PROM: She's Out Of My League

[Tobias Croft]

The best laid plans of mice and men, often go ary.

Those words could not be truer for a frantic, his walk breaking into a run Toby, as he made his way towards the staff dorms where his prom da- Chaperone buddy- resided. Days of planning everything to the finest, most exact detail  with one stupid, inaccurate quite frankly needing it's battery changing clock in his apartment, everything had gone flying out of the window; Goodbye, hasta le vista, there goes his chance. Toby had a track history of ruining almost every good thing that occurred in his life
out of sheer bad luck, and fate it seemed had decided that this should be no different. Well, why change a habit of a lifetime, powers that be?
Toby still had thrown his all into his well thought out but poorly executed scheme;fresh out of the shower, donned in a fairly loud ensemble of a deep blue checked suit, patterned light blue shirt and dark blue tie, he skidded his way round a corner, narrowly avoiding a meeting of his body and a wall at quite a speed, and into the staff dorms. He'd made it... JUST. A frantic glance at his watch revealed he was a minute over, but he was still quite happy to declare it as a victory.
Breathing heavily, Toby reached Charity's door, taking a moment to breathe with a hand on his chest before he sighed.

Okay, time for a last minute check. He adjusted his tie, which had shifted during his run, and smoothed out his suit jacket, before quickly brushing his hands over his hair to make sure each strand was in the perfect position. He then looked to his other hand, the almost ridiculously sized bouquet a little worse for wear from his run, but still none the less an impressive bunch; He the fixed one of his goofy grins on his lips, the nerves already bouncing around somewhere in his stomach, before raising a fist and rapping quite loudly on the woman's door. "Oh, dearest Lady Charity, it is I, your fair knight!" He declared, in an overly dramatic voice. "Here to escort you to the ball." With a flourish, the brightly coloured flowers were hidden behind his back, the trainer eagerly awaiting the opening of the door by the Lady Charity.

[Charity Croft]

"you are just chaperoning prom. This is not a real date. It might have real date connotations, but it is not, strictly speaking, a real date. Plus, the guy is probably, like, younger than you," Charity paused in her pep/real talk, tilting her head to the side. "Is that a bad thing any more? Where's the line when being older than the guy is actually preferable again? Well, it doesn't matter, because it's not a real date. You're only a little dressed up anyway," Charity really was. She'd perhaps moved a half a step up from her usual dress. A particularly nice sundress covered her body. It wasn't particularly revealing and didn't exactly scream prom or anything, but it did look nice enough. Her makeup was nice, again, not to much, but at least present. And she'd made sure she was clean and all.

So not much more than normal. Which was good, because she was just chaperoning. She just had to make that clear to Toby when/if he actually arrived.

"He's better not stand me up," Charity said to her reflection. Strangely enough, she could feel her power starting to work, informing her that the mutant in the mirror could, in fact, read powers. Charity pulled herself away before she began zoning out, instead looking to the door.

Just as it rapped.

"Timing?" she said softly to herself before smoothing down her dress. She frowned and walked to the door, opening it to find Toby...

...looking somewhere between ridiculous and cute. "Flowers?" Charity asked, looking at them. She bent down to take them lightly, holding them up and adjusting them. "Um, thanks?" She turned, trying to find some place to put them. 'I don't really have a vase or anything?" Or was she just supposed to leave them on the table? What did she do the last time she got flowers?

When was the last time she'd gotten flowers?

[Tobias Croft]

This is not a date. This is NOT a date. Toby had made sure of that when he'd failed quite spectacularly to actually ask Charity during the misread cupcakes incident... He'd lost his nerve, and instead opted to settle for a chaperone buddy. Despite repeating that sentence a number of times in his head, it did little to calm the trainer's nerves.
Having arrived a fraction late, Toby was hoping she wouldn't think he'd stood her up, a few scenarios running through his mind; What if she'd left already? Gotten a better offer? After all, it wasn't like this was a real date or anything... Thought the man who was wearing a suit, taken such pride in his appearance, and was carrying a large bunch of flowers. Not a real date at all. There then however came the reliving sounds of someone approaching the door, opening it- To reveal his prom da-Chaperone buddy- there in the doorway.

