Jennifer and Angel

[x-shehulk.livejournal.com]

Angel gets waylaid by Walters who needs a guide around the mansion.  Angel's more than happy to perform the 'welcome to the mansion' guided tour.



Angel was on her way down the stairs to go...somewhere. Probably to the kitchen, because that was where so many of these little journeys always seemed to end up. But really she was just bored and sick of homework and felt like going for a walk. And if she got food out of the deal well then...sweet.
 
"Hello person I have not yet met!" called out a cheerful voice from beneath her.  Jennifer took a step away from the wall where she'd been lingering and waved, grateful that she hadn't had to be waiting for long.  Charles had apologized for not being able to show her around as he had a call he couldn't postpone but had said with a smile that he was sure that someone would be down fairly soon and she could waylay them into a tour.  Her words, thankfully, not his.

"Eep!" Angel stepped off the last step a little harder than necessary. She turned quickly, blinking when she saw the speaker, unable to keep the surprise out of her expression. "Hi. Wow. You are big. And green. You probably know that already, don't you? Hi."

 If it hadn't been so obvious that the young lady's mouth was sometimes a bit faster than she wanted, Walters would have launched into her "Holy crap, I'm green?!' routine that never failed to get a really hilarious reaction.  Instead, she just grinned in response and rocked back on her heels.  "Yeah, it's a little hard to miss and it does kind of limit the Halloween costume ideas.  You can only play out the Kermit card so long before it gets a little old.  I'm Jennifer Walters by the way - you one of the students here?"

"Um, you could be, um..." The only green people coming to mind at the moment were the Green Giant. the Grinch, and Shrek. Probably not suggestion Ms. Walters would appreciate. "Never-mind. Kermit is awesome. Hi, I'm Angel! And no, not a student - anymore, at least-" She'd worry later about the fact that she apparently looked like a teenager, "just one of the many graduates they're never going to get rid of. Do you need help finding something? Someone?"

"A little bit of both, actually!  The Professor was too busy for a tour, so I've been skulking out here to see if I could convince some poor soul to do it for me.  I'm pretty sure I've never been in a place this big that used to be someone's home so I'd like to mitigate as much getting lost as I could.  If you don't have the time, would you know someone else we could sucker into it?"

"I have time!" Angel said happily. This was certainly better than doing homework. "Yeah, this place is huge, I feel like living here without a bunch of other people would just be weird. Growing up here with just like, a family of four or something must have been crazy. Plenty of room though, no worries about getting sick of one another...whoops, sorry, I'm back." She clapped her hands together, grinning. "Welcome to Angel's Magical Tour of Wonder."

There was something about this kid, Jennifer thought, that should have been really annoying but, somehow, really wasn't.  "Magical Tour of Wonder?" she asked, looking amused.  "Alright then, Angel, do your best to blow my socks off.  I am prepared to be both amazed and mystified."

"The mansion does that to people on its own, don't you think you need me. Well, let's start with the obvious - this is the foyer." Angel spun in a quick circle, gesturing around. "That's the main staircase, obviously it goes up to the second and third floors - and down again. Probably didn't need to say that. Second floor is student living, third is staff and grad, guests, so on. First floor and basement are where the fun is." She spun again so she was facing Jennifer and started walking backwards. "If you'll follow me, our first stop will be my personal favorite room in the entire place."

Jennifer followed sedately along in Angel's wake with her hands tucked in her pockets while she marveled at the sheer size of the place.  It was impossible not to feel a little intimidated by the wealth and history but it seemed to be ... comfortable at the same time.  Maybe, she thought, that was just Angel.  "You've managed to pick a favorite out of all of these places?" she asked.

"Oh yes," Angel said happily, cupping her hands behind her head as she walked - still backwards. That was going to end badly at some point. "But see, I'm a bit biased, 'cause I've got the whole fiery energy projection thing going on, so I need a lot of food, soooo kitchen!" She finished with a flourish as she backed into the room, holding her arms out. "This place is stocked with enough food to feed the US Army - or at the very least a bunch of growing mutant teenagers and their adult bottomless pit counterparts."

"Okay, first, we'll pause about the firey thing because I just have to marvel at this kitchen."  And what a kitchen it was - the entire thing was decked out, modern and obviously built to last.  It had to be, she realized, to feed the number of people that had to be coming and going every week from the Mansion on top of dealing with mutant metabolisms (she remembered all too well her aunt and uncle frantically trying to keep pace with her voracious appetite) and the general hunger of teenagers.  "I can see why it's your favorite place, I think I'm in love with it already."

She turned back to her current guide and raised an eyebrow.  "So, fire?"

"Right?" Angel grinned. "Best room ever. Inside the mansion, at least. Wait until you meet Lorna, she rules the kitchen, she can literally make anything. And yes, fire. That's my trick, I do this thing where I emit microwaves, it heats up the oxygen in the air and whoosh!" She threw her hands up in a poor imitation. "Fire. Blue fire to be exact." She headed over to a cabinet, digging out a package of cookies. "Mmm. Cookie before we move on?"

"I learned very early on in my attempts to become a lawyer that you never turn down free food."  Jennifer took three of the offered cookies, glad to see they weren't, like, gold encrusted or anything.  Regular chocolate chip cookies suited her just fine.  "That actually sounds like a really awesome power.  I could have you used you in the courtroom a few times when I was arguing with some cranky lawyers."

"The best kind of food is the free kind." Angel took a few more cookies than what was strictly necessary - justifying that there was enough to share - before putting the package away and leading Jennifer out of the kitchen. "Lawyer? That's kind of really awesome. I don't think I'd have the patience for that, I'd probably end up setting someone's pants on fire. Which I'm guessing is exactly what you'd want me to do," she added with a smirk. "Classrooms down that way, teachers' offices in the same area," she added, gesturing towards the classroom area as she remembered that this was, in fact, a tour. "All the usual boring school-like stuff."

