Who: JLH and Roy NPCS: -- Where: Roy’s Apartment, NYC, NY When: Tuesday, July 2, 2012 - backdated like woah. What: Making up, except not really. Nothing is resolved! And then to add insult to injury they make each other feel worse! Rating: DHB for dead-horse beating action.
Seated on his couch, Roy absently flipped through the channels on the TV looking for something that would catch his interest. He had taken a vacation day post his mission to Colombia with Agent Barton, and despite getting a lot of sleep last night, he was still thinking he might doze off while he waited for Jennie.
Roy had picked up Lian the night before, and there had been much ‘Daddy what did you see?’ and ‘I’m glad your home’ and ‘What did you do?’ kind of questions and statements, and he had answered as best as he could, fibbing a bit here and there. He didn’t expect to have to answer similar questions from Jennie - hoped he wouldn’t have to actually.
They were in a weird place. He guessed. He didn’t date, and this was probably part of why. Disagreeing with your girlfriend was different from disagreeing with your friend who also happened to be a girl. Still he felt bad for getting all twisted up about a bottle, and giving a half assed apology over text, and then jumping at a chance to go away for a few days on a work thing, because he didn’t know how to resolve the conflict. Talking about things? Hah!
---
Jen was concerned when Roy said he had work business to attend to out of town, immediately assuming it was something dangerous. She didn't ask though, not since there last argument where she expressed concern for him. He had taken it as an attack on his masculinity, or something. Jen was only assuming here. They didn't talk about these things. But on the cusp of the whole Bottle Incident, Jen just kept her trap shut and accepted that Roy was doing work things that were potentially dangerous-not that it was in her power to stop him, but she would have told him to be careful or something-and instead just said "okay" and left it at that.
She didn't like being left in the dark, but what was she going to to? Be patient, apparently. That is, not much. This wasn't how she liked to operate, but she'd go with the flow. It was one of her many qualities.
She was hoping the Bottle Incident was forgotten about, or at least it was on her end. Any sore feelings about that would have been perpetuated by Roy. Jen forgot about it pretty much as soon as Roy said he was skipping town. Which now he was back and had invited Jen over. She hoped they were cool, she just wanted to spend some nice quality time with her boyfriend, who she missed. And the fact he had taken a day off was a very good sign.
Deciding to fly because the weather was nice, Jen made good time and was now arriving at Roy’s apartment, although she was still fashionably late. Picking out clothes, especially ones that would handle the wind was hard. But she still looked cute, in a little black sundress and sandals. Smoothing her skirt and perking up a smile Jen knocked on the door and waited for Roy to answer.
---
Roy had dozed off during the episode of Criminal Minds (seriously it was like A&E ran four hour blocks of the program, then broke it up with CSI: Miami …) and came awake with a start when he heard the knock on the door. A glance at the clock on the wall, made him realize he had dozed off for a bit, but it all worked out since Jennie wasn’t exactly punctual. Which was no deal, because Roy himself had a funny definition of on time.
Checking that it was indeed Jennie outside of the apartment, he opened the door. “Hey, come on in.” He took a look at the dress and grinned; “Well you look nice.” Flight there, the mission, flight back … Roy knew that those factors, had contributed to him not looking as nice as Jennie. Plus he needed to shave, it wasn’t like Ollie levels of bad, but he had stubble going on....
Maybe he should have shaved instead of napping.
---
"Hey stranger," she remarked, when Roy opened the door for her. She smiled at the compliment and said "Thank you" quietly as she crossed the threshold into the apartment. Jen didn't mind the scruff, in fact she kind of liked it. It made him look a bit older than he was and not such a baby face, like he did without it. It helped Jen reconcile the fact that they were practically the same age with a kid working for a government agency, while she was out getting drunk with Hal Jordan. Not to belittle what Jennie did because she took herself, all in all, very seriously.
