Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The crowd surges with energy as Leonardo runs alongside the wall, dodging the laser breath of the dragon yokai. Leo grins broadly, "Woo! Talk about bad breath!" He snarks.

The yokai growls and dashes towards Leo with swords drawn. Leo doesn't move, glaring down the opponent with an eerie glee. The swords clash dramatically, the yokai struggling to keep up with Leo dancing around. He sidesteps the yokai and slashes downwards. The yokai screams as his arm falls off; in the moment of pain and agony, Leo pierces through the yokai’s chest.

The crowd sings, and Leo almost feels okay. He tries to smile at the crowd as red petals fall from the crowd. The announcer is a dull drone in the background, announcing yet another victory from the one and only Leonardo. His door opens, probably egotistical to think of it as his door, when it only opens to the winner. He smiles and waves to the crowd; the second the door closes behind him the mask drops and reveals that Leo is utterly exhausted. “Good job out there.” One of the guards says with a passive smile, “You took good care of him.”

Leo silently hands over his bloodstained odachi and collapses on the plush couch. A tall yokai with a gas mask sits down next to Leo—Dr. Bibo, or Dr. Stormrake as he prefers. Dr. Bibo tsks, looking over Leo before holding out a clawed hand. That’s what Leo liked about Bibo, he waits. Leo sighs and throws up a leg to Bibo’s lap. Bibo pulls up the pant leg and says, “Warning,” before poking at Leo’s knee.

There’s a slight tinge of pain; its healing a little bit. Bibo looks at Leo. “Any pain?”

Leo shakes his head. Bibo tilts his head, the hoses connected to his gasmask wobbling from the motion. “Not up for banter today, are you?”

Leo hums a vague affirmative. Bibo imitates the sound and turns back to Leo’s leg. “It’s healing up fine, as I’m sure you realize. I still recommend wearing your leg brace when outside of battle, and I’ll check on it next week.”

A pause for Leo to comment, but he remains silent. Leo knows it’s unintentional, not an attempt to get Leo to speak, just a part of the rhythm that he and Bibo have. Bibo hums to himself and sets his leg down, holding out his hand. Leo gives Bibo his hand, and the yokai looks over the skinned palms. He sets his bag on his lap, pulling out antiseptic and a swab. As he preps the swab he mutters, “Sting.”

Leo hisses through his teeth, the sharp sting of the antiseptic on his palms. “It’ll heal by tomorrow,” Bibo says, “Tell me if it doesn’t.”

Bibo pokes at the bruise forming on his shoulders, tittering to himself as he cleans up the small scrapes and bruises all over Leo and stands up. “Very few injuries today. I hope you left some of the body for me to use.” Bibo offers his hand to Leo, who uses it as a support to stand up.

Bibo wipes his hands on his dress (Leo refuses to call it a robe) and walks out. Leo watches him leave, wanting to call out a half remembered question before the door shuts behind him. Leo sighs, pulling off his shirt and throwing it at a guard as he steps into the bathroom. He closes the curtain and lets himself go blank. One of the guards steps into the bathroom. Leo watches the blood pour off of him, circling around the drain in a slow pattern. The hot water against his shell giving him a wonderful relief as his shoulders untense. “Hurry up,” the guard groans.

Leo huffs to himself. Cleaning up the rest of himself, he turns off the shower and holds out a hand to the guard. The guard hands him his clothes: a denim jacket with a hoodie, his knee brace, and a pair of ripped up jeans. He dresses himself inside the shower and opens the curtains. The guard holds out a pair of boots and his phone, and Leo really does not have the energy to do shoes today. So he pockets his phone and walks out of the bathroom, slamming open the door, some of the guards flinching at the noise. The captain of the guard gestures with her hands, not sign language but closer to a radio signal. Leo guesses that she’s telling them “Follow him at a distance of so and so feet.” Yada yada yada, Leo’s done with this stupid plush room.

He leaves it, hands in his pockets as he walks the memorized route. He remembers when they used to blindfold him to get there, but after enough times, he knew it by heart. One time Big Mama asked him how he managed, and he told her he did it by vibes alone. Hehe, the look on her face when he told her that. A familiar click clack of spidery legs on tile, and Leo sighs. Speak of the devil and she’ll arrive. He turns to face Big Mama, being tailed by her own personal guard. She coos, pinching his cheeks. “Oh, look at my smiggy wiggums! Doing such a good job in the arena! He barely laid a scratch on you!”

