6833/Trouble in El Barrio

Trouble in El Barrio
Date of Scene:	07 July 2021
Location:	East Harlem
Synopsis:	June gives Wanda the lowdown on crime and dancing. Also how not to date.
Cast of Characters:	June Connor, Wanda Maximoff

---

June Connor has posed:
    Street Festivals. They are great ways to help bring a community together. Fantastic things for the kids to do during summer to keep them out of trouble. Cotton candy, popcorn, street magicians, clowns (Hey, some people still like them!) and all other sorts of minor entertainment brings people together.

    Of course, some people probably shouldn't be brought together, and it's not at all an unlikely spot for old enemies to bump into each other. But it's a big city, it'll probably be fine.

    June has a day off. Well, she always has the day off, she's not employed in the same sense that most people are. It doesn't mean she keeps her tone mild, though. Shredded black shorts, a tank top that covers very little of her bearing the Sex Pistols logo. As if her garb was not enough to draw attention, her hair is streaked dark purple and platinum blonde. Even in NYC, she stands out, with an edge that's far more intimidating to most people than should be possible at 5'3". She carries one of the said cotton candies, and seems to be alone in the sea of celebrants, just watching each booth as she wanders along.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Street festivals bring colour and sound to the grey cityscape. Ringing vocals and hammering drums emanate from the performers on a makeshift stage, proud of themselves for the ruckus they create. Sounds of the Caribbean predominate; the hip hop that they might favour is straight out of the world of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic. Not just a struggle on the street, but a question of identity, who a man should be when the world's against him, when family and money are fleeting at best. The ensemble playing to a swaying crowd isn't getting too rowdy at the moment though that could change. A nearby beer tent is probably halfway illegal, but no one cares about permits like that.

Wanda isn't some fair-skinned blonde who stands out, but a young woman whose olive complexion and dark hair insist the sun may not burn quite so hard. She drifts where she will, sipping one of those hand-squeezed lemonades being hawked by a battered food truck painted brightly with dancing citrus fruit. Don't judge appearances, that lemonade is fantastic, and she nurses it lazily while navigating around the hip hop confessional. The singer thrusts his arm in the air, and the swaying crowd is overseen by residents hanging out of their windows or seated on their balconies above the fanfare. Shouts and cheers for everyone from the clown's performance to a teenager breakdancing to the music fill the air.

It's a big city, it's exactly where enemies should pass one another by but they never quite do.

A guy leaning on a truck marked with a Lyft sign sneers at everyone who goes by. Another kid threads through the crowd, patting pockets and getting a little richer for his papa by the hour. Until he makes the mistake of budging his way into June's space. Up the way, another man in a wife beater slinks past, eyeing up the girls that he finds attractive, muttering choice and unrepeatable things in Spanish. An annoyed older woman, hair streaked grey, catches sound of this, and it's just a few steps ahead that she halts and demands, "What did you say?"

The guy grins, all white teeth, turning to her.

Trouble.

June Connor has posed:
    June herself has a few...observers, some are too young for her clearly, still wet behind the ears, and others are too old, heads turned by how much skin she leaves on display even if she doesn't have the most robust feminine features. They can use the excuse that they were looking at her many tattoos, maybe.

    As she feels the kid's hand go south, she mistakes his maneuver for something else, and spins, "Did you just grab my ass?" she accuses him, catching his hand. Her look says she would smack him along side the head if she didn't have it occupied by a cotton candy. "Little fucker. You bold as hell. Go grope some girl your own age." That...probably isn't the kind of admonishment she should give. She tugs him in, still holding his wrist. "And for fuck's sake," she whispers, "Don't use your thumb when you try to pick someone." She let's him go with a slight shove, and the corner of her eye catches the altercation between the man and the woman. Not her problem, though.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The Lyft driver cracks a smirk when the discord brews nearby. His head cranes to watch a proud grandma pull off the dreaded flipflop, this one crusted with rhinestones over the toe strap. Abuela has no time for foul-mouthed boys saying nasty things about the girls and boys. Her arm rears back and she flings her chancla with the wisdom and experience of centuries of abuelas like her. Ping! It smacks straight into the man's head.

The kid daring to pickpocket June snickers, right as she turns and mistakes him for groping her. This can't end well as he starts to back away from her, despite her pulling him in. That face is scary. Cotton candy lady is _crazy_, y'know?

"You loco, lady! Lemme go!"

The man whapped with the chancla is bulling his way forward, shoving past June while the crazy grandma comes after him with the other sandal ready to go. She snatches up the flung one, dually armed for a shoe-duel.

Enter Wanda, sipping her lemonade still, and narrowly avoiding collisions or being mowed down by people wisely fleeing the rage of two feminine forces of no small vehemence. Rightfully enraged, or annoyed? It doesn't matter. Any attempt to pat her down is a lost cause; leggings and her skirt don't have pockets.

