Nick Fury paced around in his office in a rare fashion of immense frustration and with him in his office was a few members of his trusted circle which was strictly limited to Coulson, Hill, Belova, Romanoff and Barton – the latter who was also uncharacteristically late, hence relatively unfamiliar to the strange scene.
"Um boss, it's not the end times, right?" Clinton took one for the team – by the vote of four pairs of staring eyes – a responsibility that fell to him due to his tardiness.
Fury's pacing stopped and Clint's interruption was rewarded with the flattest stare he had ever been subjected to.
Fury took in a deep breath and washed away the last vestiges of whatever had been happening for the last fifteen minutes.
"I would be more hopeful if that were the case, Barton."
The look that took their faces at Fury's remark was just a misgendered façade shy of panic. Fury was a creature of wit, sarcasm and dry humor, which as a spymaster meant that he was a master of twenty different levels of communication— all for which meant he rarely ever exaggerated or misappropriated anything that left his mouth.
"Good Lord. Should we be turning in our wills?" Yelena, in classic Yelena fashion, hardly had the chance to think before her mouth rendered an automatic response.
Fury deadpanned at her. "You have a Level 7 Clearance, Agent Belova. Agents of that level don't get to write down wills. They do confidence requests."
It was another one for the Nick Fury classics. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but somehow the essence of the statement was successfully communicated.
"What are we dealing with, sir?" Coulson asked after seeing that the situation had thawed out well enough. "Surely it is not something completely outside our scope of capabilities."
Fury looked at his friend, a word he had never addressed to anyone inside the room, and shook his head.
"Our capabilities are not what is at stake, Coulson. It is our diplomatic anonymity as a planet that is." He moved around to the front of his desk and sat on it and looked down squarely at their faces, one by one.
His eyepatch flashed a tiny blue dot and a hologram sprang up around them. Pictures and documented outlines of different alien races floated around and about. He focused on something and a few images enlarged and took center.
"I've been informed by an extremely reliable source that our rowdy mudball, for some inexplicable reason, has come up in talks and complicated circles in quite unfavorable parts of the universe."
"Ohhhh fuck," Yelena groaned while Natasha simply blinked.
Unperturbed, Fury continued. "Skrull, Kree, Kymellians, M'Kraan, even galactical empires like that of the Shi'ar and Nova are slowly taking notice. It is likely that we will be expecting visitors of the inhospitable kind real soon."
"Think he did it?" Coulson asked, quickly referring to the Merchant. "For what he has quickly assumed as his only identity, this seems perfectly in line with it if he's seeking a profit market."
"That what? He sold us a warship and then sold our information to open ears?" Natasha frowned. "Knowing what I know of him, I won't put that past him."
"Because if we know a war is coming we'll be forced to arm ourselves, and the only place where we can trade for instant firepower is his shop." Maria Hill finally spoke, hands folded under her chest, all narrow eyed and dedicated skepticism. "Stoke a planetary war for what? To sell alien weapons for cheap? This is so far from the realm of monkey business that I don't even know what to call it."
"Then I'll be the odd voice out of practicality and state that we're not certain it's him. He's just the only visible target we have. I'll also remind you that he's been truthful in our dealings so far and has on numerous occasions stated that he doesn't deal in client information." Coulson laid out the facts that they had, not because of any favorable impression, but as he said, out of practicality.
"He calls himself a Merchant." The flat remark came from Clint. "He doesn't see himself as a person, a human being or an alien. Being a Merchant is his entire existence. You want us to trust that?"
"When have we ever dealt with convenience?" Yelena asked, looking at them with a knowing gaze. "Blaming him is extremely convenient."
"So what? We're just unlucky that the heavy hitters in the universe are squaring up for a match?" Natasha meant it as a rhetoric but both Yelena and Maria shrugged, meanwhile Fury just looked on.
"It's not as if it's the first time either, or second for that matter. Thor did tell us that it was bound to happen."
Coulson's point was meant with tired sighs and furrowed brows. And wasn't that the truth. Even before the existence of the Merchant, they've had a few squabbles with a handful of alien races, nothing close to an invasion – though that did happen – but the contact was there. This could simply be a case of the mountain being gathered from the molehill.
Movement from Fury instantly recovered their attention so they watched as the images were pushed to the side and a video became the new focus.
The video was taken some weeks ago, during nighttime and the importance of it was that it showed their suspected target, Isaac 'Merchant', walking around the streets of New York alongside a woman.
Even the unflappable Maria Hill was completely taken by surprise.
With a wide grin on his face, Clint relaxed himself against the wall he was leaning on. "Ohhh~ Is that a flame kindling? A Miss Jessica Jones. Private Investigator. Looks like something took his fancy more than a trade ever could."
Maria and Coulson looked at the image with calculating eyes, while the assassin sisters looked fully intrigued. Fury however cut in before that particular train could be derailed.
