Penny exhaled, staring at the doors to OWCA's gym. It was time. Was it really time? Was today, just another normal Monday morning in April for everyone else, really going to be the day when she figured out the truth?

"Are you ever going to go inside? You've been standing there for at least a minute." Penny shook her head to clear it and turned to see Astrid standing behind her, her arms crossed.

"R-Right, sorry. Just... a bit nervous."

"Right." Astrid sighed. "Well, you can take as long as you want, but I'm going to head inside." She walked past Penny. "And don't worry, I won't confront him until you're ready."

Penny bit the inside of her bill, staring at the ground. "Astrid, wait!"

The white platypus stopped and turned around. Penny inhaled deeply and met her expectant gaze. "I'm ready. Let's just go in together, like we planned, alright?"

Astrid smirked, stepping aside. "After you."

The pair walked through the doors into the gym- sure enough, there was Perry, waiting in the same corner where they had met every day since they became a team. Penny hesitated, stopping in her tracks near the entrance. "A-Actually, do you really think today's the best day, Astrid?"

Her partner sighed again. "Penny. If you don't want to you don't have to. But he's even alone, no Maxwell in sight. You'll never find out if you keep pushing it to the side."

"Right. Yeah. Of course." Penny nodded, doing her best to ignore the fact that her anxiety was making the tips of her fingers and tail go numb. "You're absolutely right, Astrid. We can just get it done and over with." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I-I just need to walk over there and... And... And..."

She heard Astrid huff. "This is sad, Penny."

Penny flinched. "S-Sorry. I just-"

"Here."

Penny opened her eyes to see Astrid walking over to Perry, her stride alone showing she meant business. Penny grimaced. Astrid had said she wouldn't start without her! Was she really that pathetic? Penny ran after her, but was unable to catch up to the white platypus before Perry had noticed them.

He met Astrid's gaze with a casual smile, and Penny caught up to her just in time for Perry to turn and see her coming up behind Astrid, causing his smile to widen slightly. "Arriving to work together now, are you? Or just a happy coincidence?"

Penny bit the inside of her bill again and looked away, not wanting to meet her brother's eyes. He was even in a good mood... But only moments later Astrid said, "Penny wanted to talk to you about something."

There it was. Then she heard the words that she had dreaded the most. "What's wrong, Pen?"

Penny sighed. There was no avoiding it any longer. She flopped onto the floor of the gym and forced herself to meet her brother's gaze. He was smiling at her, although clearly he was a bit concerned. Anyone could figure out she was at least a bit nervous about something. After all, she was as readable as an open book- scratch that, a billboard. In New York City.

"Perry..." She closed her eyes. Just spit it out. Then it's been said. "W-Was the reason you don't want to tell me about what happened to Mom and Dad because she was with Dennis instead?"

"W-What?!" Penny risked opening her eyes to see her brother staring at her in complete shock. "No, no, not at all!"

Penny exhaled. Thank goodness. The last thing she wanted to hear was that Dennis was going to be their step-dad or something.

Perry hesitated. "Where did you even get that from?"

"I..." Penny shrugged. "Dennis said some...weird things. When Astrid and I interviewed him, and then again yesterday when Jordan and I were eavesdropping on DANGER. Dennis... Dennis and Mom being in a relationship just put the most pieces together. I barely knew Mom and Dad, so for all I knew it could have been true."

Perry vehemently shook his head. "Well, it's absolutely not true. Mom and Dad were about as in love as any kid could ask for. And I'm biased. Ask almost any agent in their generation and they'll say the same thing." He paused, staring at the ground for a moment before meeting Penny's eyes again. "And what was that you said? About...you and Astrid interviewing him? When?"

Penny froze. Shoot. She hadn't ever actually told him about that. She opened her bill, trying to think of a good response, but Astrid beat her to it. "Penny told me that you never bothered to explain to her what happened to your parents. Her parents. So we started looking into it ourselves and found a lead with Dennis. We interrogated him in the OWCA-Traz on Saturday and planned to return yesterday, but then he escaped instead."

"Oh." Penny held her breath as Perry looked back at the ground, for longer this time, likely processing everything Astrid had just told him. "Is that why you said what you did to me yesterday? About 'another secret'?"

What did he mean? When did Astrid say that? Penny glanced to the white platypus, hoping for elaboration, but her eyes stayed firmly on Perry. She didn't even blink. "Perry. Penny deserves to know what happened to her own parents. She's been an orphan almost her entire life and you've never bothered to explain why."

