It was a few months after the whole singing fiasco, when Rose and Jay had their first awkward encounters with each other. Rose was concerned with Jay's lack of hand to hand combat skills and had promised him she would teach him. Well, that wasn't the only thing she was planning on teaching him, but that was why she was standing in front of his home in Dayton, Ohio. She had learned, over the course of the past few months, that Jay had problems saying no, or standing up for himself when it came to women. She had tried other methods of getting him to stand up to her, but all had failed miserably. So, now she was here, to push him to his limit; his breaking point. If she could get him to snap at her, she would be one step closer making a man out of the poor kid.

"Well, here goes nothing," she said to no one in particular as she walked up to the front door and knocked. The house was moderate in size, front porch enclosed with a screen, doors to the basement on the side of the house that were open, probably for ventilation or something. When no one answered, she walked to the side of the house and stuck her head into the basement door.

"Hello?! Is anybody alive in there? Jay? Do I have to come and rescue you again?"

After Rose called down into the room a sound like breaking glass came and a large cloud of bright orange smoke come out of it, leaving a similerly colored soot in Rose's hair and on her face.

"Who is it?" Someone coughed from down, stumbling up the steps until Jay emerged, almost completely orange now...being closer to whatever produced the cloud probably had a bigger effect. It took him a moment to recognize his guest whilehe cleared his eyes.

"Rose?" He blinked. "Ah...what are you...doing here?" He finally managed to ask, tilting his head a bit.

Coughing a bit herself, Rose wiped her face off, though her hair would take some more cleaning. At the moment she focused on Jay, who was covered in some orange substance and was making it hard for her to keep a straight face.

"*cough* I wanted to take a vacation so I decided to hit two birds with one stone. You need to learn some basic training and I need out of the big city." Rose plastered a big smile on her face as she offered out her hand to Jay. She was completely suitcase-less, as if she had come here on a whim; she was even without her costume. Just dressed in a pair of jeans and a cookie monster tee-shirt. but her two katanas were strapped to her. Though, in reality it was all part of her plan.

"Care to show me around? We'll start tomorrow with the training, but today I'm too tired to kick your ass."

"Ah...right." Jay said, seeming to still be taking in her sudden appearence, and this was probably the first time he'd seen her without the Ravager costume...well...one of maybe two...

"Sooo...ah...follow me?" he suggested, motioning to the staircase leading back down towards the basement, as he waited for her to go first he couldn't help but comment to Rose.

"So...you are aware that you can probably be arrested for carrying your swords around in public right?"

Walking down the steps, Rose looked around the basement. It was littered with glass beakers and hot plates, note pads and various types of mechanical equipment that all had a thin layer of the same orange soot. She smiled inwardly to herself, thinking of the fun she could have in this room, when Jay asked her about getting arrested.

"Oh I know. They'd just have to catch me first, which is hard enough in a big city where the cops aren't so lazy. Here I think they might be a little slow." Rose walked over to one of the tables covered with experiments and picked up a particularly interesting one. It had things coming out at odd angles and made a whurring noise when she picked it up. It started to attach itself to her hand and she tried to shake it off. "ACK!"

Jay chuckled a bit when she commented on the Dayton police. "Actually, despite having nearly no Superhuman crime, we do have a fairly high NORMAL crime rate and-"

"ACK!"

The young man jerked his gaze towards Rose at her exclamation, jumping to her side as he formed a shoe horn with his ring, attempting to pry the creature...device...THING off her hand as it began steadily attempting to climb her arm.

"Bad Rodney! Bad!" He shouted, eventually prying it off, although it had managed to nearly take a bite out of Rose's shirt beforehand.

"Sorry about that..." he sighed, pressing something to shut it off. "I tried inventing a portable clothes cleaner...something that could get all zappy with the stains and remove them...it DOES get rid of the stain...by eating the stained cloth..." He shook his head.

Rose looked down at the hole in her shirt. She didn't think she had a stain where the hole was, but 'Rodney' had thought different. She really liked her shirt, but now it had a rather large hole and she couldn't wear it anymore. So she took it off and looked around for one of Jay's extra lab coats. Lucky for Jay she was wearing a sport bra instead of a regular one, because that would have caused a whole nother set of problems.

"So, the table where 'Rodney' is, is this the failed experiment table?" she asked, walking back over, buttoning up the white coat. There were all sorts of fun little gadgets on the table, but after "Rodney" she was a bit more wary of what she picked up. A floating sphere caught her attention in the middle of the table and she made to grab it before Jay stopped her.

