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Pound the Table | An X-Men Self-Insert

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silentorphan said:
If we want to keep the story focus mainly on the X-Men, like the thread title states, why not learn from Ilyana Rasputina instead?
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Doesn't work out timeline-wise! Ilyana is in the same age group as Kitty, so it'll be a few years before she's really in play.

...

Well, okay, it's a lot more complicated than that, at the current point of time Ilyana is a little kid (presumably), then she gets stuck in a temporally decoupled hell dimension until she's a teenager. So she's younger than Kitty, but she's not relevant until she becomes older than Kitty...Plus even then she's just a teenager with magic and power beyond her age, not really suited to be tutoring anyone.

That's comics for you.
 
Considering how frequently (regularly?) X-Force gets the "mutant terrorist" label hung on them, I suppose it saves them time and money by representing themselves if they ever get into court somehow.
 
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Chapter Fourteen
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    • A/N: Alright, watching that clock tick down... it's midnight? Calendar date ticked over? It's March 17th now? Perfect!

    Happy Birthday to me, have a chapter!

    Pound the Table
    Chapter Fourteen

    Saturday, September 30, 1989
    Rosh Hashanah

    The morning of Rosh Hashanah came, and with it, I once again found myself avoiding the congregation out front. It wasn't that I didn't want to spend time greeting all the various people I grew up around and catch back up with everyone. No, it wasn't that at all. What was it, then?

    Well let's see. I was small and huggable, and that congregation was filled to the brim with Jewish mothers.

    My glamour wouldn't last ten seconds.

    So instead, here I was inside of the synagogue proper, setting prayer books and Rosh Hashanah specific prayer leaflets down on every chair. It was a tedious task, particularly since I couldn't really carry more than seven to ten sets at a time, but it did give me time to think about the elephant in the room.

    Or, well, the elephant out front being introduced to the congregation and getting attention from fussy Jewish mothers in my stead.

    I didn't get a chance to properly speak to Erik alone last night – the both of us were subject to the whims and ministrations of my parents, just in a different way. Really, there was a lot of bragging on my behalf from my father, which was… well, incredibly embarrassing, given Erik already knew about most of it. (Well, except for the part of DA Young possibly being the second shady district attorney I'll have had the pleasure of taking down a peg or twenty… story for another day.)

    But all it really meant was that I couldn't sit Erik down and ask more than a few pointed questions that desperately needed answers. Questions about how coincidental our meeting really was. About what exactly he was intending to do. And about why he had let me call him a fake name for two damn years.

    I sighed inwardly, setting down the last three prayer books as I did. A quick glance at the clock told me I still had about… fifty minutes? Let's see, fifteen minutes until we started letting people into the synagogue, another thirty minutes before services were ostensibly supposed to start, then the extra five minutes my father liked to give stragglers… perfect.

    With one last (unnecessary) furtive look around the completely empty synagogue, I went out a side door and into the hallways, making my way past the conference and reception rooms, before finding myself in my father's office area. I closed the door behind me, went to the large glass-front display cabinet in the back, and opened it up. From within the cabinet, I picked up three polished, hollowed-out ram horns, and laid them out on the desk. And now… I delighted in childish glee at what fun I was about to have.

    See, most kids, if they wanted to mess around with an instrument around the house? They had an acoustic guitar, or a piano if they were fancy. Me?

    I had a shofar.

    It might seem a little silly for a woman of my age to be sneaking into the back rooms to play with the instruments, and I would readily admit that it was. But blowing the shofar was a surprising amount of fun, and it wasn't exactly something I could just go and do at a synagogue in Manhattan. General practice with a shofar dictates that it must be a man who blows it during services, and, well… I didn't exactly qualify, now did I? The only place I actually got to use one was here in St. Louis, where nobody in the congregation had to know that a woman had gotten her hands on a shofar.

    Speaking of…

    I picked up one of the synagogue's three shofar, and wiped down the mouthpiece before raising it to my lips. I went for a short teruah just to see how out of practice I was, and was rewarded with a string of short, almost cut-off blasts of sound from the horn.

    Well, I thought with a smile. That was as good a sign as any.

    I went to bring the shofar to my lips again, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. I hurriedly checked the back of a hand to make sure my glamour was still holding strong before I said anything.

    "Come in!" I called.

    The door opened, and in walked exactly the man I'd been hoping to talk to, footsteps hesitant as he passed the threshold and closed the door behind himself.

    "Your father asked me if I'd mind blowing the shofar during services," he said, worrying at the brim of the hat in his hands. "The only problem is… I do not know how."

    "And he told you to ask me," I finished for him. "Was I close, Erik? Oh, I'm sorry," I said with a faked gasp, "would you prefer Max?"

    Erik frowned, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he looked at me with an unknowable expression.

    "It was not my intention to deceive," he said, setting his hat down on the same table the other two shofar sat upon. "I knew my old friend had a daughter, but believe me, it comes as a surprise that said daughter is you."

    "Quite the friend then," I say, cleaning the shofar in my hands before setting it down alongside the other two. "I never saw your face, knew your name, or even heard any mention of your existence until we ran into each other. And even then, you can't even offer me your actual name."

    "I did offer my name," he said. "You never met Max Eisenhardt because that man died long ago."

    I frowned, unsure of what exactly he was saying. Just running down the possibilities of what that could mean in a world where Victor von Doom existed meant the list could include secret twin, clone, alternate timeline self, or any number of other things.

    "Elaborate," I said.

    "It's simple," he said with a frown. "The hunter became the hunted. And after that, it became dangerous for Max Eisenhardt to live."

    "So you buried him."

    "Beside his daughter," Erik said, leaning against the wall, staring into the hat he held. "Anya would've been a few years younger than yourself."

