4330/'Twas Only A Flesh Wound

'Twas Only A Flesh Wound
Date of Scene:	07 December 2020
Location:	April's Apartment
Synopsis:	Terry and Gar show up to tell April that Terry is not dead.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Gar Logan, April O'Neil

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Terry O'Neil has posed:
While the notice that the four Titans weren't actually dead, the world at large doesn't know it. Nor do they know that just the other night those four had returned to the world in the ship that glanced off the Tower. Not too long after that UFO sighting, April had received the text from Terry, followed by radio silence as the redhead caught up on much-needed sleep.

Then, after enlightening conversation with Garfield and some... shutting up for a few hours, Terry is finally getting around to setting his life back on track. FIrst things first: Family.

April's apartment is not too far away from his mother's house. He knows very well that seeing his mother will be an all-day thing, with everything that they have to catch up, and the explosion of emotions that will follow, so he first stops by his favorite cousin's apartment.

He doesn't text first, because he believes in surprises, so he simply rings the buzzerr and waits, wondering if Lou and Bud are still in the apartment of if Harley has found a Hyenah sitter.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan has come along with Terry, but in his own unique way. Riding atop a shoulder, keeping balanced adeptly, is a green ferret. The change happened moments before the button for the buzzer was pushed. "You ever have a woozul whisper sweet nothings into your ear?" he asks, letting his ferrety whiskers brush alongside the closest ear, his ferrety claws gripping Terry's clothing.

"Have you heard back from her yet? Do you think the clown is around? Have you talked to your mom yet? Suddenly I want all the shiny things, and I want to hide them."

April O'Neil has posed:
April was waiting to hear more, of course, though she assumed Terry-- or someone --would text her before showing up. However that wasn't the case, and when the new security measures come up with visitors arriving, the screens in April's apartment all light up with video displaying who's standing outside of her door...

They'll both hear someone moving quickly through the interior as April bounds down the stairs in to the stairwell and, then hear all the locks on the door opening up, one by one, frantically before they're thrown open and the auburn haired April appears in the doorway, holding it for a second, looking between Gar and Terry, and then throwing herself over the step to slam-hug in to her favorite cousin. Her bestest closest family member growing up!

She latches on to him like an Alien Face-Hugger, but not centrally located to just his face, of course!

"Jesus, Christmas, it's good to see you." She says in a serious voice!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Gar, maybe you shouldn't be a ferret too often," Terry jokes, waiting at the door, "It's like your attention span shrinks and your adrenaline skyrockets," he chuckles and reaches over to pet the ferret. He had a feret, once when he was a kid. He lived the little guy, but he was one of those adventurous creatures and he ended up vanishing from the house, one day. Little does he know that the ferret ended up in the sewers, where he becme the propserous ruler of a very well-organized mouse crime family and lived a full and purlonious life.

Terry oofs and hugs April back, laughing, "April! Guess what? I'm not dead!" he says, grinning- "It's so good to see you... I've missed you! Do you remember Gar, my Emotional Support Ferret?" he says. He tries to swirl April around, but isn't very successful. "Is Harl here? We should probably go inside! We've got a lot to catch up on!"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan balances deftly as April appears and moves in for an embrace, hopping as needed so he doesn't just fall back to the ground. "Hey! Watch it! Ferret on board!"

Terry's identification leads to him remarking, "Not only am I his Emotional Support Ferret, I can also be his Emotional Support Falcon, Finch, Firefly, Flamingo, Flea, Flounder, Fly, Flying Squirrel, Fossa, Fox, Frill-Necked Lizard, or Frog, and that's /just/ the animals starting with an F!"

The acknowledgement of his attention span and the rest leads to him noting, "How is that any different from usual? When we get inside, I'll show you my war dance. Hi April! Yes, Terry's back! It's like Christmas in December!"

Because..yeah.

April O'Neil has posed:
April, of course, does her best to not push the Ferret around too much during her eager-hug. And shen she pulls back her eyes go to said ferret to smile at him and nod, some happy tears visibly welling at the bottom of her eyes. "I know Gar, of course." She says back to Terry.

Then it happens.

Shoulder punch!

"Your power works to let you go wherever you want!" She says at Terry. "Why didn't you come here and tell me what was going on?" She's probably shoulder punched him many'o'times in their years of seeing each other now and then, growing up, at family functions, etc.