"Missed you," she said, wrapping arm around him briefly and giving him a quick kiss before detangling herself. He had informed her Lian was at daycare, so no need to be shy, Jen just felt awkward still from where they left things when they talked last. It was funny, Jen couldn't remember the last time she actually saw Roy in the flesh. Probably when she had thrown that stupid bottle away, which she still did not admit to actually doing, although she apologized for it profusely.
She felt quiet after that, not really sure what to say. Work was probably out of the question, wasn't it? And Lian. And the other Jade. And the Avengers. And the things Q brought up. She was just going to let Roy pick the topic of conversation then. Or not at all, as the case may be.
---
“Just ignore the woman getting …” Roy paused and frowned at the Tv - what ws going on there? “Well having whatever happen to her on the TV. Oh A&E, I don’t think that’s art or entertainment.” He grabbed the remote, and flipped to a channel at random - golf it turned out - so that there was some low level background noise.
Right. So normally - as in if he wasn’t dating Jennie, and she was a girl he had called over the apartment on his day off work … well he’d be helping her out of her dress. That was on the agenda, if she was okay with that, but first …
“You want a drink? Some food, I mean I have actual food today. I went for groceries before - so. Yes food. Of the non just sugary cereal variety.”
---
"I'm not very hungry... Just some water maybe." Jen looked down at her wrist, even though she wasn't wearing a watch - it was important for the joke she was about to tell. "I typically don't start drinking into well in the afternoon... At least one o'clock." Jen grinned softly.
Okay, so the awkwardness was still very much in full effect. Had they really, in the short time they had been dating, exhausted all possible topics of conversation? That is, the ones that Roy deemed appropriate to talk about it, and none of the ones that Jennie actually wanted to talk about, or that were important to talk about.
---
He did get a bit confused when she looked down at her bare wrist, and then broke into a grin when she made her joke. Maybe it was just a little joke - but it was still a joke right? Joking around Roy could do.
“So you have rules about what time you can start all kinds of activities?” He teased as he moved past her, purposely causing some physical contact, despite the fact that he could have easily moved past her her to the kitchen without entering her personal space. “But water I can do, we got lots of water.” The fridge door when opened showed that yes there was several bottles of water, along with a new water filter … someone was making the switch over to carrying water around in their own water bottles.
He removed one of the plastic bottles, before turning and handing it to her, looking somewhat sheepish. “Peace offering? you can do whatever you like with the bottle, including tossing it at my head. Promise not to duck.”
---
"Just drinking," she informed him somewhat coolly and followed him into the kitchen, letting him bump into her and sidestepping him after that.
Never before had she felt more unsure about their relationship than she did right now about everything. Was this how it was going to be? Stuff was going to happen and they just weren't going to talk about it? Jen didn't sweep things under the rug and she found that, with the exception of a few topics (mostly her childhood) that there wasn't anything that she couldn't talk about. And sometimes-perish the thought-talking actually helped.
She smiled despite herself when Roy offered her the water bottle, which she accepted from him and then just looked at him slyly.
“Is that still bothering you?” She wanted to know. “Because if you want me to apologize again...” Jen just scrubbed the back of her head, still feeling a bit sore about everything.
---
Okay so things were maybe not venturing towards the lands of okay, that was how Roy read her kind of cool answer, and her putting space between them. So he made a point when he handed the water bottle over to not play the ‘whoops look at that our fingers accidentally touched’ game.
“No.” The bottle had never really bothered him, it had been something to pick at because he needed to get annoyed about something. “No, I’m trying to apologize to you. For acting that way.” He figured it would have been a better apology had he not sounded not overly sorry. He was, but time to move on right?
He leaned against the fridge, and watched her for a moment.
“So. What’s up? What I miss?”
Maybe that was safer ground to tread upon?
---
"Oh," was all she said and smiled at him. "Well, apology accepted."
Jen wasn't the type to not stand her ground, but there was something about Roy... Maybe it was the whole being patient thing on her part, that made her back down. Which had prompted the litany of apologies in the first place. She did feel bad; recycling was important. But she didn't need to be raked over the coals for it either.
But there it was. He apologized. Jen wasn't going to perpetuate this any further.
