164/When in Rome... or Themysciran..

When in Rome... or Themysciran..
Date of Scene:	27 February 2020
Location:	Themysciran Embassy
Synopsis:	Harley Quinn comes to see Diana Prince, hoping for a miracle.. which comes in the form of a Golden Lasso.
Cast of Characters:	Harley Quinn, Diana Prince

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Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley has put on clothes that more accurately depict her inner, respectiable, woman: but then she decided to just wear what she always wears. Crop top, black jeans, leather jacket with chains/spikes/and Pink Smily face. Pig-tails. She had the good sense to put on new makeup though.. after a Shower so she don't look like she climbed outta someones trunk after bein' beaten half to death with an ugly club.

Standing out front of the Embassey with a Hello Kitty backpack she TOTALLY BOUGHT LEGALLY from a nice Korean fella who swore it was authentic merchandise and you can always trust the Asians to sell licensed apparrel.

"Jus' walk in there, Ha'lee.. tell'em yer here to speak wit Princess Diana.. tell'em ya got an appointment.. hold tha' place hostage if ya g- no, don't do that ya nincumpoop... that's not gonna go ovah well." Chewing her red/black painted nails, the multi-colored villigante paces within view... "Screw't. Yer betterin' those other turds, actin' like Wonder Fuckin' Woman's gonna come out heah an' invite ya in without a reason... Go... Go.. GOO. I'm goin'.. I'll go."

She starts towards the doors, "I'll go!"

Diana Prince has posed:
As it so happens, Diana was out today and not even at the Embassy. She'd been on a tour of a new school opening up in the Chelsea region of Manhattan. However, Diana was returning to the Embassy now and she'd already been told that Harley Quinn was outside of it. Her security team had been monitoring the notorious Clownette and were already reporting it to Diana. Diana had told them that she'd be home in a swift second and not to engage her...

So it comes to pass in that fashion, as Harley stomps her way off of the side street and up toward the front doors of the Embassy, a voice calls out behind her now where she'd just been moments ago.

Diana, wearing a black blazer and black slacks, with her hair tied back behind her head and a pair of black framed glasses on over her eyes, just stares at Quinn.

"Harley Quinn." Diana says from the side street now... her voice speaking out, smoky and foreign to this country. She stands beside a black town car that she'd presumably just stepped out of the passenger seat of.

She doesn't seem 'pleased' to see Harley, and her arms are crossed over her stomach in fact, she looks a /bit/ judgey toward Harls, but... thats to be expected, right?

Harley Quinn has posed:
The dramatic reveal is always the best part of the magic trick.

Usually, this is where Harley would whip out some surprise that spells doom for the wouldbe heroes, when she appears flat footed and unawares of the impending danger of her precarious situation! She doesn't though... Stopping her progression towards the front doors of the Embassey, she stands with both hands wrapped about the straps of her backpack and stares straight ahead with her brightly colored red bottom lip clinched between her teeth.

Turning on her heels, spinning dramatically with her pig-tails twirling, it probably sends off all kinds of alarms... except she's unarmed. Having left her gun, mallet, and bag of explosives elsewheres in a safehouse.. Bud and Lou back at Aprils.. and.. she's just here by herself. No goons or nothin'.

"Hey..." Lifting her fingers off the strap of her backpack in a sheepish wave, "I'm prolly tha last persun yer thinkin' ya'd run intuh today, eh? Kinna funny if ya think about it.. Princess of Themscaredbaristas an' the Clown Princess of Gotham?" She tries to put on a happy face, but Wonder Woman is kind of impressive. "Can we talk?"

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana had been watching the news broadcast the night that Harley Quinn had esecaped, she'd heard the run down of how it had happened and she'd seen the aftermath of the staff on duty at those hours being dismissed of their employment at the infamous prison and asylum in Gotham.

But it was true, she didn't expect Harley to end up here of all places.

So when Harley asks if they can talk, Diana just tilts her head ever so slightly and stares at the dolled-up young woman before her. "Of course we can talk." She replies, and then motions toward the stone bench that sits beside a potted plant in the front of the Embassy. "Have a seat, please." She asks of the woman, likely to gauge her compliance in this moment which will help her judge the whole situation as it continues to unfold.

"I had heard you were spotted in New York, I do not fully understand what your agenda is here... so yes, I am... eager to know now." Diana adds.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Any amount of digging into her escape would show Harley hadn't hurt a soul.. she'd knocked someone out, but that was fundamentally necessary, and he'd recovered only a few hours after.. could'a been back on shift the next day if they hadn't shit-canned him. Which he deserved, in her opinion, but nobody was askin'...