Leo remains stone faced and silent. Big Mama smiles. “Now, my dearest turtley-boo. Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

Leo doesn’t respond.

“Dearie, we both know that you can’t hide anything from me. You’re becoming dull. Boring. When was the last time that you threw a head into the crowd, hmm? When was the last time that you made the opponent a fool of themselves? Tell me, what’s wrong.”

Leo stares up at her. Face blank. He’s not telling her shit.

She smiles at him, singsonging “If you don’t tell me, I might need to take away privileges.”

Leo’s eyes widened in horror. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, but we’re talking about necessity here darling." She says lowly "What if you’re sick, we can’t risk him getting ill? I mean, you love your brother, don’t you?”

Leo wants to snarl and rip and shred this woman apart for the sheer implication of what she’s saying, but he puts his emotions deep in his chest and breathes. She can’t do this, this is strictly against what the deal was, there’s no amount of fine print that she could make up out of thin air that could change that. It doesn’t matter if Leo was bound to the medical wing, dead or dying, he would find a way to see his brother. He needs a rebuttal, to prove to her that even if he was sick that was not going to become a clause in their deal. Leo’s phone rings a familiar pop tune and he almost breathes a sigh of relief. He pulls it out of his pocket, and answers it. "Hey, Mikey," Leo croaks.

“Sooooo, I know that you need your me time after a fight, I get it, I get it. But man are you taking a long time. I know you didn’t get seriously injured, I watched the fight and you beat that guy in under thirty minutes, he could not lay a hand on you!" Mikey rambles.

"Is it your knee? Is your knee flaring up? Did Bibo finally reveal himself to be super evil and take your kneecaps? Because I swear that I was gonna be the one to do it!” Mikey jokes.

“Yeah, and we still don’t know what he does with the bodies.” Leo smirks.

A conspiratorial gasp. “And we still don’t know what he does with the bodies.” Mikey giggles, continuing, “Anyways, what is taking you so long?”

“Oh, Big Mama just wanted to talk to me,” Leo says nonchalantly.

“Ugh! Can’t she talk to you later! I need you now and she is not going to delay my brother time.” Mikey groans.

Leo sideeyes Big Mama, knowing she can hear Mikey’s side of the phone. Nobody wants to see Mikey in a pissy mood. He mutters, “Yeah, yeah, just what I was saying. I’ll be there soon.”

Mikey growls, “You better.”

The call hangs up. Leo looks at her with a smug look. Big Mama narrows her eyes at him and says, “We’re not done here.”

Leo shrugs and walks past her. Because, according to Mikey, they are done.

He opens the door to Mikey's room, looking up for his brother. Tall ceilings with walls covered in colorful murals and silks, Leo sees a head pop out from one of the many hammocks and curtains and a shout: "There you are!"

Mikey descends from the elevation fluidly. Leo keeps his stance wide as Mikey barrels into Leo from above, pulling him into a tight hug while churring and rubbing his face against Leo's plastron. Leo squeezes Mikey, pulling Mikey off his feet slightly. Mikey giggles and wiggles out of Leo's grasp.

He lets Mike go and Mikey flaps his hands before breathing deeply, trying to get the energy under control. Mikey grabs Leo's hand and announces, "Okay! Okay, I need to show you something."

Mikey pulls Leo to where two couches were pushed to face each other, effectively making a little nest. He steps onto the ottoman, onto the couch, and flops down. Leo throws himself up into the nest as Mikey sorts through his mess before pulling out an ipad. Leo hugs one of Mikey's squishmallows as Mikey goes through his art stuff. He leans against Leo, putting the ipad on top of the squishmallow. Leo takes a moment to analyze the drawings in front of him and frowns.

It's him. With long exaggerated bright blue tails of his mask, to his stripes hovering off his body. It's him, versus three deer yokai, in various thumbnails. His match for next month. Mikey's chin sits on his shoulder. "Mama said I could help with advertisement. The composition was a lil hard to manage due to the opponent, like I think a three man team is just in bad taste, four's a much easier number. Since I need to accentuate that there's three of them I cant smoosh em all together, it's all about readability here but a rectangle is a poor composition shape but if I futzed with it turned into a diamond, much more of your shape and these are some of the concepts I came up with and I wanted to review them with you to make sure I get your good side."

