{MIW} I Need a Hero!

[Ethan Parks]

"Bring it on." Ethan challenged Charity with a grin. He couldn't help chuckling at just how cheerful she made the threat sound.

Surprised at how defensive she got about the granolas, Ethan held both his hands up in surrender. "Okay okay I'll eat one." He took one and grinned when Charity started to shield herself from his body.

Let it be noted that he didn't quite understand women's fascination with men's abs but Charity's reaction was exactly what he was expecting and that amused him. He dropped the hem of his shirt and bit into the granola, shrugging at the taste. "Although it does beg the question, why would an athlete choose this instead of everything else?" He asked, waving his hand and gesturing at the other baked goods.

[Charity Croft]

Charity stuck her tongue out for a moment as he surrendered and went for the granola. The defense of it had been more instinctive than anything she'd really thought through or worried about or anything along those lines. Sometimes that was how you got the real reactions, but Charity wasn't sure. Not that she was dwelling on it, not with the rather obvious distraction.

Thankfully it went away. "Because it's better for you?" Charity offered, lowering her hands. She did form a quick cross with her fingers before nodding. "That stuff makes you regular and does all sort of fun things to the digestion in addition to being super good for you and stuff. The body's a temple and all, gotta make sure you're putting good stuff in it," Charity paused, looking down at the granola. "Great, now I've made myself want it."

She grabbed a bag, taking a handful and munching away at it. "See? Good. Desirable. Poop-inducing. What more could you want?"

[Ethan Parks]

And now the woman was talking about bowel regulation. She was certainly something else. "Well yeah. Muffins are good stuff. Mac and cheese is good stuff. Pizza...oh don't get me started on pizza." He grunted and lifted his shoulders jerkily.

"I'm glad you're enjoying it. Don't see anybody else taking it." He chuckled, bumping against her playfully.

[Charity Croft]

Muffins, mac and cheese... "Okay, if I ate like that," Charity said, pointing at Ethan, "you'd have to roll me to the training rooms and stuff. I mean, yeah, I eat my muffins and everything, but a girl's gotta watch what she eats," Charity took another mouthful of the granola, before following Ethan's bump to look down at the stuff. Yeah, he was definitely right: there was far less granola taken than brownies or muffins or anything.

"That's because they're foolish young people," Charity said, closing her eyes and nodding her head definitely, "not yet wise in the ways of the world and of what you put in you," Charity took another bite before looking over. "So I'm betting that you totally end up working out all the time then? 'cuz that power of yours isn't coming with much of an eating side effect. Milk, maybe, but you aren't getting enough of that from mac and cheese and pizza..."

Charity could feel her power starting to take hold of her brain, feeding her information and making her stare at Ethan some more. At least she already knew the basics, so she could at least avoid the blank, static-brained stare that she ended up with most of the time.

[Ethan Parks]

Ethan shrugged, shaking his head. If he said what was on his mind; which was that people should be allowed to do whatever they wanted with their bodies if that was what they were comfortable with, he might get a bad backlash for it. So he kept his mouth shut. Well, chewing on his granola still.

"Okay grandma. Calm down. Nobody's stealing your granolas. You can have them all to yourself." He patted Charity on her shoulder, his tone light and playful. The woman could not have been that much older than him. Of course he didn't think she was old.

When she worked her abilities on him again, he raised both eyebrows and breathed in before letting it out through his lips. "Well...yeah I have to. But that's more to do with the fact that I got myself into a routine. All I have to keep up with for my abilities is calcium supplements." He answered. "I used to have to drink like three gallons of milk every day. I don't like milk."

[Charity Croft]

Charity stuck her tongue out as Ethan teased her about the granola. "It's good!" She insisted again. "Also, I am so not that old! Just because through some weird twist of Fate or something I'm, like, a couple of years older than this weird group of mid-twenties staff doesn't make me some old lady," Charity let out a sigh and took another bite of the granola, munching it in the most begrudging way possible. Didn't stop her from letting the ability take over.

"Ugh, sorry about that," Charity said. "It really sucks when abilities mess us up like that. I've seen way too many kids who have it bad, even worse than you," she nodded and raised the granola toward him to indicate. "I think that's part of why I wanted to be a trainer too. Or, well, I pretty well already covered that. This whole mutant thing sucks enough without having someone who you know is going to be on your team. But hey, that's us, right?"

Charity raised a hand up. "Go mutants!" before she reached down for another bite. "This stuff is addictive. You're going to need to hide the rest of it from me so we can save some for the soccer moms to force on kids."

[Ethan Parks]

Her insistence that the granola was good and that she wasn't old made Ethan chuckle. "Okay, okay I believe you. I'm gonna just love on the brownies and muffins a lot more than the granola. Thanks." He pointed to the other baked goods and gave her a thumbs up.

"Oh yeah tell me about it. I'm just glad I have a lifetime of bathroom breaks to look forward to because of my abilities." He shrugged, thinking about the many many number of people who had it even worst than him. "That's very noble of you." He smiled, turning it to her.