"What is it? Did it cause the 1989 Manhattan blackout or something?"

When he saw the girl making as though about to remove her shirt, Jay had turned around regardless, so he missed out on the Sports Bra.

"Yeah, essentially it's the ones that have some bug I haven't gotten out of them yet." Jay acknowledged, turning around as he was questioned, relieved to see her wearing one of his lab coats.

"What is it? Did it cause the 1989 Manhattan blackout or something?"

Regardless of if he could stop her, Jay had still reached out to grab her hand to prevent her from touching the sphere. "Nothing quite so 'Men In Black'...but still something i'd rather didn't get played with...the flaw in it's design can be...problematic."

Rose shoved that little tidbit of information in the back of her mind for later as she looked at the other experiments on the table. Some looked like they were half finished, others looked like they were broken, but they all seemed rather compact. Jay had some good ideas, but he needed to work on his follow through. Once he managed that, she was sure he could make quite a bit of money with his ideas.

"Problematic you say? I take it you'd rather not talk about it right now. 'S fine. So what do you have around here that, y'know, works?" Rose grinned at him.

"Well, it's kinda complicated what it's intention was and what it ends up actually doing." Jay shrugged. "As for things that work, well, a lot of those would be upstairs." He commented, returning the smile.

"For instance, my little robot butler is up there...probbaly doing laundry right now...I also have food processors that can make whole meals on their own..." He added before looking at Rose again.

"By the way, how long do you plan to be in town?"

Rose listened as he talked about some of the things that actually did work in his house. She wondered where his mother was, because if he needed an invention to make all his food, that probably meant no one in this house knew how to cook. She could try, but she didn't know how well that would be received. When Jay asked her how long she would be staying, she thought to herself, "As long as it takes" but just smiled at him.

"I'll probably be out of your hair in a few weeks. Do you mind if I stay here? I don't think I have enough money for a hotel and it would be more convenient for your training if I was here to get your butt out of bed in the morning." Rose clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.

"Ahhh...well..." Jay sounded kind of nervous, as though thinking the situation over. Still, as he looked at Rose, he eventually sighed.

"Okay. We've got some rooms we haven't stuffed full of equipment you can sleep in...I can russle up a cot someplace...uh...but do you have any other luggage?" He finally asked, drawing attention to her lack of suitcases.

"He's catching on," Rose thought to herself as he noted her lack of luggage. In all honesty though, she had come out here on a whim, not thinking about clothes and toiletries and everything else. Though on the flight out, she thought of how to incorporate that into her master plan. When she had said she didn't have enough money for a hotel, it wasn't exactly true. Her mom, before she died, had set up a trust fund for Rose so she had access to money, which she could use, if she got desperate enough.

"Um, well......no actually," she put her hand behind her head and smiled, slightly embarrassed. "I just came here on a whim actually. Dick dropped me off on his way back to Bludhaven." she blushed slightly, looking around again.

"I...see..." Jay said, looking a bit red himself as it sank in that that meant Rose was here, in his basement/lab, and all she seemingly had was her discarded cookie monster shirt, and his labcoat...though he assumed she was wearing a bra... (remember kids, he turned around when she took the shirt off)

"Oh? What's that? Are you blushing? Welllll...." Rose leaned over the the table, arms folded under her bosom just to see Jay squirm a little. "You know, I never did ask, do you have a girl friend? Because I think I hear someone outside and the footsteps are too light to be your dads."

As if on queue, a bubbly voice called out from somewhere above ground, looking for Jay. The crunch of gravel came nearer to the basement door before a girl with brown hair popped her head in the door. She wore a plastered on smile that irked Rose, no one should be that cheery.

"Oh Jay! There you are! I forgot to give you our homework assignment in chemistry so I thought I'd bring it by," she kept smiling until she spotted Rose, then she looked downright scary. Even Rose was a little intimidated by the stare she was receiving. The girl plastered her smile back on as if nothing was wrong as she looked back at Jay. "Who's your friend? She has.....unusual taste in.....hair color."

Now it was Rose's turn to glare. First off, Jay was too smart to be stuck in high school chemistry, so that was a load of bull. Second, "This is my natural hair color honey. Some people are just lucky I guess."

"Oh, well, not everybody can pull off the old lady/pirate look."