Leo looks down at the drawings, holding the ipad close to him, an unreadable feeling in his gut. "It's…good. Mikey."

Mikey grows concerned. "Which one do you like?"

"It—" doesn't matter. "It all-all looks good." Leo discards the ipad to his side.

Mikey reaches over and grabs the ipad, shutting the case. "It's okay. We don't need to do this now. Let's go watch some tv, okay?"

Leo grunts a vague affirmative. Turning towards the tv. It's not in the best spot in Leo's opinion, with the window sending a harsh glare on the screen, but he doesn't say anything. Mikey climbs into his nets and silks above, dropping a blanket down on the nest with a thunk. Leo wraps it around himself, watching the swaying as Mikey hops from bit to bit. He slides down his aerial silks onto the squishy ground below it, holding a bag full of snacks.

Leo feels a brief bit of guilt, how Mikey hides his food in stashes like this. But it's also slightly endearing, for Mikey to pull food out of an improbable place. Mikey settles himself next to Leo, before remembering that the remote is too far away so he gets up, standing on the couch, and grabs it without ever touching the ground.

"Whaddya wanna watch?" Mikey asks, leaning against Leo.

Leo grunts.

Mikey replies, "Ah, yes, Komi Can't Communicate. Understood."

Mikey turns on the TV and navigates towards the sweet slice of life anime. It’s a comfort to watch, and eventually Leo dozes off.

Leo wakes up to the guards coming in and mentally berates himself for sleeping through his entire visit with his brother. Leo waves off the grabbing hands and stands up himself. Mikey says, “Calm down y’all, my brother can stand by himself. Let him get up.”

Leo’s on his feet and affectionately bonks heads with Mikey. The guards take Leo away to his cold concrete cell. He lays down on the hard mattress and stares at the ceiling. He cant sleep now, physically he is not being allowed to sleep. So he stares up at the ceiling, pulling up his memories and thoughts and stories. He's not asleep, but he's not aware, which is the goal.

Chapter Text

Mikey’s leg hangs off of the hammock, staring at his decorated ceiling. It was a pain to create, and he will never do fresco ever again. Mama loves it, naturally; she loves everything he makes. One time she took him to her office and he saw that she had a mug he made when he was eight. It was horrific, he almost fainted from embarrassment because it was so, so bad. He made a new mug to replace it, but Mama keeps both of them much to his chagrin.

He’s bored, but everyone is so busy. Everyone is always so busy. Mama told him she was talking to some important advertisement and promised him that she was showing off his concepts to them. But he didn’t know if he believed that. Leo was training and wouldn’t be back for a few days.

Mikey flaps his hand, irritated, and drops down a level, the silk swinging as he adjusts his weight. He already went through his aerial silk routine; he sketched out an area for him to paint on a mural, though it was an entire process that took way too long because he couldn’t get the damn shapes right.

He climbs over to his aerial silks and drops down to the cushioned floor. He checks the clock on his wall, partially illegible from the charming paint splatters on it. Mikey figures it to be close enough and knocks at the door and opens it to face both of his guards. Currently being Foxface and Cathead. Mikey pops his head out of his room. “Is it lunch yet?”

“Your food will be brought soon, Michelangelo.” Foxface mutters.

“Pft, nah, I’m good, but are you hungry?” Mikey asks, putting his hands behind his back and acting all cute. “I’m fixing on making y’all some of that good stuff. To thank you for everything you do.”

Foxface and Cathead look at eachother, Mikey jumps in between them to interrupt their nonverbal communication. He ups his voice a few octaves to make himself cuter. “C'mon! You two can be my sous chefs! It’ll be sooooo fun.”

He wiggles out from between them, already outside of his room. Neither of them seem to have realized this yet, so Mikey hits them with his killer move: puppy dog eyes. Cathead says, d’awwww, and Foxface huffs quietly, averting his eyes, trying to resist the power of the puppy dog eyes. Mikey throws his arms around Foxface. “Please? I can make pork chops,” He singsongs.