    "I…" I paused. What else was there to say? "I'm sorry."

    "Don't be," he said. "You couldn't have known."

    "Still—" I stopped, thinking over what he said. "What about her mother?"

    "A blood trail stopped between a ravine on one side and tire tracks on the other," Erik said. "I've held out hope for quite some time — but it has been twenty years. And at this point, I have accepted the most likely reality."

    I could only sigh in response and agreement. Hope was nice and all, yes — but at some point, you had to stop holding onto the impossible and move on with your life.

    That being said, as much of a sob story as this was, it failed to answer the initial question.

    "So if you left Max dead for safety, why bring him back now?" I asked. "And why here? Why my father?"

    By way of answer, Erik reached into his jacket's inside pocket and retrieved a well-worn, leather-bound journal. One that I recognized from our first meeting a few years ago, in Oregon.

    "I remember most of the men who worked at Auschwitz," Erik said, flipping to a dog-eared page. "I hunted down the ones that Nuremberg did not punish myself. But most is not all, and there is a name here I do not recognize."

    Erik handed the book over to me, turned to the page he'd dog-eared, and I saw a clear underline below a bit of text that was substantially newer (and inked with a different color) than the rest.

    "So you're looking for this 'Herr SX'?" I asked.

    "I am finding my fellow survivors, and seeing if any of them can remember this man," Erik confirmed. "Because while I may have forgotten, that does not mean they all have."

    I snapped the journal shut, laid it on the table, and slid it back over to him.

    "So you just… what?" I asked. "Show up after forty-odd years to dredge up everyone's worst memories?"

    "I do not simply 'show up'!" Erik said, affronted. "I brought one Chanukah gifts for the grandchildren, I helped another build their sukkah, I gifted another a new set of Seder plates, and that's just three."

    I simply gave Erik a Look (trademark pending), and let the silence press on a bit longer than was necessary. The moment he started to squirm was my signal that the Look had done its job, and I turned to face him with my arms crossed.

    "You will wait until after Rosh Hashanah services are complete, and you will attend all of them in full," I told him. "And if I can't make it for whatever reason, then I expect to hear from my father that you were here for Yom Kippur as well. Are we clear?"

    "Crystal," Erik said, bringing his hat to his chest before offering a slightly sardonic bow. I frowned, but couldn't really say anything else. "Now, about the shofar?"

    "Hm?" I turned to the three ramhorn instruments on the table, and finally remembered the initial reason my father had sent Erik my way. "O-oh, right! Uh… okay then, let's see." I picked one of the three shofar up and handed it to Erik before picking one up myself. "Now, there are three types of horn blasts you play on the shofar: tekiah, which is just a single long blast…"


    (And for anybody curious — no, Erik did not learn enough to play the shofar that morning. All he managed to do was make a hideous sound I could only classify as "dying beached whale".)


    Tuesday, October 3, 1989

    "... tough on the mob, tough on mutant terror, and tough on crime! Lou Young: fighting to keep the city and streets safe, for you and me!"

    I could only give a disdainful sniff at the advertisement playing on the radio, especially given what I was seeing in today's issue of the Daily Bugle. Young was down in the polls by thirty points compared to last month, with the one difference being that his spread of opponents had narrowed down to one candidate.

    And that candidate promptly reminded everybody that he was not the man who got chewed out by Captain America on national television.

    Thankfully, the city's worst campaign ad was short-lived, and they got right back to the morning news radio as I set the kettle on the stove. Once that was going, I pulled out the stepladder and went to one of my upper cabinets, from which I pulled out a tin of loose-leaf Earl Grey tea. I popped it open, and then immediately frowned upon seeing that it was… basically empty. Ugh. My hand went right back into the cabinet and pulled out the teabags of last resort, even as I marched over to my front door, grabbed my grocery list, and scrawled in 'loose leaf Earl Grey'.

    Then I gave it a heavy underline for good measure, grumbling at the box of teabags in my hand.

    What? I was allowed to be a tea snob, wasn't I? And I refuse to listen to any arguments that bagged tea tastes the same as loose leaf – no it does not, and you clearly haven't had it yourself.

    Shopping list edited and teabag waiting in my mug, I pulled out today's work that I'd brought home from the office's mailbox yesterday: resumes and cover letters.

    While I had already started some small-time work as a solo practitioner, I simply did not have the systems in place to do larger-scale lawyering. Thanks to Sam Lieberman, two of my larger clients followed me, so I had a steady stream of income. Furthermore, thanks to no longer being bound by a very intricate web of conflicts of interest, I was free to take on contract work for various companies, and had managed to get some income writing guidelines for compliance pending passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The thing had been introduced last year, and enough companies had seen the writing on the wall to start going about preparing for its implementation.

    And given that I'd already written an article for the New York Bar Association on the necessity of the ADA and ease of compliance with it, I was more than happy to get paid for telling people how to make their office space comply with the current and expected wording of the law once it passed.

    None of this, however, changed that this was small potatoes compared to what I actually wanted to do. I was a litigator, through and through. But a lot of litigation is paperwork, busywork, dotting i's, and crossing t's.

    And if you are doing that all by yourself, and trying to do witness prep, depositions, motions, hearings, etcetera? You're not going to be able to sustain more than five or ten clients at a time. Which is unsustainable.

    Which was why I was looking into hiring people.

    I did not need much to start with, if I was being honest. I needed two people: a secretary, and a paralegal. The secretary helped manage the day-to-day, made sure things happened when they were supposed to, and served as an important point of contact.

