Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

Sharon Carter got the information she wanted and left in high spirits.

How much value that information would ultimately have, or what S.H.I.E.L.D. intended to do with it, was anyone’s guess. Dottie Underwood, meanwhile, had suffered the greatest loss of all and had absolutely no interest in finding out.

She had spent money. She had put in the effort. And somehow, instead of achieving her goal, she’d made everything worse.

Captain America and Peggy Carter were closer than ever.

Dottie’s eyes nearly filled with tears at the thought.

"Of course. Carter women are naturally bad for my health."

With another miserable sigh, Dottie slumped onto the rooftop.

She had already decided she wasn’t going downstairs tonight.

What was the alternative? Sit nearby and watch Captain America and Peggy have a candlelit romantic dinner? Hide in her room and spend the second half of the night listening to whatever noises the two of them decided to make?

That wasn’t a living arrangement.

That was psychological torture.

The rooftop was better.

A single woman with terrible luck in love was supposed to live on a rooftop anyway, wasn’t she?

Meanwhile, Evenson was nearly home.

He had shared a ride back with two strangers, and there was one thing he had been trying very hard not to say for the entire trip.

He finally couldn’t take it anymore.

"Mr. Sherlock... are you done staring at me?"

Ever since Evenson had gotten into the car, the man called Sherlock had been watching him through the rearview mirror.

He’d been doing it for the entire ride.

It was unnerving enough on its own. The man’s English carried an unmistakably heavy British accent, which somehow made the whole experience even more uncomfortable.

"Call me Holmes."

Sherlock rubbed his stubbled chin and corrected him without taking his eyes off the rearview mirror.

"Holmes?"

Evenson glanced back at him.

Then he shrugged.

In the world he lived in now, strange things happened every day. A man’s surname wasn’t exactly worth making a fuss over.

Besides, Evenson was actually a little more at ease now.

Holmes was a surname. The man had specifically asked Evenson to call him by his family name instead of his given name.

That suggested a certain amount of distance.

In other words, he probably wasn’t about to unleash some uniquely British eccentricity on him.

"So, Mr. Holmes, why have you been staring at me this whole time?"

Evenson shifted in his seat, irritation creeping into his voice.

"Don’t you know it’s rude?"

"I apologize for my impoliteness."

Holmes answered instantly.

His expression, however, contained not even the faintest trace of regret.

"You’re the owner of Richter’s Curiosities, aren’t you, Mr. Richter?"

"We’ve met before?"

"No. This is our first meeting."

Holmes denied it without hesitation before continuing.

"When you got into the car, you gave the driver your destination. I happened to know that the owner of that establishment is a German. A rather pure-blooded one, at that."

"Mhm."

Evenson ran a hand through his hair while looking into the rearview mirror.

"Don’t forget to add one other distinguishing feature. I’m extraordinarily handsome."

The man sitting silently in the back seat finally covered his face with one hand and shook his head.

Holmes, meanwhile, actually rolled his eyes.

"See? That’s strange."

"Agreed."

Evenson nodded solemnly at his own reflection.

"Sometimes I wonder why I’m this handsome too."

"Oh, for God’s sake."

Watson had finally reached his limit.

Even if the man was telling the truth, did he have no shame at all?

"Holmes is incapable of sitting still," Watson explained, lowering his hand. "He gets involved in all sorts of strange investigations. Sometimes he’ll have me collect information on every business along a particular street, including their revenue and prospects. He claims it improves my observational and deductive skills."

He paused.

"Your shop happened to be on one of my lists."

"So?"

Someone had secretly been investigating his shop?

Evenson was suddenly rather interested in hearing what they’d discovered.

"Every time I compiled my list of businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, your shop was never outside the top three."

Watson sounded slightly embarrassed saying it in front of the owner.

"Whenever I submitted the list at the end of the year, I’d point to your shop and say..."

"That shop is finished," Holmes supplied.

