13587/Midnight Munchies

Midnight Munchies
Date of Scene:	03 July 2021
Location:	Dominos Pizza - Manhattan
Synopsis:	A chance meeting in a dominos and a Blue Lantern and a Fuzzy blue mutant find commonality
Cast of Characters:	Beast, Kinsey MacKenna

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Beast has posed:
It is quite late. New york however, is a city that never sleeps and certain places, like pizza joints and little seedy cafes are twenty-four seven. They're also the kind of place that you can mostly get away with looking like exactly how you are, because money is money to the people that work there, there tends to be a variety of working joe honesty.

Beast seems to be happy. Dressed in gym attire but with a suit in a dry-cleaning coverall on the bench beside him, he is currently staring down the biggest milkshake that Dominos had to offer and is working his way through a portion of garlic bread.

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
Normally she'd take her breaks on the space station. *Normally* But today?

Kinsey took the regular way down to the planet. Sure, she *could* have zipped with her ring, but figured every now and then it was important to be human. Except, she wasn't human was she?

Eventually her steps took her to a pizza joint. Domino's. (Did they even have cauliflower crusts here?? Did *she* even care this time?)

"What would you recommend?" If in doubt, get something from the help.

Beast has posed:
It appears that they do. They also have gluten free and a rather bizarre looking but apparently tasty beetroot crust. It makes the pizza rather reddish purple.

Looking up from his admiration of bread with garlic smothered in cheese, Hank calls over "...I entirely recommend the cinnamon bites too, they're obnoxiously addictive. Damn that salt, sweet, oil biological reaction and all that shenannigans."

A smile is beamed, friendly and furry and he lifts his milkshake in a toast. To him, she probably doesn't even smell human, but when you're a big blue gorilla of a man, it takes all sorts to make the world go round.

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
No. She doesn't smell, to those who can smell such things, as human. She's Kree. Though that part she hasn't figured out yet. But Kibou has confirmed it. She is Kree.

Kinsey half turns from the counter at the cash register. "You don't say? I do happen to like cinnamon buns. However, I shouldn't really eat a whole order, and I was hoping to order some 'za."

A pause.

"Unless you'd like to split an order. My treat." She looked for a moment. "Didn't I meet you, well I saw you, in the park? With that boy?"

Beast has posed:
"Yes, miss. You most definitely did. Which is why I was brazen enough to comment on the cinnamon bites as you're not a complete stranger, only mostly one." He sucks a good draft of milkshake down, squinting one eye with a wheeze of "...brain freeze..." and a bit of coughing to clear that up, even though that has zero net effect.

He gestures at his table though, whilst attempting a vocal center reboot. Come. Pull up to the slightly over-worn bench opposite.

After a bit, he exaggeratedly hurks in a breath. "You'd think, after thirty years of drinking cold sweet things, I would have learned, but no, that would be logical and sensible. But I would not say no to obligatory calorie sharing, so that we each minimize are waistline expansions." He grins again, warm and full of teeth. A large mitt is offered for a shake. "Doctor Henry McCoy."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Miss?!?" Kinsey laughed. "You have hurt my feelings." Not. And her laughter tells the tale. Still she plays it out, putting her left hand over her heart, and winking. "One minute!"

"One small cauliflower crust with pepperoni and twice the cheese." Really not the toppings you would expect. "And one large cinnamon bun order." And afterwards, she sits across from him.

"Now, you. Yes, I had to go, before we really met. Doctor Henry McCoy? Well met. Doctor Kinsey MacKenna. You better be right about the cinnamon buns, you know that, right?" And she shakes his hand firmly.

Beast has posed:
"Aah, but you see every lady is a miss, until you are forcefully, or flatteringly corrected. One must obey the survival strategies of the male gender you see," Beast waggles his eyebrows up and down, his shake of hand firm but not crushing. "And I assure you, I am. Otherwise, we've just ordered way too much sugar, oil and baked in spice than is good for anyone's arteries and may be embarassed into putting ourselves into a hyperglycemic state."