As she steps back to the stairwell door she opens it further. "Harley's not here, she has Bud'n Lou. She's off... 'not being a criminal' somewhere." She says with a smirk for both of them.

"Come on in." She leaves the door open for them and starts up the stairs to the main apartment landing. "Are the other Titans all okay then? And that ship that crashed?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oooow!" Terry rubs his shoulder, making a sour face. "Don't you think we tried it? We were inside a singularity wraped in on itself! My Rabbit Holes were totally useless to get us out of there... otherwise I would've been back in a moment."

Walking in after April, he nods- "Yeah... Vic, Donna and Caitlin ar eall fine, we cam in on that ship. There's aliens staying over at the Tower... but what's new, right? They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy and we rode back on their ship when we came back into this dimension. They're a motley crue, alright... they have a talking raccoon. In a jumpsuit. His name is Rocket. Can you believe that?"

He chuckles, "Maybe we could get you to meet them. You'd like Drax, I think. He's built like a building, but he seems to take everything literally and is bizarrely friendly."

Gar Logan has posed:
By the time they're moving into the apartment, Gar has returned to his usual self, t-shirt and shorts, but he's barefoot. He hopped off after April slugged Terry, quipping, "That'll leave a mark."

He looks around the place, then from April to Terry and back again. "I remember when I came around here to see if you were suddenly all catty, April. That's the first moment I started to have some hope again, but I never thought it'd take so long to get them back home, and they'd almost /take out the Tower/ in the process."

He has no other comment about their alien visitors yet, pausing to remark, "Oh, yeah. She's still doing the whole 'be good' thing? That's lasting longer than I expected." Someone remains skeptical.

April O'Neil has posed:
Once they all make it to the landing on the top floor, April pushes the front door to her apartment open and strides on inside. This apartment used to be her parents, they bought the place so April's mother could run the antique store downstairs while April's dad did his scientist work in the city... they had a happy little family here for awhile.

Now it's just April, Harley, Bud and Lou, and sometimes even Poison Ivy creeps in.

She holds the door open for them. "I'm so glad everyone's okay." She softly says. "And, yeah, I guess maybe your pwoer does have limits, I just didn't think it did. Sorry..." She feels bad about the punch now...

BUT SHE MOVES ON.

Shutting the door, April motions to the sofa covered in pillows and blanket. "Harley built a pillow fort out here last night, just uh... move some of the stuff around. She's trying to be good, but sometimes I wonder if she's hiding things from me. Want some drinks?" She asks, tilting her way toward the kitchen.

"And yeah, Gar came by just after the incident... to check and see if I had inherited your... whatever it is. If that actually happens someday, God forbid it, I'm not sure I'd remotely know what to do with it!" She says from the kitchen, as she gathers some drinks up whether they asked for them or not.

"If any of those... aliens, wanna come on my podcast, I'd be down for that too My listners would blow their gaskets." She says on her way back in to the living room.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"We'll have to see... you might end up with Captain Marvel checking out the aliens. They might need to stay undercover for a while. ANd for the record, WE didn't almost take down the tower, they did. I may or may not have done something that knocked us off course... but I can't remember seeing as I got knocked out."

He requests a soda, relishing the drink with unusual gusto. "Oh god.. they had nothing like this over there. And their coffee sucked. I've missed /everything/ and I am not taking anything for granted anymore."

He puts an arm around Gar, "How about you, c'ous? What hve you been doing while we were off in outer space? I do have something to ask you,but I first want to her what have you been up to? How are the guys?" he askscryptically.

Gar Logan has posed:
"It's definitely a ship," Gar notes. "I haven't had the chance to really talk to any of them yet, but they have a green person of their own." He heads over for a moment to inspect Harley's pillow fort, just in case she's got it booby trapped or something along those lines, and he seems satisfied that it isn't. "I'll let him give you all the juicy details about what happened and how they got back."

The arm about him earns a lean back, followed by a sneaky pinch at Terry's side. "The boys are just fine, thanks," he casually answers before realizing Terry was looking at April when he said that. "Uh, at least that's what my doctor tells me."

April O'Neil has posed:
April comes back in to the living room and offers Terry the TAB Cola and Gar is offered a a bottle of Mexican Coca Cola (it's got real sugar, it's fantastic.) "I'd like to have Captain Marvel on my show someday too. But that's probably a pretty big reach, huh?" She asks with a small smirk while she takes a seat on the arm of one of her sofa chairs. She opens up her own bottle of basic boring tea, takes a sip and lowers it down to her leg. Her eyes are on Terry and she has to shake her head, ignoring his questions and comments for a moment. "I'm so glad you're here. Your mother is gonna freak out." How does she know he hasn't seen her? Social media, obviously.