    Paralegals, on the other hand, handled the annoying busywork you didn't want to burn more time on than necessary. Prepping materials and motions from a template, simple research, compiling case notes into a single document, collecting and preparing evidence binders… a good paralegal increased efficiency more than anything else by just handling all of the time sinks. These time sinks were utterly unavoidable too, but if you had a paralegal handling them, you could deal with the things that required an actual lawyer's attention instead.

    I separated out the applications that came through my fax by the subject line on their cover sheets. When I put out the hiring information, I didn't bother saying anything like "competitive salary". No, I went ahead and put the salary down… and made sure it was $2,500 or so higher than the rest of the competition. Part of this was because I wanted to pay people fairly for the work they were going to be doing.

    A more cynical part of me put the payment offer higher because that would hopefully hook in the ones who were on the fence due to my being a mutant.

    Sure enough, offering higher pay than the competition worked. I wound up with almost a dozen faxed job applications for secretary, and another seven for a paralegal. First up came the secretary applications.

    Two of them misspelled my last name on the address line of their cover letter, and a third addressed me as "Mr. Schaefer".

    They went into the shredder immediately.

    Of the remainder, four of them had potential, one of them I would give a chance based on what I saw in her cover letter, and the last one…

    I paused, took a sip of my tea, and read it over again.

    Then I picked up my pen, put a star at the top of this one, and underlined a part of her resume that I really wanted to talk about in an interview.

    So that made six interviews I needed to schedule, and that I could hopefully get done early next week. With any luck, I would emerge from those with either a couple candidates for a follow-up interview, or even a new secretary ready to start within a week or two. The possible hires went into a stack with a post-it note saying "call & schedule interviews" on it. Then I turned my attention to the paralegal resumes.

    And my train of thought immediately crashed to a halt when I read the two sentences on a mostly blank piece of paper that should have been a cover letter.

    … why would…?

    No, no. I needed answers, and I had a phone number. I went out to my living room, grabbed the phone's handset, and punched in a number I knew all too well. Two rings later, a familiar voice picked up on the other end.

    "Sam Lieberman here," my old boss said. "Make it quick."

    From the half-distracted tone of voice, and the faintly audible scratch of pen on paper, I could tell he was working on something. Probably case notes, given he waited until the second ring to answer.

    "Would you like to explain why I have a paralegal application ostensibly from your son, but really from you?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible. "And why there's a note to call you?"

    One Mississippi, I counted. Two Mississippi.

    And then, a deep, put-upon sigh.

    "The original plan was for him to work under Loeb while he worked on his Master's part time," Sam said, sounding more tired than I think I'd ever heard him. "After you got fired – and let's not beat around the bush, the schmucks can pretty it up all they like and say what they will, they fired you – well, it didn't seem like such a good idea to have Loeb in charge of… well, someone like Joshua."

    "Your gay son," I said simply. "You can say the word, Sam. There's nothing wrong with it."

    "... that," Sam said. "Regardless. I don't want Loeb in charge of him anymore, and there are too few people I'd trust to treat him fairly. So I'm calling in… let's say three of the favors you owe. Talk to him. If you think he could be a good fit, give him a chance."

    I mulled it over in my head for a moment. I'd run across Joshua Lieberman a few times at the firm, mostly at holiday functions – he always had this look of just wanting to be anywhere but there, especially when some of the younger associates tried to schmooze him for brownie points with his dad. It never worked, and if anything it docked them a few points in Sam's eyes. Never stopped them from trying, though. The few times I encountered him at work, he'd been quiet, efficient, and no-nonsense. Not quiet in the sense of being soft-spoken, but quiet in that he just… didn't talk much. He also wasn't the most patient sort, and had a problem with fidgeting, from what I could recall.

    But a paralegal wasn't necessarily a public-facing position, and even when they were seen by clients, they generally didn't really speak to them. The people a paralegal usually had to talk to was opposing counsel, their paralegals, and judges' clerks.

    And if what I'd heard from Sam talking about his son over the years was accurate, he was maddeningly polite to them. The 'kill them with kindness' approach, as I'd heard it be called. Which essentially meant that Joshua Lieberman had a public face and a private face.

    Given what I knew of him, that made sense to me. And that was something I could work with.

    "Alright," I told Sam. "I'll sit down with him, but I make no guarantees of hiring. And even if I don't hire him, this still drops me down to four favors owed, understand?"

    "Of course," Sam said. "Thank you, Noa."

    "Don't thank me yet," I told him. "And also, don't think I'm ignoring the nepotism here. You know I don't like that, and are asking me to do it anyway." The huff at the other end of the line was enough to tell me that Sam got the message. "Now, since this isn't as formal as a regular job interview would be, and I wager you told your son you're doing this by networking, do you know of anywhere we can meet where he'd be more comfortable?"

    "Well… ah, about that." Sam's voice sounded… sheepish? A little hesitant? All I knew was I hadn't heard this tone of voice from him before. "Have you heard of the Stonewall Inn?"

    I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing into the handset, and kept going for a good half a minute before I could calm myself down.

    "Okay, um," I said, pausing to let out another giggle. "Tell him Thursday of next week, an hour before trivia night. I'll ask Shelby to set a table aside for me." Hold up, I thought. "Unless they're Sheldon this week. Regardless, he'll know when, but tell him he can call if he has any questions."

    With that, I set the phone down, just in time for the laughs to come again.

    Oh, oh God. I needed that.

    Once the laughter subsided, I went back to the kitchen, poured the water into my teacup to steep, and picked up the secretary applications. Time to call and schedule some interviews.

    Joy.


    Tuesday October 10, 1989

    I'd gotten through three interviews for a secretary, and so far, I wasn't particularly jazzed about any of them. Oh sure, all of them had been competent – they were legal secretaries already, just looking for better pay.