June Connor has posed:
    "You have no idea," June answers, not disagreeing with his accusation of her sanity. Stupid kid. Her attention is still more on him, though, as the man shoves into her, knocking her nearly off her feet and into a family of four. "Asshole!" she spits out, not apologizing to the bystanding family as she shoves off from the father to right herself. Then glances back at the man. "Oh, shit, hi Kenny," she says. Wait, how does she know this guy.

    He definitely doesn't look like the kind of guy that would travel in her circles. Clean cut, middle class, probably makes a reasonable living. She doesn't hang on the fact, looking back at the altercation. The woman with him does, though. "You know her?" There's definitely a look of surprise from her.

    June doesn't stick around for that conversation, though, taking another bite of her cotton candy, she finds herself ending up not far from Wanda, taking some kind of amusement as she watches the grandmother beat the tar out of the man. "These are the best, am I right?" she comments with a grin, as if the whole event was part of a show.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
No idea? He just sneers at her, lip curled, teeth bared. A kid defending pride and nothing else, the only territory he has. He scuttles away in an effort to avoid trouble with June, pride an offense. The family not able to quite dodge fast enough to avoid getting the punk girl running into them gives him cover, though, and he flees. At a cool pace, after a few seconds.

Chancla-beaten man zigzags off to repair his pride, while the grandmother calmly slides her weapons of mass destruction back onto her feet. "That boy's no good. You dress like that," she tells June flatly, "you gonna get nothing but problems your way. Hanging out of those pants, like they're good for something other than--"

A serenade interrupted by the gently-smiling woman with auburn hair is almost incidental, especially with the family man and his wife caught up in a conversation of increasing severity a little distance away. "Have you seen the art around the corner? Some amazing talent in there. I wish I had the wall space." She gestures with a bracelet-ringed wrist. "We should take a look. I've wanted a neutral opinion about a piece, and I just can't decide."

"Cris, I'm not stupid -- how would you know that girl?" Thunder in three. Two...

June Connor has posed:
    June takes the chastising in surprising stride. Even SHE won't do anything to piss off an already angry abuela. She takes another bite of her cotton candy. "Yes, ma'am," she says with no air of commitment to her statement. It's purely 'not arguing' that comes from her. And perhaps that itself is her form of rebuttal. She just doesn't give any traction for the old woman to keep her chastising up by engaging a disagreement. When the request for the second opionion on art is offered, June gives a sidelong glance to the new participator, and grins out one side of her mouth. "Yeah, sure, I like art," she offers, completely NOT turning to view the argument just behind her.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Abuela probably measures up the world in terms of how many hits they need from a chancla. Few get away from her opinionated stare. A measured glare twinkles in those dark eyes, and then she returns back to the other members of her extended clan who are enjoying themselves.

Wanda offers June an escape that she probably didn't need but serves as a form of evading a grandmotherly anger. Or the married man's. Or the Lyft driver, who is just pissed off at the world in general.

Slinking along takes a little time, weaving around the participants. The art market is a string of tents, mostly white, filled by tables with different phtoographs, paintings, knitted baby clothes, beaded everything. Art is determined as 'everything for sale off Amazon.'

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"And there," Wanda adds, "is this excellent photographer. I can't decide if they are good pictures or I just like the content." Black and white, mostly, and smears of denatured graffiti sparkling against midnight cityscapes. Lots of shots of various buildings and people, going about their day.

June Connor has posed:
    June smugly grins as Wanda continues on with the request for help. It wasn't a bad thing to get out of the situation. While she does have the 'devil may care' attitude, surely nobody actively WANTS to be the center of an argument, and certainly not so many at once.

    She gives a long look at the photograph. "That's a print of Pablo Pesci's "Night Sky". It's actually a painting, but he used wax resist and dyes so that it looks just like a photo." Probably not an expected piece of knowledge from a punk girl. Particularly one that looks like she dropped out of high school.

    "So, you're a superhero, huh?" she asks. It might sound like she knows who Wanda is until she follows it up with the rest of her comment. "Saving damsels in distress from supervillain Abuelas armed with hulk like strength and sandals?"

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Who just wants to be the source of marital discord? Only a fool, probably, and Wanda is happy to provide an escape from any trouble. The children watching the display have to be uncomfortable, eyes travelling between mother and father bickering in front of all the festivalgoers. Too many people to really be comfortable.

She is, in fact, surprised by the statement of who the photograph is by and method of making it. Distinctions surely count; her smile and the widening eyes suggest delight, not how-the-hell mockery. "Wax? How would he make it like a photo then? I haven't ever used wax except for a few disastrous attempts at sculpting metal and I'm afraid the end results never looked like that." Her slow approach among others means not to displace anyone already admiring and shopping. Those tents are small. Reaching for it, she lifts the print and looks it over closer up, tilting so June can see it too.

