7763/Three Ring Therapy

Three Ring Therapy
Date of Scene:	09 September 2021
Location:	Landmark Mall Roof
Synopsis:	The Cheshire and The Clownette. Therapy session #2, or: Keeping Secrets, And What Comes Of It.
Cast of Characters:	Terry O'Neil, Harley Quinn

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Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<Harl. I stormed out of the Tower last night. I'm staying over with The Guys. Please don't tell anyone from the team you've heard from me. I may not be a Titan after this>>

That had been the prelude. Such a text was bound to elicit curiosity, and he couldn't deny his best friend, which is why he set up the meeting spot on the roof of the mall, with two deckchairs and a parasol and a six-pack of hard lemonade to ward off the waning summer heat.

They will look like quite a pair, the Clownette and the Cheshire Cat who looks like he's just seen every sad movie in the world at once, not an ounce of grin on him.

He sets down his hard lemonade and closes his eyes for a moment, just letting the sun in for now while he waits for Harley to make her appearance.

Harley Quinn has posed:
There are many mysteries in this life.

One of those would be how the heck did Harley got up on the roof while wearing roller blades. A mystery that will be left unsolved for now! But what's true is that's how Harley comes to be up there, the sound of those roller blades heard as she rolls in through a door. Because it's an abandoned mall and she'd never lose an opportunity to pull out a Jennifer Connelly.

"Allo, Terry." The clownette greets while sliding in, her expression not exactly a bright one but more one of worry, taking in Terry's overall posture and demeanor. It does seem serious!

She rolls over towards the lemonade, picking one up, silent. Letting Terry speak up!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Hey hon," Terry answers quietly, opening his eyes at the sound of those rollers. He doesn't ask questions, he knows Harley is capable of a lot of impossible things. She's an honorary Wonderlandian, or would be if it were up to him to bestow that honor.

"Is keeping secrets from others always bad, Harl?" he asks.

Talk about a loaded question!

Harley Quinn has posed:
The cap comes off with a twist of her wrist. Talk about enhanced strength! Then Harley taking a good drink out of it. And while the question *could* be loaded to many it's not as if Doctor Quinnzel isn't prepared. Perhaps to even counter it with some of her own!

"As with most everythin', it all depends on the reasons, Terry."

Another little spin and she finds herself sitting down on the long chair next to Terry, sprawling back on it.

"Have ya thought about yoh own reasons ta keep those secrets in the first place?" She finally counters.

"But maybe ya should start from the beginning, mmm?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Like the King said. Yes." The cat sighs and leans his head back, to look up at the underside of the parasol. "Early this year, when the Doppelgangers were amok, one of them contact me. It was a friend's doppel. And she assured me she was good, and that she needed my help to help capture doppels and send them back."

"If this sounds like a trap, that's what I thought, too. I brought Kian and Gar with me to the rendez-vous to test her. And you know how doppels aen't long-term thinkers? They just murder-rage you as soon as possibe? Well, she passed. I made sure to vet her. And, after all, I remember- your other self is part of the Resistance on the other side. So was she."

He rests his hands on his stomach and sighs. "So we agreed to work together. With one caveat: she was afraid of how her version here would react to her. She made me promise that I would not tell her of her doppel's existence. That I would tell as few people as possible."

Harley Quinn has posed:
"Uh-uh, Mmhmm..." Is Harley agreeing with what Terry is saying about the doppels? Maybe! Another swig from her lemonade and she purses her lips together once Terry finishes talking. "Sooooo, aftah yoh experience with yoh doppel you went full on trustin' someone else's doppel? I am hopin' it was a good friend! And that it wasn't April!" hey, she doesn't know who it was!

Still, she skips some of those details ahead, "But anyway! Let me guess..., it just exploded spectacularly on your face since ya didn't mention it ta yoh friends or titans?" She pulls herself up on the chair, legs up to her chest and she looking directly at Terry, waiting for him to continue.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Pretty much. Her intel was spot-on. So spot on that, yesterday we basically saved the world from being taken over by /this/ dimension's version of ZZGU, because Il Mutante was trying to open a portal across the universe to bring it /here/. So I made the right call. Without her trusting me, we wouldn't have had that intel. Because I can Rabbit Hole I was able to get the Titans to the spot where they were trying to open the portal. We won. But the doppel was there as well- in fact, without her help we wouldn't have been able to get through a barrier that my powers were powerles against."

He takes a deep breath. "But then my friend saw her doppel. And I was asked to explain myself at the tower. Hawkeye /busted my balls/, right from the get-go it was an attitude of 'You've fucked up Terry O'Neil', explain yourself!' and not once did she ask me if I had vetted this person. What precautions I had taken. Nothing. From the start it was an accusation that I held back. Well." He incorporates himself, sitting up on the long chair, "Nightwing and Robin keeo secrets from us all the time. And Troia knows their identities, I pointed out. That did nothing. In the end the big unspoken thing is that Hawkeye trusts /them/ to make the judgement of what secrets to keep, and never me."

He reahes for his lemonade and takes a sip, "She said she was going to call a leadership meeting with Troia and Nightwing and Gar to decide what is to be done about me. I blew up, left my comm behind and just... left."

He rubs at an eye. Clearly it's just the sun, right? "... I crashed the night at the Asgardian Embassy after Lady Sif gave me permission. But I'm staying with Leo for the moment. They know where else I'd be likely to stay and I don't want to talk to anyone."