    But one of them couldn't stop looking at my horns, one of them outright asked me if I was a demon, and trying to talk to the third was about as pleasant as watching paint dry.

    Not having my glamour on was turning out to be a bit of a double-edged sword here. Yes, it let me know what these applicants really thought about my being a mutant: whether they were actually fine with that, or if they just assumed the higher pay I offered would be enough to ignore it. But at the same time, there was no way to acclimatize people to who I was as a person before slapping them in the face with "mutant". I wasn't necessarily looking for a long-term hire – I just needed a secretary quickly so that I could get things running. Once things got going, I could easily hire a second that I liked more, and 'let go of' (read: fire) the first with a generous severance, then install the second as the main secretary.

    But if I didn't have to do that, I wouldn't.

    The lunch break I'd afforded myself had come and gone. A couple breath mints (wintergreen!) helped remove the scent of Jamaican jerk chicken from my breath, hopefully, and the next interviewee was due to arrive in about five minutes. I had on my desk a copy of her resume and cover letter, upon which I'd put a star in the top left corner. This was the applicant I'd been most interested in, just due to what she had on her resume, so I had some high hopes.

    Two minutes before the appointment time, I heard the front door to the office open, and then close just a few seconds later. I smiled; just early enough, in my books. After all: early is on time, on time is late, and if you're late, it's better to simply not show up, make an excuse, and reschedule.

    I waited until one PM on the dot, then opened the glass door to my office.

    The middle-aged woman in the waiting room wore a charcoal gray skirt suit, 80's power shoulders and all, paired with a simple white blouse, sheer hose, and smart two-inch pumps. She had her red locks in one of those classic 80's 'big hair' styles, but it managed to not be quite so ostentatious as others I've seen, and it suited her. She was a tiny bit on the heavier side, but she wore it well, and her clothes fit, which is about as much as I cared.

    "Sophie Walsh?" I asked.

    "That's me, yes!" She stood, turned towards me at the door – and gave a heavy blink. I could see her eyes flicking from my horns, to the scales on my neck and the back of my hands, to where my tail extended from under my skirt.

    But to her credit, that was the extent of it.

    My estimation of this candidate climbed higher, and I allowed myself to hope a little.

    "Come right in," I said, holding the door open for her. She offered a polite 'thank you' as she stepped into my office, and of the two chairs I had set in front of my desk, she immediately made her way to the left. I let the glass door close and walked around the desk myself before taking a seat. A moment later, another copy of Mrs. Walsh's resume and cover letter slid across my desk, already turned so they were right-side up for me.

    Bringing another copy of your materials so your interviewer has the info in front of them at all times? I mentally bumped my estimation of this woman up another notch.

    "Thank you very much for coming in today, ma'am," I said. "Before I go any further, is it Ms. or Mrs.?"

    "Mrs. Walsh," she confirmed for me, smiling. "Sophie Kelly Walsh."

    "Your maiden name also works as a normal middle name, convenient," I remarked, sliding the additional copy of her materials underneath the existing one. "So, Mrs. Walsh. I assume you already know what you're getting into, but just for the sake of being thorough, let me describe the position. I am looking for a secretary for a law firm, who will be responsible for handling various tasks: managing both the office and the schedule; maintaining communication with judges' chambers and opposing attorneys' offices as required; contacting persons and facilities for evidence and expert reports; assisting the paralegal with trial prep." I paused.

    "General secretarial work, then, just with more politics?" Mrs. Walsh asked, and I nodded. "Nothing I haven't handled before, then. Just with bigger egos."

    "Exactly!" Then a thought came to me. "Oh. And playing the role of rubber ducky when I need to test arguments," I said with a sheepish smile. "It doesn't really work when you're trying it on another lawyer. You need somebody who's closer to a juror."

    "Oh, the boys use the cats for that," Mrs. Walsh said, smiling. "But I think a person would be better for that."

    "Less likely to chase the laser pointer?" I offered with a smile of my own.

    "Exactly!"

    "Of course," I said, glancing back down at Mrs. Walsh's resume. "Now, I see here that you did spend three years as a secretary for Bear Stearns, but that was… twenty-odd years ago. How much do you remember of what you did during your day-to-day there?"

    "Well if I'm being honest," Mrs. Walsh began, "it's hard to forget because that kind of work never stopped. I went from being paid to act as secretary for eight people, to not being paid to act as secretary for four." She favored me with a smile. "With quite a few extra duties besides. Secretaries only have to set the coffee occasionally, I did quite a bit more than that daily."

    "On that topic…" I looked down to the largest block on her resume.

    Stay-at-Home Mother.

    This. This was the single tidbit about her resume that had me the most intrigued. A lot of people I'd spoken with in the past five to ten years, particularly the men working at LL&L, had disparaged stay-at-home wives and mothers, even as they somehow expected their own spouses to be exactly that. What these people didn't seem to realize was that it was a full-time job, and one without sick days, time off, or any pay whatsoever. A household is a hell of a thing to manage, and if what I'd gathered was correct…

    "The largest and most recent block on your resume lists stay-at-home mother as your occupation," I said, maintaining my smile. "Ordinarily I wouldn't ask questions about family and home life, but as that is somewhat mandated by this entry, I hope you don't mind my asking how large your household is?"

    "Oh, it's no problem!" Mrs. Walsh said, waving off any possible faux-pas of the question. "It's myself, my husband, and our three sons."

    "And how old are each of your sons?" I asked, readying a pen in my hand to scrawl ages (and time frames) on the resume, just for my own reference.

    "Oh, they're triplets," she said nonchalantly.

    … wait.