Be still his beating heart.

Charity had always been an effortless beauty, managing to succeed in looking distinctly adorable on a general day to day basis; However, tonight... Her choice of outfit was simple, but in it's simplicity it acted to enhance her naturally pretty features; When she smiled, with the way it lit up her face, all others at the prom would surely pale in comparison. 
Trying to get all of that into words however was quite an impossible task. So Toby opted for blinking at her while his brain shifted some words around to try and come up with a decent enough compliment. Charity took the flowers from him before he could speak, the trainer giving her a wide grin. "Well, you should always bring flowers to the door of a lady you plan to spend an evening with," He commented, before holding both hands up defensively. "Even in a... Strictly professional capacity." His goofy grin then faded a little, mentally kicking himself for not thinking to bring a vase or some other form of bouquet holding item. "Um, well, fear not, young maiden!" He declared, folding his arms. "I'll grab one of the vases from my apartment and bring it round tomorrow." He then gave a nod, before he looked away sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. "... You look, um. Pretty stunning, dear lady, if you don't think it's weird for me to say that... Is it, erm, weird for me to say that?" He gave her a glance, hoping to read her expression; Oh well done, the evening had just gotten started and likely already made her think he was odd. 

[Charity Croft]

Was that some sort of stunned blinking? Charity almost wanted to wave her hand in front of his face, or maybe start blinking in response. Had she messed up the outfit? She'd spent some time picking it out and she'd thought that she'd gotten it fairly right. It wasn't like they were kids or anything: they were adults, heading to prom to do adult type things.

And the flowers. And professional. And the lack of vase. "Well, that hsould work just fine," Charity said, nodding and moving to before turning to deposit the flowers elsewhere. Then had come the compliment and Charity ended up staring, her wide blue eyes blinking in a manner that either looked doelike or owlish, depending on the viewer.

"Stunning?" she repeated, looking down. "um, thanks?" That felt lame, but Charity didn't really know what else to say. This wasn't a date, right? Or was it? Charity was trying to remember what dates had been like and then tried to remember when she'd last been on one and she knew it had definitely been before she'd come here and that had been some time and she'd spent most of her time working with teenagers and technically being older than most of her coworkers and---

"I'm going to put the flowers away!" she announced as though Toby had lost his hearing, ducking back to try and somehow do that without actually having a vase. Maybe Delilah had a jar or something? She was an art teacher, and they always had jars, right?

[Tobias Croft]

She stopped. She blinked at him. Then her reply came, a questioning statement before a mumbled "Thanks"... A mumbled thanks, and nothing more. Toby felt his heart surely sink to the bottom of his stomach... Of course it was odd of him to compliment her like that, this wasn't even a date! She must think she'd gotten struck with some right weirdo. She wasn't even out of her bedroom door yet... That had to be a record.

There was a moment of distinct awkwardness, with Toby continuing to offer her his usual grin while fighting the urge to say something that would likely be equally odd and embarrassing; Charity then declared she was going to locate somewhere for the flowers to go in a voice that was a touch too loud, ducking back into the room. Toby blinked at the doorway, before averting his gaze upwards before miming hitting his head on the nearby wall, insulting himself under his breath; This had to be the part where she shut the door and told him she wasn't feeling well, right?
"... Um... Sorry, I guess I kind of went a little over the top?" He spoke, offering her in some way of an apology for the flowers and his compliment, fearing that maybe the use of typical "date" features on a supposed "professional chaperone buddy event" may have made Charity feel perhaps a touch awkward. He slowly shuffled his way closer to the room's entrance, peering in, mustering up another smile; At least it had knocked his confidence enough at this point towards backing out of actually asking the woman out properly... Since that would highly likely only result in yet more embarrassment. He took a moment to quickly look around the room, curious to what facilities the Academy provided for it's staff; Toby had his apartment in town, so had never needed to take the school's offer of a place to live.

