Who: Jennie-Lynn Hayden and Roy Harper NPCs: -- When: Thursday, May 31, 2012 - evening [back-dated] Where: Jennie’s Apartment (Well Kyle and Todd’s apartment too.) What: Roy (finally) mentions to Jennie that oh hey, Lian’s mom is in town. Rating: PG
What a crazy, ridiculous, absolutely insane day it was! Jen didn’t even want to get into it with Kyle or Todd when she got home and spent most of the rest in her room, keeping to herself. She spent a lot of time thinking about the day that went all topsy turvey on her, worked a little, relaxed and by the time Roy had texted her she was feeling a bit better and thought she might be able to force the issue of getting Roy to her place for once. She warned her house mates, the space cop, whose affections she had stole, and her twin brother. This was happening and she wasn’t going to sneak around. End of story. No show, no debate, not a big deal. Go about your business.
After that she took a shower and got ready for company. Her room was small, but very plush, filled with hand-me-down furniture that she had some how accumilated, despite her best efforts to keep her collection of wordly possessions slim. Her one indulgence being clothes. And then Jen had way too many. She had filled an entire closet and wardrobe and still could use a second closet. But right now everything was neat and tidy.
The room like the rest of the apartment had a definite boho-chic theme going on. Thanks to, Jen as well. Kyle was in space and Jen could live in his bachelor pad any longer the way it was. So, she decorated. It was a theme that had been carried out from her bedroom. She was a big fan of textures and colors and different patterns. She had a changing screen and paper lanterns strung up along the outside of it, because she liked the aesthetic.
She just wanted things to be nice and pleasant and above all relaxing. Jen took it upon herself to crack into a bottle of wine and was enjoying a glass when Roy had texted her. She texted back the numbers in case he forgot and waited for his knock. She was still wearing street clothes, having not changed into her pajamas yet, but underneath that was a surprise.
“Hey, we gotta be quiet,” she said and pulled the door open. “Kyle’s gotta be up in the morning.” Todd, blessedly, was in the bathroom, getting ready for bed and sulking, that is nowhere to be seen.
---
She opened the door before he got a chance to knock twice, and Roy said dryly; “Well hi, good evening to you, too.”
He really was going to have to tell Jennie tonight that Lian’s mom was back in town. It wasn’t a big deal, he told himself, but even without it being a big deal he had to let Jennie know because the super hero types talked amongst themselves. And because if Jade was serious about turning over a new leaf, and being part of Lian’s life that meant she was going to be around - be mentioned from time to time.
So, he was going to tell her.
Just - not right in front of her roommates, which he didn’t think was going to be a problem. Or he hoped not, if Kyle had to get up in the morning well that meant he wouldn’t be around, and Todd didn’t seem to be the most social guy around.
“Hey, I can be quiet. I can be sneaky even.” He joked as he glanced around the apartment, not like Batman sneaky, but Roy could be more or less stealthy.
---
“We don’t have to be sneaky,” Jen said as she shut the door gently behind him, greeting him with a soft kiss as she did. “Just respectful.” She wondered briefly if Roy had ever had roommates before, or was it straight from Ollie’s house to living on his own. Roommates were a whole different ball of wax, tip-toeing around one another was sometimes necessary to keep the peace in a living environment that was dependent on civility and mutual respect. And nothing to do with the fact that Kyle had asked Jennie out and it was not her intention to flaunt Roy in his face.
As far as she was concerned they were official as of Monday. They were both at Kyle’s barbecue together where they made no great effort to hide the fact that they were dating. Roy visiting now just solidified this concept, but they didn’t have to be obnoxious about it. Plus, she didn’t want to have to be the one that was always trekking across the river into the City for a visit, tonight she just wanted to sleep in her own bed.
“Do you want something to drink? I think there’s beer in the fridge,” she offered and took them into the kitchen. “That was totally crazy today, right?” She said in passing knowing Kyle was asleep and Todd was cleaning up in the bathroom, where he wouldn’t be able to hear them talking. Jen rummaged in Kyle’s pathetically small fridge to confirm that, “Yep, there’s beer. Would you like one?”