    I glanced up at Mrs. Walsh. Then back down at the resume. Then back up at her, then back to the dates on the resume. She stopped working at Bear Stearns… five months before the entry of "stay-at-home mother" began.

    "A-and are they identical, or—"

    "Oh no, thank God!" Mrs. Walsh said with a laugh. "Juggling all three of them was hassle enough, now imagine if they all looked the same!"

    Oh, I could imagine it. I'd met identical triplets.

    The sheer amount of shenanigans…

    "So three sons," I said, taking a breath to recover. "So that would include… doctor's appointments, school, report cards, driver's ed, possibly synchronizing differing schedules based on their various extracurricular activities, scheduling vacations around their various social activities and free time…"

    "And three sets of college admissions," Mrs. Walsh supplied, saving me the awkwardness of having to ask that particular question. "That's why I'm looking to go back to work, actually. All three of my boys are off at college now, they're sophomores now. I spent most of last year horribly bored, so I told my husband I was going to try and go back to work."

    I stopped there, and looked up at her.

    "And you sent an application to the brand-new law firm of a somewhat notorious attorney."

    Mrs. Walsh shrugged.

    "Well after raising triplets, I needed to try and find something almost as interesting," she said with a smirk.

    … you know what? She could have that one.

    The rest of the interview proceeded apace. I put forth some hypotheticals to try and test out her intuition regarding legal ethics issues that could embroil the secretarial staff. She answered those admirably, and did much the same for the rest of the questions I fielded her. And then, when it was her turn to ask questions, she immediately played hardball and threw my most recent case and DA Young at me.

    "So, I remember seeing you on the news pretty much every night for a week and a half this past summer," Mrs. Walsh led off, a disarming smile on her face. "Let's say I'm working for you, you get another case as big as that one, and public pressure starts to spill over to your employees. What do they do, and what do you do?"

    This was a good question, if I was being honest. With a big firm behind me, backlash against other people sort of just… didn't really stick. I was just a very expensive lawyer doing my job, and that was very hard to assail personally. As a one woman operation, on the other hand, I had sole deciding power for which cases to take – which, of course, meant that people could read more deeply into which clients I chose to take on. And any criticism I received would flow downhill to the employees under me.

    And should a case have a major outcry, that could spell bad times for my employees.

    "First would be to speak out against involving employees in this," I began. "They are only doing their jobs, and didn't make the decision to apparently champion one issue or another, as it were. As for employees, should that pressure start to spill over to the actual work site, I would give my employees paid leave until things calmed down, or find a way to let them work off-site until the office was safe." I shrugged at that, drumming my fingers on the desk. "So long as the work actually gets done, and confidentiality is maintained, it doesn't matter where or how that work takes place."

    "On the topic of work getting done," Mrs. Walsh said, seizing the initiative, "that leads into my next question. Say you hire me, and a few months down the line, you ask me to do something outside of the scope of my position…"

    Ooh. Oh, that was a clever one.

    After three bad to lukewarm interviews, one like this was just an absolute treat. And after a few more questions like this, probing the devilish little details that could plague a workplace, it eased up, and transitioned from less of an interview to more just… conversation.

    Which was quite the relaxing change of pace. I could practically feel the tension bleed out of my shoulders when the topic changed to the merits of coffee versus tea.

    Unfortunately, the little timer I set at the corner of my desk started to beep, reminding me that I still had other appointments today.

    "As much as I would like to continue, we're about out of time. Before we conclude though, there is something I'd like to say first." I took the copy of Mrs. Walsh's resume I started with and spun it around to face her, so she could see the star in the corner and my underlining of one particular item. "I was incredibly hopeful coming into this interview because you had the wisdom to recognize that being a stay-at-home mother is a full-time job, and the moxie to put it on a resume. You have no idea how gratified I am to see my hopes borne out. Feel free to take the weekend to think it over, but if you want the job, it's yours."

    If she said yes, then I would still do the other interviews just out of politeness, but…

    "Well if that's the case," Mrs. Walsh asked, all smiles. "When do I start?"


    Thursday, October 12, 1989

    The Stonewall Inn had trivia night every Thursday at 8pm EST. People had argued for it to be pushed up to 7pm, and for it to be pushed back to 9pm, or even all the way til 10pm. But despite quite a bit of push from either direction, trivia night remained stubbornly at 8pm.

    I loved trivia night because it was just fun. Sure, I'd only actually won once or twice, but there was a bit of a secondary game to it: who could come up with the funniest wrong answer to any particular question. I wasn't particularly good at that, either, but the people who were showed up every week, without fail, and always made sure people had a good time.

    I made the appointment with Joshua Lieberman before trivia night, just so that I could participate.

    At roughly 6:30pm, I pushed open the door to the Stonewall Inn and took off my heavy coat, both annoyed and glad that a bout of unseasonably cold weather made me pull it out of the closet. Annoyed because I got cold very easily.

    Glad, because having to bundle up so much meant I didn't need to put my glamour on to go out the door. I was covered with so much cloth that only a particularly attentive stare would have caught that the white on my face were scales, and not just from poor circulation.

    And as for my horns… well, those were both hard to notice when I had on a beanie under a big hood, and easy to mistake for earmuffs. It had worked so far, at least.

    I didn't bother putting my massive jacket on the coat rack, instead looking to Shel…by? No, that was a button-up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, a tight-fitting vest over the top, what looked like five o'clock shadow, and slim-fit slacks. Okay, it was a Sheldon day. Instead, I looked to Sheldon, who pointed me to the table he'd set aside.

    "The usual?" he asked.

    "Yes please," I said, dropping a twenty on the bar as I walked past and sat at the table, hanging my purse off of my chair. Yes, a single cocktail wouldn't cost that much, but I would probably have one more during trivia night, and any remainder was Sheldon's tip.

