{MIW} I Need a Hero!

[Ethan Parks]

Watching as the muffins rolled away, Ethan went to it and picked them up. "Yeah, the ten second rule only applies the first time it dropped." Ethan pointed out before throwing them in the trash. "Were they being handed out for free? I could pay for those if it's for charity or something." He offered.

"You seem like you've had a lot on your mind." He chuckled before reaching out and grabbing a muffin bit that she had missed in her hair. "And in your hair."

[Charity Croft]

Charity let out a sigh as she looked down at the muffins. She watched, unable to stop from feeling a bit forlorn, as Ethan picked them up and threw them away. "Complimentary, which is why I was kinda bugged about the kid taking so many," Charity replied, adding another sigh. "If I'd known we were just going to throw them away, I'd have given them to him. And no," she gave him a smile, "they weren't for me."

She didn't know if he'd get the absolutely awful joke/pun about her name but, well, if you had a name like Charity's, you had to try and take some ownership and joke about it some on your own. Otherwise it got on top of you and the next thing you knew, you were curled up in a bathroom wondering why you were thirty and hadn't had a relationship that had lasted longer than two years. Not that such at hing had ever happened. Nope. Definitely didn't happen.

"Oh yeah, tot-" Charity began, only to sigh as he pulled some muffin out of hair. "Hey, I was totally saving that for later," she tried, before letting out another nervous chuckle and closing her eyes. "Again I want to point out: I wasn't even supposed to be manning the muffin table. I just made, like," she looked down, "actually, I think these are mostly Bell's..." she frowned, shifting the muffins around. Surely he'd stolen at least one of hers, right?

[Ethan Parks]

"I probably would have done the same thing." Ethan pointed out before waving a dismissive hand. "He's a kid, let him be. Hey, maybe he'll get a stomach ache from eating too much sweet stuff. Silver lining." He nodded before chuckling at the pun she pointed out. He tapped the side of his nose before pointing at her.

"Nice one."

Chuckling, he handed back the crumb he found in her hair. "There you go. Or should I put it back in your hair for safekeeping?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. When she mentioned her supposed lack of involvement and something about bells, Ethan frowned slightly before waving it off.

"Well, now you're going to have to deal with the fact that your muffins are probably already gone by now. Seeing as you're not there anymore?"

[Charity Croft]

Charity gave Ethan a thankful smile as he insisted that he probably would've done the same thing. When it came to the kid, she just smiled and shrugged at first, then giggled a little at the thought of his getting a stomach ache. "That's horrible, you know, and I really don't mind all that much."

And a compliment on her joke, always appreciated. The return of the crumb had her letting out a little "ha-ha" before flicking it away into the corner, even giving him a look with raised brows, as if practically challenging him, what with his having swept and all. It didn't last long, what with the concern over muffins and all, but it was totally there and surely had to be noticeable and all.

"Well, I wasn't supposed to be there to begin with," Charity admitted, still sorting through the muffins. "My roommate and I, she's Bell, Bell Connelly, redhead, teaches English, anyway, we volunteered to make some of the baked goods for handing out. But I'm the leader of the Helping Hands, which I took over from my dad. So, like, I'm actually supposed to be running around offering help and giving advice and stuff like that," Charity bobbed her head a bit. "So, yeah, wasn't even supposed to be watching the muffins. I'm just awesome like that," She tossed her head slightly, and then gave Ethan a quick look. "Lemme guess... you're supposed to be helping on of the sports teams, right? You've got jock written all over you," especially with those arms, which were definitely, yeah. a thing.

[Ethan Parks]

"I know I know. I'm just saying, it could be worst." He shrugged before staring at her in disbelief when she actually had the audacity to flick the crumb away. "How dare you." He narrowed his eyes playfully at her before bending down and picking the crumb up, leaning back a little to throw it in the garbage can.

As she explained her situation, mentioning again a bell, who was apparently an English teacher, a redheaded one at that, and he nodded, listening attentively as he always did. He committed the information to memory, noting that her dad used to be in charge of the Helping Hands committee. He didn't remember that committee being in play when he was around. Could have helped him with his social anxieties.

Blinking when she tossed her head, he chuckled before scratching his five o'clock shadow with a grin. "Do I?" He looked down at himself. He had to admit to the fact that he indeed had the build of a jock. Broad shoulders, lean upper half, thighs like tree trunks. Okay well not that big but you get the picture. He was...muscular.

"I'm the PE teacher. I represent all the sports but mostly boxing and track." He answered with a grin.

[Charity Croft]

Charity stuck her tongue out in the most mature way possible as Ethan let out his false offense. She did watch as he walked over and picked the crumb up, making note that he was the kind of guy who would do something like that. Then again, he'd been the kind of guy who would throw in with a random person when she appeared to be in trouble, so Charity supposed she couldn't be that surprised.

Charity kept going, offering up her analysis. At the repetition, she nodded, adding a confident arm-fold for the maximum portrayal of surety. As soon as he spoke, Charity grinned. "Ah, you do look like a--" Charity had been looking at him for a while now, so she shouldn't be all that surprised that her power kicked in. For that matter, it was way more impressive that she hadn't had it kick in before now. She could literally feel it pouring information into her mind while her eyes started flicking all over his body, following trails that her power pointed out for her. It was actually fascinating for her, even as she was all too aware of what it looked like from the outside:

like she'd stopped talking midsentence and started checking him out.

But hey, given how Ethan looked, he was probably used to that, right?

[Ethan Parks]

Did she just stick her tongue out at him? "Did you just stick your tongue out at me? Real mature, Miss Charity. You're really giving your name a bad rep." He shook his head as he tutted at her.

