset with her. It would be just her luck if she wound up ruining shit within the first sentence of meeting her newest mission.
But then, to both her surprise and her stark relief… Thaddeus suddenly smiles broadly.
"Well now. That's excellent news. Though I do wonder how I heard it from you before Natasha. Especially given I've been in psychic communication with her this entire time."
Daisy blushes harder.
"A-Ah, w-well… she just found out too… from me… so don't be too mad at her? Its my power you see, the reason I'm called 'Quake'. I can sense and manipulate vibrations. Because of that, its pretty easy for me to detect someone's heartbeat… and also pick up on when they have two heartbeats instead of one. Given Natasha Romanoff is human last I checked, her condition became obvious immediately."
Thaddeus hums and nods, looking more amused than angry, thankfully. With a chuckle, the blond, blue-eyed giant shakes his head.
"No worries, Agent Johnson. Its good news in the end… very good news. So, no harm, no foul."
Wait, really? Daisy can't help but be taken aback a little by his gracious attitude. In her experience, people weren't this… forgiving usually.
"A-Are you sure?"
Grinning, he reaches up and taps his temple.
"Well… Natasha is a little miffed with you right now, admittedly. She'd worked quite hard to hide her reaction to your first epiphany from me telepathically. She wanted to be able to surprise me the next time we met in person, you see. So she's rather frustrated that you spilled the beans before she could do so."
Daisy pales at that. Oh god, she'd just gotten on the Black Widow's bad side. She was so fucking screwed. Seeing her blanch at his words, Thaddeus just laughs.
"I wouldn't be too worried. She can't get to you all the way up here, not unless I bring her here and she's too busy down on Earth right now for that sort of thing. You can just lie low with us until she calms down, it's fine."
He's so nice. Maybe that's partially because he's in a good mood after just finding out he's going to be a father, but still… there has to be something wrong here? Because otherwise Daisy looks at Thaddeus Cummings… and sees the perfect man. Built like a fucking truck, handsome as all hell, and kind to a fault… surely men like him don't exist in this world right?
… Ah but he's a taken man anyways. So it's not like Daisy has a chance with him or anything. Even if she got some weird vibes from the conversation that Fury had been having with Natasha about her being sent to liaise in the first place.
Letting out a chuckle of her own, Daisy just shakes her head.
"Why are all the good men taken?"
She's not sticking her foot in her mouth this time… or at least, not involuntarily. She means to say it… and to her slight pleasure, Thaddeus even blushes for her, coughing slightly at her words. Daisy just grins and offers up her hand again.
"Agent Johnson, codename Quake… but you can call me Daisy, Mister Cummings. It's a pleasure to meet you."
One of Thaddeus' large hands reaches out to engulf hers and Daisy tries not to let that get to her too much as she feels just how… big he really is for the first time. Seeing is one thing, after all. Experiencing it is another.
"Only if you call me Thaddeus or Thad, Daisy. Mister Cummings is my father."
Well, already on a first name basis with the mission objective… that has to be a good sign, right? Daisy smiles and begins to nod, opening her mouth to do exactly that… only to freeze in place as something Thaddeus had said earlier finally properly registers with her. Blinking, Daisy furrows her brow as she finishes shaking his hand and pulls back.
"Hang on a second… what did you mean by 'she can't get you all the way up here' and 'down on Earth'?"
Thaddeus blinks… and then lets out a rueful laugh as he rubs the back of his head sheepishly.
"Of course she didn't say. Right, well… you might want to look behind yourself, Daisy."
Slowly, Daisy turns around. Admittedly, she's already started putting together the pieces even before doing so, but the view… well, the view confirms it. Carefully walking forward, Daisy stares, mouth agape, out at the Moon's landscape outside of the window in front of her. And beyond that… she stares at the Earth, far and in the distance.
"H-Holy fuck… we're on the Moon."
"Yup."
No wonder they weren't worried about being found by all of the people hunting for them on Earth… they were all looking in the wrong place!
-x-X-x-
"So the X-Men have roped the Avengers into hunting Emma down? I can't say I'm surprised, but I am a little disappointed."
Daisy walks alongside Thaddeus as they take a bit of a tour through the Ex-HYDRA Moonbase. Finding out that this place belonged to HYDRA and was actually where the HYDRA leaders were trying to escape to when the Avengers caught the last of them up in the Arctic had been surprising… but not too surprising once she thought about it a bit more.
Meanwhile, she'd filled Thaddeus in on what she knew, even if she suspected Natasha had already told him about it all. He'd been rather generous in letting her talk about the conversation she'd overheard between Storm, She-Hulk, and Director Fury that had ultimately led to Daisy being sent up here.
Funnily enough, he doesn't sound angry, but more exasperated than anything else. Daisy can only imagine that makes sense given everything she knows. After all, if he and Emma Frost have a cosmic power on their side as well as the ability to travel freely from Earth to the Moon and back again by way of near-instant teleportation (through Hell, but Daisy wasn't about to bring that up) then what did they really have to worry about?