    Shel was a fun conundrum. As far as I could tell, people had all given up trying to figure out what sex they were assigned at birth. My personal theory was…

    … that I'd only cared enough to be slightly peeved when I asked Sheldon about his sister, only to have the three other locals seated at the bar laugh uproariously at the question. I was new to the Stonewall at the time, and that embarrassed me more than a little.

    But, this was a place where I could openly be myself in every way, so it was rather easy to look past a little early goof and settle in for the long haul. I'd been coming to the Stonewall Inn almost every week for the past eight or nine years, so suffice to say I was a familiar face.

    At least, on Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays.

    Which would explain how I'd managed a ships-in-the-night with the young man I was about to have a very informal interview with.

    I didn't bother to bring Joshua's resume with me. I already knew I would be giving him the job if he wanted it. But that was the whole crux of this – finding out if he actually wanted the job, or if his dad was pressuring him into taking this.

    Not long after I came in, Sheldon came by with a coaster, then placed my drink on it: mojito, extra mint, a little more sugar than average, and a lighter pour on the rum. I had a sweet tooth, and just wasn't big enough to handle much alcohol. And I liked fresh mint. This let me indulge myself a little, and was a tall enough glass that I could sip it a little bit at a time, as opposed to other cocktails.

    I took a sip, gave Sheldon an appreciative nod, and settled in to wait.

    Ten minutes later, the door to the Stonewall opened again, and in walked a man swaddled in a heavy coat, most of his face obscured by the combination of a beanie and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He shucked the coat, revealing a younger man. He wore… shockingly similar clothing to what Sheldon was wearing, actually. A button-up shirt with no tie, whose sleeves he wasted no time unbuttoning and rolling to over his elbows. A vest hugged his torso, and well-tailored pants showed off his legs. He pulled a small comb out of his pocket to fix up his hair and expose the single earring in his right ear, but that went back into his pocket no more than three seconds later.

    I recognized him instantly. I don't think he was able to do the same at this distance, not with what he was doing. He went over to Sheldon, who pointed him towards where I sat at the table, facing the bar. He turned to face me, did a double-take, and then I saw this moment of realization come over him.

    Joshua Lieberman moved from the bar over to the table, pulled out the chair opposite mine, and sat down, that look of surprise still on his face.

    "How long have you been coming here?"

    That was the first question out of his mouth when he sat down.

    "It's nice to see you again Joshua," I told him, taking a sip of my drink before I kept speaking. "I'm doing well, thank you for asking. A little annoyed that the weather turned, but that happens. Oh, and since well before you could drink," I added.

    His eyes flicked towards my horns, to the scales on my hands, down to where my tail was visible for but a moment as I flicked it to the side.

    "And, uh…" He swallowed, nervous. "Do you come here because you're a mutant, or…?"

    "Both," I interrupted.

    It was a valid question; since the early 70's, gay bars had been a haven for mutants. Many set aside a section for mutants to not have to worry about being hit on by the same sex, and while some argued that this had the air of discrimination or segregation, everybody eventually agreed that it was much more comfortable not having to guess.

    "So before we go any further," I said after taking another sip of my drink. "A few things. Obviously I'm looking for a paralegal, and you're more than competent enough for that task. But this isn't exactly a formal job interview, and you're not just any candidate, so we're going to just dispense with all the usual formalities. What I want to know is this: was applying to be my paralegal your idea, was it your father's idea and you went along with it, or did he do this and then proceed to pressure you?"

    "The second," Joshua said. He was about to answer until Sheldon came by with his drink. I raised an eyebrow at his choice.

    "Southside?" I asked. "You could've just gotten a mojito. More drink for the same money."

    "Don't like rum," he said after taking a sip. "Or club soda."

    "Fair enough," I said with a shrug. "Would you like to elaborate on your answer?"

    Joshua mulled over his thoughts for a moment before answering.

    "Working under Isaac Loeb was… fine? I guess?" I raised an eyebrow, and Joshua scowled. "Fine. It sucked. Man is a pain in the ass, ego bigger than his waistline. And while Dad's casual bigotry is unconscious, and he's getting better about it? Loeb just doesn't care."

    "Let me guess." I set my fingers on the rim of my glass, and tipped it ever so slightly side to side as I thought. "Consistently says shiksa and schvartze, calls people like us 'fag' or 'dyke', and defaults to slurs and pejoratives the moment he's not in so-called 'polite company'." I took a sip of my drink. "I worked under your dad for most of a decade, Joshua. I've heard several of your rants secondhand through him. Which leads into the second question: why now?"

    "Because I don't want to work for a man like that anymore," he said. "I know it's a better-paying job than most people my age can get without showing any interest in a law degree, but I don't want to work for such a… a—"

    "Schmuck?" I supplied.

    "That," he said. "Yeah. I mean, even if he found out I'm gay, he couldn't fire me like he and Lewin did to you, but that's just cause of my dad. He could still make things miserable for me."

    "Right, right…" I frowned, and took another sip of my mojito to fill the silence. "Obviously you aren't happy at LL&L, and you don't want to risk working there for too much longer. Now: I am offering you a position, Joshua. It is yours if you want it, for however long you want to stay. I owe your father that much. All that matters is if you actually want to take it."

    "I do," he said, frowning. "I just… I know Dad would have been happier, but I don't want to be a lawyer. I'm just doing this while I finish my Master's because I know how to do it, and it's easy for me."

    "Speaking of," I said, realizing something. "What exactly are you getting your Master's in? I realize I never asked."

    "Computer engineering," he answered without missing a beat.