Ethan tilted his head a little and slipped his hands into his pocket as she started to talk, only to trail off and suddenly becominga staring contest. He had always felt just slightly uncomfortable whenever people looked at him.

In the ring, he had a different mindset. He was in another zone so the crowd around him just staring at him didn't really bother him all that much. But out of the ring, it still felt so foreign. Especially when it came from a woman. A cute one at that.

"Uh, Charity? Are you okay?" He asked, snapping his fingers and waving his hand at her face.

[Charity Croft]

Charity would've just stuck her tongue out at him again as he teased her about her maturity level. She was most definitely mature: You had to be to survive this place, but there was always just this necessity of taking things at least a little lightly, otherwise they'd crush you. That and Charity couldn't stop being a dork if she even tried.

Nor could she really stop her power from taking over her mind for a few moments. She could push past it, and she fought to do so when Ethan started talking to her, even before he started waving and talking. "Osteokinesis, but you have to literally be touching someone to send the signals to start messing with their skeletal structure," Charity pointed at the hand that had been waving, following it for a few moments. "Aaaand it's a lot easier on yourself, which just sort of makes sense and---" Charity finally got enough control to force an awkward nod, "and I'm doing that whole, describing people's powers thing."

Charity bobbed her head a few more times, lowering it. "See, that's what happens if, like, I actually try to talk, but hey, I can do normal people talking now. Well," another head bob, "normal for me. It's all relative," she waved a hand and took another deep breath. "But yeah, that's my power: i can, like, tell other people's powers by looking at them," she waved her hands in his direction. "Just super cool, right?"

[Ethan Parks]

When she started describing his powers back to him, Ethan was both impressed and frightened. Well, not frightened as in he would cower from her, but she literally knew everything about his ability. She was even commentating on it.

"So you can't stop it?" He asked, looking down at his gloved hands briefly. "Like it's constantly there when you're around a mutant?"

[Charity Croft]

Charity proceeded with more head bobbing. "Yup, constantly on," she said. "I also got a healthy dose of mutant detection, which means that, like, I can actually find mutants and stuff. So sometimes school's kinda like being a kid with ADHD in a bright flashing light factory," Charity spread her hands around her as if setting off several little explosions, of course adding a few sound effects here and there (mostly "boosh"; lots of "boosh).

"But it's cool," charity lowered her hands, nodding. "I actually moved back here so I could use my teaching skills and my ability to help kids. That's why we're here, right?" Charity adding another shrug. "To help them, since, well, who better than people like us, who know what it's like?"

Another shrug, and Charity added a few more, mostly to make fun of the fact that she'd been shrugging every sentence or so.

[Ethan Parks]

"Yikes."

When she started with the special effects, he couldn't help but mimic them. "Boosh? Just boosh here, boosh there?" He asked, pointing randomly at thin air. The girl was adorable and he was really enjoying this interaction.

"Ah yeah. We can't help it." He shrugged. Him more so. His white knight complex was rarely off. It was scary how easily he would jump in the face of danger for someone else to be safe.

He chuckled at her shrugs and shrugged himself. "Your dad must be proud of you."

[Charity Croft]

Charity laughed at his replication of her sound effects, laughed and then nodded. "Yes, precisely that. All the booshing," she gestured around as if to reindicate the various noises, grinning all the wider. The expression didn't dim as Ethan continued, admitting that he almost couldn't help jumping to the rescue, helping people. Yeah, Charity definitely understood that impulse all too well. It pretty well was what constantly drove her to do, well, just about everything, really.

The last had her letting out a dry laugh and looking away. "Yeah, maybe," another shrug; at least that made her smile less sad. "I, well, my dad was the Guy Legrange, head of training, so, yeah," Charity rolled her eyes. "I also didn't, like, really get to connect with him before... yeah," Charity stood for a moment, rocking her heels. Talking about her dad with people was just always... awkward.

"So," she looked up at Ethan, "want some muffins?" She held up the few still in her arms, wiggling her brows in what she hoped was a tempting manner.

[Ethan Parks]

He hadn't realised that he had hit a snare in the subject of conversation. Ethan vaguely remembered a Guy Legrange (although that also made him feel slightly stupid for thinking her last name was Granger) and she used past tense to describe him.

And then things took a turn for the slightly less comfortable as he connected some dots. There had been a fire here, hadn't there? Was Guy one of the casualties?

He wanted to apologise for bringing it up but she was already changing the subject and he had to respond to that. "I don't know where it's been, Charity. It might have been from your hair."

[Charity Croft]

Charity almost wanted to let out a thank you as Ethan at least played along with her changing the conversation. She held the muffins in her arms up a little more, doing a little dance now to make them even more tempting. "Ah, but these are hair free," she then did a toss of her head, blowing a few more times (even more than was strictly necessary). "Or at least, as hair free as they can be. Pluuus, I could actually help you score muffins that probably weren't thrown on the ground and slash or pressed against my chest."

Charity paused for a moment, then looked down at the muffins (and by extension, her chest) and then looked up at Ethan. "Unless that's what you're into, in which case I guess I could, like, throw my hair all over them and do some sort of weird, muffin-related, chest rubbing dancing thing." Charity pursed her lips, looked down, bobbed her head, and looked up. "Please say it's not something you're into."

[Ethan Parks]

Ethan mimicked a look of disgust, adding a stuck out tongue for full effect. Just because he was twenty-six, did not mean he had to act twenty-six. Charity didn't seem to act her age either. Though...what was her age anyway?

"That is really not what I'm into. Far from it. Less hair, happier Ethan." He nodded, as if that could cement the idea into Charity's head that he was not into food filled hair. Gah, even the thought made him gag.

He held a finger up and tilted his head slightly before continuing. "I am, however, into fresh muffins. So let me see the array that you have."