---
“Beer’s good.” Roy trailed after her into the kitchen and glanced around. This wasn’t his first visit to the apartment, he had been here before when he Jennie and Dick had played that never have I ever game. Still he just looked around, before taking the offered beer.
“Today? Crazy-like, I guess.” Hey he wasn’t trying to be dismissive of what had happened to day, but bank robberies happened, and sometimes you had to stop them. “That was pretty cool the stuff you did with the green power thing.” It was, he had seen Hal use his green power granting ring a lot as a kid, but he hadn’t really seen Jennie in action before.
He leaned up against the counter, and took a drink of his beer.
“But hey, go team us. Nobody got hurt so that’s one firmly in the win column.”
---
While Jen got Roy his beer, she made quick work of pouring herself a glass of wine and took a sip. She shrugged. “Always the voice of reason you are,” she teased, with a grin. “I mean, I accept that things like that happen, but it doesn’t negate its craziness. You probably enjoy getting shot at though. Me? Not so much,” she said as she came to lean against him, pinning him between her hips and the counter. Also, Alan didn't much care for it, but Jen conveniently failed to mention that she had talked to her dad about what happened that afternoon.
She couldn't help but smile now, for real, and beam at the compliment. "Thanks," she said, somewhat cheerfully at that, despite her earlier attitudes. Obviously whatever sullenness/annoyance she had felt earlier had passed. Well, maybe that wasn't totally accurate, she was still irked at those police officers who had given her a tongue lashing - she was just trying to help and, yes, she was a female! But there was no point on focusing on it now, right here. It was already in the past. Iin her future there was wine and possibly good sex - it was enough to ease Jennie's mind for now.
"You know...? I'm totally underestimated," she said jokingly. "You might find this interesting, maybe not," she started, with a shrug of her shoulder. "Me and Hal? We've had our powers for the exact same amount of time, except I was fourteen when I got mine," she shared. Jen found that incredibly interesting, even if Roy didn't. Hal was always giving her grief with no good reason, but Hal was the last thing on her mind at the moment, since Roy was very much right here right now.
"I probably could sit and watch you fire arrows all day," she told him, her hand finding its way to his bicep to give it a stroke. "We should celebrate. Go team us."
---
“I don’t enjoy it.” Roy didn’t, but it was kind of fun in a scary kind of way. He had been doing some sort of crime fighting thing since he was a teenager, he kept it up not just because he didn’t know how to do anything else, but also because he found it kind of fun. He did actually enjoy it less now, since he was the person in charge of Lian … and thinking of Lian reminded him of why he was here, and the news he had to share with Jennie.
But Jennie was right there, in his personal space and he kind of had other things on his mind. He slipped his arms around her waist for a second, pulling her a bit closer, but reminding himself they had to be quiet, this was her home and her roommates (one who was her brother …) were home.
“So you're an old pro at all this.” He teased, “ready for the rest home are you?”
Okay he was down with this celebrate plan and then he’d talk to her about the serious stuff. Roy was bad with the serious stuff, oh so bad and tended to put off talking about things that needed to be talked about. “Well you should come out to the firing range someday, I can show you how to use a bow, or a gun … or is that against some code, or something?” She was green, she had green powers like Hal, she might not have a ring but Roy really did think of Jennie was one of the space cops. Wasn’t a bad thing, was just how he had her indexed in his head. He had no idea what kind of rules they had, or what ones could be broken or what rules Jennie might even personally have.
“So what did you have in mind?” He pulled her closer again. “Drinking some wine, drinking some beer in the kitchen?”
---
"Yeah... Not a lot of crime fighting happening in Wisconsin though. Hey, no way!" She shot back. "I feel like I've been gone for so long that I'm only starting to live my life," she said in response to his teasing. Which was the truth, despite the joking manner in which Jennie presented it. For so long she was on the outside looking in, she didn't know what she was, it finally felt nice to have a niche, a family, and some place to be accepted. It suited her nicely. But then again, she was ready for it. She wanted it and craved it even. Truthfully, Jen couldn't wait until she was an adult to get the heck out of Wisconsin and leave all of that behind. It was a bonus that she had somewhere along the way inherited a family in the process.