    I could only blink. A master's in science?

    "And your dad has you working as a paralegal?"

    Joshua shrugged.

    "There's a reason Dad put me under the patent guy," he said.

    Well… there was that.

    "Okay," I said. "The position is yours. You start on Monday the 23rd since that keeps pay periods easy. I'll have all the documents drawn up for you, and if there's anything you think will help you do the job better, you just let me know. Computer, gadget, whatever, if you can convince me it'll help, I can get it. You would know better than I do about that."

    "That's… thank you," Joshua said. Then he looked at the bar, which had slowly started to fill up as we talked. "You know… since we're already here. Team up for trivia night?"

    I shook my head, laughing.

    "Most of us trivia night regulars have our usual partners already," I told him as I stood from my chair, picking up my purse and jacket to move to the other end of the bar. "Remember: a week from Monday!"

    And with that, I finished my drink, and left Joshua alone at the table. Trivia night was starting soon. And maybe, just this once, I'd win the funniest wrong answer prize.

    (I didn't.)


    Monday, November 6, 1989

    So as it turned out… having staff made things run much more smoothly. Whereas before I was barely able to get all the mandatory filings for two cases in on time, with the assistance of just a secretary and a paralegal, things were proceeding apace! I had two cases pending a motion for judicial intervention, a third moving into discovery, a fourth in settlement discussions (right, I needed to reply to opposing counsel's settlement demand, what was a polite way to say they were full of shit and there was no way my client would pay just shy of the full amount demanded on an early settlement… note to self, get that done!). And I even had a case pending a Huntley hearing! Oh, that was going to be a treat!

    The phone on my desk beeped, and I picked up the handset.

    "Yes?" I asked.

    "Your two o'clock is here," Sophie said. "Intake interview."

    "Send them to me in two minutes, would you?" I asked back, opening a desk drawer to pull out a small prism and a small flashlight. Sure, I could just produce the light to reapply my glamour myself, or use regular old unrefracted light, but I found it was faster and easier to just use a prism.

    "Of course," Sophie said, before the phone clicked as she hung up the intercom. With a brief moment's respite, I reapplied my glamour, cleared most of the random junk off of the top of my desk and into the large main drawer, then pulled out a fresh pad of paper and pen. Then I read over the notes Joshua had prepared from the phone call… and had to reread it.

    This man was asking for plaintiff-side work. Why was he coming to… oh. Oh. Ooooh. Oh that made sense now, especially if… oh my.

    Once I did my once-over of the case notes, I stood up and walked out from behind the desk to greet the man.

    Jacques Canter, apparently a now-infamous tennis star, stepped into my office. He wore a Lacoste polo shirt, khaki trousers, and well-worn tennis shoes, a heavy athletic jacket and a well-loved, very floppy cap held in his arms. He was a tall man, probably a bit over six feet (although my estimation with heights was never that great), and just as well-muscled as you would imagine a professional athlete to be. Despite it being the beginning of November, he held a tan still, though I could see separate tan lines underneath his shirt sleeves and at his wrists. His black hair was cut short, just long enough to run his fingers through, probably to not get too sweaty under a cap, and deep bags hung heavy under tired brown eyes.

    "Mr. Canter," I said, extending a hand as he stepped through my door, letting it close behind him. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Noa Schaefer, and with any luck, I'll be taking your case."

    "T-thank you." Jacques extended a hand to shake my own, which he did so with great delicacy. His hand was more than twice the size of my own, and with just how soft his touch was, I wagered he was worried about breaking my hands if he squeezed at all. "I… thank you for speaking with me. Everybody else I've tried has turned me away, and…" Jacques' shoulders tensed up, his fists clenching as he worked his jaw.

    "Well, why don't you take a seat," I told him, pulling out a chair as I approached my desk. He sat down, and I made a note to have Sophie look into larger chairs for the front of my desk; Mr. Canter clearly looked uncomfortable in a chair that was just not large enough to properly hold him.

    I circled around to my side of the desk, picked up my pen, and looked Mr. Canter in the eye.

    "Now, before we begin, there are a few formalities to get out of the way," I told him.

    Then I went into my little spiel about the attorney-client privilege, legal advice, when the privilege begins, how far it extends, etcetera. He stated that he understood, and I gave a little nod.

    "In that case," I said. "Why don't you tell me what's brought you here today."

    "Well…" Jacques' hands worried at his cap, which he'd picked up from atop the athletic jacket on the chair beside him. "How familiar are you with professional tennis?"

    "Not particularly," I said, idly noting that he had a very slight French accent. It was only particularly noticeable with his 'r' sounds, but I also heard it when he said 'tennis'. "Just assume I know nothing and spell it out."

    "Right, well…" Jacques chewed at the inside of his cheek for a moment. "The US Open started in late August. I was a qualifier, not somebody people expected to do very well. But I…" Jacques gave a rueful laugh. "I played the best tennis of my life at that tournament. I had the racquet in my hand, and everything was perfect. Somehow, I made it from a group of 128 to the top sixteen. Then I made it to the quarterfinals. And then I was in the semifinals. And then the finals. And then… and then I won."

    "This was your first major win?" I asked, looking up, to which Jacques nodded. "Any minor tournament wins?"

    "I was eliminated in the quarterfinals in the Queen's Club Tournament three years ago," he said. "I was eliminated in the semifinals in the Paris Masters, two years ago, and came second in the Canadian Open last year."

    "So some high finishes, but no wins," I confirmed. "This was your first major tournament win. How high had you placed in others of these majors?"

    "I barely made it to the top sixteen in Wimbledon, earlier this year," Jacques said. "And that was the highest I'd gotten in one of the Grand Slams before then. And then… I won the US Open."