He sips his milkshake a bit more judiciously this time. No more brainfreeze moments for now. "You seemed to make an impression on that young lad, by the by, so I have a positive view already of someone I've barely met."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"He needed a friend." Is all Kinsey has to say about that. "I find myself sticking up for the underdogs in life. I don't like violence, really."

She sits back, and cocks her head the the right."See? I disagree. As long as you treat the one sex different than the other, we will always have differences on equality. And I am no lady, let alone a miss." Again she is amused.

Beast has posed:
Henry McCoy thinks about that a few moments, then nods, finishing off his garlic bread with cheeeeeeeeeese. He licks his fingers, one at a time. "I suppose in a sociological sense, that's truthful. But I would rather live in a society where you can be courteous and chivalrous to the opposite sex, simply because it's the right thing t do and still view yourself as equal to them -- rose tinted glasses, I suppose. I also tend to think you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, particularly as half of mine are covered in christmas paper, to protect the sleeves. You'd utterly get the wrong impression of my happy santa and reindeer literature."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Hrm." Kinsey takes her turn thinking."But it isn't also true that to be equal means we all have something to bring to the table, so to speak. I can treat you with courtesy and respect without denigrating you. Surely you respect the men, do you not? And do you not need to call them Master?" Master being the equivalent form of Miss (give or take).

"But you've got my curiosity piqued. What do you read? Despite the wrapping paper."

Her order is up and while she told she would give him half the cinnamon buns, she actually offered a piece of pizza as well. "Look at it this way, the crust is healthy?"

Beast has posed:
"I tend toward Mezzer, or you know, that protracted mssr where there's no distinguishable vowel sounds. But I'm not sure I'm seeing your equivalency, there. Just because you refer a woman as miss or ma'am, does not equate to her having nothing to contribute, or that I'm denigrating anything she might say." Beast considers, sipping once again on the shake. It's huge, but it's losing the battle with the big blue square.

He licks his lip just a little of the melted dairy goodness. "Lately? Harry Potter. I love the layers. I just finished the collected works of Xing pi, a small and mostly unknown poet from the Chengdu province. Not a very good poet really, but she tries. And before that, Teenagers for Dummies. I think that last one might have to be taken with a pinch of salt."

"Why, thank you. I suppose it is, but the rest of it is fuel. I'll work it all off in the gym later. I'm not a fan of violence either, but I'm rather good at stopping it with a well placed smack."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"We shall have to agree to disagree for this time. I shall think about what you have said. As for me? I grew up in the projects, and found myself, often, putting myself between the victims and their bullies and talking them out of what they'd intended to do."

She smiles and lowers her head. She'd really not put two or two together; she still does it today.

"Me? Mostly I have too much work to do. But I confess I have read a few romances. They're horrible, but so like potato chips." She shrugs with a grin and has a piece of pizza.

Beast has posed:
"Ohhh," Hank gives a slightly wan smile at that, adjusting his glasses, given that there are times when he's had zero choice about physical confrontation. X-men don't always have that luxury. "On the whole, I prefer changing the world with words. I think they're a lot more powerful than fists ever are, but it's a slow process. I figure I'll have to hand the torch to someone else someday and we'll still only be halfway there."

He eats the pizza slice the italian way, by folding it slightly so it doesn't drop, a technique mastered with one hand.

And the last causes a sage nod. "You can never have just one. I just run out of reading material far too quickly." He taps his head. "Eidetic memory. I need new material often, or I doze off reading the old things that are painted on the inside of my eyelids."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
Kinsey wrinkles up her nose. "Oh, I have tried to be firm and be ready to back my conviction up with not just words, but.." She has to shake her head at herself. "Sometimes I was, well, I didn't win all the time, but I was still the person who stood up for the victims. I still don't quite understand it."

Wouldn't she have been better if she could use her power offensively?

"I don't have an eidetic memory, alas. Although it does have it's own perks my way. Sometimes I don't even remember reading it." A second piece was picked up, and she nods with her chin to have another one.