"I don't think Alan enjoyed it either," she said sheepishly and held her hand over her mouth, finally letting it slip that she had talked to Alan about what had happened that day. "Hey, are you going to come with us on Sunday?" She wanted to know. She hoped he did, because that would be, well, nice. And would make Jennie feel good and all of that cutesy boyfriend/girlfriend stuff that went part and parcel with dating.
"Ohhh, so, you can show off, you mean?" She asked, looking up at him. "I would actually like that," she admitted. "I mean, I have my own personally code," she stated, touching her chest. "I'm outside of the Corps influence.... I'm probably not ever going to shoot anybody-I don't think I could- but it'd be nice to know how to handle a weapon, just in case the situation should ever arise..."
Jen set her wine on the counter as her hands found their way to Roy's chest. "Well, I thought I could show you my room. But if you want to stay out here..." She teased, blissfully unaware that there were things, important ones at that, that Roy wanted to discuss.
---
There was a whole lot of information being delivered here and Roy was having a hard time keeping up because he had been thinking that the talking part of the evening was going to come to an end but - maybe not so much. Because her dad wasn’t so overjoyed with what had happened today, and that’s right she wanted him to go to dinner on Sunday and -
Her hands were on his chest. And Roy really wanted to see her room. Really did.
Moving his beer to the counter he put it by her wine, and reached up and took a hold of her hands. “Hey, about Sunday …” He’d get to the whole Alan thing, and the showing off thing in a few minutes. Maybe. Probably. “I actually have something to tell you. Not about Sunday but there’s some stuff going on in general right now.” Right the band aide approach was how he liked to best approach things, get it over quick. “Lian’s mom. She’s in town. Has been for a while apparently.”
He reached out and grabbed his beer, and took a drink.
--
One minute they were having a nice, flirtatious conversation, as they were want to do, the next Roy was acting vaguely strange. Or at least, that's how Jennie was reading the situation - being weird, slightly evasive - that’s what Roy was telegraphing She told herself it was just nothing, that she was just reading into the situation too much and that until Roy actually said something, there was no reason to read in between the lines. And then Roy went ahead and opened his mouth and confirmed Jennie's suspicions and that she always, no matter what, listen to her gut.
Jennie straightened right up at that, going from leaning against Roy, to looking at him with her arms across her chest, her eyebrow arched high. "Okay..." She went on. "Is there more to that...? Or...?" Jen was trying to be chill, but now he had her worrying in. Was this his Roy Harper’s way of letting Jennie know he was boning his baby's mama, for lack of a better term, even if it was a tasteless turn of phrase? Or was he just letting her know, just cause?
Of course, it wasn't about her, she well knew and pushed her own feelings to the side for the moment: with Lian, Other Jade being back, had to be a cluster fuck. She was trying to be chill about it, but it was kind of a thing yeah, she knew how Roy felt about Other Jade, how he would always feel about Other Jade... Which left her where, exactly? She didn’t know... But until she had more information she was going to reserve judgments and wait to formulate her thoughts/opinions on the matter.
"What does that mean? Been back for a while? Why are you telling me this? How long have you known?” All her questions were asked with a kind of strained neutrality, completely devoid of any emotion that would betray her feelings, because what she was feeling, right then and there, was not at all logical or mature, two things Jennie prided herself on.
--
This was going about as well as he thought it would, because no no he couldn’t have gotten someone that his family and friends would vaguely disprove of pregnant, he had to get someone who was an assassin and really good with poisons pregnant - and he had to do it while on a mission to bring her into SHIELD custody. Jade had timed her arrival back into his and Lian’s life at a pretty inopportune moment in regards to his personal life - although really he was more concerned with the fallout for Lian.
“More to it? Well there’s the part where she says she’s going legit. No more of that old job. Wants to be able to see Lian again.” He took another drink of his beer, thinking that the temperature in the kitchen might have gone down a few degrees. Oh well. If this had been before he would have been having this conversation with Jen as a friend, not Jen as a girlfriend, and it probably would have been held at a different time, and very much a different place.
“It means she showed up and informed me she’d been back for a while, I had no idea.” He could feel himself going on the defensive and was trying to stop it, but it was hard. “And I don’t know, I figured I should tell you because it’s kind of a thing Jennie, Lian’s at Dinah’s right now, has been since Tuesday because I figure it’s safer for her there.”
