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“So… you’re just gonna leave it in there?”
Mikey’s collarbone throbbed underneath the mess of white bandages wrapped around his shoulder and torso. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it really wasn’t the greatest feeling. If it wasn’t so dang dark in Donnie’s lab, he might have actually been able to see the slight bump where the bullet had burrowed into his body, but of course, it was practically pitch black. Sure, there was the fluorescent medical light installed above the operating table where he lay, but even still, the bandages themselves hurt to look at with how they reflected back into Mikey’s eyes. A lose-lose situation. Well, maybe he could just pretend that the bullet wasn’t there, in that case. Out of sight, out of collarbone.
They had been out on patrol, a typical Saturday night activity. The air had been warm and the city loud, cars honking and sirens wailing - about as ordinary as New York could get. But of course, crime was also commonplace enough, and it wasn’t too long before Raph spotted a group of men huddled in a back alley. The turtles had hovered over them, heads peeking out from above rooftops and weapons at the ready, watching the criminals exchange suitcases. One was full of what must have been hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills, and the other contained bricks of a white, powdery substance. Despite the best wishes of his brothers, Mikey had spoken.
Hey, Leo. They must be doing a lot of baking with all that powdered sugar.
Leo only flicked his eyes sternly over to his younger brother in response, opting to keep silent under such serious circumstances. Despite the unamused glare, Mikey knew that Leo found it funny. He usually did. Raph had a more animated response and rolled his eyes.
Donnie had matched Leo’s reply in energy, and jammed a finger up in front of his lips angrily. Keep quiet. Now it was Mikey’s turn to roll his eyes. He already knew to keep his voice down - that’s why he had whispered his joke! Jeez, what’s the point in busting a drug deal if you couldn’t have a good time while doing it?
With a flick of his wrist, Leo gestured for the other three to follow his lead.
Two men were already down before the criminals even had time to react. Despite the violence, the turtles were almost completely silent, a stark contrast to their counterparts. Terrified, angry shouts came from each one of them as they were approached by tall, green figures, bearing glinting weapons and masked faces. Mouths agape as they scrambled for pistols and switchblades, Leo landed a few hard kicks to their chests and Raph jammed the handle of his sais down onto the top of their heads. As the suitcases dropped from frightened hands, Donnie picked them up and tossed them both into a nearby dumpster, then pulled out his phone.
A quick call to the police and we’ll be out of here, thought Mikey, watching Donnie type the number into his device. The young turtle nudged the shoulder of one of the fallen criminals with his foot. The man didn’t move, but Mikey knew that he would be fine. Splinter had trained them to never kill or maim, just to render unconscious or temporarily immobile.
Thinking about it, this was one of their bigger catches on patrol since their master had passed away almost two years ago. He would have been proud of them when they had returned home, telling tales and cracking jokes about their night out. But… the lair would be empty when they got back, as it had been since their father fell sick.
Everyone had suffered upon Splinter’s death. Suddenly, Leo had to find a full-time job online to keep groceries in the fridge, and Donnie lost the casual smile he usually wore. Raph was so easy to anger now, too: on bad days, if you looked at him wrong, he’d take it as a sign to throw a punch. Of course, everyone had suffered emotionally, but Mikey’s mental wellbeing had truly plunged. Even now, fresh, bloodied marks lay just underneath his wrist wrap, hidden from prying eyes by several layers of gauze.
Self-harm certainly wasn’t the greatest outlet, but at least he hadn’t taken to drugs and alcohol, right?
With the men now all laying prone, Leo was busy securing them to the same dumpster Donnie had thrown the suitcases into. It was the same song and dance as usual: the turtles would tie up the bad guys to prevent escape, they’d hightail it out of there, and then leave the rest to the cops. It was easiest that way, and much more fun, too - imagine having to face the guys you’d knocked out. Not a good time.
Donnie had just finished up his phone call when a burst of pain exploded in Mikey’s shoulder. The scream he let out was both in agony and in alarm, and he stumbled backwards as blood began to spurt from the wound, coating his chest and the alley wall. That was a bullet. That was absolutely a bullet.
Catching a glimpse of a weary man with a pistol raised, apparently one of the guys Leo had yet to tie up, Mikey’s vision clouded. The last thing he heard was the terrified shouting of his brothers.