She nods to the Princess and runs both hands up and down the straps of her backpack as she moves over to the bench to take a seat with Wonder Freakin' Woman. Like they were havin' lunch or talkin' about the Mets... The thought actually brings a crazy ass grin to the Harley Quinns face. It doesn't last in the heat of the moment, though.

Not under Diana's scrutiny.

"Metropolis too." She clarifies where she'd been spotted. Scratching at her jaw with curly curly fingers, "I'm tryin' ta do bettah.." Blue eyes look up at Diana, bottom lip temporarily between her teeth pulling it into a dimpled pucker, "I know wha yer gonna say, I shoulda stay't in Arkham, but ya know as well as me I aint nevah gonna get outta there.. That place harbours all the worst parts of me.. it feeds on't.. I go back to the Asylum an' this is all gonna crumble.."

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana, however, doesn't sit beside Harley on that bench, she stands in front of it and stares forward - and a little down at her. Her stare is even and stern, but her expression is rather calm.

A quick back and forth shake of her head is given then to what Harley says. "I do not think you should be sent back to Arkham Asylum, Harley Quinn." Diana replies then. "I think you have proven that you do not belong there. I think you need to be sent somewhere else, somewhere more suited to the situations that you are dealing with." Diana does believe that Harley is mentally troubled and entirely unstable, but she's never liked Arkham as an institute. "However... these decisions are not up to me. I can do my best, and most, to push such a matter in a desired direction but where it ultimately ends up is in the decisions of others to make."

The Princess keeps her arms crossed over her stomach, her black blazer only a little rumpled against her fit form beneath it.

"Your existing time has to be paid in full, Harley, that is how the legal system works, I am afraid. Through good behavior and the time spent, you can prove to the world that you are ready to become a new and improved citizen. One who wishes to help others."

Harley Quinn has posed:
There's a logical part of that broken mind that knows that's really the best she could have hoped for in this situation. Hope had never been something Harley had ever paid much fan service. In her existance, both before and after the Joker, it had been a lesson in disappointment. Somehow, hearing them spoken by Diana Prince weighed heavier than if they'd been spoken by Batman, though. Her blonde head angles forward, staring at the cement beneath her black and red boots. The right toe brushes forward and backwards against the odd grain of pebbles broken loose from the mixture, she could almost make out the texture through the thick soles.

Seeing was believing.

She had to take her eyes word for it.

Tears roll out from her blue eyes at the desperate situation she's in. Time served? Full sentences? She's in her twenties now.. Even with inflation (economical terms) she's looking at double life sentences.. And for what? Decisions that hadn't really been hers.. weakness.. a broken mind made even worse by a broken system.

"I know." She says in a voice dripping with acceptance as tears drip from the end of her alabaster white nose. Falling the distance to the pavement with an unheard splash. She swallows hard, shoulders rising steadily and then settling in resignation. "I don't wanna go back there.." Sniffing and running her jackets sleeve across her snotty nose, the dam is broken. "I don't wanna be that person no moah. Please, please... please don't let them put me back in theah."

Diana Prince has posed:
"Harley." Diana says softly. "You were involved in the crimes that got you put into that dreadful place. You have to begin to own your decisions in life. They are yours to take on to your shoulders. They are a burden that you must lift up and that you must raise your chin to and acknowledge as being a part of your life's story now. The choices that we make in life are what shape us into who we are, and who we will become in the future."

These words are said, and then Diana takes a step toward the pale skinned woman with the brightly colored flair of personality accentuating her persona in so many places across her person.

A golden length of rope suddenly dangles down between them, its looped at the end. "Place your wrist inside of the loop and tell me the truth as you see it inside of your heart, Harley Quinn." The Lasso of Truth slowly sways back and forth as it dangles from Diana's hand.

There are people on the side street who have started to gather and begun to record this interaction as they've started to realize who and what is going on here in front of the Themysciran Embassy.

Harley Quinn has posed:
Harley doesn't snap her head up to refute the words spoken to her, instead nodding slowly in a manner of acceptance. "I know..." Her mouth curls to one side in a pensive, unhumored, smile. It's a lot to bare, the decisions she's made. What's she allowed herself to become... but she had been involved, no matter what the protective part of her id tries to say to the contrary. She's listening, however.

Glancing up sheepishly when the golden length of rope descends from Diana's hands with a loop through which she can place her hands. She holds both hands out, together, which isn't what she was told to do.. but is much symbology as it is necessity. She's keenly aware of those gathered around recording and her usual flare for dramatics is dimmed significantly next to the radiance of Wonder Woman's personae.