Beast has posed:
Henry McCoy takes a second slice, but one of the smaller wedges. It's only a small pizza, so surely she can manage the rest of it! Surely? If not, well he'll help all the way to the end. "I'd love to forget I've read some things. But as they say you can't unsee that and I've read some /truly/ awful writing, in that way that you can't put it down, because you're morbidly fascinated to see if the train wreck will be a full on thing. You know... smack bang into the mountainside kind of disaster." He shakes his head, again folding the pizza so it doesn't droop.

"I've definitely been beaten up a lot. Shot, too, more times than I care to admit. Stabbed. Impaled, which wasn't fun. I used to be a linebacker once and that ended up with quite a few concussions..." He looks amused and animatedly bemused at the same time "...you know when I think of how many head injuries I've had in my life it's amazing I remember my own name."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"You have just described almost every single romance I have ever read. But you're right, you keep reading in case it gets better, or most likely, you can't believe it could get any worse and you want to know how it will." A grimace crosses her features and she laughs. "Thank goodness I don't read recreationally very often."

The pizza offers one more slice to Henry, and she closes up the box to take the extra home.

"These days.. well I have fought harder things than when I was young. I guess that made me aware of other solutions. And, well, I find most bullies don't enjoy putting them in a room so to speak, with themselves."

They really don't like when the options are looking at the alternatives, or hurting themselves.. Of course, often other people are there and while she can't use powers directly against them, others aren't bothered by it. And she doesn't mind when they do.

Beast has posed:
"You sound like a good friend of mine. She used to specialize in giving people time-outs in their own heads," Beast chuckles, refusing that final slice with a polite raise of his hand, palm out. He couldn't possibly. He does however, cheekily take a cinnamon bite, gestures with it, in a 'you have to now' kind of way and pops it in his mouth.

"The literary equivalent of rubbernecking, indeed. I think I'm just a masochist at heart, I like to cram way too much into a day, most days."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Well, it's not in their own heads, but I think I know what you mean. Your friend isn't gone, I hope?" Oh, yes, Kinsey takes one of the cinnabon bites, and pops it in her mouth. "Oh my god, so good! You weren't kidding! Eat, please. I can't eat all of them."

She swallows. "You don't look like a masochist." But what does a masochist look like anyway? "You seem like a very quiet gentleman."

Beast has posed:
"Oh yes, she is. But nowadays she generally just has to look at someone a certain way and they shut up toute-suite." Beast chuckles at that memory, happily indulging the sugar rush, for his famous sweet tooth is hollow. He sucks sugar like a candy vampire. "Another of my friends has been known to leave people clucking like a chicken for an hour or two, which is always amusing when you know someone's ticked her off a bit too much."

He does challenge that last though. "What would a masochist look like on the surface, anyway? Blue fur, it can cover a multitude of sins you know." He waggles his next bite like a cautionary tale. "Quiet though? I can be I suppose, on occasion. I have been told though, that I could talk a person's ear off. Honestly, it's a defense mechanism."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Well, actually, you look like a man who could tear a person apart, and has decided to be different that.Most people who realize that about themselves try to be other than that. To prove that they can, or something."

Kisney pauses before carrying on. "Do you think that a person may not realize that about themselves, but are still driven to a non-violent lifestyle?"

Beast has posed:
"That would be because I can," Beast says that in a very quiet tone though, lips pressed thin. He takes off his glasses, as they make a wonderful tool for not really having to look at things and gives him those couple of moments whilst he cleans them and returns them to the bridge of his nose. "I'm not naturally violent though. At least, not by choice. I will admit, occasionally it has happened for reasons not entirely under my control, but I definitely don't try to be that way. I am a scholar at heart."

He looks at her quizzically though, "I imagine that that happens often. If you don't ever know you could, the choices you make are based solely on the utter lack of experience in the tearing-people-to-pieces department. Unfortunately, I've seen it far too many times in my career, that when the ability to do so manifests out of nowhere, the unprepared freak out quite considerably. One of my wards is the victim of such happenstance."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"I was never born to any mutant powers." Kinsey hasn't looked up as she speaks. "My parents.. My mother is dead now. And my father? I really don't know where he is. I often made stories up where he would come back to me, or he was in jail, or dead, or thousands of scenarios."

*Now* she looks up.

"Now I wonder.. Was he hiding away from here, earth, to protect me?"