--
Tuesday. So, it was Thursday now. Alright, fair enough and consider the day they had this was probably the first real opportunity for Roy to tell her. She couldn't begrudge him that, although, she thought she ranked somewhere higher on the priority list to find out after the fact, seeing as they were friends before they had decided to take the plunge and become lovers. But, whatever - not about her, she kept repeating like a mantra. Unless it was about her and Roy was actually trying to tell her something, which she was still unclear what his point was exactly. Jen did her best to keep her ire at bay.
"And...? Do you believe her?" Jen looked at him scrupulously. She's avoid calling him dumb for now, until he answered that question and then Jennie didn't know she'd be able to keep her tongue in check. A good healthy amount of skepticism was the stuff of self preservation, but she didn't think she needed to remind Roy of that.
“Its ‘a thing’, Roy?” She asked. “Look, I’m trying to be chill and I’m trying to keep my opinions to myself but you gotta let me know what’s going on up there... Do you need my help? Are you trying to tell me to back off? Be careful? What?” Jennie’s eyebrows knit together and she frowned at what she was about to say. Sometimes it was hard to be mature all the time, when really all she wanted to do was throw a hissy. But she knew that wouldn’t help anything anyways.
“...If you need to bail let me know now before this goes any further, Roy.” Jennie reached out to touch his cheek. She hoped that wasn't the case, but she was forthright and wanted all the cards out on the table right now. Why was she always having to tell Roy to keep her in the loop?
--
“It’s being checked out. She’s got a business, it looks like it’s actually what she says it is.” This was really the crux of why he hadn’t wanted to tell Jennie - he didn’t want to risk her giving him that look. That ‘you believe her’ look, which fair enough she hadn’t as of yet, but he had a feeling that it was coming.
“And I don’t need help, and I’m not telling you to bail, or that I need to bail, I wanted you to know. Because if this - she’s been here. In the city, and she hasn’t tried to nab Lian, or make contact with Lian or me, and she could have.” Maybe she was playing him, but he had seen her when she saw that mothers day card, he felt she really wanted to be part of Lian’s life. And he really wanted to believe that if she wanted that, then she knew that she had to have changed, and stopped being Cheshire the assassin.
He reached up and took a hold of her hand, moving it off his cheek, so that they were just standing there and holding hands. “I’m not going to bail. But I wanted you to know, because this is going to affect Lian - and what affects her affects me.”
--
"Okay." It was being checked. Apparently that was all the answer she was going to get at that moment. Jen nodded and took in a deep breath, sighing deeply. How was this not setting off every red flag in his mind? Oh, that's because he was still in love with her and would always still be in love with her because that was daughter's mother. Oh, just that, no big. Jen was trying very hard now, digging deep, to be gracious and take him at face value. He wasn't going to bail... That's what he said.
"I understand," came the once more neutral statement. "I appreciate you telling me." She needed more time to think than just right then and there, which was hard to do. And now they were just holding hands, whatever mood she had been in cooled substantially. She couldn't help but feel shut out and put out at the whole situation. But what right did she have? They were friends... Lovers... Dating... Did it matter?
She only let him hold onto her hand for a moment before untangling and taking up the bottle of wine, topping off her glass and then raising it to her lips, draining the whole thing in one go. And that's what she thought about that.
--
Right, Roy wanted to echo her sigh but held onto his. This was his mess, and he meant it when he said he wasn’t going to bail. He didn’t plan on doing that. He finished off his beer and put the empty on the counter for a second, deciding now was not the time to start quizzing her about what type of recycling system they had set up.
“So I don’t know, things are just complicated right now. So I don’t know about Sunday.” He felt awful saying that, because the whole Sunday thing seemed like the type of thing that you did when you were dating someone, but it was just - he had no idea what Sunday might bring with it. Before he had mostly worried about his work throwing him curveballs and now he had to worry about implosions in his personal life as well.
Should he leave? He didn't know. So he stood there for a second, glancing around the kitchen.
--
"Okay," she said again simply. "Well, you know, whatever." Except it wasn't just whatever. Jen would, presumably, only graduate from college once. It'd be nice if her boyfriend was there. Then again they hadn't been dating that long. She'd probably have more luck inviting a close friend than her new boyfriend. (Hey, maybe Dick was free...) Okay, that was just spiteful thinking on her part. Jen tried to push those thoughts to the back of her mind.
