Loading outside variable inside movieclip

I have a movie clip that needs to load an outside Variable and I know how to do it if the Variable is in the main time line.

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Main TimeLine:
timedelay = 5;

MovieClip
timedelay = _root.timedelay

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What I can not figure out is how to load a variable in a movie clip that is on the Instance of itself (not in the movie clip).

I am fine if I only use one instance of the movie clip at a time on the stage since I can set the Variable on the Main TimeLine into the movieclip (using .root), but this would not work correctly if I want two instances of a movieclip with differenct variables.

Right now I am having to make duplicate copies of a movie clip with different Variable names. I was hoping there would be some way where I could only use one movie clip and give it different variables.

Anybody?