Still, she's not entirely sure how to handle her mission parameters here exactly. The tour is nice and Thaddeus is nicer, but how does she confirm for herself and for Fury that he's truly of his own mind and not being controlled by Emma?
"You're certainly thinking hard about something."
Jolting out of her thoughts, Daisy flushes as she remembers that Thaddeus is a rather powerful psychic. Of course, the moment that thought crosses her mind, he smiles at her.
"Don't worry, I'm not reading your thoughts or anything. It was just written all over your face. You're rather cute when you get that scrunched up look of concentration, you know?"
Okay, first of all, how dare he flirt with her, she was NOT the mother of his child. Second of all… second of all… no, wait, let's focus on the first thing.
"You have a woman waiting for you back on Earth, Thad. A pregnant woman at that. You shouldn't be flirting with me."
That… causes Thaddeus to pause and turn to face her as he grows more serious. He peers at her silently for a moment… before letting out a rueful sigh.
"Alright, for starters… I didn't even realize I was flirting if I'm being honest. I guess it's been a long time since I bothered to watch my tongue around a woman. Secondly… did Fury not explain who and what I am to you before sending you here?"
Daisy squirms a bit at that. On the one hand, she'd been teleported before anything could really be said. On the other hand, she knows Fury well enough by way of Coulson… so she knows he probably wouldn't have said anything more to her than he already did even if he'd had the chance.
In the end, loyalty to SHIELD and the chain of command wins out and she scowls lightly while crossing her arms over her chest.
"W-Well… he didn't really get much of a chance before you dragged me here on Romanoff's say-so. So it's not really his fault that I don't know everything, is it?"
To his credit, Thaddeus looks apologetic for a moment. Ultimately though he shrugs.
"Right then. Cards on the table. I'm a mutant, which you probably already knew."
Daisy nods. She'd figured that much out.
"More than that though… my mutation is very… well, it's singular in its versatility. Basically, I have sex powers."
Wait, what? Daisy stares… and then stares some more as Thaddeus just gives her a weak grin. When it becomes obvious he's not going to say it himself, she says it for him.
"You're joking… right?"
"Afraid not. I'm dead serious, Daisy. Simply put, whenever I have sex with someone, both of us benefit. If it's a normal unpowered human woman, than I get a minor, permanent boost to everything while they get a temporary boost. However, if it's a woman with powers of any sort, then I get a copy of their abilities… and they get a permanent boost to said abilities as well."
Daisy's jaw drops open at that last part, though her eyes had been growing progressively wider the entire time he was speaking. Hang on a second…
"Did you fuck Agent May?!"
It's a bit of a logical leap, but at the same time Daisy can't help but make it. Melinda had gone undercover out of nowhere only to come back in no time both better than ever and not wanting to talk about it… not even to Coulson from what Daisy had seen. In fact, when she'd been pressed… it was the first time Daisy had ever seen 'The Cavalry' blush about anything. It had been unsettling enough that the entire team had backed off.
Still… the way Thaddeus blinks and then flushes now is rather telling, even as he laughs.
"Well… I really shouldn't kiss and tell, Daisy. Suffice to say, I've been with a lot of women in a short amount of time. It's why I'm so powerful. Natasha might truly be the first to wind up carrying my child, but she is not… well, we're not exclusive. Something she knows quite well, given that she orchestrated an entire orgy between me and her fellow Black Widows after we rescued them all from the Red Room."
Okay… what? Daisy… Daisy's brain was dangerously close to blue screening on that last part. In the end, she decides to shelve it for the time being. If she even starts to try to unpack the meaning behind there being multiple Black Widows or what the heck a Red Room is, she's afraid she'll faint from the stress.
Fortunately she's had a lot of training with her abilities, because her powers are tied to her heartrate… which is probably up just a little bit right now, all things considered. Still, she gets herself under control and focuses on what matters to her specifically. Because now that Thaddeus has explained his powers, she suddenly understands Fury and Natasha's conversation about her a lot better. Everything is sort of slotting right into place.
And yet, she still wants confirmation. In fact, she needs confirmation before she makes any sort of decision.
"Let me get this straight. You're implying that Director Fury, THE Director Fury, sent me up here as your 'SHIELD Liaison' because he wanted you to fuck me and make my powers stronger."
Thaddeus… shrugs helplessly.
"I mean… if he didn't want that sort of thing to happen, I doubt he would have accepted Natasha's recommendation that you be assigned this mission. At the very least, he would have sent a man instead. He knows I'm straight after all."
That... that was a good point. That was a very good point. Oh fuck. She'd been lusting after this hunk of a man since she got to the Moon and now she's just found out that was pretty much her unspoken second objective the entire time.
Daisy isn't sure how that makes her feel if she's being honest. Is the idea of getting it on with Thaddeus still arousing if its an unwritten order from the Director of SHIELD? Then again, is she really going to let Director Fury's approval stop her from trying to climb Thaddeus Cummings like a goddamn tree now that she knows he's not exclusive?!