"I wanna do right fer myself.. I don't wanna be nobodies puppet no moah. Whatevah decisions I make, I wan'em to be mine wit'out coercion or manipulatin' from others." It's not exactly what she thought she'd say, and it doesn't necessarily speak to being the upright citizen she claims she wants to be, but it's what her heart wants.

Good or bad.

Harley just wants that to be /her/ choice.

"An' I kinna wanna see Disney on Ice from tha box seats.." That part is said sadly, an' after addition, "Ya know right up front where tha princesses can see me durin' their final numbah of Cindarella." Also, "An' tickets to Wrestlemania."

Diana Prince has posed:
Whether the lasso holds up in a court of law or not (it doesn't) doesn't really matter to Diana, it holds up to her. So when she hears Harley's intentions in this moment she comes to believe that this isn't a ruse or a plot to distract Wonder Woman while something else nefarious is going on. It seems earnest and just, even if Harley is erratic and lives in the moment, flying from desire to desire at radically different levels and at radically different moments.

Either way, Diana crouches down in front of Harley - the lasso glowing brightly around her wrists and quite warm to the touch as well, but not harming Harley so long as she tells the truth. "I will try to help you." Diana tells the young woman. "But you will have to help me, by cooperating."

The police are arriving now as well. Several squad cars all in a hurry due to the nature of who is outside of the Embassy with Diana. She glances back at the NYPD and then at Harley again. "Step One will be to go with these Officers. I will go with them as well. I will talk to those in charge and I will see to it that we will do the best we can to help find you a superior solution to Arkham Asylum. But... again, Harley... I cannot promise it will happen. Even I, only have so much power."

Diana reaches her right hand out now to place it on Harley's left wrist, just below the lasso around it. Her hand is warm and soft. "If you truly do wish to change, now is the right time to do it. With strength and with dignity."

Harley Quinn has posed:
The sound of squad cars are not the music to Harley's ears that they would be to a man being held at gunpoint. In her experience, it means a gunfight... and sometimes a vicious beating both from ally (joker) and the police. Her manic blue eyes dart up towards them, growing in number like cancer cells spreading out all around her while she was distracted by the lasso.. and for a split second she looks like she may well believe Diana betrayed her, which is a falsehood that dies quickly.

She may be crazy as a shit house rat, but she knows Wonder Woman didn't owe her anything.

It's the Goddesses words that sooth her, though. The rapid breathin of someone who knows they're gonna have to fight.. the tightenin' muscles of someone who knows just how to fight.. it stops and she looks wild eyed to Diana. Tears still swollen behind the glossy sheen as the warm hand falls upon her thin wrist.

Does she dare grasp at hope?

Harley... maybe it's Harleen.. snorts into a sad laugh and nods, "I wouldn't hold muh breath.." She says, "They'll send me back to Arkham." She says knowingly, standing up slowly with her wrists still together. "Lemme go." Hands out, "I don't want'em ta think ya made me turn muh'self in."

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana reaches her hand out and accepts the lasso back from Harley's wrists. "Come on." She says with a faint smile. "They will likely put cuffs on you but I will make sure that you are not mistreated." The Princess will then go to stand and hopefully with Harley at her side so that the two women can walk side by side one another to the Police and their squad cars.

"Perhaps if they do send you back to Arkham..." She says then as she looks over to the blond. "That it will then be time to change Arkham. That place, has, for far too long been a thorn in the public health system of your city. Maybe it needs a bit of attention from the right eyes to push it in a new direction, yes?"

The police will come though, to take Harley into their custody and to talk with Diana about all of this.

Harley Quinn has posed:
With her wrists freed, Harley cannot help thinking how easy it'd be to get away from the police... a whole lot less to get away from Diana, but she sweeps those thoughts away. She knew this is how it would end up when she came here. Nothing exists in a bubble.. and if if it did, that bubble always pops. That's reality.

She flexes her hands a few times and then reaches up to slide out of her Hello Kitty (tm) backpack, she holds it out to Diana, "Can ya hold onta this fer me? The Korean guy I bought it from says it's licenses.. them's hard to come by.." A playful grin, she reaches out to pat Diana's arm.

With that gesture, she resumes walking and waves pleasantly to the NYPD. "Heya boys.. fancy meetin' y'all here.. Don't suppose I got any fans wan'n an autograph'er suh'n?" She holds her wrists out, but they spin her around to cuff them behind her back. Spin her to face Diana, to whom she smiles, brightly, and very much off her whole ass rocker.

"Maybe. We'll see. either way, it'll be a helluva ride?"

Moments later, Harley Quinn is sitting in the back seat of a police cruiser singing to herself.

"Ya aint nevah had a frien' like me.."