"Just working on my portrait project, Di and Ollie came over the apartment. So did Hal," she informed him with a shrug. "You know, same ol'." Jen cracked open the bottle of water and took a sip.
---
“Cool.” What did he say, he couldn’t really offer any tidbits about his time away in return. Saying ‘so I went to Colombia, and stopped some evil scientists, and hey want to see this nasty bruise I got? Or how about this scrape?’ wasn’t on the table. What he had gone away to do was classified ….and Roy just wrote it off as work. I went off and did some work things. That and he didn’t really like talking about work.
“Is it going well, the project?” Roy didn’t have the right vocabulary to ask about the technical side of things, but he figured he could ask if it was going well.
---
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Its going well. I pretty much sent a text blast out and I got a lot of great responses. Oh, I had Johnny Storm over too," Jen added. Only because she was forthright and he was going to find out eventually she had had her ex boyfriend over to snap his picture. Since there was photographic evidence.
"But it going good. Everyone has such great faces. It's like a light study," she said and shrugged. Would Roy know what was? She wasn't sure.
“Ollie really has a great face,” she said, using her hands to express herself. She looked at Roy after that, half-expecting him to jump on her for that.
---
Roy got jealous - but not of people and ex’s, because man. It was a very nice glass house that he lived in when it came to past - well not relationships but past partners. As he had a lot of them, and he didn’t expect Jennie to get jealous of them, so he wasn’t going to be all; ‘Johnny Storm, oh my.’
“Well that sounds cool, the light study bit.”
If pressed he’d hazard a guess that light study was looking at the way … light worked. Or something like that. Roy liked pictures, liked landscapes, and had some treasured pictures of Arizona that he had in his room that captured the landscape of where and how he had grown up. He envied people that could take pictures like that - and then also envied the guys who got to take pictures of the Sports Illustrated models in their painted on swimsuits. But he was very much not an artist.
He glanced towards the fridge, since art was the brain. The fridge was loaded down with pictures Lian had drawn, including some pictures of very big, very green dinosaurs.
She mentioned Ollie, and Roy glanced over at her, to see her looking at him. Great. Was she tossing Ollie’s name out there to try and start up a conversation about The Avengers again? And what it was that Q-man had said, about G.A going and working for ‘The Man’, and how that suggested he might be compromised? Or was she just stating a fact? They couldn’t really not talk about Ollie - Roy had tried very hard for two years to not mention the name at all, but that was water that had (mostly) moved under the bridge. Ollie was around. Ollie had been the guy who took care of Lian while he was gone - Ollie was subject that was going to come up.
“Right. Well.” He was not going to talk about the Avengers, so nice try Jennie if that was your plan. “What do you want to do?”
---
She was just feeling him out, really, to see if he was going to get testy with her again, without bringing up the Question, or the Avengers, or any of that. Ollie really did have a good face, it had a lot of character. So did, Hal and Guy for that, it probably meant they had seen some shit in their time. Capping the bottle to her bottle of water, Jennie shrugged.
"I could show you the photo if you like." Jen used mostly digital media, although on occasion worked with analog film. And sometimes she even printed the photos out, but it all depended on how she wanted to process them and what she wanted to achieve as the final result. For instance these portraits, she shot them digitally and printed them on high quality photo paper, which in turn achieved a really nice vintage-y type look. But it also meant she had the files on her, since she always carried a memory card or two on her person. And, like always, a point-and-shoot as well.
"Whatever you want to do though. I just wanted to see you because I missed you.”
---
He wasn’t sure what to do with that I missed you - because she seemed kind of distant. But okay, Roy could work with that I missed you.
“Missed you too.” That probably sounded more sincere than the apology, because it was. He had missed her, even if she was kind of driving him a bit nuts. “And sure, I’d love to see the picture - photo.” Roy couldn’t explain why Jennie was good at what she did (again, that lack of vocabulary …) but he knew she was. Or at the very least he knew that he liked looking at her pictures.
---
If she seemed distant it was because she was floating around in the friend territory, instead of acting like his girlfriend. Which he was picking up on, making him feel weird. Which in turn was perpetuating her weirdness.