Beast has posed:
"Well, of course not, you're Cree," Beast has encountered quite a number of alien races in his time and /can/ identify them by smell. "You wouldn't have. I don't think it works the same way for your species. You might still be gifted, but it's not from the same children of the atom whatnot that prompted my impressively cerulean stature." He thought she knew, she certainly seems to know and thus it's neither here nor there to him.

"Now, see you're asking the wrong mutant. I've got a top notch brain up here, but I'm no clairvoyant. Those are actually quite rare."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
A little laugh is let go.

"A clairvoyant? Maybe it would help. Or not." Kinsey can't help but think it would be too easy. This seems deeper than that. Something about it was bound to her. Like the way Ganthet and Sayd put her on the Kree border without telling her. It would have been easier enough to tell her she was Kree, so *why* did they not tell her?

Even Kibou could have told her.

"I just found out that I'm Kree." She was in her 30's and just finding out the truth about her heritage.

Beast has posed:
"That's quite a bit of time to pass you by, all unknowing. I'm a little surprised by that. Mind, your species is homogenous to humanity, it's easy for you to blend in, I suppose."

Beast takes his milkshake in one meaty paw, swirling the straw with his other hand, to loosen any clumps up. "There must be a story behind that, half of which you don't know about. Clairvoyant or otherwise, you might be better off approaching doctor Strange for assistance unravelling the why and wherefore of that one."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"I think my mother always intended for me knowing. Except, there was always school. She died before my final graduation, just months before I got my doctorate. Come to think of it, she left me a box with the instructions that I would know the time."

Kinsey shakes her head, and reaches for another cinnamon bun tidbit.

"Doctor Strange?" Now she's curious. "How so?"

Beast has posed:
"Well, mostly he seems to have a marvellous knack with a ridiculous amount of things, probably many subjective timeline viewings also. Maybe you could look at your past in a mirror and adult eyes may see a lot more than child eyes perceived. But I don't know. Magic isn't really my strong suit, it seems to be a mystery I am destined only to comprehend in theory." Hank shows off with his last cinnamon ball, tossing it in the air and catching it in his mouth. You'd think a doctor would know better than to tempt fate, but there we go.

He finishes off his milkshake with a slurp, hovering up the frothies at the bottom with a good deal of very industrious but short lived suction. Setting it aside, he muses "...How deliciously cryptic."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"You know," she pushes the bits towards him. "I never understood magic. I certainly prefer to let my brain think through and apply science. Even mutants can be explained, moderately, with science. But magic? Pure magic?"

Kinsey stretches out.

"Then again I can't fathom where my powers come from. So, there you have it." And she makes a face. This was the first time she has mentioned 'powers' so directly to him.

Beast has posed:
"Oh, mutants, particularly physical mutants like myself, are very easy to comprehend. I have a kind of atavism along the mammalian genus. It was once simply simian strength and muscle density, then it went all sideways. You can see under a microscope, where I come from." He finishes the last cinnamon ball then, as she doesn't seem to want it and holds a finger up, going to get a bottle of water and one for her if she wants it. Can always take the water home, right?

"Pure magic appears to be a variety of force manipulation, the trouble being it's right royally hard to measure it accurately. It does appear to be meta though, in that it begins in the mind. You have gifts?"

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Yes, and no." Kinsey begins with that conundrum. "According to Ganthet and Sayd - "

"And Kibou!"

"And Kibou. I hold within the power of Hope. Enough so I can radiate.. well, I haven't tried what radius I can project to, but Saint Walker, the first of our kind, kept his Hope going for days when his home world was in danger. But, really, I have no powers of my own. Take away my Hope, and there's nothing to speak of."

She smiles. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." She winks.

Beast has posed:
Henry McCoy cocks his head suddenly, looking up like a dog, around and about and down to where the source of sound came from. The ring. "Oh! You're a lantern!" He exclaims in delight, laughs lightly and then nods to the explanation. "Rare folks that have enough of a given emotion to empower something like that. Near as I understand it, the technology is ancient and operates through subspace and attunement to the..." he taps his head. "Still fascinating! And a bit elusive. Feeling something so strongly."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
She puts up a finger to her lips, and with a smug smile, says, "Shhh. Don't spread it around. But, yes, I'm a Blue lantern. And you're a big blue mutant. We have something in common."