"Alan was just trying to be nice. Inclusive and all of that. Supportive of my decisions," she said with a shrug. "But its okay. I understand. I’m not going to pretend I’m happy, but its cool. You gotta do what you gotta do. Maybe you can swing by Alan’s for drinks or something afterward." Jen shrugged and sighed again.
"Although this isn't how I planned today going at all. I've got sexy underwear on," she said matter-of-factly after a moment. "We probably shouldn't let that go to waste." That was some more of Jen’s pragmatic thinking. Besides he totally owed her now, if not from before. And at the very least, things between them physically were alright, better than alright actually... That was something. "Unless you weren't planning on staying either..."
--
“I don’t know that I can’t - I just don’t want to say that I can and then not show up.” Although he figured saying that he would go, would have probably been a better way to handle things. But most of his brain was thinking about how he was going to handle things with Lian, and what he was going to do if Jade showed up around Lian.
She just sort of dropped into the conversation that she had sexy underwear on. Roy wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that, because it wasn’t said exactly in the tone of voice that he was use to hearing when people said they were wearing sexy underwear. And they were just going to go from that conversation to - that?
Cool. Roy could roll with that.
“Did you want me to stay?”
--
Jen nodded, “It’s okay, I understand. I really do.” She smiled a little - at least Roy was trying. That was something and enough of it, too, for Jen to hang on to. She could work with that, however little it was. He was here and he wasn’t leaving. In her mind, that was definitely better than nothing and certainly better than a stick in the eye, as they said.
She shrugged and then smiled for real, feeling a return to her old self - flirtatious, happy-go-lucky, all of those things, while pushing the new information to the back of her head while she qualified and quantified it. She’d have opinions later, once she processed it all. Actually, Jen was pretty proud of herself all things considered, that she didn’t immediately flip out. He was telling her some pretty hefty things and she had kept her cool. Score one for Jen. And she had single-handedly (okay, with Roy as her backup) taken down armed bank robbers. That was a good feeling as well.
“Sure. I mean, I didn’t just put on all of this sexy underwear for the heck of it. I was kind of hoping someone would see it. We were going to celebrate and all of that,” she reminded him.
“I was kind of hoping you would. Stay that is.” Jen refrained from mentioning it was black and lacey, since she figured that it’d be over-playing her hand if she did. Roy’s reward, for deciding to stay, would be that he’d get to see it first hand.
--
Roy was much more into talking about underwear (hers, especially) then he was into talking about all the crazy that was his life. Because that was edging towards talking about feelings, and that was just - no. Well he’d be cool in talking about his feelings about underwear ….
“Well I can stay.”
Sure he could stay the night, but could he make it to her graduation? If Roy had spent time thinking about it, he’d realize that his priorities weren’t in the right order, or something. But he wasn’t thinking about that right now, because Jennie had brought a more interesting subject.
“And I guess if you wanted someone to see your underwear, well I guess I could volunteer to be that person.”
--
"Are you sure?" She asked, forcing herself into a happy place. “Things are alright, though, right?” She wanted to know. “They haven’t reached critical levels yet, have they?” Meaning, the situation with Jade...
Roy staying would only be good if he wasn't shirking any responsibilities due to being cajoled to stay the night. She’d feel bad then, if that were the case, but had come to enjoy sharing a bed with Roy. It was... comfortable. And lots of fun, to boot, which was often the case with partners who were skilled in that area. Such as Roy.
Jen shrugged at his offer to volunteer. She could be coy all the same. “Well, given the alternative I’d prefer if it were you... C’mon, I think we should go to bed.” Jen tipped her head in that direction.
--
“No. Not yet.” He probably should be dealing with that - or giving Jennie more details. He probably should be talking to her seriously about things, or talking about where they say this going beyond him saying he wasn’t going to bail.
But he’d rather see her underwear. Roy was easily, easily distracted by some things, and things hadn’t reached critical levels, so putting that to the side for one night didn't make him feel like he was ignoring things.
He reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand; “All right, lead the way.”