Foxface’s ears go down, and Mikey grins, knowing he’s won a hundred and ten percent. Mikey dances in excitement, “C’mon! Let’s go!”

The guards follow Mikey skipping to the kitchen; the one used to make all the meals for the gladiators was less frequented then the main kitchen so he went there. The guards mutter to themselves about how Mama is probably going to kill them, but how can they say no to her beloved son? Mikey giggles to himself; of course they can’t say no to him, he learned from the best! She’d still be mad if she ever found out though, which she won’t.

Mikey washes his hands, Foxface and Cathead standing off to the side as Mikey begins the meal prep. He said they could be his sous chefs, but they know better after last time. They chat amicably amongst themselves as Mikey hums to himself, occasionally adding a few flourishes as he dances around the kitchen. He wouldn’t have to keep doing this if they added a kitchen to his room, but nooo Mama had to be overprotective. Mikey can take care of himself, thank you very much. He takes a deep breath, not letting the bad vibes ruin his food—he’s too good for that. He sticks the pork chops in the oven and throws together a charcuterie board for them both to munch on while Mikey works on the rest of the meal. He wasn’t lying when he said he was making food to thank them, it also just worked as bribery to not tell Mama.

He pulls up a risotto recipe on his phone and begins making one, prepping all the ingredients and turning his brain off for a moment—just following the steps and keeping enough attention to make sure everything goes right. He waltzes into the pantry, not bothering to turn on the light, and takes a cup from the massive barrel of rice, realizing it smells weird. Mama detests pests, there’s no way she would let an infestation take hold of her precious gladiators. He leans closer to the rice, opening his mouth to let the smell hit the roof of his mouth so he can smell/taste it. It’s not the rice, it's something that smells bitter and salty. Something isn’t right.

Mikey sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Something inside Mikey’s chest jolts and his nictitating membranes close. He lowers his head, and listens. To the faint creak of the walls and floors. He watches. The wall distorts in a bulging sort of way and Mikey lunges. Jars clatter as they both fall to the floor, invisibility flickering out as Mikey bites into the reptilian intruder. His claws sink into their arms as he holds on, they flail and thunk their feet against Mikey’s plastron, trying to kick him off. Mikey shifts his weight, flipping over the intruder and about to bite into the intruder’s neck when— “Michelangelo, what’s happening in there?” calls Foxface.

The reptilian headbutts Mikey right in the jaw at his moment of distraction, popping to their feet and running out of the darkened pantry, invisibility flickering back on. Mikey hops into a sprint, running after the intruder, his guards running after him. He finds the characteristic warp and pushes the intruder into the wall. The invisibility flickering as they slash at Mikey with their own claws. Mikey hisses, grabbing at the intruder until suddenly he’s being pulled back and up. Instinctively, he goes into his shell, the hinge closeing behind him. He hears the muffled hiss of Cathead, “What the hell do you think are doing?”

His shell is shaken a little. Cathead complains, “You little shit! You knew somebody was in the pantry, didn’t you! Why didn’t you call us? We’re your guards!”

Mikey can feel himself being carried and hears a door being opened. He’s sat down somewhere and hears the whirring of machinery. Mikey’s heart rate slows and his nictitating membrane slides back into place. He emerges from his shell. His jaw acheing. He's in his room, put in one of his beanbags. He turns his head and Cathead winces, struggling not to touch the wound on the side of Mikey’s face. Mikey is beginning to feel it now, the sting and faint sensation of blood trailing down his face. “Don’t worry.'' Mikey remembers something Leo told him, “Headwounds just bleed a lot. I’m fine.”

Mikey looks from side to side, seeing bars are over the windows, and the lights are dimmed. They’re on lockdown. “Where’s the intruder?”

“Foxface is going after them, called in a bunch of reinforcements. Told me to get you back here.” Cathead explains, “Where do you keep medkits in here? I know you have them for your brother.”

Mikey stands up and hesitates, not wanting to reveal the location in fear that they might be taken away. Blood drips off his jaw, rolling onto his plastron. Cathead puts a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, “Let me do it.”

“Don’t touch me.” Mikey spits.

Cathead lets go of Mikey cautiously. Mikey sighs, “Close your eyes.”

