Feet shifted as the three women stared at the primary hazard that was a single man sitting behind a counter with a service smile in a semiformal outfit.
The temperature of the shop didn't reduce but they would like to think it did. Even as they stared at him, words like threat level, danger designation, escalation potential kept on ringing in their minds. The world they lived in was already a dangerous one, and their lives doubly so, so the state of their mindset was warranted.
Even if he still remained polite and inviting, the lives they lived prevented them from believing it, in fact his general friendliness made him even more suspicious.
"And why are you telling us all this? And don't give me that 'nothing' spiel." Yelena bit out, caution and uncertainty being the only reason why she hadn't yet pulled out her guns… and knives.
Isaac gave her a deadpan, and sighed while mumbling under his breath. "Really?"
Luckily for him again, Ororo was there to take point. "What do you want from us, Isaac?"
His neck snapped to face her with an undeniable twinkle in his eyes. "What I want most from you, is for you to buy something… that is of course if you actually want to buy something."
"Just that?" She asked tentatively, not quite believing in the simplicity of it, a sentiment shared by the two women behind her.
"Well yeah," Isaac shrugged in a way that was half confused by her question and half amused. "I mean, this is a pawnshop. You buy what you need and I sell what you want."
"And for people who break the rules?" She asked because right now extra clarification was needed. She guessed this was where the disconnect was, and might also be the reason why Mystique didn't want to do this alone.
"Shop rules. Means whatever happens to them is what I want to happen to them." The light in his eyes sparkled in a way that unsettled her. "Nothing changes if none of the rules are broken. I remain your ever faithful Merchant, and you remain my ever honored customer."
She fell silent while looking at him, trying and failing to read any sort of hidden emotion from him. All she could see was the smile on his face that showed his amusement; how deep it went she had no idea.
She took a shallow breath and turned around, leaving her back open to Isaac – or whatever he was – to look at Yelena and Mystique and said only one word to them.
"Don't." The tired façade she had kept on her face the whole day slipped away and in its place was the stormy visage of one of the strongest Omega mutants on the planet.
She knew that they were jittery and the shop itself did not help. Even now she could not tell where the cool spring breeze was coming from but every now and then she could feel something moving past and around her, like phantoms.
If they were going to escalate this then it would be because Isaac attacked first, not them. While not as much as the Black Widow and Mystique, she knew a few black market brokers and weapon dealers and none of those people gave off the same friendly or open vibe as Isaac did.
If it wasn't for Mystique, she would have thought that he was just some shopkeeper who somehow got his hands on some magic flowers. A little weird but not the weirdest things she's seen.
She gave Yelena a pointed look and watched as the spy slowly took her hands out of her jacket
She turned to see Isaac just looking at them with not a single shift in his expression. Whether or not the basis for his carefree nonchalance was founded, she had no desire to find out. If this whole thing could be cleared with simple conversation then that was what she would go for.
"Just to clarify; you're a Merchant and you sell to whoever walks through that door. Hero, criminals, civilians – anyone."
"An impartial trade – it means I trade with whoever wants to trade, regardless of who they are." He raised his hand up as if swearing an oath. "And I don't really care much about the hero and villain theatrical scene, unless of course it has to do with what I'm trading."
"And if I say I wanted to… buy back those people, what would it cost?" She had to practically force out the words from her mouth but she did it with only the slightest hint of disgust tingling the edge of her words.
"Well," the two behind her flinched as a vase of feathers as well as two shiny marbles landed on his counter, "these guys are, well not that expensive in the grand scheme of things." He said as his fingers dusted over the feathers.
"As for these guys," he picked up the marbles and started rolling them between his fingers, "these guys will cost you a pretty penny."
"Why?" It said a lot about her with how she was able to keep her cool as she conversed with Isaac. The fact that he was offhandedly referring to people as nothing more than products did not escape her. The only difference between those things he held in his hands and them was that they were yet to break his rules.
'What was his ability?' No doubt was the same thing that was going through all their heads.
"Potential, influence, ability; eh it's a shaky market, dealing in people, that's why I mostly stick to items. It's such a volatile market, I don't know how the other guys do it."
"And who determines this 'value'? You?"
Isaac shook his head drearily, his earlier excitement slowly fading away. "They do. I just tell you the price."
"So those two are important people?" Mystique asked after gaining a clear footing for the situation.
"Important enough." He replied.
"And we're just supposed to take your word for it?—"
A puff of smoke and in front of them was a man who looked stunned and terrified and was in and out of his wits as he stood in front of them.
"Wai… wher–" He was cut off as he was once again turned into a pebble but the effect was a stark one across the three women.
"Wait, was that–" Mystique's mouth held low as her face morphed through different expressions of fear. If before she was looking at Isaac with a look of silent calculation and opportunistic amusement, then now all that was left on her face was abject horror.
"That was–" Even Ororo was stunned at the impossibility of what her brain just processed.
"Clint." Yelena stuttered and stumbled forward but Ororo grabbed her by the shoulder, having never taken her eyes off of Isaac. If anything he looked almost excited, for what she had no idea but she knew that having Yelena escalating it at this juncture would be bad. ESPECIALLY with what he just did.