She grins at his reaction to the soda, but then her amusement fades at the talk of the 'boys'.

"It's bad, Terry." She tells him, glancing at Gar inspecting the fort. "The guys were attacked. Their home was destroyed. Donatello was badly injured. We've... relocated to a mall, not far from here. It's a fresh start, and SHIELD is even involved in keeping the property on the level. But... I dunno, their spirits are low. They need a win, but I don't know how to help with that, ya know?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it is the same with the palate- TAB feels like a whole other world, awful as it is. "This is still better than the stuff they had over there. I am going to have to tell you about it sometime, April, it was balls to the wall CRAY."

Gar has heard some of it, but not all yet. It was a long story. He almost spits out his cola when Gar answers instead, but his double take is then forgotten when Apriil fills them in.

"Oh an... that's not good at all... maybe I should visit? If t's okay to drop by that place? Maybe I can help a little..."

"Everybody healed from their injuries, though?"

Gar Logan has posed:
"Ooh, real cola," Gar says when the sugary soda is brought over to him, pointing and laughing at Terry's lesser version.

With Terry back, a lot of the doldrums Gar was mired in seem like they're in the past.

"You never know who you'll get on your show until you ask them, April," he shares, as if he's actually giving her some advice she didn't already know. "Worst they can do is say no."

Gar keeps near Terry for the time being, listening and offering input as needed. "His mom's pretty nice. I felt bad for her when we talked, but I hope I left her feeling a little more optimistic. That was a while back, though. I went to see her right after I came over here," he finishes explaining to April.

His expression turns south as the turtle news is relayed. Donatello is a name he recognizes, and he did have at least one meeting with Michelangelo at a pizza place. That's about the extent he knows of them. "Damn, man. When you can't even be safe at your own home..jeez. I bet I know the mall, too. The one that's been shut down for ages, right?" He nods in follow-up to Terry asking about the injuries.

April O'Neil has posed:
April's right hand comes up to rub a finger at the side of her nose, a stray dark hair giving her nose a little itch that had to be dealt with! She then smiles at the two of them and looks between them both. "I'd love to have any of your friends on the show too, or either of you. Terry--" She looks at him. "If you wanted to share those stories, wild as they must be, publicly... I mean... it'd be a great format to do it. But." She smiles softly. "That's just me being a bit self-centered, I guess. Podcast pushing. I want to hear the stories though, headsets and microphones, or not. Because, god, I can't even imagine what you've been through in the past few days." She shakes her head side to side. "Neil DeGrasee Tyson probably couldn't even break it down to understandable anecdotes for me to grasp."

She sips her tea again, only nodding her head to the subject of Terry's mother. She's still nervous around that woman, which dates back to her family issues with her. She still thinks Terry's mother hates her! Even if she doesn't.

"Yeah, Landmark mall. It's not far from here." She says to Gar. "We went there to see one of the Harry Potter movies, before the place shut down in ... 2012? I think it was the last Harry Potter movie... in fact. Nine'ish years ago?" She would've been 12 or so back then which makes her shake her head.

"You're both familiar faces, so I think they'd be welcoming. Leo and Mikey are okay, I think. It all hit Raph and Donnie the hardest. Splinter... is... Splinter. He's hard to read. The mall has given them a chance to have more friends move in too, which... I hope helps? I don't know though. I'm doing my best, but I feel very... inadequate."

Another tea sip is had then.

"The person who attacked them... is still out there, somewhere."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"If they need help tracking them down... I can help. So can many Titans. They're extended family, and the O'Neil clan sticks together... and Ape..." he makes a face, "You really should talk to mom sometimes. She only /looks/ like she disapproves. She got great-grandma's face. Woman looked like she never had sex in her /life/!"

He downs the TAB with a pleasure that is too much, even for someone previously stuck in a space desert for months.

"I remember that. I fell asleep through the second half of the movie 'cause I was pulling all nighters reading that book you got me for my birhtday. Good times..." the redhead smirks, and then adds "You know... I could get you Captain Marvel for the podcast. I've interviewed her... I could call in a favor... we helped an alien get acclimated to Earth, after all. And you could also interview this guy," he thumbs at Gar, "The most adorable, handsome green dork on the block!"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan looks toward Terry, then nods slowly to April. The news of others going through difficult times as well sobers him up quickly, even with the beginnings of a sugary soda working into his system. Well, it's not /that/ fast.

