Chapter Text
Childish. Out of every word in the English dictionary, that was the one word that Mikey had to hate the most. That single word was enough to make his blood start to boil. Sure he liked some things that some would say were for kids. Sure he still liked to watch cartoons or spend all day in his room reading comics, but that didn’t make him childish. Not to him, at least… No. To him, these things were what little levity he could be afforded now that he and his brothers didn’t have to face off against world-ending threats any longer.
“C’mon guys! Just one round of Capture the bandana? Pleeeease, I promise that it’ll be quick!” Donnie groaned softly as the younger turtle practically leapt onto him, wrapping his arms around him, “C’mon! We haven’t played in SO fucking long. It’ll be fun!”
Donnie rolled his eyes a bit as he tried to push his younger brother off of him as quickly as possible, probably even quicker and a bit more roughly than he used to before.
The softshell’s eyes were dark and full of exhaustion like he was a man that hadn’t slept in a million years. Then again, with the nightmares of being fused with Krang technology and corrupted down to his deepest core, no one was surprised. Sure it was a rush to the soft-shell in the moment, but there was still something about just how little he knew about the tech that seemed to twist the memory, replacing that feeling of excitement with the deep dread at the thought that those slimy tentacles could have left something behind inside of him, wriggling, listening in to all of their conversations, growing inside of him.
“Go ask Raph or something, I have a lot of work to do. I don’t have time for these sorts of games anymore,” He said coldly. Mikey could only watch as the older turtle walked away from him, fists clenched. He sighed softly and got back to his feet, dusting himself off.
To be honest, he didn’t know what he had been expecting. Ever since the Krang had attacked New York, it was always ‘ Not now, Mikey,’ or ‘Couldn’t you do something more productive, Mikey?’
Honestly, deep down, he’d hoped that once the city was rebuilt, everything would be able to go back to normal, back to just the way that it was before. Back to the days when he and his brothers would spend time just skating together in the lair or cannonball nights with April or stuffing their faces with pizza as they watched an old Lou Jitsu movie with their dad. He’d hoped with all of his heart that all of this was just some awful nightmare that he would wake up from soon enough.
A selfish wish, really.
“Look, Mike, I’m really sorry but I think that Donnie’s right. I gotta help Leo with some proper training. Donnie told me that his um… his nerves are still on the fritz,” Raph replied. The snapper’s voice was soft and truly apologetic, but something inside of Mikey just found it honestly patronizing.
He spotted the hesitance in Raph’s voice from a mile away. It always was like that when one of them talked about their injuries now or anything to do with the Krang invasion, really. Hesitant, nervous, afraid.
“Look, I can help! I mean, hell, we used to see Capture the bandana as proper training. Remember? REMEMBER? With your little paper buddy,” Mikey begged. He looked up at Raph with big, pleading eyes, those eyes that he knew that big brothers never could resist.
“I… Oh what are we gonna do with you?” Raph chuckled, “Okay, fine. But only if you’re gentle with Leo. I don’t want you going overboard and accidentally hurting him, got it?”
Mikey gave a silent cheer and did a little dance that made both of his brothers laugh. His eyes absolutely lit up at that sound, even more so when Leo leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“Go nuts, Miguel, I can handle it. There isn’t anything that you could throw at me that I can’t handle,” There was just something so simple, yet so very exhilarating at those words. For a brief moment, he could almost see the old Leo, the real Leo that he knew and loved more than anything, peeking through the cracks.
“Let’s do this then, Cowabunga!!” Mikey yelled as he got into a fighting stance. They’d lost their training dummies long ago, but that wasn’t about to stop him from having his fun. He watched the two other turtles out of the corners of his eyes as they got into position themselves.
“Ready you two?” Raph asked excitedly.
“Born ready, Raph my man,” Leo replied as he cracked his knuckles. The youngest of the brothers couldn’t help but let out a squawk of laughter at that. If he focused close enough, he could almost see the scars on both of his brothers fading away in the blink of an eye.
Jackpot.
So what if Donnie didn’t want to play with them this time. They didn’t need that uptight buzzkill anyway. He promised himself that they would get him next time. At least that’s what he thought till he saw the slightest hint of deep royal purple out of the corner of his eye, watching from where the brainy brother was busy repairing their tank.
“You know, there’s still time for you to join if you want to, Donald. It’s not the same without our favorite sciency man,~” Mikey cooed. The hurt from their earlier interaction had long since disappeared, and he knew exactly how to get the second eldest’s attention, “If you agree, I’ll make you a new satin jaaacket. Oh! And I’ll get you more coooooooffee”
Another silent cheer ensued when he saw the way that Donnie visibly perked up and waltzed his way over to his brothers.
“I’m holding you to that promise, Michael, I sincerely hope that you know that,” He said, pointing a wrench at his little brother.
“I thought you’d say that. I loooove you,” Mikey jumped on him, nuzzling him happily.
As the game started, everything was going on as normal if not a bit slower than usual so that no one accidentally plowed over Leo. The red-eared slider had a slight limp to him and his movements were a bit jankey, but he still managed to out dodge each and every one of his brothers. Mikey was laughing and laughing as he darted through the other three, easily avoiding them all. Raph, despite his new struggles with depth perception, was ever the tank out the four, still charging in.
Mikey made a grab for Donnie’s mask first, reaching for the tails at the back to untie it. The older dodged without much trouble at all, causing the orange clad turtle to fall face first onto the floor of the training room.
