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Community center is a rather grandiose term for this place, here in the ghetto where the city hides it's less familiar faces. M-Town isn't always the nicest part of town, but for Hope Summers, it has something of home about it. Truth be told, she's a little more comfortable here where people have to fight for what they need than she is at Avengers mansion, where everything is shiny and clean and new.
If she's supposed to be some sort of mutant Messiah, then she might as well start by helping out where she can, here. Hope's volunteer work comes in many forms. Sometimes it's first aid triage, sometimes it's working the soup line. Today, she's showing a younger girl a few things about defending herself.
"Yeah, right there," she nods, aiming the girl's fist at her nose. "You hit someone in the nose and their eyes tear up and they can't see where you run."
Jenni wandered all places in New York with very few cares as to the stares she often drew with her almost emerald green skin- brilliant and obvious from almost any distance. She doesn't hide herself, not one bit- she wears her green skin with pride.
She's also very civic minded- and Jenni is in the Mutant Town community center taking pictures for those who couldn't otherwise afford them. Pictures for IDs, pictures for family, or friends, or any reason at all. She's got her camera set up in a corner, along with all the proper lighting and seating to make things look completely professional.
"Your grandmother will love these pictures." Jenni assures her current subject, "I'll drop them off next week after I get them all developed." she assures the young man who's very clearly a mutant.
The young man says, "My abuelita is the only one in my family who hasn't turned their back on me." he says, "She asks for pictures all the time." Jenni grins, "Well, now she'll have all different sizes of pictures for you." she assures the young man.
Jen's at the community center as well— but she's not giving self defense lessons. The glamazonian lawyer is giving some legal advice. It's not free, because the term is 'pro-bono', but— well, she's not getting paid an hourly rate for it, either. The Center will bill her employers, and everyone will file their taxes for a deduction on the costs of her services.
"No— Mister Malcutti, you can't take out a patent on the concept of a car," she explains, with tired patience. The lawyer sits carefully sideways in a sturdy chair, legs crossed to the side, and drums her pencil on the desk between thumb and forefinger. She's wearing a deep, almost black business suit with pencil skirt and jacket, and a white silk blouse with wide lapels.
"But there isn't a patent for a four-wheeled vehicle, is there?" the fellow says. He's the dishevelled sort of fellow who probably has a dozen patent suits going at any time, all for stuff he didn't actually invent.
Jessica stares at him with her sharp green eyes, looking over low, square-rimmed glasses. "Mister Malcutti, I'm here giving free legal advice. My free advice to you is to not waste my time with frivolous patent litigation, because my time is extremely valuable, and I'd rather be helping people with actual issues like rent discrimination. And you're starting to annoy me." She closes her binder with a flick of her wrist, pointedly, and stares at Malcutti as she rises.
Standing at her full height of a little shy of seven feet, the lawyer walks away from the table towards a vending machine. Thousand-dollar heels (reinforced with titanium) click on the floor with each step she takes. Jen Walters, aka She-Hulk, digs in her pocket for a credit card and slices it through the vending machine's reader and punches in C3 for a bottle of Dr. Pepper. The machine whirrs and *clunks* loudly, and Jen stoops to retrieve it before looking around the room. Hope's self defense classes get a look of interest, then she flickers an examination of Jenni. Green recognizes green, and Jennifer flashes a friendly smile at the other olive-skinned metahuman.
"It's okay," Hope encourages the girl with a nod when she hesitates to reach out and give it a try. "Don't worry, you won't hurt me." Tiny blue and green feathers flicker behind the girl's ears and between her fingers, but she finally throws a careful punch.
Hope doesn't sidestep, though there's a twitch in her hips that suggests it takes effort not to. Instead, she reaches out to take the girl's hand, adjusting her fist. "This way," she says with a small smile. "That way you don't break your fingers or your wrist hitting someone's stupid hard head."
She looks away from the girl for a moment as others in the center move around, noting the green sorts with a slight tilt of her head.
*Click!* Jenni takes a few pictures- moving from place to place, repositioning the young man a few times. "She sounds like a wonderful woman." She says to the young man- who's overall look would best be called demonic. "She is!" he says, animated and bright. "I visit her every weekend. She's really a good woman. Not a mean bone in her body, and even though I look like this, she doesn't treat me any different." he says, smiling brightly.
Jenni is quick to take more pictures as he smiles brightly like that- as he looks so happy in that moment. Artistic, lovely photos in addition to the more stuffy ones.
"Okay, so, I gotta save some film for other folks- but I'll leave the pictures here next week with Ms. Ethel." she assures him. He stands up, and she shakes his hand- hugs him- and off he goes into the cold.
Jenni turns then, grinning as she checks her camera and notices the other green woman. "Hey there. Love the color choice."
