The bar Jen suggested for us is apparently one of her favorite spots in New York, a place she came across during her "Avengers party girl" days, which briefly worried me that it was going to be some insufferable night club vibrating with techno music so loud it would make your fillings fall out and all the drinks cost like a used car. Thankfully, it turns out to be a more standard neighborhood bar type of place, which according to her is one of several unofficial hangouts for New Yorks superheroes. Unlike the villain community, the heroes don't have an official place like The Bar With No Name, but of course, they don't actually need one. Instead, the heroes who like to have a beer after, or during patrol, frequent a few different places across the city, though for obvious reasons the Civil War put a bit of a damper on the super bar scene.
Jen, having changed from her business suit to a more casual t-shirt and jeans before we went out, draw more than a little attention as we walk in, because the sight of a green-skinned, seven foot amazon never quite loses it's novelty wether she's a regular at the place or not. To my amusement, it also makes me virtually invisible, despite my own appearance being well and truly known to the public by now, especially after the social media leaks from my visit to Front Line. Jen just ignores the stares from the other patrons and waves to the bartender, a thin man with neatly cropped black hair, who for some reason is wearing a very gaudy bowtie.
"Walters, I haven't seen you around in a while. The usual?"
"Sorry Zeke, it's been a...difficult few months. But things are looking up again, so I'm down here celebrating with a friend of mine. The usual sounds good."
Zeke nods before turning to me "And you?"
I shrug "Whatever she's having"
He just looks me up and down for a moment "...I get that you're a big guy, but you realize who you're hanging out with, right? I don't think you want to get into a drinking contest with her, not if you value your liver. Plus, I'd rather not have to drag your half-dead ass out of here in a few hours."
Jen smiles "He can handle it, trust me on this" Zeke shrugs and wanders off to get our drinks, leaving the two of us alone at the bar "Now that I think of it, does alcohol even affect you?"
"You know, another friend of mine asked me the same thing. It does if I want it to, one of the advantages of being a reality warper. I can pretty much change around my alcohol tolerance however I want. Also, no hangovers."
"Oh, that is so unfair! I have to drink a ton to get a decent buzz, but I STILL get hangovers from it, even being a Hulk doesn't let you escape it! But you can just wave your fingers around and poof, it's gone? You really hit the superpower lottery!"
Zeke pours two glasses of a worryingly neon-purple drink and places them in front of us, before walking away to take another order, though I notice he leaves the bottle with us. "I can literally change the fabric of reality whenever I feel like it, but it's my amazing ability to avoid hangovers that makes you jealous?"
"Hey, it's surprisingly rare, the only other guy I know who doesn't get hung over is Wolverine, and I think that has less to do with his healing factor, and more to do with him not having actually stopped drinking for the past 30 years." Jen picks up the glass and downs half of it in one sweep "Oh man, that's good! Try it! It's a special gin that's been designed specifically for metahumans with enchanced endurance, not a lot of places stock it."
I reluctantly pick up the glass, making sure to dial up my own resistance a bit just in case, before sniffing the liquor. "Oh GOD, that... you're sure he didn't give us paint thinner by mistake? I think my nose hairs just disintegrated!"
Jen giggles and takes another sip of gin "It's a bit of an aquired taste, but trust me, it really hits the spot."
She's right, the drink does have quite a kick to it, and if I had tried it before I got my powers, I would probably have ended up in a coma after the first glass, but now, it's actually pretty good. Jen pours herself a second glass before turning back to me.
"Now, what was this about you beating up a team of pressganged supervillains?"
...
"Wait, you KILLED Venom?!"
Jen is halfway through her second drink while I'm still nursing my first by the time I get to the part where the Thunderbolts tried to attack me. My description of giving the symbiote a one-way trip to the sun doesn't go over very well.
"No, I killed the symbiote, Venom is what happens when the damn thing has a human host. Mac Gargan is perfectly fine. Well, as fine as he can be now that he's back to being a nobody. So are all the other previous hosts, as far as I know" Wait, doesn't Eddie Brock still have cancer? Hmm, I should look into that.
"But-"
"Look, that species shouldn't even be called symbiotes, they're effectively parasites that affect their hosts behavior if they aren't ruthless enough. The only reason it didn't affect Gargan much was because he was already a fucking asshole! Remember what happened to Parker when he wore it?"
Jen doesn't look too happy with my explanation but moves on "And the others?"
"I didn't even touch Songbird or Penance. The rest of them... well, U.S prisoners have health care, so I'm sure they'll recover. I'm still not sure what Osborn thought was going to happen when he sent them after me, there's no way he's dumb enough to think they could actually hurt me. How did he even decide on those recruits? Did Osborn just walk into the Raft and go "Bring me everyone Spiderman could beat up on his lunch break!" I'm surprised he didn't try sending Big Wheel after me."
"Oh god, I forgot about Big Wheel!" Jen snorts "I know not every bad guy can be The Red Skull, but sometimes it feels like they're not even trying. Did you know I had to fight Doctor Bong once?"