"Yeah, if there's anything I can help with, even if it's to try to go be a friend, just let me know. I dunno how private they want to keep stuff, and I haven't heard from any of them in a while," he says, and offers. Most of what the cousins have to say to each other in catching up or recalling things in the past, he stays quiet on. He can be there without interrupting that side of things.

Finally he adds, "I think the podcast would be cool sometime. It's not like I've lived a normal life. But, you know, at the right time." Now it's his turn to slug at Terry's other shoulder in the end, following the 'dork' comment. He briefly makes eye contact with Terry after Kian is referred to.

April O'Neil has posed:
April holds a sincere smile toward both of them. "I'd be thrilled, I mean, to have any of you on the podcast. It's really taken off this year and it's entirley due to--" She mtoions to one of the pillows on the couch that has Harley's giant smiling face printed on the fabric. "For a woman who has such a sketchy past, she has such a huge following anyway. It's that smile of hers, it's infectious, even if behind it is a lot of trouble." She looks back to Terry. "I'll... go see your mother any time. I just, ya know, she scares me. It's irrational, and entirely rooted in childhood stories. But yeah." A deep breath is brought in between her lips then.

She looks to Gar and gives him a decisive nod. "We need to have you on there, and get your story out there. I just had Wonder Girl on, one of your Titans. God, she was so nice, so pretty, so perfect... but I still got a sense out of her that she didn't realize any of that. She was... humble." She flashes a quick smile then.

"You both do need to see Harley, as soon as possible." April adds then, shifting her tea from one hand to the other. "Terry... those messages that got sent out when the Titan's database thought you might've... passed. I never even listened to mine. I couldn't. I told myself I was gonna wait three years just to see if you came back... But Harley... she listened isntantly. I found her up here, really broken up about it. She needs to see your face. See you're good. She latches on to people, really strongly. And if she doesn't hear from you? I dunno, she might bash your face in with a baseball bat." April starts laughing grimly before even finishing that sentence.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh god, Harl. Don't worry, I sent her a text, I'm going to try and get us all together for food ASAP- I was worried about her." He glances at Gar, "But she reached out to Gar. I heard that she got authorized to be in the Tower to help with anything... it's all sorts of interesting things."

He pauses. "You know, the whole thing, my life started taking the bizarre journey I've been in... it all started when I found Harley in your apartment for the first time," he chuckles.

"Wonder GIrl is super. Hey, you should interview Silver Banshee and Lucy in the Sky. You'd love them..."

He grows serious for a second, and then says "So... I need to ask you something. How much more chaotic woudl things get for you if people knew... I am Vorpal?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan lets out one of those breaths when it comes to Harley, forcing one of those smiles that says he's dealing with it in as polite a way as possible. "It's not that I don't like her. It's just..there's nothing about her that's predictable, and to be honest she kind of scares me. I know she's trying, though."

He remains open to the podcast talk, nodding a few times as Wonder Girl is brought up before Terry springs that question on April. He sticks to his soda, then his phone buzzes and he pulls it out of a pocket so he can tap back a text to somebody. Probably his agent, telling him about the next big movie that wants to cast him as the main star. Or, some low-budget thing he'd have to act silly in. Either/or.

April O'Neil has posed:
April drops down in to the embrace of her sofa chair entirely, sliding off of the arm of it as she settles in to seeing Terry back alive again, which is like a giant burden off of her soul's shoulders. April hears the bit about Harley and the 'bizarre journey' which makes her openly laugh. "I wish I could say that that was when it started for me too, but no... for me, it happened last fall. When I got attacked by Ninjas in the subway, and passed out. Then woke up on the sofa of a family of giant teenaged ninja mutant turtles, and their giant rat sensei who were all talking to me and arguing with one another on what to do with me."

April grins, fondly of course, and shakes her head slowly side to side. "Harley has just been a bit of a... piece of lovely tasty wild and crazy cake on the side of that main course."