"Right?" Jennifer grins down at Jenni. She's dressed profesionally with her hair pulled back in an efficient bun behind her neck, but the smile absolutely transforms her somewhat severe, heart-shaped face into something much friendlier.
"Nice of you to take some pictures," she says, nodding at the departing metahuman boy. "It's amazing what a good photographer can do. Or a good coach," she says, nodding towards Hope and her lesson. Jen knows enough about self defense to recognize that Hope's more than just a little competent.
"I'm Jen Walters," she says, sticking a hand out (down) at Jenni, offering a gentle squeeze of fingers instead of a more traditional handshake. "I'm a local metahuman rights lawyer— doing some pro bono work at the moment, y'know, helping people with contact disputes, rent issues, that sorta thing. Are you doing this professionally, or just for fun?" she inquires, nodding at Jenni's camera.
"The most important part, though, is knowing which battles to fight," Hope concludes with the girl, setting a hand on her shoulder. "You can't fix everything with punching. But if it comes down to you or them, then the answer is you." She gives the girl's shoulder an encouraging squeeze, sending her on her way before she moves toward the vending machine herself, digging a few coins out of her pocket and eavesdropping on the others.
"And I'm Jenni Hayden." The other green woman says as she returns her fellow Green-Jen's handshake with a smile. "I'm a student." she continues, "So a little of both and neither at the same time." she answers with a grin. "I'm going for a fine arts degree, majoring in Photography and Cinema." she says next, just explaining. "I like to take shots here in M-Town when I can. Most of the people don't bother me, too much." she says. "Nice people, for the most part. I come down here once or twice a month and take pictures here for folks, too. A lot of photographers won't work with those of us who look a bit out of the ordinary, so, I figure its a small thing. The cost of film and paper isn't much, and it brings a lot of joy."
"Its really nice of you to take your time as an attorney. I'd bet with you on their side they feel legally invincible!" Jenni says with a playful grin.
"Ugh. College," Jen says, with wry sympathy. "I don't envy you. My undergrad wasn't too bad, but law school— well. Postsecondary studies suck," she tells Jenni. "You're an undergrad? Are you thinking of going into the workforce soon, or cnsidering maybe an MFA?" she inquires, sipping her soda.
Big as she is, she gracefully sidesteps when Hope walks up to the vending machine, and smiles down at the woman. "Good lesson," she tells Hope, as an aside. "And gooad advice. Best fights are the ones you pick, if you've gotta fight at all," she agrees, nodding.
"Thanks," Hope smiles faintly to Jen, feeding in a couple of coins and getting a Coke from the machine. "Problem for people around here is that they don't often get to pick the fight. Too often the fight picks them. I just like to see people a little better prepared for it if they get backed into a corner."
She sets the bottle against the machine, popping off the cap before offering a hand over to Jen. "Hope Summers," she introduces herself, nodding to Jenni as well to include her in the introduction. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too, Hope!" Jenni says with bright enthusiasm. Then, back to Jen and the requested information. "Yeah, undergrad. Still in my Freshman year- going into the news semester." she continues, "Luckily, fine-arts people are surprisingly welcoming to the odd and unusual. I bet I'd be asked to leave the program if I were in any other department. Now, I just get asked to pose for more pictures, or play model for the painters. Color is a very special thing- and it seems green like this is all the rage."
"Jen Walters," the tall lawyer repeats, and she offers a gentle handsqueeze to Hope next. A business card materializes and she offers one to Hope— then, one to Jenni.
"I specialize in metahuman defense litigation," she says. "But I also handle civil rights. If you or anyone you know runs into problems— landlords manipulating rent, employer discrimination, please let me know and I'll see what I can do to help. My firm does a lot of pro bono and sliding scale work in this area."
She sips her soda and nods at Jenni. "Green's in," she confirms, flashing an ivory-toothed grin. "Seems everyone's got good taste these days. I half expect to see someone in green on the cover of Vogue."
Hope takes the card, looking it over before she slips it into her pocket. "That must be a busy field," she nods to Jen. "Lots of people in need of some sort of defense. But I can imagine they think twice about what they say in front of you," she adds with a quirk of a smile. She looks between the pair again, and as she does, an array of mutant features shimmer over her. A flicker of flame between her fingertips, a flash of blue and green feathers like the ones the girl had, a pair of gills. But no green skin.
"You're…not mutants," she says, and while there ought to be a question in her voice, there isn't. And yet, she smiles. "Nice to see people working together here."
"Oh yeah, for sure. Toss on a few 8th street fashions and you'd be right as rain." Jenni says with a grin as she accepts the card and slides it into a pocket. "I love that area of town- The Five Spot, The New Bowery Theater- I'd love one of my movies to be shown there. They're not particularly good for being seen, yet. I've got a thing for light, and how it works. Interplay between light and darkness… you know, that sort of stuff." She's always happy to talk about her chosen artistic endeavor.
