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Longshot spent the day downtown, plying his trade, such as it is, as he does most days. A street performer doesn't really get the luxury of taking a day off, but now that he has a partner in crime, so to speak, the bankroll is just a tiny bit less strapped. Longshot called it a day earlier today than most, having pocketed what he would call a respectable days earnings in tips. Tourists, man. A subway ride later, and he's emerging from one of the stations in Hell's Kitchen. As luck would have it, /not/ the one he actually intended to get off on, so now he's got a good twenty minute walk ahead of him to get back to the motel he's been calling home the last few nights. Oh well, excercise is good for you, right?
*
The last time Danny Rand ventured into Hell's Kitchen to look at some property, someone took a shot at her. Several shots, actually. She did not appreciate it. But Danny's a stubborn sort, not much for giving up, so she's back in the Kitchen today. Probably the only time someone could have said Danny went back into a kitchen.
Hands in the pockets of her trousers, she walks along the sidewalk, heading toward a dilapidated gym with a for sale sign battered and forgotten behind the bars of a broken window. She doesn't look like the sort of person who belongs in the Kitchen, clean and respectable, but as she moves past Longshot on the sidewalk, she flashes a smile. Nothing to fear here.
*
Hey, there's a girl smiling. Longshot gives a smile in return, and then stops and turns as she passes him. She looks ot of place here, for sure. But then again, so does Longshot to most people. "Hey, you lost?" He asks, trying to keep his voice friendly and non-threatening. Lone women in this part of town probably don't expect nice things from strange men, he figures.
*
Danny laughs, grin flashing over her shoulder as she keeps walking. "Refuse to be," she calls back, turning to walk backwards without looking away. "Though I got a pretty strongly worded get lost the last time I was checking the place out, so I didn't get to finish what I was doing." Pulling her hands from her pockets, she shrugs. "So I came back."
*
"Maybe not the best idea ever?" Longshot says, looking a bit confused. If he were looking somewhere, and someone told him to get lost, in what he can only assume by her turn of phrase to be a somewhat violent manner, he'd think twice about going back. Certainly about going back alone, to say the least. "Maybe someone doesn't really want you on their property?" He looks her up and down, without being /too/ obvious about it, though not really going out of his way to be super subtle. "Can't really imagine why though," he says in a bit quieter tone. "If you're worried about the same thing happenin', maybe having a man along with you might smooth things over?" Not that Longshot is particularly sexist, but the fact of the matter is that in this day and age, a woman is simply less likely to be harrassed or dismissed if she's accompanied by a man. Of course, it may not exactly come off that way, given his phrasing.
*
"The last one got shot at," Danny cautions, though her smile doesn't falter. "Just so we're all on the same page. But sure, if you want. You local?" she asks as she walks up to the barred window, reaching up to grab one of the bars and give it a good tug. When it doesn't give, she braces one foot against the wall and pulls herself up to get a better look through the grime. Stronger than she looks, then.
*
"For now," Longshot says, stepping up his pace to catch up with the shorter woman. When she pulls herself up, he stands and watches around for anyone who might be disapproving of this particular method of property-viewing. "Looking for anything in particular? Or anyone?" He doesn't seem all that phased about the comment about getting shot at; he's not /that/ new to the area. And gun violence? In Hell's Kitchen? Not exactly news.
*
"Just getting a feel for the building. You know, you try to buy a place in midtown, people start coming out of the woodwork to show you the place." Danny scrubs her free hand over the window, clearing out a spot to peer inside. "But you want to check out a building that's been all but abandoned for five years, no one returns your calls. Mostly just seeing what's there," she admits, hopping back down and brushing her hand off on her pants before offering it over. "I'm Danny, by the way."
*
Longshot lets out a little laugh at that. "Not too many real-estate agents rushin' to sell run-down gyms in Hell's Kitchen, I guess," he says. "People call me Longshot," he says as an introduction, taking the girl's and giving it a light shake. He then hops up himself to peer in through the window. Longshot is exceptionally light on his feet, and pulling himself up to the bars is an easy feat for the acrobat. He holds himself there by one hand for almost a minute as he looks around. "You know," he says, dropping back to the ground. "Place like this, probably no-one watching it too closely. Probably not too hard to pick the lock, if you wanted a closer look inside," he says. It's practically an offer. Lockpicking is basically stagecraft 101, and something Longshot has a fair bit of experience with. "You got a hair pin, or somethin'?"