Of course Kinsey means the colour blue.

As for holding such a power, Hope, inside, she can't imagine being anything else. "Do you think about being different?"

Beast has posed:
Henry McCoy lowers his chin, looking over the top of his spectacles at her for a moment, with a couple of rapid fire blinks. "I suspect that you're saying that out of an actual innocence, Doctor Kinsey, as it's very hard not to think about being different when you wear it on yourself all the time. I don't however, regret being different any more. I used to once, but I grew out of that. There's a lot more to be done when you get over yourself and your hang-ups and by you here, I mean you plural, relative to any given situation."

He shrugs then, cracking open his water and taking a swig of it. "My lips are sealed though. Not sure who I'd tell, but I'll write it behind my ear if I ever find myself in an almost hopeless situation. Those happen rather more often than I'd like to admit, actually."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Actually I did mean did you ever believe that if you could, would you give up your blueness, your powers, your mutancy? I suspect very few of us would, no matter how hard it may be. If theory. You don't really have the ability, do you. Less than I have, I suppose."

"And I was mostly joking about keeping quiet. I really don't have much to do on earth. But sometimes, like that young man in the park, he was attacked by bullies. I didn't do much, but it was just enough to make him feel empowered. And that's all he needed. Plus a few good hotdogs after." Kinsey was smiling by the end. "I suppose he's taken care of now?"

Beast has posed:
"As far as I know, he's safely insconced at the school I work at," Beast replies with a smile. Nothing more than that. "And therefore can be himself, no matter what," pausing, he presses his lips together. "I tried actually. To return myself to normality. Had -totally- the opposite effect and thus, the blue. But that did have upsides, in the long run. My research helped with the counteraction to the mutant cure."

He settles back, swigs some more water then. "I honestly don't know if I would any more. I have more power of advocacy looking as I do, than giving validation to the rest of society by trying to fit in. It's hard sometimes though."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"I'll bet." Kinsey folds up her arms and leans on them over the table. "I find you fascinating in a way that I can never understand. You've accepted yourself in a way that most people can't understand. And you encourage people to follow their dreams. That's.." She shakes her head at that. "..Amazing."

Beast has posed:
"Well, uh... gosh. THank you?" Hank isn't great at compliments, he doesn't get -those- kinds very often, it's usually on a scientific paper and there he's totally in territory that he knows. Quasi existential ones, where you're happy in your own skin? Those are a bit different.

"We have a history, a rather recent history in terms of the annals of time, with vivid highlights on race and on creed, on socio-economic status and gender. Immense chunks where suppression and repression are glaringly all over the chapters in the books. But we've also had some almost missed pieces of beauty; like the subsuming of the Dreamers to full citizen status; the irony of that name ends up being a watchword for you doing you. You have to be able to dream. If you don't, you're never going to have a dream come true." Pause, beat "...I've been an extra in Disney movies, you know. I played the strange blue cousin gorilla in the Tarzan remake." Deadpan, he sounds sincere, except for the wink.

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Often the theme is belonging versus "other". When we are together fighting a foe, even if the foe is made up, it makes us vulnerable to things made up. Sort of how the middle class looked down on the lower class, with the upper class made off laughing the whole time."

Kinsey doesn't know what to make of his joke.

Beast has posed:
Hank gestures with a flip of his finger over to his left hand side, kind of behind himself. "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are... Yes? No? Oh dear, that was a bit too tangential Sorry about that." He nods though, at the generalized 'they' made up by those in power, to maintain power and the social injustice movement. "Well, one day." He rises from his seat, taking the remains of his water.

"Well, it was a pleasure Doctor Kinsey, but I do have to get back to the school before it's an ungodly hour and people give me odd looks. I hope I see you again sometime, it was an enlightening chat over pizza and cinnabons."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"And you too. I've got to get back and finish my experiments. It was nice talking to you." Kinsey got up and put some bills on the table. "Tips. Good night."