"Not mutant? No clue, around midterms there I was- normal girl, nothing weird. Then bang! Here I am, green skin and all sorts of weirdness. Maybe a mutant, maybe something else- no idea!" Jenni says, apparently taking Hope's statement as more of a question.
Jen waits for Jenni to respond to Hope's question, and turns to look down at the other rough-and-tumble redhead. The interplay of fire and phantasm elicits a life of one immaculate arched brow.
"No, I'm not," Jen agrees, readily. "And I don't try to pass myself off as one. I have the luxury of not looking like this—" she gestures at herself, "any more often than I want to. But I like being green and I like being tall, and I've spent a fortune on heels that don't fit me when I'm wearing my other face."
"Personally? I respect the hell out of mutants who want to fight for their identity. But I don't discriminate between someone with an inherent genetic condition or someone who got doused in radioactive waste. Humanity has a habit of lumping anyone who looks different into 'other', and there are plenty of metahumans out there who don't have the X-gene but stand out even more than many mutants do."
Hope grins approvingly at Jen, nodding once. "Good for you. They are, uh. Nice heels," she adds, although she sounds a little more uncertain about that. They're probably nice, at least. It's nice to compliment people's shoes, she's heard. "I'm pretty sure you're not a mutant," she adds to Jenni. "But I could be wrong. Here in M-Town, sometimes things get…hard to tell apart." She waves a hand around her temple, shaking her head. "I suppose it doesn't matter to most people here, though. Different is different, and not a lot of tolerance for it."
"I don't have another face. It's green all the time, baby!" Jenni says with a grin, "And, honestly, I don't care how I look or how anyone else looks. Its the character of a person that matters." she says, stealing a line from MLK. "And yeah, at the end of the day, no one gives a single crap about if you are or aren't a mutant. They look at me, they see green skin, green hair- and they assume." she says, "And that's all that matters. You are different first, and human second."
Jen glances down at her shoes. "Right?" she agrees, nodding, and turns her ankle out to put the shoe on display. "Ferragamo makes amazing stuff. I have to have all mine made custom anyway, I'm a… little big-boned for off-the-shelf. So why not go custom Italian, right?"
She straightens up, flicking at her skirt absently to smooth it, and nods at Jenni. "If only the rest of the world saw it that way," she agrees. "Unfortunately a lot of people only see skin-deep. Even if you're not a mutant, there are people who won't care to make a distinction. So I don't distinguish in my legal defense— if you're a mutant or meta, odds are good you're gonna need some legal help."
"What do you do, Hope? Are you a boxing instructor or something? Bruce Lee, karate?" she says, betraying a bit of ignorance on the topic.
"Hey, it was great to meet both of you." Jenni says, "I need to run, though. I've got some other shoots I need to get to." she smiles to both Jennifer and Hope. "If you're ever in need of a photographer- let me know. I take all kinds of shots for extra cash. Tasteful. Discrete. Whatever you need, I'm your gal." she says as she turns and begins to break down her shooting setup.
"Ah, that's a little complicated," Hope smiles crookedly at Jen's question, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm sort of just visiting, you could say. But I work with the Avengers. Help with some tech design things, lend a hand where I can. Good in a fight. I…guess you could call me a soldier." Even if the idea of a female soldier is practically anathema here and now.
She turns as Jenni makes her departure, waving after her. "Nice to meet you, Jenni," she calls. "I'm sure I'll see you around."
Jenni smiles and waves as she gets everything together, folds it up, and puts it all on a backpack. "See you around!" she offers, before off she goes into the evening!
"Sure thing, Jenni," the tall lawyer tells the other green-skinned lady. "I'll bear that in mind. Thanks for the kind offer," she says, flashing another megawatt smile.
She looks at Hope again. Jennifer stands a little furthur back than one might consider normal for polite conversation, but stands at a slight angle to Hope with one leg back and the other slightly bent. It's clearly a posture designed to keep her from just towering over other people, though there's not much she can do for her size and sheer presence. "The Avengers? Really? That's very neat," Jen says. She seems to pick up on Hope's uncertainty about the word 'soldier'. "Being a soldier sounds tough. I'm the only woman at my firm," she tells Hope, sympathetically. "Lawyers are cuttthroats but it all comes down to how well you can argue over how you look. And I only had to slap one guy when he pinched my butt," she winks. "Once he got out of the hospital, we came to an understanding."
"Oh, just the one?" Hope laughs, shaking her head. She doesn't seem bothered by the towering, at least, one hand comfortable in her pocket while her coke bottle dangles from the other. "That doesn't sound so bad then. And really, nothing is so bad here. I mean, it's not perfect. But mutants aren't actively hunted. People have homes. Some people are hungry, but there's food. There are much worse worlds to live in. This one still has a chance to be better, you know?"