"He's very good, Pesci. Do you think it captures the original well?" she asks. Her smile isn't fading at the question of who she is. It gets a laugh. "I'm actually a yoga instructor, saving people from stress and flabby stomachs or stiff joints. Among a few other jobs. Who doesn't need three or four gigs to get by in this city?"

June Connor has posed:
    "I dunno, I don't know shit about art," June says, defying the statement she just made. "Something about the wax keeps the dyes in place or somethin'." She gives a shrug, and momentarily glances over her shoulder at the discord before turning back. "It actually does kinda look like the original, though the original I think was on some kind of other like, canvas, medium, whatever they call it. It was in the State museum a while back. Yeah, so you can get rid of my flabby stomach, huh?" Clearly, she doesn't have that problem, she's as thin as a rail, though with good muscle tone. "I got gigs like...all the time. This place is as expensive as hell. You know, if hell's expensive."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
"I like it." Wanda gestures to the pleased owner of the stall, and sets down the print to be wrapped up and stuffed in a plastic bag for a princely sum of $40. Two twenties takes care of that, begging the question where the heck she stores her wallet without any kind of pockets. Perhaps not. She smiles at June. The discordant conversation has become an all out fight with stamping children hauled away and angry husband left with his fists clenched.

"I can teach you how. The work's always up to you," she explains after nodding to the question. Her gaze gets distant for a moment as she takes the package, though she's right back a second later. "Hell's cheap to enter and expensive to leave, something like that. Curse of the big city, something interesting is alwyas going on but you better give up on living alone or somewhere nice to afford to do it."

June Connor has posed:
    June glances back as the fight becomes more fierce. "Shit." She frowns. "Hold on." As if she suddenly has a chip on her shoulder, she walks up to the wife. "Look, lady, I just know him from a bar. He didn't do anything, okay? I hit on him, and he turned me down cuz of you." She offers her hands as if to wash them of the situation. "So stop bein' a fuckin' bitch, okay?" Well, she DID offer something into the conversation, and definitely not the thing to say in front of kids. It's also far from the most innocent of explanation, and June doesn't LOOK like she's twenty-one, but hey, some people just look young for their age. She turns back around, as if not to engage the conversation further. "Yeah," she says, "Really expensive to leave." It seems she's connecting the situation with the couple to the conversation by the way she tones her agreement.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Shit indeed.

Wanda looks up and then back in the direction June heads. Her cash is handily pocketed by the photographer/artist running the booth and she gets her prize possession in a moment.

For a moment, the witch and the whole art community in earshot get an insight into June's many relationship fandangos. At least with that one. The scorned (or not so scorned) wife looks outright frustrated, fury contained by the need to save face. Only a little. "What were you doing in there? With her?" she demands of her husband. "You don't drink! You told me you never went to the bars no more since that whole incident in Santo Domingo, you stupid--"

Is Abuela lurking with her chancla? No. But he steers the upset woman away, trying to hush her, and she refuses to be hushed. Hopefully they will calm down a bit, and it's easier to blame him for being loyal but drinking again than causing a fuss.

Wanda raises an eyebrow but that's about it. "No other place like it though. Is everything?" She waves her finger lightly.

June Connor has posed:
    June winces. Well, she tried. All in all, it is a better thing to be in trouble for drinking than for cheating. "Well, damn, Kenny, I don't blame you for drinkin'," she comments, as if a mockery of the spectacle his wife is making. June doesn't look the type for tact, but does have a knack for unconventional ways to end fights. Embarrassing the wife for her behavior and giving her a fading target to hate other than her husband? Maybe it'll work. Maybe not. But June did what she could. "Imma go, let you two work it out, right?" She turns back to Wanda, and shrugs. "No idea," she says quietly, hoping the woman drops it.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Choices are choices. Wanda tilts her head slightly, her loose auburn curls falling over her face and helping to smother the familiar profile for anyone who really follows Avenger adventures too closely.

"Best we keep moving, and let them be. I don't think this will end any time soon," she murmurs, though how much of that is a guess instead of some actual insight into the hearts of men and women is a mystery she'd like to keep. "Thanks for the help. I'm guessing you aren't native to New York? It draw you in some way too?"

June Connor has posed:
    June nods, moving along. "Yeah, sounds like a good idea," she agrees... once they are out of earshot, she glances back as if to make sure they aren't followed. "Especially since he's guilty as hell." She gives a mock innocent smile with an arch of her pierced eyebrow. Yeah, she means THAT. "Nah, I'm from Brooklyn, actually," she says. "Why?" Apparently it hasn't dawned on her that she's talking to an Avenger, still. But then, who really expects to see an Avenger in person.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wisdom suggests she keep moving along. "Brooklyn? I stand corrected, then." Wanda shifts the crinkling plastic bag wrapped around the picture to the other arm, balancing it with her lemonade. The near empty drink ends up tossed in a plastic recycling bin for just that purpose, though it will end up in the landfill along with everyone and everything else condemned to that plastic fate. Nothing quite escapes the pull of music, and she glides on to the other stage set up by a few people eager to belt out their tunes and get some exposure. "Just curious. I still feel like I'm getting to know the city, find the best places for good Greek food, beer, the best clubs that don't cost much. Everyone has a few suggestions for me to try. Better than stumbling to the same spot all the time, right?"