Watson’s eyes widened.

"That’s not what I said!"

"Oh. My mistake."

Holmes nodded thoughtfully.

"What you actually said was, ’That miserable little shop is definitely going under.’"

Evenson lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He honestly had no idea what to say.

It wasn’t as though he’d never heard that prediction before. People had been declaring Richter’s Curiosities doomed for years.

"I... may have said something like that."

Watson shot his partner an accusing look.

"But then, at the end of the year, I’d say..."

"That miserable little shop somehow survived another year. There is no justice in this world."

Holmes delivered the line with complete sincerity.

"Right."

Evenson wasn’t particularly offended.

He’d gotten used to this sort of assessment.

"So, Mr. Holmes, what exactly are you getting at?"

"If Watson’s observations are correct, your shop should be doing terribly."

Holmes sniffed once and continued.

"And yet you’re wearing a custom-made Prada suit made from pure wool. A suit like that would probably cost more than your shop’s entire annual revenue."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"You’re also smoking a hand-rolled Cuban cigar. One cigar could easily cost as much as you make in a month."

"And..."

Holmes’s gaze sharpened.

"Cigars aren’t cigarettes. Someone who doesn’t smoke them regularly would have trouble handling the smoke. Yet you’re smoking that cigar completely naturally."

"Could be."

Evenson sounded indifferent.

Trouble handling smoke?

Please.

Did Holmes really think Evenson would risk lung cancer when he had magic at his disposal?

He always used Life Tap and his other magical abilities carefully enough to prevent such mundane problems from becoming actual problems. Being nearly immune to supernatural threats only to get taken down by lung disease would be an embarrassingly stupid way to die.

"That’s what I find strange."

Holmes looked genuinely fascinated.

"How do you afford this lifestyle?"

"A shop that sells magical curiosities."

Evenson extinguished his cigar and casually flicked it out the window.

"Some people appear powerful enough to solve any problem themselves. But even the richest and most influential people eventually run into things they can’t handle."

He leaned back.

"When that happens, they come looking for solutions in less conventional places."

His mouth curved faintly.

"They’re respectable people, though. They have reputations to protect, and some of the things they need help with involve rather serious secrets. They can’t exactly walk into my shop and announce what they’re looking for."

"So instead, they sometimes pay with things that are a little more interesting than cash."

Evenson looked at Holmes through the rearview mirror.

"What do you think of that answer, Mr. Holmes?"

Before Holmes could respond, Evenson turned toward the driver.

"That’s my stop. Just pull over here."

The car came to a halt.

Evenson opened the door and stepped out. He leaned toward the rear window and waved at the two men inside.

"Thanks for the ride. Maybe we’ll meet again."

The car pulled away.

Once it had turned the corner, Holmes suddenly looked toward his partner.

"Watson. Did you notice anything?"

"A very suspicious man."

Watson frowned.

"The financial situation of his shop is dreadful. If that business were his only source of income, he wouldn’t even be able to cover the electricity bill, let alone keep it operating for this long."

He thought for a moment.

"And I can’t imagine what sort of wealthy person would trade cigars and expensive suits as payment."

Watson’s eyes narrowed.

"The way he wore that suit was completely natural, too. He didn’t have the slightest air of someone who’d suddenly become rich and wanted everyone to know it."

His expression grew more serious.

"So I think he has another source of income. Or..."

Watson paused.

"His shop and his current identity could both be disguises."

Holmes tilted his head.

Watson continued.

"He could be a crime boss. A major smuggler. Something along those lines."

"That’s a perfectly reasonable deduction."

Holmes tilted his head the other way.

"But that’s not what I was asking."

Watson blinked.

"Then what were you asking?"

"The kid told us he was sharing the ride with us when he got into the car."

Holmes looked toward the road ahead.

"When he got out, did he actually pay his share of the fare?"

Silence.

Watson stared blankly ahead.

"...I don’t think he did."

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