    "And how many tournaments do you normally compete in per year?" I asked, as a follow-up.

    "Thirteen," he said, with zero hesitation. Which was interesting, I noted to myself.

    "And you've been an active tennis pro for how many years?"

    "Five," Jacquess said.

    Okay, let me think… it was best to assume that thirteen per year was the norm, given just how quickly that answer came, and how sure of the answer Jacques was. So in five years, he had played 65 tournaments. And of those tournaments, he had made it to a notable finishing position… four times.

    And on only his fourth high-placing tournament finish, he outright won in one of the biggies. I was starting to see a picture come together, and I both loved and hated what I was seeing.

    "So let's fast forward," I said, drawing in an underline on my notepad to separate the line of thought. "You did it. You won the US Open. What happened next?"

    "I was… I was on cloud nine," Jacques said, his tone wistful. "I was giving interviews to sports journalists, taking sponsorship offers. I had never been so elated in my life!" His face turned dour. "And then three weeks later, it was all gone. Boris went to the press, called me a mutant, and said I'd cheated. I tried to say something back, but he was Boris Becker, and I was a nobody. He'd already won Wimbledon and the French Open that year, and I hadn't even made it past two rounds. Of course they believed him." Jacques let out this sad, disbelieving chuckle. "Two days later, that was it. I was stripped of my title. Dropped by my sponsors. Banned from all ATP tennis tournaments."

    Tournament favorite loses his shot at a Grand Slam to an upset by a much newer, less experienced player? Someone who had never won any tournament before, let alone a Grand Slam?

    One more question would determine this.

    "And what about his accusation?" I asked Jacques. "He accused you of being a mutant. Are you, in fact, a mutant?"

    "No." Jacques' answer was immediate. "I am not! And I have tried to prove it, but nothing I try works! I worked with a coach to reproduce all of the shots Boris said were impossible, and even had an ATP ref there watching, but it didn't work! All he said is that it was more proof I was a mutant, when all I want to do is prove that I'm not!"

    "There's the first problem," I said. "Legally speaking, you cannot definitively prove that somebody is or isn't a mutant."

    With a snap of my fingers, my glamour crumbled away, leaving Jacques wide-eyed and surprised at the sudden change.

    "At the moment, there are only two tests that can prove somebody is a mutant. One of them is so inaccurate that the tester could take a sample I provided, run it through the lab, and have a better chance of knowing if I was a mutant by flipping a coin."

    "A-and what about the other one?" Jacques asked, hopeful.

    "Oh, it would tell you I was a mutant for sure," I said. "But it would also send me to the hospital. At best, I would have a bad enough reaction to hospitalize me for a couple of days. At worst, it causes severe internal bleeding and organ damage. This test is not legally recognized due to the issues of medical ethics involved with administering it." I shook my head, pushing my notepad to the side. "I looked into this a fair bit ago, Mr. Canter, because it was directly relevant to me. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the law at least, there exists no test to prove that you are not, in fact, a mutant. And while other sources of superhuman abilities do exist, they are so much less common that the most likely assumption would, again, be 'mutant'."

    "Then what do I do?" he asked.

    "Mr. Canter, if the notes I have from your initial phone screening are correct…" I skimmed over it for a moment. "You are looking to sue Boris Becker, the US Tennis Association, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and the sponsors that put out public statements about your alleged mutancy after dropping you, for defamation. There exists an absolute defense to defamation, which is the truth: if they can prove that their allegations are correct, your suit dies immediately. Now, as I've just told you, this is impossible, which means you have a fighting chance. And," I added with a smile, "I have an idea."

    Jacques looked up, confused, but hopeful.

    "To oversimplify this, Mr. Becker accused you of being a mutant because you played impossibly well, is that correct?"

    Jacques nodded.

    "Well then Mr. Canter," I said, reaching into my desk and pulling out a contract of retainer. "I am pleased to inform you that I am willing to take your case."


    So uh... it's been a fair bit longer than I expected.

    At the end of the last proper chapter, I mentioned I was dropping it right as FFXIV Endwalker dropped. I spent most of the next 48 hours getting put through the emotional wringer, with a major climax of crying my eyes out to this song while the game one-upped FF9's classic You Are Not Alone moment. In a quest with that exact title.

    I was going through the expansion with 2 friends. All three of us had to stop and take, like, an hour plus to collect ourselves after that quest before we challenged the last dungeon and final boss.

    Once FFXIV was done keeping its grip on me for a good long while... I got incredibly busy with life. Which was... not fun. Not fun at all.

    And then I just... procrastinated. Which I am very good at. I've had this chapter (and the rest of the next arc) plotted and outlined out for a good long while... unfortunately, a couple of the scenes fought me pretty hard. But hey. At least it's here.

    Once again, for any of you feeling particularly generous, or wanting to give some form of birthday wishes beyond just the dopamine from your likes and comments, here is, once again, a link to my Ko-fi page.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I need to try and get a green bandana onto my dog. (spoiler alert: I'm probably gonna get bit...)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Hm. Someone better versed in comic lore probably knows what those two tests are. Uh, if I had to guess, the first searching for the X-gene, maybe? But no clue on the second. In any case, I would guess in-universe they'd be pretty obscure or else the Tenniser would have found them.

    In any case, that's quite the variety of cases. From defending someone accused of assault to sports law (though in both cases with a side of mutant rights).
     
    With the emphasis on 'impossible' how many mathematicians get brought in to show that his performance was still in statistically probable range based on his various performances….
     
    I am super excited about finding this fic, since I am hoping to start Pre-Legal in a couple of months, but more importantly...

    I am very confused about what her plan is to deal with this
     
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