"Not confirmed. As far as the video shows, they just went for drinks and played cards." He said. "While Miss Jones provides us another angle to the Merchant, uncertain as of yet, what I'm more concerned with is the fact that we have a timeline-reality-rewriting variable walking around without a care in the world!"
Ah. So that was what the pacing was for.
Both Natasha and Fury had probed Isaac on numerous occasions and he had always expressed a complete disinterest in leaving the shop and going out into the city. As far as they were concerned, he has never left the shop since last year, possibly since his first day on the planet.
Surely he didn't just leave his shop unattended for a couple of hours for a stroll, some drinks and a couple rounds of cards.
With all the heavy hitting streak that has been going on for weeks now – since the whole debacle with Pierce and Hydra – it was no surprise that this development had flown so long under their radar until now, with them being aware of it weeks after it had passed.
The spies then spent the following minutes analyzing everything they could about the video: the way the expressions change across their faces, their body language and position, their general attitude and the movement of their lips since, strangely, it was the only sound not picked up.
"Ehn, I can't say for certain if there is anything going on between those two. He was polite and casual the whole time, and she seems to be genuinely having fun. It's more of a hang out than a date." Yelena gave her observations which Natasha and Clint agreed with.
"So what are we doing, boss?" she looked up at Fury and asked. "I for one say we ask him straight before doing anything that would affect him."
Fury stared at the frozen image for a couple of minutes and then looked away and straightened his coat.
"For now, nothing. That will remain until my express order." He said calmly, finally gaining a semblance of calm over the situation. "And Stark?"
"He and Bruce have been busy recently but he brought it up a few days ago, so any day now." Clint replied coarsely. He did not find anything remotely amusing about Tony eventually meeting with Isaac. Bruce was hardly a stable hand when it came to dealing with Tony's whims. The type of escalation Tony was bound to do with his resources and genius and his access to Isaac was something he dreaded.
Fury nodded, having come to terms with that particular eventuality.
"Dismissed." They stood up as the holograms disappeared and went for the door. "Coulson."
None of them reacted to Coulson staying behind as it was only right. He was the sole agent in SHIELD with a Level 9 Clearance, directly under Fury's Level 10 Clearance. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that what Coulson knew exceeded whatever conspiracy theory any of them could come up with.
"What do you think?" Natasha asked Clint and Yelena as they walked back to their duties.
"Too convenient." Yelena answered, repeating her earlier point.
"I think we should get our facts straight before going in guns blazing." His all too casual reminder of what happened the last time they did that with Isaac came to the forefront of their minds.
.
….... …..
.
While unrelated coincidences built familiar relationships, back down at Junk 'N Stuff the routine remained on the same rhythm: Someone walks in, finds something interesting, asks for something they never knew they wanted/could have, Isaac sells it to them, and the Trade continues.
Gone were the days when Isaac counted himself lucky to welcome two customers. Nowadays he had multiple customers and thought they mostly bought mundane items, or sold mundane items, Isaac was happy all the same.
A Trade, no matter the scale, was infinitely better than no trade. When it came down to the core essence of it, consistent frequency always yielded more than scarce quality sales in the long run.
His last customer, a humorous woman called Vanessa, told him of news about a doll that was going around stabbing people to death. It was probably Chucky, he had idly noted when she told him about it while paying for multiple sets of exotic lingerie.
He was still in the midst of reliving his earlier conversation when he heard a soft tap on his counter as well as someone calmly calling his name.
"Please forgive that embarrassing display," he apologized awkwardly to the two familiar faces in front of him.
"Don't worry about it. A little daydreaming never hurt anyone." Xavier waved off the apology with an understanding smile. "I'm afraid I have need of your assistance, Isaac."
"Of course. Of course." Isaac smoothed out his shirt and pushed the earlier display out of his mind. "Hello there, Anna Marie. No rowdy crowd today?"
The heavily clothed girl managed a shake of her head through the shock she was experiencing. "You…"
Xavier smiled. "Unfortunately, not today. We're here because of dear Rogue. She has a problem with controlling her mutant abilities. As much as it pains me, we've had no success in teaching her how to control her powers which is made more disheartening with the fact that she can't turn off her abilities."
Rogue on the other hand was experiencing a rug pull with the realization that the very person that had helped the Professor walk and one of her teachers see without his visor – and also supplied Storm with her garden of weird plants – was the same person whose shop she and the others sometimes goof around in whenever they came out to the city because of the frankly cool things he had hanging off in every corner.
She had expected an old powerful mutant when the Professor had told her that he knew someone who could likely help with her problem. She had slept on the choice but it wasn't exactly a hard one to make.
"Oh? So you were that special and you never told me. For shame, Anna Marie." His light teasing made her duck her head in embarrassment. So he knew exactly who they were whenever they came around and made a ruckus, she thought morosely, and a fresh new wave of embarrassment curdled in her stomach.