"Sure," she said agreeably, setting the water bottle down to open her bag, which she still had yet to take off and set down. Jen fished around within its contents for a minute before pulling out her point and shoot, swapping out the memory cards and quickly flicking through the photos until she had pulled up the one of Ollie that she wanted to show him. There were quite a few outtakes, the camera beeped each time she passed a picture. Apparently there were a lot. But she had narrowed the whole shoot down to just one.
"Here." She handed him over the camera to take a look. "Its like a trillion megapixels", she informed him. "I really like that solid black background. That's actually really hard to do, and then to get the light just right over the face," she explained to him, looking over his shoulder as he took the camera from him.
"You missed me?"
---
“A trillion, wow.” He had no idea what that meant beyond it was a lot. And pixels made up the picture right, so it was … a lot of little dots making up the picture? He could have asked, but instead went for that line about a trillion and wow. He looked at the picture, and gave a snort.
“That’s Ollie. Your going to print them off right? You know it’s going to end up in his scrapbook. If he’s still doing that.” He glanced over his shoulder to find Jennie right there, and gave her a lopsided grin. “Of course I missed you.” That was normal wasn’t it? Missing people you cared about when you were gone?
---
"Something like that." Except not really. But the resolution was very high. Jen only used professional equipment. Except for the dinky point and shoot that was in Roy's hands right now. Which was a dwarf of a camera compared to her one back at the apartment, which she didn't just let anybody touch. Because it was worth more than even Jen's car. But she was never without a camera. It just wouldn't feel right.
"I don't know, maybe. Its really for private use, that being me, only. Just to practice." The fact that she fully intended on sending the picture to Dinah, she kept to herself.
Jen took the camera off Roy after that and powered it down, returning it to her bag of tricks. She looked at him skeptically after that, though. "You did?" The fact that she didn't feel particularly missed, or wanted for that matter, she let hang in the air.
---
“I did.” Roy was getting tired of this chill - yes he had gotten a bit jerky about the bottle, but geez. “Sorry I didn’t call, text, I mean I was in the middle of Columbia.” And busy. And whoops, he had gone and name dropped the country that he had gone too. Oh well.
“All right,” since she had said whatever he wanted to do. “Do you want to go watch TV?”
---
Jen didn’t mean to be aloof, or cold, but she was getting the distinct impression that Roy was avoiding talking to her. For whatever reason. He sent her those texts and what? She was just supposed to accept it and leave it alone. She didn't think him capable of doing something despicable like trying to take a work mission to avoid dealing with her - he didn't have a choice in the matter, right?
“Sure, we can watch TV,” came the crisp reply. When did they ever just watch TV and why oh why would she want to watch TV now? Maybe he was tired. Maybe he just wanted to cuddle. Jennie smiled and tried to relax and finally took off her purse and set it down on one of the kitchen chairs. “Lead the way.”
---
He was pretty sure there would be nothing on TV, but at least they could act like they were watching it and avoid talking and the chill that was in the air (and Roy knew he wasn’t imagining it) could just keep growing. Awesome. So how he wanted to spend his day off,and first day back in the US.
He moved past her, out into the living room area, and flopped down on the couch, and waited for Jennie to get situated before he offered the TV remote to her. “Since your the guest, you get TV remote privileges.” Or in Roy speak, here let me offer you another peace offering. And still refuse to talk about what it was that was the root of the problem.
---
"Oh, I don't mind what we watch," she said, waving him off at she got settled on the couch, scooting up next to him. "You pick." She wasn't trying to stonewall him, but gosh if Roy wasn't making it so easy. She just wished he would say what was on his mind instead of avoiding it! Although, right now, Jennie could be accused of doing the exact same thing. But to be fair when she had tried to talk about it before she just winded up in the doghouse over something small and trivial, that is that stupid bottle. Therefore it was her idea to just sit there and be good and not say anything at all, which, in turn, was making her even more mad than before.