Harley Quinn has posed:
"You sound very sure o' it now. But were you so sure of that befoouh yesterday?" Harley then asks the Wonderland Cat, continuing on her hunched posture, one palm up and holding her chin, blue eyes continuing to inspect her friend before a moment of pause, thoughtful.

"But maybe ..." And Harley lifts a finger now, "... foh once this ain't about ya, but about Hawkeye. Have ya thought on how she might feel in not being trusted enough ta be let into that secret? Specially one that could threaten yoh security. And while *you* may think that doppel was trustworthy maybe she doesn't see it that way. Maybe she is upset because you didn't think her trustworthy enough ta be let in on what was goin' on." she points out. And so eloquent! Doctor Quinnzel in the house.

But of course that when you mention the Asgardians there will be a comment. "Oh, you gotta say hi to Thor foh me. I saw him gardenin' at the Themyscira embassy once! That was fun. But I think he wanted ta plow me.." a tsk.

Anyway! After that tangent is done Harley gets back onto business. "So the real question is, why didn't you trust yoh team with what was goin' on? And don't BS me with the 'because the doppel asked me to'. That won't go with me, Terry O'Neil."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Harl I /don't/ break promises. I'm a journalist, I establish bonds of trust with my sources. I protect my sources. Some muck-rakers will reveal any secret for a story, but I am not like that. And when someone comes up to me with tips that can help save lives, I'll listen."

He glances at Harley. "It wasn't even someone in the team, this doppelganger. It's a /friend's/ doppel. Harl, you know that if for a moment I had a reason to suspect anything, I would have called Diana to lasso them and make them sing the truth out. But here is the thing... this doppel also acted like a friend to me. She helped save people and she cared. Does her counterpart have a /right/ to know that she exists? As far as they're concerned, they were /both/ my friends. And if you told me a deep dark secret of yours that didn't hurt anyone, and Nightwing himself asked me to tell him, I would tell him that it's none of his damned business!"

Harley Quinn has posed:
"No no no. We ain't talkin' about her counterpart knowin'. But about Hawkeye knowin'. Unless Hawkeye was that counterpart, but she isn't. What I am *saying* is that you should look at it on her side of things too. Not being trusted with it. Specially as it affected her directly, or in this case the Titans as a team." A beat, Harley then smiling faintly. "Just think on it, Terry."

A small period of silence follows as the bottle is brought up to her lips, draining it. "The question now is. What do you want to do?"

Comments about Nightwing knowing deep, dark secrets of Harley are left for later. But the waggle she does with her eyebrows is telling she might have an idea or two about a couple Terry could tell Nightwing! Torrid ones for sure!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Yes, I get that. But here's the thing- I may trust Hawkeye. But if I learned Robin's secret identity, let's say, am I /supposed/ to tell her because I trust her, or am I supposed to not tell her because Robin doesn't want others to know? I mean, Nightwing doesn't trust /her/ with his secret identity but trusts Troia."

His lips compress into a tight line. "She doesn't trust you. She's always held it as a black mark against me that I trust you, but that's not going to change anything- I trust you with my life. I guess that at the end of the day she feels like I didn't trust her-- but that's not true. I trust her to handle shit. But she didn't trust me to make a good judgement call. I can't reveal secrets that aren't mine to reveal if I don't see a good reason to do so. And I didn't see anything that made me doubt the sincerity of this person. Neither did Kian or Gar. Or your pen-pal."

Harley Quinn has posed:
"Ooo, I didn't know that.." About Nightwing's secret ID. It makes Harley scrunch up her nose a bit, "People are so complicated about theah secred ids and so... Really." easy for Harley to say! With nothing to lose till a short while ago.

"And so this is somethin' that's been accumulatin' foh a while now. Between ya both." Still, something said by Terry seems to hurt her considering the loss of smile that she gets and looking away briefly.

"Though I am sorry that bein' my friend is hurtin' yoh position ovah with yoh Titan family." Now she is feeling guilty! A sideeye glance to the crate of lemonades. "Ya should had made these beers instead of lemonade, ya know?"

Yet a moment later there's a little gleam on Harley's gaze, "Don't worry Terry, I got a plan for this. I am gonna go talk with Hawkeye directly and see what her beef is. I will set things right." she nodding encouragingly at Terry.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Harl. I don't care. I really don't. If someone is going to snub me because I'm your friend, it's their fucking loss." The cat takes another sip from his hard lemonade. "I know it's not sunshine and rainbows. I know you've got your demons. So do I. I accept you as you are, and I believe in you. Even Gar has come around, and he was terrified of you." Whether this was via a true turnaround or just getting accustomed to it like a long-term exposure therapy, who knew? "And Kian adores you. We're misfits, you and I. And our songs are better, so we're sticking together."

"And it's not my friendship with you, really. It's /me/. All of me. The fact that I've made mistakes in the past. The fact that Hawkeye sees me as some sort of child. I'm easily dismissed and easily underestimated. It has happeed all of my life, right from the start at Saint Sebastian's, where the nuns always told me what a failure I was... and always would be."

He takes a sip from his drink, "It wasn't until I was in Themyscira that I realized that maybe that had been repeated to me so often that I may have started to believe it. Played into it a little. And I decided that that was going to change. So then of course I come back and Hawkeye busts my balls like I was a kindergartener caught scrawling on the walls and I just... I just couldn't."

He glances down at the lemonade, "Sorry... that's all that was in mom's fridge."

And then he frowns. "If you want to... Harl. But don't let her hurt you. And she will probably say hurtful things. Just promise me that you won't let it touch you."