Perry frowned. "I-"

"I-I know it's a really sore spot for you," Penny said quickly. "But I... I would like to know. Every time I've brought it up you get upset or change the topic or-"

Her brother held his paw up. "Penny."

She fell silent.

"I..." Perry sighed. "You're right. I know, I've spent nearly your whole life refusing to tell you." He shifted to look at Astrid. "I don't really have an excuse for that." His gaze turned back to Penny, warm and loving, just like the brother she had known until only days before. "If I don't make myself tell you, I never will. So I... I think it's time."

Penny's breath caught in her throat. Really? Just like that? So... She really was about to learn the truth of what happened to her parents. She pulled her knees up to her chest and watched her brother expectantly. Now that she was actually here... She felt a bit more nervous about learning the truth than she was hoping she would. Why had Perry been so hesitant to share it over the years? Was it something absolutely terrible that would ruin her outlook on life forever? Maybe their parents hadn't even been great people?

Perry was silent for a minute until he finally opened his bill and spoke again, his eyes resting on the floor between them. "So you...learned about Archer, right? I heard you mention him yesterday in the field."

Penny nodded, suddenly even more nervous. "Y-Yeah, Astrid told me about him on Saturday."

"Right." Perry picked his gaze from the floor but turned it to Astrid instead of Penny. "I guess that makes things a bit easier on my part. Penny... Archer murdered our parents."

She resisted the urge to flinch. So it was true. In the back of her mind, part of Penny had been wondering if that was the case, but she had really hoped it wasn't, so she hadn't let herself entertain that thought.

When she looked back up, her brother was staring at the floor again, his brown eyes distant, like he was imagining it all in his head. "I...don't know many of the details," he admitted slowly. "Monogram and the older agents shielded me from it as much as possible, since I was only about two and a half years old and was still a Trainee."

Perry scoffed bitterly. "Actually, Jordan was with me when I was told what happened. For some damn reason, Monogram thought it was a good idea to tell both of us the truth at the same time. That his own uncle had murdered my parents for no reason other than just the hell of it." He sighed, and all three of them were silent for an uncomfortably long time- albeit likely only a minute or two.

"Anyway... Mom and Dad were found...i-in the back of one of OWCA's spare storage warehouses. Archer was...never officially convicted- innocent till proven guilty and all that crap- but since he had just started getting accused of the murders and since gone missing, and Mom and Dad's crime scene fit all the others he was suspected for, he became the prime suspect for their murder. But no one's seen him since, and only one agent after them was found murdered in the same fashion."

Silence again. Then he continued. "My biggest regret is that I... I didn't get to see them very much before they died. I saw them that day, when I was here for training. But...since I was in training, I was living with the Flynn-Fletchers by that point, and had a home to return to. So... I just passed them separately in the halls...had a chance to hug Dad, and..." Perry squeezed his eyes shut and cleared his throat; if it was anyone else, they wouldn't have noticed, but to Penny it seemed like he was doing his best to not break down. "A-And treated that day like any other day. I...never even got to say goodbye. The next morning, they... They were gone."

Penny hesitated. Well. She finally knew the truth. What would she do with that truth? Hard to say. Should she console her brother? Or would he not want that, since Astrid was right there and there were other agents and Trainees filing through the gym in the background? When would Jordan and Maxwell be arriving? That might affect what Penny should do also. Maybe she should just say something?

Before she settled on a decision, though, Perry actually kept talking. "The hardest thing is that they actually..." He scoffed. "They would have called Archer a friend, even only hours before they died at his paw. As all of OWCA began turning against him for the evidence stacking up against him, only a pawful of agents still believed him. Dennis, Mom, and Dad. And..." Her brother sighed again. "And I trusted him too." He scowled. "If we had just been as suspicious of him as everybody else, if he hadn't fooled them and pretended to be their friend... if they had just kept their guards up around him more, they probably wouldn't even be dead today. But we had the audacity to actually trust him."

Penny jumped as she heard a familiar voice behind her. "I see how it is." Uh oh... She hesitantly turned around to see Jordan standing only a few feet from the trio, watching them with his arms crossed and a scowl plastered on his face. "You have to go behind my back to turn my teammates against me now?"