"Seems like you knew the guy." He quipped.
"We know him…. Or at least I think we did." Ororo said after mentally calming herself down. It was almost ironic how fast things were spiraling despite her dearest wish. "What did you do to him?"
Isaac shrugged. "A little erasure. Figured it would be the best way to get him and his ilk from disturbing my little setup with their ruckus. Eh, it was good while it lasted."
He said it with the flair of a man that was very much used to similar things happening to him, even looking bored at the very concept and mocking its repetition. It was a bored and dangerous look for a man like him(again whatever he was) to have.
"You said erasure, what do you mean by that? Did you erase their memory from everyone who knew them?" She knew how ridiculous that sounded before she finished uttering it, and he thought so too given the deadpan on his face.
Such an undertaking would produce a ridiculous amount of psychic waves that would be impossible for the Professor or Cerebro to miss.
"Arghh! Seriously? I offer you a market of the most expansive array of resources you've ever seen and this is what you're hooked on?"
She could practically feel the fight or flight tension in Yelena's shoulder from where her hand held her and so she just sighed.
"You're a Merchant, right? That's what we want to know for now."
"I…. You know what, that's fair." He looked around, from the three of them to across his shop and sighed dejectedly before answering in a very dry tone. "I pretty much stole their origin point from your timeline. Less of a memory wipe and more of a 'they never existed in the first place'. It's one of the few things time travel movies got right."
It was absurd how almost everything that seemed to come out of Isaac's mouth stunned them because of the sheer ridiculousness that seemed to disburse from it.
Right now, they were all at a page where they believed everything that left his mouth but also decided to doubt it just in case it wasn't real. Hearing something like existence erasure, followed by a time travel joke was such a disenfranchising experience that it felt like they were in a loop that had ended long ago.
Mystique quietly took on her former role of an amused observer as soon as she finally managed to picture the scale of the man that was sitting in front of them.
She knew Yelena was out of a few loops, being a spy that wasn't intimately familiar with how ridiculously powerful people could be, but she was sure Ororo got the idea pretty quickly, even better than her if she was being honest.
At this point, Isaac was halfway sprawled on his desk and tapping a finger on it. "And that's the most you'll get out of it. For preface, I only told you this because you're interested in buying it, them, whatever. As for those idiots, well I'm going to have to take my payment from them one way or another before they can leave."
"And what will that payment be?"
"Honestly, I haven't decided yet. Could be anything; their skills, their memories, their soul, their emotions, their life — the options are many."
It was how casually he spoke about taking someone's soul and their life as payment for the nuisance of breaking his shop rules that really drove home the inhuman nature of man sitting before them. Even now he appeared more excited when he was speaking to Ororo about those magic plants than he was right now.
"Wait a minute, if you were to take your payment from them, wouldn't they be free to leave your shop then?" Yelena questioned.
The image of a frightened Clint Barton remained in their heads as well as the memory of a man with the alias of Hawkeye. It was they were trying to remember something that never existed but they knew exactly what never existed.
Isaac clicked his tongue. "Obviously it would be at a very discounted price otherwise there would be nothing left for you to buy if I wanted my full reparations. And I won't do it for cheap either; it sends the wrong message."
That was… fair, even if they didn't want to agree with it. If anything, he seemed to adhere strictly to his identity as a Merchant. The only thing he was interested in was what he could sell them.
This could be inferred from the reception he gave Ororo from the beginning. He stayed polite the entire time just as long as she reciprocated the basic courtesy.
Another thing was how were they going to afford the freedom of these people. She could see SHIELD footing the bill, that was as long as they don't make a bigger mess of the whole thing, and she could also see how this would involve the Professor and Magneto.
This was supposed to be a relaxing day, she repeated to herself.
"What about the other marble? Who is that?"
And that was when all hell broke loose.
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A/N: I have seen the comments in the recent chapters, mostly about Isaac and what type of Merchant he is, as well as the pace of the story.
For Isaac(since some people have something against his lackadaisical attitude), he is laidback and mostly reactional because I'm working with a neutral merchant(at least that's how I'm trying to write him). He only cares about his sales and his shop in general so if he looks like a pushover(which I'm not sure how that came about, but it's probably my fault since I failed to properly portray it) that's probably because he's extremely tolerant(dealing with customers for eons will do that) and would let most things slide except for breaking the few shop rules. Is he strong? Yes, and so is the shop. The reason why there's really no focus on his strength and why I left it vague is because this fic doesn't require him showing his strength. He just there to sell things.
As for the pacing issue, I'm really not trying to bolster up the word count. While the next few chapters admittedly drags on(as I've been told), I'm making it a point that the latest chapters don't. Also, why I don't want to admit this, sometimes it's hard to really write out the chapter, especially when I have to think of what to sell, who will buy it, a reasonable price, and whether or not to write out the effects of that sale. Long story short, the pacing is fast(? Good?) or at least it picks up after the next few chapters, for those that have a problem with it.