Jennifer grinned back at Angel as she ate one of the cookies.  "Bingo, kid.  I would have paid a hefty bribe for someone to set fire to a number of people during my illustrious courtroom days."  Not that they were over, of course.  "Sadly, I'm just green and large, so I just pretend to set them on fire with my brain while I smile pleasantly at them."  She glanced curiously down towards the classrooms.  "It would have been an interesting experience going to school here, though you said you're a former student, so I guess these are ancient history to you."

"Uh...interesting is one word for it," Angel agreed with a smile. "Teachers going insane, emergency evacuations for this, that, and the end of the world, kidnappings, hostile takeovers...not that I'd trade any of it for the world, couldn't have asked for a better high school experience," she added as she popped a cookie into her mouth. "And if you ever need someone set on fire, I'm your girl. Not that, ya know, I encourage violence or pyromania or anything. But it just so happens that sometimes fate works in strange ways, and someone who deserves to be set on fire just...is. You can't really blame anyone for that, right?"

The entire time Angel had been talking, Jen's eyebrows had been creeping up to her hairline.  Kidnappings?  Hostile takeovers?  Charles had mentioned that there were things they were going to need to go over in more detail but ... she wondered for a moment about what, exactly, she'd gotten herself in for.  "I think there might be some legal ramifications to that," she said lightly, "but considering you now know a good defense lawyer ..."  She grinned as they moved to the next hallway.  "Granted, I'm not cheap but I can work on a barter system, too."

"Oh, don't worry," Angel said quickly, seeing the look on Jen's face. "That stuff only happens like, once in a really, really blue moon. Usually it's pretty quiet around here. Well, not quiet. Mildly peaceful. Now, where are we...?" She looked around quickly. "Oooh, now we're heading toward the library. Imagine the biggest library you've ever been in, times it by ten and...still not big enough." She stopped in front of the library doors, nudging them open. "And unless I can pay you in cookies, I don't think I'm going to be able to afford your services," she added with a  grin. "Wouldn't the world be great if you could pay for everything in cookies?"

"You wouldn't believe how fat I'd be if the world bartered in cookies," Jen remarked, ducking in through the library doors.  It was an impressive looking library, all dark wood and well kept books in a comfortable environment.  She'd spent more time than she could remember in libraries when she'd been studying law and the memories had all blending into one pleasant, if tiring, experience.  "Charles certainly knows how to provide for his students and their learning, that's for sure."  When they weren't being kidnapped ... she really was going to have to bring that up at their next meeting.

"This place makes my school's library look like a closet," Angel said, leaning against the door. "And hey, mutant metabolism, that's gotta help with something, right? Though I guess bartering with cookies wouldn't do me much good, I'd still be poor." As evidenced by the fact that the cookies she'd taken from the kitchen were already gone.

Jen blinked at Angel's empty hands and then laughed loud enough that it echoed slightly in the library around them.  "If hadn't seen you with the cookies in the first place, I never would have known you'd even had them.  Alright, Angel, what's next on your tour of delights and magical wonderment?"

Angel giggled, clapping her hands together once as she led Jen back into the hall. "Right-o, next we have...wait, which way are we going?" She turned in a quick circle to get her bearings. "Well, looks like we're heading towards the basement. The med lab is down there if you happen to be of the 'gets hurt a lot' variety. Also lots of team-y stuff, but you're probably not here for that. Are you?"

"Not yet, anyway," Jen said simply, not ready to open that particular can of worms just yet.  And really not wanting to put Angel on the spot if the younger woman wasn't sure about showing her that part of the mansion.  "Let's keep it above ground and away from the superhero portion of the Institute for today.  Besides, it looks like this place goes on forever even if you don't count in downstairs."

"It really does," Angel agreed, already moving on. "There's a ball room - don't use that much unless there's a dance or a party or something, though - the garage - which is a lot more impressive then it sounds, there's like, a thousand cars in there, okay not really - the gymnasium...and we've still only hit the first floor."

The place was impressive and Walters could almost feel the history come to life around them as they wandered through the place.  "So I can see why this would be such a good place to be when you were growing up but what keeps you around now?  You're in college but you keep coming back.  Warren did, too, apparently.  What's the draw for you?"

Angel tilted her head, her expression turning thoughtful as she considered the question. "It's not just the place," she said finally, slowly, "it's the people in it. A house is house - or a mansion is a mansion, in this case - but it's who you live with that makes it home." She paused for a moment. "Wow, cheesy. But you know what I mean. I met my best friends here. There are people I care about, people I trust with my life, people I know I can always depend on no matter how bad I mess up. And I've had some doozies, lemme tell ya. So, long story short - people. People are what bring me back."

"...honestly, I was expecting you to say it was their amazing cake that kept bringing you back."  But she was mostly teasing.  Jennifer understood the draw of people; she had good family and good friends but the reason she'd been so unhappy at her original firm had been because the people there hadn't clicked with her.  They hadn't understood her and she'd been angry with them for how they treated her, their attempts to hold her back or use her as an intimidation tool.  "Okay, kid, let's continue this tour and you can tell me all about these awesome people of yours.  In exchange, the next time you're in town, dinner's on me."

"Weeeeeeeeeeell...the cake is amazing," Angel admitted with a grin. "All right, yeah, ya got me. It's the cake. And the cookies. Great cookies." She shook her head quickly to keep herself from drifting off too far. "Yes, let the tour continue! And be careful about offering me food - I have a bad habit of breaking the bank when someone offers to feed me."