June Connor has posed:
    "I mean, it depends on what kinda clubs you mean," June says, taking another bite of the almost forgotten cotton candy. "I'm sure this shit will kill me, but I always feel like I didn't really eat anything," she observes as it dissolves before it can be chewed. "I mean, you got regular clubs that are like, all legit, and then you got that wild ones, usually run by people you don't want to know about, and they do all kinds of crazy shit. You don't strike me as a girl for the second kind, though," she observes. "So I mean, food? You can find this place over on Columbia, nice little hole in the wall. Mazzat I think it's called, if I'm pronouncing that right. Never really asked. What brought you out here anyway? Dreams of riches and fame kinda stuff?"

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Cotton candy being forgotten?! A cardinal sin right there. Noshing on it immediately should take priority. "It's worth it for the sugar and the colour. Else it would go to waste," Wanda laughs when June doubts about munching it. Her smile teases. "Oh, I don't seem like the sort of person to go for the hidden ones? Never know until you try. Crazy shit is only crazy when it isn't familiar. I've been to a few unexpected spots, I guess." She doesn't go further than that. "Mm. Mazzat; I'll go looking for that when it's dinner time."

The promise of black beans and fresh salsa is pretty compelling at the moment, since it's everywhere around them. "I went looking for family. My father lived out here. It was better than where I emigrated farm; not much happeinng there. Not unless you like farming or country life, which never really suited me."

June Connor has posed:
    June gives a 'sizing up' glance over Wanda. "Okay," she says, as if not sure she buys it, but isn't going to call her out as a liar, either. "Well, Kingpin runs a few, Hammerhead, it's New York, so they all got some dumbass nickname. One guy calls himself the Owl. Not sure how that's scary, but whatever." She gives a shrug. "But they got like...dark shit. Child prostitution, dog fights, drug trades. Not like the seedy underbelly of Kansas City or somethin'. Like, people die, so I'd say just stay clear of them. But I hope you find your dad. Family's what counts." She gives a nod, as if she just said something that is profound, and not something that's said by...well, a lot of people. She tears off the last of the cotton candy from the cardboard and dart throws it at a trash can that's already too full. She makes the shot, but it falls off, joining the crowd of trash that didn't fit in it.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Sizing up doesn't give much; tall, self-possessed, possibly fairly serene. That dark fire of her hair worn loose is about the only giveaway of something interesting. "The Owl? That's quite the name. Could be worse; night owl, maybe. Screech owl? Good for screamo, I guess."

The idea hides softly on that notion, and she might well make a footnote for places that need a bit of a visit from a friend with fire, claws or a hammer. Funny how that goes. Her gaze remains with June as she gives the rundown of places to be. "Kingpin isn't anyone I intend to get on the wrong side of. Better they don't know I exist at all. You give good advice, thanks. I should be getting on my way if I want to prepare for a night of reckless partying."

June Connor has posed:
    "All right," June says, not trying to hold her back. She does give a second look, as if curious why Wanda took interest in her in the first place. "By the way. I can't place it, but you look like...really familiar." She bites her lower lip. "I dunno, like someone. Anyway, have a good life, I guess," she offers, not expecting that she'd be likely to see Wanda again.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Wanda smiles, briefly looking over her shoulder. June's not mistaken, if she wonders if that look lingers. "I hear that now and then. Someone said I looked like Black Widow, except more Greek or Italian." The soft laugh carries a good amount of sunshine and delight at that. "We're all someone. I have the feeling we might cross paths. In a city this big, it's practically a given."

With a bit of a finger wiggle, she's on her way.

It might be a few gawping minutes or seconds before someone on the sidewalk nearby drops their phone back into their purse and turns to their friend. "I toldja! That _is_ her!"

"You're always getting on about famous people everywhere. You thought that lady at the supermarket was Wonder--"

"Her check-in," the brunet says, nose in the air, striding off to a burrito food truck, "says she was *right* here half an hour ago. Getting lemonade. We saw a star, Margolaine, just accept it. Our very own witch! Aside from that other witch, and Zee, but Zee lives in Gotham Mmmhmm!"

June Connor has posed:
    June walks without any decorum up to the burnette, looking at her phone without any subtleness, and realizes. She was talking to Wanda Maximoff. Her eyes widen a little with the realization.

    "Oh. Shit."