She worriedly looked back to her brother to see how he'd react to the accusation, but...to her surprise, he...didn't really seem to be reactive at all? He was just...staring at the floor, his gaze distant. It almost seemed like he wasn't even paying attention.

Astrid sighed. "Jordan, I get you've been feeling sensitive, but all Perry was doing was telling Penny the truth about what happened to their parents and how Archer was responsible."

Jordan snorted. "Maybe, but what I heard was that trusting Archer led to bad things happening. Surely you hear the double message there?"

Penny frowned. "Jordan, it...might be why Perry has so many issues working with you, but... I honestly don't think he was just using that as a way to manipulate us. I think it was really hard for him to even tell us the truth."

The red platypus just rolled his eyes. "Right. As far as I'm concerned, the chance it's all manipulation to frame him as the righteous hero and me as the horrible villain is at at least 90%."

Penny saw movement out the corner of her eye and turned to see Astrid getting to her feet, her own arms crossed. "Seriously? It's all some elaborate manipulation tactic? Jordan, you can't seriously think that. It takes an irrational child to actually believe some twisted logic like that so strongly."

"Irrational? How?" Jordan's scowl deepened and his gaze darkened. "Because as far as I'm concerned, that bastard has made it his life's goal to ruin my entire life! And since you two are actually bothering to defend him... Maybe he's already succeeded."

With that, Jordan stormed off, about to disappear to who-knew-where. Penny hesitated, glancing from him to Astrid to Perry, still sitting on the floor and barely acknowledging his surroundings. Should she stick with Perry? He was probably gonna stay pretty unresponsive, and he probably wouldn't move, but he was her brother and he clearly wasn't doing okay... But Jordan was on the move, clearly angry, and who knew where he was going or when he'd return? And what kind of team had a leader who was in that state of mind? A bad team, that was the kind.

Penny bit the inside of her bill, giving her brother one final glance, before running down the hall after Jordan. Hopefully she still had enough time to catch up to him.

She finally caught him just outside of the building. "J-Jordan, wait!"

Thankfully, he stopped in his tracks. "What do you want, Penny?"

"I..." Penny hesitated and inhaled deeply. "I wanted to try and talk this out more. I-I know that you weren't there for that whole conversation, and Astrid probably wasn't helping clear up the situation, so I thought maybe I could help..."

"Help with what? Reminding me why I'm such a terrible person and that no one will ever trust me again because of the actions of someone else?" He scoffed. "I don't think I really need your help with that."

Penny frowned. "Jordan, what happened yesterday? You've been acting different ever since our mission. I really want to help you. If something's wrong, I could-"

"You can't, Penny." Jordan turned around to face her, his gaze on the concrete and his arms crossed. "You really, really can't help."

Well, that stung. Was she really that useless? "B-But I-"

"And you especially can't help as long as Perry's your brother." Jordan shook his head and sighed. "As long as you two care about each other, you'll always believe his word over mine, no matter how you feel about me. So if he pulls such a convincing trick to frame me as untrustworthy, well... There goes your trust."

"But I do trust you, Jordan."

Her leader frowned, finally meeting her gaze. "You... Even after what Perry said to you? About how he trusted-"

"How he trusted Archer," Penny said, hoping her tone and pleading look in her eyes helped Jordan understand. "Nothing about trusting or not trusting you."

They were silent for several seconds before Jordan finally spoke up. "Even if you trust me, it doesn't really matter. Every day that passes, less and less agents trust me. And Perry's constantly there, watering all their doubts with his stories and 'receipts' and complaints."

"I'm sure it's not tha-"

"Penny, OWCA will never fully trust me, not unless some miracle proves that Archer wasn't responsible for any of the murders." Jordan shrugged helplessly. "It's impossible."

She bit the inside of her bill, trying to figure out how to respond. "Jordan... I don't think it is. It will just take time, and-"

"It's impossible," Jordan repeated, a determination in his face as he spoke. "As long as I look exactly like him."

"You-" Penny paused and processed what he said. "W-What?"

The red platypus scoffed. "Yep. No one's mentioned that yet, have they? Because no one wants to admit that they think of him whenever they see me. Even your brother himself recognizes that the fact that we look the same should have no bearing on his judgement of who I am, but he can't help it. No one can."

Jordan scowled. "No one will ever be able to view me separately from Archer because I'm his spitting image. And that's never going to change. So say all the naïve and eloquent things you want, Penny. It won't do a damn thing." And just like that, Jordan walked away.