Donnie heaved a sigh, snapping Mikey out of his thoughts. He watched his older brother drag his hand down his face and peer out at him through spread fingers. Mikey could tell that his teeth were clenched, even though they were hidden behind a blue surgical mask.
“As ridiculous as it might sound to leave a bullet in, yeah, it’s for the best.”
Well, that did sound ridiculous. Mikey turned his mouth upwards in confusion, brows furrowing. “For the best? Aren’t I gonna get, like… lead poisoning?”
Donnie shook his head, tugging down his mask with a finger and hooking it along the underside of his chin. Okay, yeah - those teeth were definitely clenched.
“No, no lead poisoning. The bullet’s made of steel. And anyways, a gun is hardly dangerous without a bullet, and a bullet’s nothing without a gun. It’s embedded below your collarbone and it’s done its job: it pierced your skin and caused you to pass out. There’s nothing more that it can do, or will do.”
Mikey’s face only became more scrunched as he processed Donnie’s words. “But like… can you take it out? I don’t really want it there.” As he spoke, Mikey began to sit up. Careful to use his good arm, the paper on the operating table crinkled underneath the teen as he adjusted himself into an upright position. Donnie leaned forward to offer assistance, but Mikey shook his head to wave him off. Apparently dissatisfied with his little brother’s refusal for help, Donnie pursed his lips, but otherwise made no other indication of his displeasure. Instead, he leaned further back into his desk, supporting himself with his hands, legs crossed at the ankles.
“I mean, yes, I could take it out. However, that would introduce a risk of sepsis, excessive bleeding, and additional scarring, for instance. It’s… actually more of a risk to remove the bullet. Your body should grow scar tissue around it under normal circumstances, which I’m praying these are, and that’s hopefully it. You might have the bullet visible under your collarbone as a lump, but other than that, you’ll be fine.”
Mikey gave a quick, contemplative hum in response, and bent his head downwards to eye the place where the little steel intruder lay. He couldn’t see it even now, despite the fact that he was now out of the direct glare of the medical light. Probably for the best - if it was visible, he definitely would have poked at it. He gave a quick laugh.
“Well, I guess we’d better hope that no one ever tries to find us using a metal detector - we’d sure be in trouble, then. You could even start calling me Nickel-angelo.”
Mikey expected to see, at minimum, a begrudging smile on his older brother’s face in response to his frankly hilarious jokes. Instead, Donnie only met him with a hard stare. His lips were still drawn into that thin line and his eyes looked like they could bore holes through metal. It was silent for just a second too long, which was when Mikey spoke.
“... Dee? You alright?”
Donnie’s brow somehow lowered further. “I… you’re taking this remarkably well, Mikey. You got shot. I don’t even know if that’s fully registered with you yet, but even still, no normal 15 year old should be making jokes about a bullet embedded in their body only an hour after it happened.”
Mikey moved to shrug and winced as he aggravated his wound. He could hear Donnie swallow.
“Well… we’re not normal, Donnie. Getting shot, getting stabbed, that’s all part of the game. I’m honestly surprised that it didn't happen sooner,” Mikey attempted another casual gesture, giving a small smile in place of a shrug. “It’s okay, really.”
Donnie only stared at him. His eyes were just as intense as before Mikey attempted to defend himself, but now his posture was stiff, too. Hands gripped the desk with enough force to turn his knuckles a shade of pale green, and his ankles were uncrossed, feet braced against the tile floor.
“Raph and Leo are outside the lab door this exact second, waiting to hear if that bullet pierced your subclavian artery, your lung, or your heart. Somehow, by a miracle, it hit nothing life-threatening. Look, just… imagine if this had happened to Leo, for instance. Would it be okay then?”
“What? No. Leo’s our leader. That would suck ass.”
“Okay, well, what if it was Raph, or me? Would it be okay then?”
What the hell was this? The dark atmosphere, the singular light, the apparently very angry turtle across from him. It made Mikey feel like he had committed some terrible crime, and some cop was trying to get him to fess up. He gritted his teeth, beginning to match Donnie’s intensity as he fired back.
“What are you doing? Is this some sort of interrogation?”
“It doesn’t fucking have to be. Why are you okay with getting shot, Mikey?”
“Like I said, it’s part of the job. I don’t understand why-”
The sound of Donnie slamming his fist down onto the operating table stunned Mikey into silence.