*
Danny's hand is more callused than might be expected, and her grip firmer. "Longshot, huh? Sounds like that's got a story behind it." She shakes her head at the question of a hair pin, patting at her pockets in search of something similar. "I've got a pen?" Pulling it out, she starts to unscrew the pen, breaking it down to its component parts. There's a clip meant to hold it in place, that should be good for something. And the ink well itself. "That work?"
*
"You might say that," Longshot replies, taking the pen components from the girl and looking them over. "Yeah, that might do," he says, moving toward the door. He looks around once again for anyone that might be watching, but at this time of night it seems unlikely that anyone would really see anything, or even much care if they did. He works the narrow edge of the clip into the lock, and uncoils the spring into a long wire, and inserts it above the clip. While Longshot works at picking the lock on the door, his right eye starts to glow, brightly enough that if Danny were watching him, she might see the glow reflected off the door, especially easier given the setting sun. A moment later, and the the door creaks open, allowing the pair entrance. "Tada," he says, the glow of his eye fading before he turns around to offer her back the disassembled pen; it might not work anymore, but it's still hers.
*
Danny stands guard while he works on the lock, though she glances over just in time to catch a glimpse of the glow at his eye. One brow rises, curious, but she's not much of one to talk about glowing body parts. Still, the information gets stored away. "Nice," she smiles crookedly, taking the pen pieces back and screwing them together enough to keep them from spilling ink in her pocket before she steps inside. There isn't much to see, really. The shell of an old boxing ring. Fixtures where bags used to hang. This spot has been empty for at least ten years, if not more. "See, what I really want to know is…" Trailing off, she starts toward a few doorways, peering across the thresholds. "You think there's a locker room in here?"
*
Longshot steps in after her, and lets the door close gently behind him. Yep, nothing to see here, innocent passers-by! Certainly no crimes in the making. You'd think that considering his past and his desire to keep himself out of police custody, breaking and entering would be the last thing he'd willingly put himself up for, but here we are. "Not much goin' on in here but dust and rats," he says, looking around the gym. "Probably a locker room, yeah. Be surprised if there wasn't. If you're hoping someone left something behind though, I'm thinkin' you're probably a few years late to get here first," he says with a smirk. He walks around the main area of the gym, examining the skeleton of the building and the remnants. "So, why'd you wanna buy a dump like this? Actually, why care what's inside? Not really worth keeping the building, is it?"
*
"Mostly making sure plumbing's been run," Danny admits, voice echoing once she finds the showers. Half the tile is cracked and on the floor, and the dripping doesn't speak much for the quality of the plumbing, but it's there. "Place is in rough shape, but it's quicker to fix a place up than it is to bulldoze it and build from scratch. Probably. I'd have to run that past someone with a clue to be sure," she admits, turning back toward him. "I'm looking into some projects. Help the people here out a little bit. And it seemed to me some kind of community center, place that could serve as a shelter too…might not hurt things."
*
"Is it?" Longshot wouldn't really know. He just keeps hearing about people buying old buildings in places like this, decided the upkeep and the repairs aren't worth it, and tearing them down to build new monstrocities in their place. "People around here need help, you're right about that," he says with a nod. "Nice that you care enough about it to try. Makes me wonder why someone tried to shoot you last time you were around here though, if you're just trying to help?" Longshot wants to think people can be good, do good things for each other, but humans keep proving him wrong, so there's a certain level of skepticism on a fairly constant basis.
*
"Some people have a lot of money in keeping people down," Danny grimaces. "Others don't figure they can make enough money helping people when they can make more money screwing them over. Probably one of the mob families in this part of town doesn't want someone else moving in on territory they think is theirs. Figures they shoot at me, I'll decide to put my money somewhere else." She moves out of the locker room, going back down the halls to get a feel for the place. "Too bad for them, I don't give up that easy."