[Charity Croft]

Okay, there was a vase. Charity wasn't sure which of her roommates it actually belonged to (it might even be hers), but she figured it would actually work. Just stick the flowers in it and pretend like it didn't seem odd to be sticking flowers in a vase and staring at them. Charity licked hers lips, mentally berating herself for acting this weird in the first place. This was precisely why she didn't get dates period, this, this right here.

"What? No, it's fine," Charity said, turning to Toby as he spoke. She waved her hand, letting out a little nervous laugh. "Totally gentlemanly. I just wasn't expecting it is---" was he looking at the room? Charity paused mid-sentence, turned to look behind her at the room, and then turned to look back at him.

"It's, uh, there's four of us in here," she explained gesturing at it. "And, we, keep it pretty clean. I'm probably going to save some money up. Get an apartment." She had already gotten a short summer job to hold her over until she could get back to the whole school thing. charity waited a few more beats, looking around.

"Right, we should get going, right? want to get there early: scope out all the best spots," Charity said, clapping her hands together. She pointed both of them toward the door and started determinedly walking that way, making sure to "move with a purpose."

[Tobias Croft]

Toby watched the fellow member of staff fuss about the place, locating a vase and spending a few significant moments staring at the bunch of slightly damaged blooms. They had at one point been quite impressive, but as usual with anything involving Toby he had managed to fall on the bad side of fate, although granted it was more his fault for not paying attention to how quickly time had decided to run away from him, resulting in his frantic rush to the Academy, which ended up in him bashing the bunch of once stunning flowers into a state of slight disarray. A state of slight disarray... Now that described Toby perfectly.

Now the room Charity called home was clearly the resistance of more then one person, judging by the sheer amount of items within, but at the very least it was clean and overall well kept. It was clearly also the resistance of one of the art teachers, as Toby noted a few art related objects scattered throughout, canvases, a few sketchbooks and art theory books. It made Toby for a moment miss sharing his abode with another human being... The companionship of Kaiju, his arrogant but adorably fluffy roommate, didn't quite match up to living with another person. "Hey, it's tidier then my apartment," He grinned, blinking a moment before adding quickly, holding his hands up defensively. "Not that it's overly messy, just everything has it's place, although pretty much only I know where it is." He then gave a slightly too loud laugh, already very much aware of likely how awkward he was surely coming across as. He needed to calm it down... This wasn't a date, after all.

Toby cast his gaze downward with pouted lips, scratching the back of his head with a slight sigh before looking to Charity when she indicated that it was time to take leave of the premises. "Scope it out? Good thinkin' Batman!" The trainer grinned, shuffling backwards until he was out of the room, before turning and offering his arm to the fellow facility member. "May I, m'lady?" He spoke, trying to mimic a typical upper class British accent, and failing quite terribly. So far this night wasn't exactly going as planned... But it could only go up from here, right?

[Charity Croft]

A few of the things within sight were actually Charity's roommates things, and had she known that Toby was looking at them and thinking about them in connection with her she very well might have said something to that effect. As it was, she just did more nervous fidgeting and got more or less back out to where Toby was watching and all.

"Well, I'm going to get my own place soon," Charity insisted, nodding. "Probably after the summer," she hoped, "so that's, yeah," she really should have thought out that particular conversation trail a little more. Charity let out another little laugh and gave Toby another look. At least her get there early suggestion seemed to have worked. Yet again Charity just managed to stop herself from sighing with relief, instead nodding a few times.

"Batman?" she had to repeat, letting out a little laugh. "Does that make you Robin?" Though she still took the offered arm, figuring that it just made sense. Plus, he'd offered it in a totally funny way, so it so didn't count.

Should this count? Maybe Charity should ask. No, best to just keep walking.

"So, uh, you have a place in town? That sounds... nice," she offered. There, total score. Bam: adult talk. Win.