Cathead blinks uselessly.

Mikey is beginning to get a little annoyed. “Close your eyes,” he says more insistently.

Cathead closes his eyes. Mikey gets the medkit from underneath the nest and plops right back down next to Cathead. “Can you get me some pillows?” Mikey asks.

Cathead opens his eyes and asks “Where are they?”

Mikey points upwards and Cathead sighs. Cathead obediently climbs up into the silken rafters of Mikey’s room and throws down a few pillows as Mikey treats himself for the most part. There's really a lot of blood, he absentmindedly wipes it off on one of his many blankets as he opens the medkit. He hisses as he cleans it up with antiseptic and puts on a few brightly colored bandages on his face and other places for fun. Cathead jumps down from the ceiling and asks, “Is that all?”

Mikey nods. “Yeah.”

Cathead sits down next to Mikey. They’re both going to be here a while. A moment of silence passes. Mikey asks, “Does it look good?”

Cathead tilts his head to get a better look and says, “Yeah, it looks good.”

A beat passes.

Cathead asks “Why did you attack the intruder without telling us?”

Mikey breathes, considering his words carefully. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know!” Big Mama roars, slamming her fists into her desk.

Mikey repeats himself, “I don’t know.”

Big Mama folds in onto herself, “I let my son have these little kitchen excursions. Look at him! He’s learning how to cook! How proud I must be! Then he goes and gets himself mutilated-” so she did know about his little chef adventures “-for who knows how long!”

Mikey says, “It was just a few scratches. You should’ve seen what I did to the other guy.”

“It doesn’t matter that it’s just a few scratches! My little boy is still hurt!” She cups his face with a hand, though he jerks away.

“I’m not a little boy! I’m thirteen!” Mikey cries.

Big Mama pinches his cheek painfully, hissing through clenched teeth. “Thirteen is not old enough to go hunt down intruders unsupervised.”

Big Mama turns around, massaging her temples from all the stress. Mikey yells, “You’d let Leo take them on!”

“That’s because Leonardo is a trained champion, my dearest turtley-boo. He doesn’t lose,” Big Mama explains, a look of disgust at the mere concept of Leo losing.

“Then why won’t you let me train with Leo!? We could both be gladiators! I'd be stronger, safer, then. We could do so much for you,” Mikey begs.

Big Mama looks at him through narrowed eyes. “You have no idea what you are asking for, Michelangelo.”

Mikey snarls, “Then tell me!”

Big Mama sighs, “What I am going to tell you is that you are grounded mister! No tv, guards tripled, vents sealed, you are not leaving your room till you’ve learned your lesson.”

Mikey huffs, anger rolling in his mouth, wanting to fight and argue. He pulls back, realizing there’s nothing he can do in this situation. They’re both upset and Mama has information that she won’t give. This conversation isn’t going to go anywhere productive. He turns and leaves, not letting any of the guards touch him. He can walk back to his own damn room himself. He doesn’t need anybody’s help.

Chapter Text

Leo finds multi-wave fights like this satisfying. Slice down his opponents, tastefully lead them on so he can kill them in the shape of a dick, make knowing glances at the audience members who realize what he’s done. Carefully put a finger to his beak to shoosh them about it as they struggle to contain their giggles.

He smiles at the crowd, feeling as if he is watching himself three inches from behind his head. He’s not a real person. But fake people can have a little bit of fun and make dick jokes. He’s dealing with five of the weird looking bug things, when a sixth pops out of the ground and begins heading for Leo. He pushes the horde of five to the side with his odachi and kicks the bugoid so hard it’s head flies off into the stands. The audience screams in horror and delight. Leo thinks to himself suck on that Big Mama.

He jumps up on a half wall, sheathing his sword as he looks down at the bugoids who hiss and crawl after him. He leaps across to a hole in a wall, rolling to keep the momentum and pulling out his odachi. He now has the bugoids split, a smaller group coming from each side of the wall. He slashes them down, kicking them up onto his shoulder to join his totally non-dick shaped pile.