Jen wondered how long that this could go on and what she was even doing here if she wasn't going to be nice. Or try to be nice. Jen inwardly sighed, she was being immature. So, in some small way, in a peace offering of her cell, she settled her hand on his thigh.
---
Okay fine, she didn’t mind what they watched. Roy considered being petty and finding something truly terrible on (Two Headed Shark Attack, or something like that), or else just leaving the golf on. Instead he flicked to the guide channel, and the options of what was on (not … a whole lot) scrolled past.
Well this was probably the least fun he and Jennie had ever had. Even though she had her hand on his thigh now, she was angry (or at least that was how Roy was reading the icy feel in the air), he was angry, and this was just great. Roy didn’t do conflict well. Or rather he could be down with yelling and shouting, but this was getting to him. Something had to be done.
“Okay,” he grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. “Are you leaving? Is that what your working up to?” The coolness, her demeanour … the fact that over the last bit things had felt different, it made Roy think that things were coming to an end. And while Roy had done his share of walking away, it was usually the other way around.
---
Jen startled when Roy suddenly turned the TV off and she sat at attention. She was gearing up for a fight, the yelling/shouting kind, when he said what he did and she just looked at him her face a mixture of shock, confusion, and above all hurt. It felt like a slap in the face. "What?" She hissed. Jen made like she hadn't heard him properly since it was just that out there and she began to reach for her earlobe to tug on it. But before her hand could travel the distance she was already reacting.
"Is that what you think?" She asked, her tone softening considering. Jen's mouth fell agape. "Why... why would I...?" Jennie frowned and just shook her head. "I'm not breaking up with you..." Her eyebrows knit together and she just shook her head at him. Her eyes searched his face for a moment, "Why do you think I'm going to break up with you? Do you want me to break up with you?"
This was bad... She didn't mean to needle him to that point since she seriously didn't think that it would get to this point; they would have a spat and that would be it. But this was exceeding her expectations. "Roy?" Her voice, while still gentle, was stern. Because unlike before she he was going to have to answer now.
---
“I don’t know what to think!” Okay so maybe Roy had thrown out something pretty drastic there, but that’s what it felt like! And maybe he was trying to bring on the fighting and yelling portion of whatever this was, because that he could do. Being icy and cool was not something Roy was good at.
“I’m sorry about the bottle.” Again, not sounding that sorry, sounding mad now, and on the verge of yelling. “And no I don’t want to break up, but I can’t do .. this.” He gestured between the two of them. “Get mad at me, if your mad at me.” Okay maybe he should take his own advice there, and just be mad if he was going to be mad.
---
"I am mad at you," she said calmly. "But I’m not going to break up with you." Jen leveled her gaze at him. "Unless you want to break up with you and then you better tell me now. But I'm not going to yell at you either. We're having a disagreement. I don't deal with them by yelling people. People can be mad at each other and still be civil, Roy. I'm mad at you because you picked a fight with me about a bottle. And then stonewalled me about the Question and the Avengers.
"You made me feel like an asshole when all I wanted to do was have a reasonable conversation with you. And actually you make me feel like an asshole a lot, Mr. I've-been-doing-this-since-I-was-fourteen. So, yeah, I am mad at you. And we can talk about it or not... but if we don't, I will walk out that door. Because... what are we doing, Roy?" She asked, this time her voice quiet.
"I care about you. A lot. You're my friend and my boyfriend and you just need to let me in. And I don't want to be mad at you and I don't want you to be mad at me. But I just wish we could talk. ...Please."
---
Being mad and being civil? Yeah that would be a new one, and Roy didn’t know if he could do that to be honest. You got mad, you yelled, you got over it. Then it was never talked about again …
He leaned back on the couch, it now becoming very much this side of the couch is mine, that side is yours, and crossed his arms across his chest as he looked over at Jennie. So that kind of hurt that he made her feel like an asshole, which was not something that he had intended.