"Let's see what we're walking with. Your hand please, without the gloves if you don't mind." Isaac said with a stretched out hand.
Rogue momentarily forgot her embarrassment and looked between the Professor and Isaac, nervous energy suddenly running rugged down veins. Isaac's words were the recipe for an all too familiar disaster that she dreaded. Without an out, she looked at Xavier with reluctance and heavy trepidation clear in her eyes.
"Professor…."
"It's all right, Rogue. You have nothing to fear. You won't be able to hurt him, trust me." As he said that he looked at Isaac who gave an assured nod in return.
Slowly, like she was reaching into a flame, she removed her glove and held out her shaking hand.
An involuntary shocked gasp escaped and she immediately clasped her other hand over her mouth as Isaac took hold of her hand, almost as if she was afraid that a single misstep would disrupt what was currently happening. Wonderment and hope bloomed in her heart when, despite the sustained contact, she couldn't feel anything from Isaac except the feel of his hands. There was no static or euphoric rush that indicated that she was draining something from him. It was as if her powers were shut off.
She almost shouted 'Wait!' when he let go and the glow in his eyes faded but she couldn't manage a single motion as her mind was overtaken by the desperate hope that she would finally be cured.
She forced herself to remain sober from her hope overdose and looked over at Isaac and saw him walking around the shop and grabbing things while mumbling to himself.
"Patience dear, let him finish with what he's doing." The Professor held her shoulders reassuringly and that made her calm down a bit. The wonders it did for her heart.
Isaac returned with some items gathered into his arm and slowly spread them out on the counter. Tags magically appeared on the items the moment they were laid down.
—Micro-EM Field Emitter Bracelet (Generic): small wristband generating a low-power field that interferes specifically with the biological contact-transfer mechanism.
—Power-Dampening Bracelets (The Flash/Arrowverse): Invented by Cisco Ramon, these resized bracelets are highly effective against meta-human powers and their severity can be adjusted. Interestingly, they were even stolen and used by Caitlin Snow to suppress her own developing abilities.
—Inhibitor Collar (The Gifted): A device designed to suppress the abilities of mutants. It effectively neutralizes a mutant's ability by disrupting their neurological pathways. An easy slap-on and configuration friendly.
—Neural Inhibitor (StarCraft): A cybernetic implant implanted in the brain. It's used to regulate brain chemistry and reroute neural pathways to keep powerful psionic abilities in check.
—Neural Inhibitor Chip (Deus Ex): Subdermal implant that suppresses specific involuntary neural triggers. Very eco-friendly and personal. It is an easy and seamless fix that takes care of every little complaint you have about lacking control.
"They are all easily adjustable and can be configured for specific needs. The chip is your best bet, in my opinion, but I understand that people have reservations about sticking anything inside their heads." Isaac tapped the tiny plastic cover that carried the chip and used his finger to draw it to the side.
"What would you recommend, other than that, that she'll be able to use in her daily life and under… stressful circumstances?" Xavier asked tentatively.
"These two then," Isaac pushed the two bracelets to the front. "The dampening bracelets are very user-friendly and can even be turned into a necklace by removing this part," he tapped the centerpiece of the bracelet that had something that looked like a blue inlaid jewel, "and hooking a string to it."
He then picked up the EMF bracelet. "This one looks well enough like a normal wristband that no one will ever know what it really does. Also, it can't be picked up by metal detectors."
Xavier nodded. "I'll be taking all three."
"Wonderful." Isaac said with a smile as the other items on the table disappeared. He then looked at Rogue who was staring right at the bracelets. "Want to try them out?"
She looked at the Professor first and only when he nodded did she stretch out her hand to Isaac who helped her clasp the dampening bracelets in place.
"High five?" He held open his palms with a grin on his face.
"Heck yeah!" She smacked his hand with as much force she could muster, looking even more thrilled when nothing happened to Isaac, not even a little twitch. She turned to the Professor who had a matching smile on his face and an open palm which she high-fived with another loud smack.
She dove into him and hugged him tightly. "Thank you." Her muffled words came through.
"I'm glad I could help." Xavier replied softly. He looked at Isaac after they separated, not even blinking at the amount of money he just spent, and spoke. "Me and my teachers will be bringing some of our students in the coming days with similar and contrasting issues like Rogue here."
"Be rest assured. I'll be giving each and every one of them the absolute best I can offer." Isaac exuded confidence as he gave Xavier his assurance.
"Then I thank you, and we'll be leaving for now." Xavier said.
"See you soon, sir." Isaac replied.
"See ya' later, Mr. Isaac. And thank you." Her gratitude was nothing less than heartfelt and Isaac saw it exactly as it was.
"Any time, kiddo."
––––––
.
Patreon.com/1stDepth
.
––––––