"Well, you know what my daddy used to say. Speak softly, but carry a big stick. Or, speak softly, but slap them hard enough to make them crosseyed," she says, with a flickering grin that turns into a low, easy laugh.
"No— this is a great place to live," Jen agrees. "And New York is probably the most progressive city on Earth. You can walk down the street here being a mutant and you won't get trouble. I have clients from rural parts of California— I moved here a few months ago—" she interjects, explaining, "and people were flocking to the coast to get away from the farmers with their pitchforks."
Hope's brows rise at the description. "Well that sounds…awful. I guess it makes sense. This is a big city, so there are more people around, so there's more exposure, so people have to get more used to it. I had a friend who- Well. She was from Africa, and the people there thought that she was some sort of witch. They didn't have many mutants there. It…did not go well for her."
"Oh, my gosh," Jen winces. "Being a Negro in America is already pretty hard. I can't imagine what kind of ridiculous tribal nonsense she put up with in Africa," she says, frowning sympathetically. "I know there's reports of metas in the Middle East and Indies getting arrested or thrown into sanitariums— and those are nations that are actually somewhat developed."
"Like I said. I can blend if I want to, but I mostly don't want to. I know there are lots of mutants who can't control how they look, and they stand out. It seems a little unfair to be in the public eye, being a public defender, but go home and be able to pretend I'm 'just like everyone else'."
"Well, I imagine it doesn't hurt that you look pretty intimidating," Hope points out, smile crooked. "Most people who want to pick on people for being different are pretty cowardly when it comes down to it. They'd much prefer to pick on someone who doesn't look like they can defend themselves." She takes a sip of her coke, moving to perch on the edge of a table. "Which definitely isn't you."
"All very true," Jen says, flashing a smile at the compliment. "I'm tall enough that I stand out, but I'm not afraid of getting out my big girl voice if someone decides to be a nuisance."
"And being a lawyer is better than knowing how to box, at least in the circles I'm in. High powered executive types don't know what to do when I call them salty old pigs instead of blushing and going 'tee-hee' at their dumb jokes," she says, eyerolling eloquently.
"But you know how to handle yourself too. I approve," Jen tells Hope. "And I'm glad to see you teaching some of the girls here how to defend themselves. Not everyone's big enough to fend off some creep at the local diner."
"I do know how to handle myself," Hope nods. "My dad taught me. But I can also pass," she points out, rueful. "So if I want, I can walk the streets without anyone knowing what I am. Which kind of feels like a cop out sometimes. Other people have to wear it on their sleeve. Just like you staying green," she adds. "The least I can do is help someone else be ready to deal with it if they have to."
"Very civic-minded," Jen says, nodding approval of Hope's position. "I might hit you up for some lessons. I've done a little boxing but I know my technique's pretty bad. When you can flip over a bus with one hand, it's kinda hard to get the discipline to really get your footwork down, y'know?" she says, wiggling one hand back and forth.
"But that goes both ways. If I can be of any help with legal stuff, let me know. Civil, criminal, defense, whatever."
Hope quirks a brow, but she nods, taking another sip of her coke. "I'm here pretty regularly. If you want to train sometime, I'm always glad to have someone new to work with. Keeps me from losing my edge. And if the right people are around, I should be able to stand up to it," she adds, grin flashing. "I, ah." She looks around, lowering her voice a bit and rubbing a hand at the back of her neck. "I'm a power mimic," she explains.
Jen 'mmmhms' and nods, leaning forward with a sympathetic sort of conspiracy. "Interesting. Rare, too, from what I know," she tells Hope. "I know a lot of metas with some pretty unique mutations. Mimickry must come in handy sometimes. Me, well— what you see is what you get," Jen says, wryly. "Brassy, sassy, seven feet tall, green, and I have to shop at specialty tailors. Which, again— I'm fine with. Even if they use enough silk to set sails for a naval clipper," she says, with a wry self-deprecation that turns into a merry laugh.
"Listen, I should get back to it before I have to get back to the offices. But let's get together again sometime, huh?" She taps a green fingernail against the card in Hope's hand, 'thwipping' the corner of it. "Drop me a line with my secretary, huh?"
"Sounds like a plan," Hope nods, smile crooked. "Thanks again for helping out here," she adds, hopping off the table. "Capable legal help isn't something that a lot of people can get, especially around here. That's making a difference."
"That's how we fix things, isn't it?" Jen inquires, lips quirking in a smile. "Everyone doing little things, then once in a while, everyone does a little bit of a big thing. Anyway— was swell to meet you, Hope. Take care, huh?"
The tall lawyer bids Hope farewell with a flicker of her fingers, and heads back to the little office area she's set up.