“Well you don’t exactly make me feel great when your quick to think Ollie’s been compromised, and that the government is always up to something no good, or doing something shady. The government, being who I work for.” And sure, sometimes there was nothing good going on, and Roy was quick to point that out but still. “Or when you get all icy on me.” Was talking about this shit supposed to make a person feel better? It wasn’t making Roy feel better.
“And I have been doing this since I was 14 Jennie, and I don’t question why you showed up at that meeting, I’m touched that you worry, but this is my job. This is my life. I’m your boyfriend, not your sidekick and I don’t have to run everything dangerous that I might do by you.”
---
"I didn't say that!" She was quick to point out and then pinched the bridge of her nose when she realized she was raising her voice. "All I said was that it might be a possibility and you weren't even open to the idea. And one man does not the Avengers make. And I'm not talking about you - the government, politicians, people make bad decisions and then try to cover it. Hello, Blackwater. So, don't tell me the government isn't shady when they don't practice transparency. And don't tell me Blackwater was kept a secret for our own good."
Jen fell silent at his other accusations because that might have been true. She looked over at him and then nodded. "Okay," she said, her voice fighting to be even. "You're right," she said, twitching her shoulder upward. "And I'm sorry that I do that then. I will admit to being a little controlling. Which I've been told is one of my faults," Jen offered up freely. She blamed that totally on growing up alone where she could unilaterally make decisions for herself.
"So, I"m sorry for that...but...Are you really mad at me for that? Or because I said something about... Ollie?"
---
“I’m not going to tell you the government is not shady.” Because Roy couldn’t say that and not be telling a big old fat lie. “And I may be … slightly sensitive about that.” There he could admit that, since she had admitted that she was a little controlling. Well look at that. They were talking, and Roy was feeling better.
He gave her a grin, and uncrossed his arms, because seriously Roy was thinking that they had talked and they could move on now, right? “Well you know, I’m not fault free here, I have been told that I have a few of those fault things …”
The grin that he was wearing faltered a bit.
“No.” That was a lie, more or less. “This has nothing to do with Ollie.”
It was stupid - Roy had no problem pointing out that Ollie had faults. But yes, it bothered him when most other people pointed out Ollie wasn’t perfect (again - it was stupid). But he had gotten the other thing off his chest - and he had talked about his feelings there briefly, and he was hoping they could they be done with the serious talk now.
---
Jennie pitched herself forward on the couch, resting her arms against her thighs as her head sagged into her head, where she ebbed out a wrinkle that was forming atop her brow. She then heaved a sigh and looked over at him. "Okay," she said quietly, although she didn't believe him for a moment. This was all about Ollie. Even though she had even said anything, to be fair. She was just asking Roy to keep an open mind. Granted about his dad making less than stellar choices because he was apart of a government group. She got it.
"I don't want to fight with you about this anymore."
---
Well they were in agreement on not wanting to fight about this anymore, and Roy didn’t want to fight period, hence the peace offerings with the bottle. He shifted slightly on the couch, relaxing back into it a bit, and trying to tone down the hostile body language. He glanced towards the TV and then back at Jennie.
“Well. What do you want to do?” A slight grin then; “Watch golf? Because man, I think watching paint dry would be more fun. I think I even might have some paint around here, we could slap it on the walls …and see what’s more entertaining?”
---
Jen let out a big sigh this time. Had they... even... resolved...anything? It didn’t seem that way to her, but why draw the fight out? Was there any point in that? She better just let it drop, she figured. What was the point? She barely got to see him to begin with, did she really want to fight with him when she did? Jen’s expression softened after that and she gave her head a little shake.
“No, I don’t want to watch golf,” she said quietly, moving slowly as she settled into his arms, pulled one of his over her shoulder to drape around her. “Just... be nice to me.”
---
This was not the time or place to make a comment about the relative definitions of nice and not nice, Roy decided. Because that last comment - well it made him frown. Okay so he had been upset about something else, then blown up about the stupid water bottle, and then gone off on a mission out of country for a few days. Although that last bit was just one of those things that happened when you worked for a government agency that did that kind of thing.
Still … be nice?
“Okay.” He said quietly, feeling kind of bad. “No golf, then.”