Rose just about ran her through with her katanas. She hated girls like that, ones who could insult you with a smile on your face and make it seem like a compliment. If this was the kind of girl he got stuck with, she had a lot of work to do.

"Yeah Chelsea, i've got the homework finished." Jay said quickly, hoping to keep the two girls from getting into a fight. Flipping through some papers scattered about one of the tables before pulling out a sheet.

"Here, this should be what you're looking for." As he gathered up the papers, Jay realized that he was probably going to have to be the one to make introductions between the two. Heaving a sigh he spoke again.

"Chelsea, this is Rose, Rose, this is Chelsea." He finally said, pointing to each woman in turn.

Rose's nails dug into the table to keep herself from just grabbing her katanas and slicing this girl to ribbons. Chelsea was her name, something she probably should remember in case she had to write blackmail or something.

"Chelsea, this is Rose, Rose, this is Chelsea."

"So, what? Is she your cousin or something?" Chelsea walked over to take the paper from Jay, then draped herself over him, resting her head on his shoulder. Since Jay couldn't actually see Chelsea's face, she maliciously grinned at Rose, effectively staking her claim on him. Rose became rather perturbed at this and decided to retaliate.

"No, I'm his friend from the West Coast. I'm moving in for a while so you are gonna have to put up with me." That should put a dent in her disposition.

"OH! So you're the lesbian I've heard so much about! I must say, you are a lot prettier than I thought you would be. My poor Jay, he gets to have you living under the same roof and he doesn't stand a chance." For effect, Chelsea planted a wet one on Jay and hugged him close. "My poor baby. Well, I have to go now, thanks for the homework Jay." She gave him another kiss on his cheek then bounced her way out of the basement. Rose just stood there, glaring at the retreating figure of Chelsea, boring a hole in the back of her head with her mind. This meant war.

"Jay, who exactly was that little bobble-headed miscreant? Because, she couldn't possibly be your girlfriend. That thing that just walked in was not a woman or a girl, it was a vile little worm! A worm I need to squash!!" Rose snarled and began stomping after Chelsea, katanas drawn and ready to slice, dice and julienne.

(women are so cruel. their methods of fighting are much more subliminal than men, and a lot nastier too. because women don't have physical prowess (most of the time) they have resorted to underhanded trickery for many many years.)

Jay had kept mostly still and silent during the exchange, debating the wisdom of actually interfering in the talk between Rose and Chelsea but quickly grabbed Rose's arms when she left.

"Rose! No, attacking her is bad! Don't do it!" He told her, trying to restrain the woman, without using his ring, afraid of if Chelsea would come back.

"And yes, she is my girlfriend...sort of..."

"Rose! No, attacking her is bad! Don't do it!"

"I know that Jay! You don't have to talk to me like some malfunctioning robot. It's just she is asking for a beatdown! Did you hear her?! She called me a lesbian!!!" Rose seethed, thankful that someone was there to stop her. Though she could have easily escaped from his grasp, it was the thought that counted. She stopped struggling long enough to pose the question, "Did you actually tell her that I was a lesbian? Hell did you tell her anything at all?"

"No!" Jay protested, releasing her from his grasp once he was certain she wouldn't chase Chelsea into the street. "I never said that, I never told her anything! I mean honestly, how would I know if you were a lesbian, or straight, or anything?" He demanded of her.

"Honestly, she's just trying to raise your hackles...just...don't let her get to you eh?" He sighed.

"Oh I know exactly what she's trying to do. She seems to have had a lot of practice at manipulating people to her every whim," Rose whipped around and poked him in the chest. "And you are not helping the situation." She crossed her arms in frustration.
"I can't believe you even have to wonder if I'm straight. Just because I'm a girl who can kick your ass seven ways from Tuesday doesn't mean I don't have a soft side. Oh who am I kidding, all you've ever seen of me is when we're fighting super powered evil doers." Rose found the nearest chair and collapsed into it. Never had she been so easily manipulated by a girl. She was used to using her fists to talk, not underhanded insults and body language.

"Believe me, I tried to ignore her. How can you stand such an annoying creature? You let her just walk all over you, what do you get out of it?"

He didn't speak for a moment, considering Rose's words.

"Well, i'm not saying anything about you based on seeing you fight, hence why I can't make assumptions." He said, attempting to avoid the topic of what he gets out of his relationship with Chelsea for as long as possible. "And..well...it's not like I've seen you with anyone male OR female..." He points out.