“Because bullet wounds should send anyone into a state of panic, at the bare minimum! You got shot, passed out, woke up in my lab covered in bandages, and all you have to tell me is that it’s okay!?”
Mikey sat completely frozen, eyes wide. Donnie’s chest was heaving, eyes alight with some sort of fire Mikey had never seen before. He was inches away from his little brother’s face, and specks of blood from the night’s misadventures were visible in small clusters along one side of his mask.
A hiccup in a project, burned scrambled eggs, whatever - Donnie got irritable pretty easily and it wasn’t uncommon to have him snap at his brothers when they bugged him. He would cross his arms, put on his headphones, throw a casual insult over his shoulder, and storm off… and that was usually it. Mikey had only ever seen him get physically angry when Splinter had died a few years ago. Losing a brother wasn’t as serious as losing your father… right?
Right?
As if someone had flipped a switch, the tension in Donnie’s limbs suddenly disappeared, the fire in his eyes extinguished within the same breath. Brows unfurrowed and steep glower morphed into an anxious frown as his demeanor slipped away from anger to concern.
“Shit, Mikey. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,”
Mikey realized that he was shaking his head. “I’m not… I’m not crying.”
Donnie only pulled his younger brother into a hug, surging forward. A great contrast to the temperature of the cold operating table, Donnie’s hug was warm, pressing Mikey as tight as he could against him. His wound pulsed at the action, but Mikey didn’t mention it. Donnie spoke again, his voice strained.
“Mikey, I… I was terrified. You passed out almost as soon as the bullet hit, and… from a distance, it looked like… it really looked like…”
If Mikey wasn’t crying before, he was now. Tears began to prick his eyes until his waterline could no longer contain them, and they slipped down his cheeks, dripping off his chin and dotting Donnie’s shoulder. His brother’s neck was warm as Mikey buried his head forward, almost unconscious of bringing his arms up to wrap around the other’s shell.
“I’m s-so sorry, Dee. I didn’t mean to scare you, and I do care. I… I didn’t want to get shot,” Here, he gave a weak laugh. “Who wants to get shot? I guess… I was just glad that it was me and not any of you.”
Mikey felt Donnie shake his head against his shoulder.
“Doesn’t matter, Mike. It happened, and I can’t understand why you don’t seem to care,” He gently pulled back out of the hug, but only just so that he was able to look his brother in the eye. Donnie’s features were carved out with lines of fear and concern, aging him a decade under the harsh lighting.
“Please, tell me if there’s something wrong. Is… there something wrong?”
It was as quiet in the lab as it was dark. The gloom and silence seemed to go hand-in-hand together, and Mikey couldn’t have asked for a worse place to be interrogated about his mental wellbeing. He was fine enough. Truly. The occasional suicidal thought here and a bloody line from a razor blade there never killed anybody. Well, okay, that was completely untrue, but really, it was fine enough. He was still standing, still training, and still making dinner seven nights a week, and his brothers were none the wiser.
But, then again, Donnie never looked scared. When Splinter got sick, he just looked tired, and when he died, he just looked exhausted. But… never scared. Donnie was usually difficult to truly ruffle. Raphael liked to joke that he was some sort of robot that could “shut down the emotional part of his brain,” and while Donnie always rolled his eyes, Mikey almost agreed. Don was good at focusing on the necessary and setting the “unnecessary” to the side until he had time to process.
So… scared was new.
Mikey forced himself to swallow, throat dry. Donnie watched him steadily, hands braced on either of his little brother’s shoulders. Raising his arms up to brush Donnie’s hands off of him, Mikey smiled.
“I’m okay, Dee. I promise.”
Donnie didn’t move, save to instead place his hands on either side of Mikey on the operating table. He was still only a breath away from his little brother. “Are you sure?”
“Am I green?”
Mikey knew that his joke wouldn’t land, but an attempt to lighten the atmosphere was better than nothing. Besides, anything to get Donnie more than ten inches away from his face was a godsend, and Mikey was starting to pray for personal space. Too bad Donnie was the protective sort.
By a miracle, his older brother gave a defeated sigh, closing his eyes and stepping away from the table. He backed up until his shell hit the desk, where he leaned and eyed Mikey for a final time.
“... Okay. Just… if there’s anything, anything at all, do you promise to tell me? Or Leo, or Raph?”
In the dark of the lab, lying through his teeth, Mikey gave a slow nod. He smiled.
“I promise.”