"Go!" Ethan fist pumped into the air before walking around her and pushing her a little closer inside. "There. Now every time you reach for one, I'm right here to slap your hand. See, I'm helping you resist and make you feel like a child so you don't feel old. I'm a superhero."

[Charity Croft]

Charity was tempted to stick her tongue out at him again as he teased about the brownies and cookies versus granola thing again. But she managed to maintain her adult decorum for at least those few seconds, eating and instead thinking about mutant powers and how they sometimes really sucked. At least Ethan seemed to be on board with her.

"See? You're right here with me--" and she was being pushed and letting out a near squeal as it happened, flailing an arm slightly. Ethan already edged her away from the granola, however, and was even threatening to slap her hand. "Oh yeah, totally a superhero. You're going to need to slip on some tights. Actually," Charity took another bite of her granola, figuring that didn't count since it was the original batch, "you kinda look like Captain America, don't you think? The whole blonde haired pretty boy thing. I'm betting you get that a lot, right?"

Charity smirked and gave herself another handful of granola as a reward for her thinking. Yeah, she definitely was going to need help to stop eating this stuff.

[Ethan Parks]

The idea of him in tights made him laugh out loud. "No way. That's a horrible idea!" He said before looking at Charity incredulously at her comparison. "What?" He asked, his smile frozen slightly before shaking his head. "No...you think I'm pretty?"

It was a weird comparison, one he hadn't actually ever heard but he laughed at the idea that Charity thought he was pretty. "Aww, you really think I'm pretty?" He pretended to toss his hair over his shoulder and batted his eyes.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, pointing at her hand. "Drop that right now."

[Charity Croft]

"Yes, so pretty," Charity agreed, before clearing her voice and singing: "So pretty and lovely and briiiiight." Though she seriously doubted that Ethan was a musical fan or would be able to pick out a song from West Side Story, even if it did happen to be fairly manly as far as musicals went. He did have some acting chops, or at least knew how to flutter his eyelashes, and that seemed like more than some professionals were capable of these days.

"What? No, never!" Charity said before stuffing her mouth filled with granola, filling both cheeks with the stuff. "I'm gonna eat all the granola! And there's nothing you can do to stop me!" She was already reaching into the bag for more but, well, this one had ended after the cheek filling. Which meant that Charity (who was still chewing the bits in her mouth) would have to get more... and Ethan had moved in the way.

Okay, so maybe there was something he could do to stop her.

[Ethan Parks]

Ethan stared at Charity when she broke out into a vaguely familiar tune. He laughed when he realised it was from the Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson movie. Anger Management, right? He didn't say anything pertaining to it, opting to just pat his cheeks, acting cute.

But it didn't last too long since Charity had really forced his hand into becoming intimidating. "Drop it, Miss Legrange. Do it now." He growled, holding his hand out to stop her from reaching her goal.

[Charity Croft]

Charity couldn't tell if she appreciated the patting or not. she logged her feelings and thoughts away on it for a later time and date, figuring that she'd figure it out. For right now, she had the whole granola war issue to work through with him. He'd moved forward and, well, he actually sounded kinda intimidating.

"Eep," came out before Charity could really stop it, and she found herself pulling her hands back. "okay," she pointed at him, "that was actually kind of intimidating and a little scary. You're not secretly some kind of psychopath or anything, are you? Because I totally left my mace in my other purse."

Charity now felt her fingers sort of wiggling, not really have a sense of what to do with them or where to put them now that she didn't have granola. Worse, she still really wanted some. No way was she going to try while Ethan was in this kinda scary mode. She could always just collect the leftovers after move in was done, right...?

[Ethan Parks]

When Charity backed down, followed by her words, Ethan couldn't help the bubble of laughter that finally escaped.

"Really? That scared you?" He asked before making a 'not bad' face. "But seriously though. Think of all the helicopter moms out there who would want to shove this in their children's face for nutrition or something." He nodded.

[Charity Croft]

"I'm easy to scare," Charity replied, waving a hand at him. "Horror movies with me are just awful. I just end up watching with, like, one eye and doing more than the average amount of flailing."

Still, Charity did have to sigh at his point, rolling her eyes upward again. "I know, and there's also some really health conscious teenage girls who won't come near most of this stuff. That's also why we made the bran muffins," Charity pointed at a section of the stand that had even more left than the granola. "and you think this is bad, there is no saving those," Charity looked down at them. "I died a little inside just from making them."

Enough that Bell had to finish them off, but Charity didn't think she'd go quite that far.

[Ethan Parks]

"Oh you're just making it easy on me for Halloween, aren't you?" He chuckled before making a zipping motion over his lips. "I shouldn't have said that. Ruin the surprise." He chuckled while peeking at her reaction.

He laughed lightly when Charity pointed out the bran muffins. "You think we could feed these to the squirrels or something? Oh! Maybe we can go feed it to the ducks! Are they allergic to bran?"