At the question of Vorpal, and his public status, April sits up a little straighter in the chair. "Ah..." She processes the question, her blue eyes going skyward as she tries to process it quickly for sake of conversation. "Probably not a lot?" She answers, her tone showing she's clearly unsure of that. "I mean, we're related, but you're clearly in your own world from me. I mean... /clearly./ I'm not going to space, or rubbin' elbows with the kinda people you are. I imagine I might get some questions about my famous Titan cousin, but probably not a lot? So if it's what you wanna do,t hen do it."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Well, the thing I worry the most about is whether i'd be putting you in any more danger than you are in right now. At this point I've pretty much need to find a way back into the graces of the Planet... but the story I have to tell about the Titans' trip... is Vorpal's. And I can't explain where Terry went for three months. Lois knows my secret identity, but she can't really cover for me much, now, can she? Troia said that maybe it was time I went full public... so I'll be broaching that with Lois."

He leans back and glances at Gar. Whenever the green teen went silent, it often had to do with his phone. It was a little trippy still to consider that he was going out with a superhero and movie star. He turns back to April, "If that's something you think you can live with... I might be able to get you even more high profile guests for your podcast. I could get you Troia, for example!" He grins.

"If you can't think of any objections, I suggest we go out for some pizza. They didn' t have pizza in spance. Giorgio's? My treat." He pauses, and looks at his phone.

He draws his breath when he looks at the state of his bank account, missing a paycheck for three months. He does some quick math and... yeah. He can afford it. Provided he only eats at the Tower until he finds some form of employment or cash flow.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan looks back up at the mention of pizza. "Angelo's is that one place they hang out at, isn't it? I remembered the one with the orange there. Mikey?" he asks.

"I'm just glad everybody's back. I missed gaming with Vic, Cait's cooking, Donna doing, you know, lasso things..and leaving catnip in random places for you," he says, nudging at Terry's side.

Brows come closer together. "You sure you can afford it? After you got evicted and you started showing up on the side of milk cartons?" Did he actually? If it gets Terry to check, all the better. "I could pay you for now with some of Dayton's money. I could use a good butler, or a valet, or.." He turns his phone around, showing a crude photoshop job of a picture he took of Vorpal, only dressed in something else.

"..my personal French Maid."

April O'Neil has posed:
April sits forward on her sofa chair and holds her bottle of tea between her knees. "Okay, so really the one thing I ask for if you do go public-- which yes, I am officially declaring that you do go public --is that you share with me all of the potential people who might have a hatred for you that would warrant retribution on you, or your mother, or anyone you care about. That way, I am ready for it. I am not blindsided by it. I've got connections, ya know? People that can help give me heads up about stuff, but I gotta be able to in-turn feed them information too. And if you're straight forward with me about threats you're facing as 'Vorpal'-- your super awesome, some bad ass super hero self, --then I can help keep myself safe, and the rest of those who are connected to you, like your scary mother." She pauses, tilts her head to the side then. "Dealio?"

And with that said, April chugs a bit of her tea and sets what's left down on the coffee table. "Okay." She says, standing up and tugging her shirt down over her waist so it doesn't rise-up scandalously. "Let me get my jacket."

As she's moving around her sofa chair toward her bedroom door, she looks back toward Gar, and Terry for that matter. "I'm /all for/ Donna Troy, and whomever you guys know, to come on my show, if they wanna chat. You guys know I'm a motor-mouth, and this has gotten to the point where I'm starting to--" She disappears in to her bedroom. "--really settle in to this stuff. I am willing to talk to any super hero, to get their story out there. To get to know who they really are." When she comes back she's got her black leather motorcylcle jacket on and is pushing her hair back over her shoulders.

She nods once to Gar "Angelo's is cloest to the guys old home... it... yeah, it's their favorite pizza place. Giorgio's makes fancier pies though.... but don't tell the Turtles that." She smiles at them and moves to the door.

"Come on, I'll cover whatever you guys can't." She grabs her yellow scarf off of the coat rack and drapes it over her neck before reaching for the door knob.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Garfield Mark Logan," Terry says, giving Gar a glance, "... you only get away with that because you are adorable. I want you to know that." Terry stands up and waits for April as she goes into her bedroom. "Don't worry. I'll get you a list. Besides, I was sort of trusting Harley to scare off any villains who wanted to mess with you. We'll just have to get her around to mom, too... I'm going to see her after this. She'll probably insist I spend the night over and talk."

He glances at Gar, "You could stay over, too That'll be the last time you'll get to see my high school room because I plan to burn everything!" Is he joking? For real? "French maid indeed..."