"Well, it's not like there's anybody at the Tower that's........hey I see what you did there. Nuh uh, answer my question jolly green, what do you get from Chelsea, if anything? Or does she have you wrapped around her little finger so tight you don't require anything but her 'attentions'?" Rose asked, elbows on her knees as she rested her chin in her hands to look at him. Maybe the puppy dog eyes look would get to him, she hoped.

"Well..." He sighed, trying not to look into Rose's eyes. "It's...complicated." He protested. "I mean...I help her with school work and she...uh...well she..."

He actually seemed to pause as he was speaking, trying to wrack his brain over just WHAT he gets out of being around Chelsea.

"Well she uh...I mean there's...there's the time she...and I...well..." He started blinking.

"Well it's complicated." He said again.

"Complicated, huh? Doesn't seem that complicated to me." Rose got up to test a theory of hers. She walked over to Jay, batted her eyelashes and whispered in his ear. "If I asked you to wear a tutu over your costume or walk around in just your boxers, would you do it?"

(Darn it! It was soo hard to think of something to ask Jay and keep it clean and sensible because my mind is soooo dirty. You better appreciate the extra brain power I used)

(lol! Well as long as it's not tooooo dirty or descriptive it's fine. As long as it's something that could be said on network tv. Loving the story btw.)

(thanks Marx heh)

Jay blinked again, blushing a bit.

"Well...first...I ah...well...I mean, boxers cover about as much as regular shorts. Heck, i'm sure if you looked around you'd find most bikini's show more than most girls' choices of underwear would so that's a moot point." He said, once more attempting to dodge Rose's questions, both the obvious and the unstated.

Listening to Jay sputter over his words, Rose realized her theory was right; he couldn't say no if a girl asked him to do something. She back stepped a little bit and folded her arms with a smug smirk on her face.
"AHA! I knew it! You can't say no, can you? You get all distracted by a big pair of goo-goo eyes! With all that brain power, you try to find the logic behind why you should do whatever it is a girl asks you. And then you talk yourself into it. For what? Some attention? You obviously haven't taken advantage of your situation with Chelsea, she just walks all over you. You really are that pathetic, you know that Jay," she shook her head and turned around to pace a bit. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you. I can't train you if you can't stand up to me. You have to be willing to hit me, and the way you are now, I don't know if you can." Rose slowly walked up the steps and out of the basement.

"I...h-hey...that's not fair!" Jay called after her, chasing after Rose's retreating figure. "You're taking all of that out of context!" He insisted.

"Besides that, I don't see the association between my interaction with women and you teaching me to fight." Jay added, struggling to make his own case. Trying, no doubt in vain, to convince Rose that despite this small character flaw he could still learn anything about fighting she could or would teach him.

Rose stopped at the top of the steps, still not turning around as Jay began to protest. He'd taken the very big piece of bait she'd laid out for him. She let him finish, knowing he wouldn't get the connection then just slowly turned around and stared down at him.

"Look, I can see it already, you get all soft if a girl asks you to do something. You just sit there and take it. If, while I was training you, I started degrading you, calling you all sorts of names, would you fight me on it? Would you tell me I was wrong? Or would you just keep quiet?" She knew she was starting to get to him, and of course he would ask why she would call him names and degrade him. This was a pre-test to see how far she could push him before he'd push back, which is what she wanted. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

"I told you I'd train you in fighting, but, if you can't stand up to me, you're going to have a harder time trying to stand up to female villains. Sure they may be evil, but damn if they don't know that they're sexy. They use every advantage they can, and that would be one very big advantage for them."

Jay flushed a bit more, considering the possibility of female villains seriously, for perhaps the first time...

"Ah...w-well..." Still, for perhaps the first time tonight, Jay's mind may have surprised her. "There'd be no point in fighting you on it. It just means i've risen to some bait, and if I start letting anger dictate my fighting i'm gonna get hurt a whole lot worse than I would ignoring it."

She seemed to consider his answer, trying to rethink her strategy to get Jay to grow a set. So yelling at him wasn't going to work, at least not directly. He was a logical person, he'd said so himself. So how was she going to get him to snap? She wanted him to rise to the bait and since he's got a faster working brain than most men she knew, she was going to have to work harder on him than most guys.

"That is one way to look at it, yes. But anger can also be used as a focus point, a fan on the flame if you will. You'll see. You'll get mad and try to prove me wrong just to spite me. Military find it very effective. Anyway, I'm hungry. I'm gonna go investigate that food contraption you have upstairs." She turned back around and walked toward the front door. This was going to be a long night.