“Nice try, but you’re gonna have to do better than that to catch me, dr. Delicate touch,” Donnie teased. Mikey stuck out his tongue at him and easily slid over to Leo. For some reason, he thought that it would be a good idea to try to try to activate his ‘Mystic hands’ again, absolutely caught up in the moment.
“Hey! That’s cheating! No powers, you dork!” Leo cried. The smirk that crossed his face in that moment was more than worth the older nearly snatching his mask right from under him. Even with the limp, he was fast, extremely so. Mikey took the opportunity while Leo was leaning over him to knock him over and get on top of him. The older fell to the ground with a soft grunt.
“Woah! Woah! Take it easy on him little man!” Raph yelled from just a little ways away, unfortunately giving Donnie the opportunity to reach over with one of his tech claws. Despite getting the mask untied and practically falling off of the eldest’s face, Raph still managed to catch it in his mouth and bolt for it.
Leo leaned up and whispered to Mikey again “Hey, hey, you let me stay in, and we can all dogpile and Raph, deal? I’ll take the spikes so you and Donnie don’t gotta get poked.” Miked considered the idea for a moment before helping Leo to his feet. The two of them shared mirrored grins before charging at the snapping turtle who had only just managed to get his mask back on.
Leo leapt onto Raph’s back, clinging to him and easily untying the bandana while Mikey came in from the front, snatching the mask right off of the oldest turtle’s face…
Big mistake.
Raph panicked suddenly, violently throwing both of his brothers off of him as he let out a gut wrenching scream. Desperately, he tried to cover his left eye where the scars from his Krang-possesion still stood out a pale white against his green skin.
Their moment of brief happiness was shattered as both Leo and Donnie rushed to their older brother’s side, trying to comfort him. Mikey was left absolutely frozen out of guilt and fear.
“I-I’m sorry. It was an accident, I didn’t mean to-”
“We know, Mikey, just- fuck. You really need to be more careful next time,” leo scolded as he wrapped his arms around the snapping turtle as best as he could, “I know it was an accident, but next time please.”
The box turtle looked down, feeling on the verge of tears. Of all the people that could lecture him, honestly, he was expecting Donnie or even Raph once he came to again… but not Leo. Not now.
“I was just trying to… have some fun…” Mikey mumbled. He felt so small, so stupid in the moment. He felt a deep pit of disgust with himself settling in his stomach that just grew deeper and deeper.
But then again… he supposed that this was worth it too. As long as Leo was actually helping with something and not just sitting in his room depressed and despondent like he had been the day just before. At least he had managed to get his brothers together like they used to. In the end, he’d done good… hadn’t he?
“Why don’t you wait in the other room. You can come talk things over with Raph once we’ve calmed him down a little bit.”
On Leo’s orders, Mikey did leave. Later, when he finally did apologize to his biggest brother, Raph had been more than happy to accept his apology, of course he was. He always was extremely forgiving whenever any of his little brothers messed up. To Mikey, it wasn’t that the moment felt… insincere or anything when his brother was forgiving him. To be honest, Mikey had almost hoped that he would be mad.
“It’s okay, Little man, just be more careful next time. I know you didn’t mean it. Honestly, other than that, today was fun! Really fun! I’m glad that you suggested the game,” Those words from Raph stuck with Mikey the whole rest of the night. In a way, he was happy when he heard them. They’d had fun. They’d been happy again even if it was for a few brief moments.
That’s what Mikey took from everything once he was lying in his hammock that night. He lay awake, just staring up at the ceiling above as he tried to relax. Next to the hammock were several tick marks on the wall in pale pink chalk.
The box turtle turned to face them, frowning a bit as he added another tick.
“Day 152, still not back to normal…” He mumbled to himself, “We’re getting better though, I think. A lot better. It won’t be long now, I hope.”
For the first time that day, Mikey let himself seemingly deflate. Even when he had been apologizing to Raph, he had been his usual high energy self, but here in the safety of his own room where nothing and no one could touch him, he let the mask slip.
In that moment, it looked like he had aged about forty years, his shoulders slouching and his face going almost expressionless. He sighed, smearing the chalk as he ran his hand over the markings.
He let his mind wander off, fixating on every sign that nothing was getting better, Raph’s breakdown, Leo’s limp, Donnie’s even colder and more distant demeanor from earlier in the day. Even their dads, Splinter and Draxum, were constantly heard at night, waking up with starts, screaming as they were presented with visions of their sons dying or worse.
That’s when Mikey’s eyes fell on his own arms.
Scars like cracks ran the entire length of both appendages, seared into his skin like they had been pressed there with the hottest of irons. The memory of the pain that rushed through them as he had tried to keep the portal open for Leo during their last battle was burned into his mind. Just the thought of what had happened was enough to make his hands start shaking again.
At least today, he’d almost made a better memory with that same power, right? For him, and his brothers. He just- he just had to keep it up. Like Raph said, they’d had fun, they’d been happy in a way that they hadn’t felt in months. They were getting better… right?
Tears started to gather in Mikey’s eyes not just from the memories… but from everything. These were real tears, not the overdramatic ones that he always put on in front of his brothers. He only allowed a couple to drip down his cheeks before steeling himself. There was no time for feeling sorry for himself now. He had to find more ways to bring back the light in his brothers’ eyes. If he could do nothing else for their family, this would be his contribution.
Maybe they did see him as childish for the things that he loved or the games that he planned, but that was fine. As long as he was helping them heal, he would deal with making himself feel stupid and ‘Kiddy’.
It would all be worth it in the end, all to see them smile again.