"Doctor- wait, is he that jerk who was always harassing Howard the Duck back in the day?"
Jen nods, finishing off her drink "Yeah! And he wasn't even good at it! I mean, I've met Howard a bunch of times, and he's a nice enough guy...duck when he wants to be, but unless your weakness is snarky one-liners or bitter monologues about social issues, he's not much of a threat. And Bong STILL lost! And get this, the reason he was after me? He was trying to uncensor TV violence or something so his evil clone children wouldn't think it was glamorous! I think that's what he said anyway, he was pretty out of it."
"...and what do you have to do with TV violence exactly?"
Jen refills her glass, before pushing the bottle over to me "Again, his arch-enemy was a talking duck, rational thought was not his strong side. Trust me, you'll be experiencing this yourself once you've been in the hero game long enough, the nuts all start coming out of the woodwork."
I shrug as I finish off my own drink and begin to pour another in my glass "Yeah, I'll have to pass on that, I don't consider myself to be part of the whole hero-villain nonsense." I stop pouring as a green hand is placed on my arm and I look up to see Jen giving me an amused smirk.
"Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you don't have to wear a silly costume to end up in our world. Today alone, you beat the crap out of an entire team of supervillains, and that's not even counting all the other things you've done so far. It's only a matter of time before some random jackass in tights decides to pick a fight with you for no reason. It's just the way the universe works."
Uuuuugh... "Does this place have anything stronger than this gin?"
...
It's late by the time we decide to call it a night, and the bar has begun to thin out a bit. Jen reaches for her wallet, but I stop her. "Don't worry, I got this." I point at the bar, and a small stack of bills pop into existance on top of our tab. Zeke looks at them distrustfully.
"I ain't taking that! You got any idea how strict the feds are about money? I don't want people telling me I've been accepting counterfeit bills!"
I roll my eyes "It's not- Fine, will gold suffice?!" The bills disappear and two small, blank discs of gold replaces them. Zeke picks one of them up and scratches at it, nodding in agreement when he's satisfied that it's real.
"That'll do. See ya around, folks." He stashes the coins in a pocket on his apron and waves goodbye as I follow Jen outside into the New York night. It's a warm night, and just as bustling as you'd expect from the city in the summer. To avoid the crowd, I take Jen by the arm and the two of us disappear from the sidewalk, only to step back into existance on a rooftop a few blocks away.
"Jeez, warn a girl before you do that, would you?" Jen says, apparently not expecting the surprise teleportation.
"Sorry, this seemed easier than fighting through the crowd." I focus, and a pair of comfortable recliners appear on the roof. I sit down in one of them, offering the other seat to Jen, who looks surprised at first, but quickly follows suit. The two of us sit in silence for a moment, looking out over the night skyline of New York.
"I can't belive you paid our tab with gold" Jen says with a chuckle.
"Well I tried to pay with regular money but your bartender buddy didn't think my reality warp cash was good enough, so I figured, hey, everyone likes gold, right? Though I'm pretty sure I overpaid, I have no idea how much gold is worth, but I guess it'd be a bit miserly to complain about it when all I need to do to get more is think about it extra hard."
Jen laughs, before leaning back in the recliner and looking up at the night sky, a handful of stars just barely visible through all the smog and light pollution. "You know, I've been in the hero game for years, crazy is pretty much the norm, but I have to say, hanging around with you has managed to top pretty much all of it. Going drinking with a reality warper has been the most normal part of this entire week!"
"I'm...sorry?"
"No, no, I didn't mean-" She sighs "Things weren't going great for me even before the whole SRA thing, and you already know how fast that went down the drain. Then I meet you, and my entire life makes a 180 turn. Before you walked into my office, I was going to get Stark back through the justice system, but it would have been years, maybe decades, and god knows if I would ever have gotten my powers back." She looks at her hands in silence "I don't... for a while, I didn't want to be Jennifer Walters at all, I spent all my time as She-Hulk. I'd mostly gotten over it, but when Stark took away my powers, it brought back some bad memories. Then you show up, and undo all his bullshit just like that."
I don't really know how to respond to that, so I just wait for her to continue, but whatever she was about to say next is interupted by a smattering of gunfire from a few buildings over. Jen jumps out of her chair and turns towards the direction of the sound, and for a moment, it seems to have stopped... only for another hail of shots responding to the first one, and all of a sudden, it sounds like there's a war going on a few streets away. Jen looks at me.
"I know you said you weren't interested in heroics, but-"
I just sigh and push myself out of the chair, dismissing both of them with a wave. "No, you're right, if we're here anyway, it'd just be a dick thing to not atleast check. You're the experienced hero, show me how it's done!"
Jen smirks and begins leaping across the rooftops towards the source of the gunfire. I briefly consider pointing out that I could just move the two of us to the area, but she seems to be enjoying this so much I can't bring myself to spoil her fun.