*
"Sounds about right," Longshot says with a nod of his head. He hasn't had much interaction with criminal element here, outside of your standard garden-variety pickpockets; he's been lucky that way. Kind of his thing, you see. He also hasn't gone poking his nose where it doesn't belong, which helps. "So you're plannin' on buyin' up old buildings, turnin' them into community centers, and turning Hell's Kitchen around? The mob be damned? Gotta admire your ambition, if that's your plan," he says with a bit of a smirk on his lips. "People like the ones you're up against don't usually give up that easy, either." He's not an expect on the Mob, mind you, but he remembers enough about his own father's associates to know what those people are like. Usually ends badly for someone, and not always those directly involved.
*
"Well. Maybe not lots of buildings. You spend all your money, you run out of money to do good things with." Danny reaches up to grab a chain hanging from the ceiling, giving it a good tug to find that - miraculously - it doesn't actually pull out of where it's anchored. "Looking at this place for a community center. Looking at a tenement building for something else. It needs work. But I ran into some guys a few weeks back who pointed out there are lots of people here who could work if they could get training and work. So I figure I hire locals, give them on the job training for it. When it's done, they've got a safe building and work experience."
*
Longshot listens to her plan, nodding at key points. Honestly, it sounds great on paper. He's not at all well-versed in social economics or anything, but from what he knows, jobs are good, community centers are good, people helping people, all good. It's usually in the details that these things go awry. "Sounds like you've thought it through pretty well," he says, moving around the building with her as she pulls on chains, and whatnot. "What'll you do if the mob doesn't let up? Even after you've moved in, fixed the place up, hired all your people and turned so many lives around? I'd be worried about retaliation, myself."
*
"I can take care of myself," Danny shrugs, turning back toward him. "And they're a little short on places to retaliate. My folks are dead, no kids, no boyfriend, no husband, no siblings. Which means they're pretty much stuck coming after me. And as they found out last time, that doesn't work out so great for them."
*
Longshot nods, "Good to hear," he says, and then realizes how that must sound. "You know, that you can look after yourself. Not about your folks, or the no husband." Feet taste great! Let's just get that out one out of that mouth of his.. "But just because they couldn't go after you, doesn't mean they won't go after what you're trying to build," he says after a moment. "My dad was in the mob, back in Brooklyn. Well, not /in/ the mob.. he did some things for them, sometimes. Money was tight, it was the thirties.." He trails off a bit. "Anyway. Tends to be that if people like that want something, and can't have, they make it so no-one can. But, hey, who knows, you might not have to worry about that," he says with a shrug.
*
"Now that…is a fair point," Danny agrees, crossing her arms over her chest as she takes a look around. "I guess I'm hoping that once people have something worth fighting for, they'll be here for it, too," she admits. "I mean, in the short term, I can spend all the money I want. But if the people here don't want to keep it up, it's not going to make a difference. On the other hand, if people chose to make a difference, it wouldn't matter if I spent any money, you know?" She shrugs, smile faint, before she starts back toward the door. "Have to try, at least."
*
"You're right about that. Nothing'll happen if nobody tries," Longshot says in agreement. He steps along behind the woman as she moves toward the door. "Gotta start somewhere. People 'round here don't really have the means to get the ball rolling. Could be you're right, and they'll take the reins once things start moving. Bit of a gamble, but might be worth it. 'Fraid you're not in much danger of turning a profit on anything here for a while though," he says with a smirk, understanding that's not really her aim. "I'll keep an eye out for you around here, Danny. In case you need to break in anywhere again," he says with a smirk.
*
"Hey, my lucky day, finding someone who knows the trick," Danny smirks back at him as she steps outside, pausing to at least turn the lock on the inside of the handle so it should lock behind them again. "I'll expect to see you at the grand opening, Longshot. Let you in without having to break in."
*
Longshot steps outside after her, "I'll be there when you set up shop," he says to Danny. "Good luck with everything, hope everything falls into place. The neighbourhood could use some good fortune, for a change." He takes a few steps back from her, readying to get back to his walk back to the motel. "Stay safe out there, Danny. Good to have met you," he says, smiles, and turns to start back down the street.
*