Jay sighed, watching her. "Uhm...w-wouldn't you like a shirt first? It might be...inconvenient for you to go around wearing my lab coat..." He pointed out, walking up the steps with her.

"In any case...feel free to make yourself something to eat, I need to go take a shower and get all this dust off of me." Jay said, pulling off his own coat and tossing it on a coffee table.

Rose looked down at herself, she had totally forgotten that she was wearing his lab coat. Not even thinking about Jay when she unbuttoned the jacket and took it off, she threw it back at him and was slightly confused by his expression.

"What? Have you never seen a sports bra before? Oh stop gawking and pick your jaw up off the floor. You desperately need a shower and I need food." Rose grabbed him by the hand and dragged him up the steps and toward the front door.

"R-right..." Jay nodded, still blushing despite himself.

Oh yes, his interaction with those individuals of the female persuasion is going to be a long hard road...

But once upstairs, he pointed to another room. "Over there is the kitchen, just punch in whatever you want the machines to make." He told her, wiping more soot off of his arms and shaking it out of his hair. "I'll be back in...fifteen...twenty minutes...somewhere in that general region."

As Rose walked over the threshold of the Andrews home, she stopped and stared in awe. The vaulted ceiling of the front room was expansive and she watched Jay walk up the stairs to her right. From the entry-way you could see both stories and the inside balcony of the upstairs rooms. The place was fairly clean, unlike Jay's lab, probably due to his butler robot. Walking toward the indicated direction, Rose gaped at the kitchen. One wall was converted into Jay's food processor, but the rest looked like a normal kitchen. She was surprised to find that there were no dishes in the sink or that there was, in fact, a stove. Warily, she made her way over to the contraption and looked at the numerous buttons and tried it out.

"Hmm, something good. Ah, a burger sounds good. Now where's the button? Ah!" Rose punched something in and heard the ding signaling completion. Looking for the door to her food, Rose saw an almost invisible piece of glass slide up and a tray pop out with her burger.

"Yay! Food!" she grabbed it hungrily. It wasn't that bad, for synthesized food, but something definitely tasted different from when you cook it yourself. After she was done with that, she punched in a few more things and sat down at a table, after she cleared off some space.

Jay's shower had been short, probably only ten, at the most fifteen, minutes. Of course, he was simply trying to wash as much of the orange soot off of himself as possible, so it makes sense that it would be a fairly short washing.

"Enjoying yourself?" He asked with an arched eyebrow, standing in the doorway his hair still slicked back from the water and wearing a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt with the S-shield on it, the clothes fit fairly well, showing that despite his seemingly lax lifestyle Jay DID maintain a basic modicum of physical fitness. "And how do you like the processor? It took me like...six months to get it the way I wanted."

Rose was in mid bite when Jay walked in. She nodded that yes, indeed, she was very much enjoying herself. She raised her own arched eyebrow at his choice of shirts. One would think he would wear a GL symbol instead of the S-shield. She gave him a once over, noting his fairly well toned physique. "Well at least I know he can keep up," Rose mused to herself, running through her re-worked training regime for Jay. On her way here she had consulted Dick on how to set things up for a "beginner" and was surprised to find that she needed to go considerably slower than she had been.

Finally swallowing her bite, Rose cleared her throat and said, "It's decent. Though it still doesn't beat an actual home cooked meal. I don't think anything could beat that."

"Of course not." Jay nodded, walking over to the processor himself. "I am able to cook, but I just built this to make the food when i'm too busy or just feeling to lazy." He smirked a bit, looking over his shoulder at Rose while punching in the order for a rueban.

"Besides, I tend to avoid the kitchen after I tried bringing some of the appliances to life." He couldn't help adding, after that comment though he seemed to realize that with Rose staying at his house, even if he wasn't prepared, that technically meant he was playing host.

"Ah...soooo...wanna...see the sights?" He asked haltingly, he wasn't sure what proper etiqutte would be, and even then if 'seeing the sights' would mean a tour, or patroling the city.

"So, you tried making transformers then?" Rose smirked at Jay's comment about bringing appliances to life. Sure sounded like something he would do. She went back to munching on her snack, taking care to take smaller bites in case he wanted to chit-chat some more.

"Sure," Rose nodded, trying to finish another bite. "I need to get a layout for the city anyway. It wouldn't be good to try and patrol and get lost now would it. And what better way than to get a tour from someone who already knows it."