The announcer bird shows up on screen, who seems to be hiding the fact that he knows that the pile of bugoids is dick shaped, announcing that Leonardo has beat the previous record for surviving bugoid waves, set by the last champion Lou Jitsu. Leo grins wildly, his heart beating in his chest. He’s better than Lou Jitsu. He can't help but feel glee every time he's told that. He points his odachi at the scantrons, shouting “YOU HEAR THAT BATTLE NEXUS!”

The crowd roars at his voice, red petals falling from the stands as they hear him loud and clear. He’s surrounded by cheering and people that hang on to his every word, they love him, they really do.

As commemoration for this event, the tank bugoid is called up from the depths, one armored claw pulling itself up from the ground to have another join it. It’s head is extremely small compared to the rest of the body, meaning a smaller hitbox for headshots. Leo feels himself become a little bit more fake.

He wins naturally. He successfully hides his limp until the doors close behind him. His knee sends sharp pains whenever he puts pressure on it or bent it the wrong way, really he's just tired of his knee complaining. Knee is acting up because apparently it’s fair that a giant bug gets wind powers. Dr. Bibo is already waiting, holding a bonesaw in his offhand just casually. Y’know, as reputable doctors are known to do.

Leo collapses onto the couch, holding his leg up in the air, and says dramatically “Are we finally getting rid of it, doc?”

Bibo stands there for a minute, before looking at the bonesaw in hand. “No, no. This isn’t for you.” He stashes it away into his purse.

Leo curiously tilts his head at Bibo, not expecting an answer but asking “Whose it for then?”

Bibo boops Leo on the tip of his beak, earning him a little playful nip. Bibo retracts his finger just in time, grunting his disapproval “Nuh-uh, problem child. This is not something you should concern yourself with.”

Leo rolls his eyes, propping his head on his hand as Bibo sits next to him. Bibo hums to himself as he inspects Leo’s knee. A little reddened around the edges, probably inflamed from the change in air pressure. Leo says “Can’t you just give me an anti-inflammatory and be done with it?”

Bibo looks at Leo, though Leo can’t discern much from behind the gasmask. Once upon a time Bibo was creepy. Now Leo knows that Bibo’s first name is Bibo. Bibo tilts Leo’s chin up with a gloved hand, pondering his neck. “You can still talk. What joy. ” He says deadpan.

Leo blows a raspberry at him, and Bibo chuckles. “Yes, an anti-inflammatory it will be. It will be later acting, so it should begin working after you return to your cell.”

Bibo pulls out a syringe and pulls out the anti-inflammatory medication. Leo says “You could just give me a pill.”

“It is a mercy to your kidneys.” Bibo says, flicking the air bubbles out of the medication.

Bibo announces “Warning.” as he injects the medication.

Leo closes his eyes for the brief moment of injection, not wanting to see the syringe break through his scales. He doesn’t know if Bibo notices or cares. Bibo takes a breath of relief as if he was the one getting a shot. He rummages through his bag. “Anyways, you want to hear about the news, I assume.”

“Yes, please tell me what’s happening outside of my little shell.” Leo says.

Bibo pulls out a blue bandaid and puts it on Leo’s knee. “I’m sure you mean cell.”

“No, I don't Beebs.” Leo says with a grin.

Bibo looks at Leo with almost disappointment. “I will take your spleen one day.”

“And what a fine day it will be. Now give me the goss.” Leo beckons.

Bibo shakes his head, setting Leo’s leg down. “I don’t have a vomeronasal organ, it’s the nose behind your teeth as a reminder. I’m not planning on getting one anytime soon. I do not want to smell the nerve gas, personally.”

“What does your nerve gas smell like anyways?” Leo asks, handing Bibo his arm.

Bibo cleans a gash on Leo’s shoulder “I’m unsure. People haven’t exactly been around to tell me.”

“I could tell you.” Leo says as Bibo applies numbing ointment to the surrounding area.

“Leo, you would be paralyzed instantly.” Bibo says sternly though fondly, pulling a needle and thread out of his purse.

“I’m built differently though, you said so yourself.” Leo looks away as Bibo begins to stitch him up.

Bibo speaks “I’m unsure if your healing factor would lead to your being immune to my gasses,” his voice turns threatening “ if I hear a fart joke from you, I will embroider my name into your skin,” back to sweet and professional “,and Leonardo if it were really up to me I would’ve pinned you up on my wall already.”

It’s stuff like that that makes Mikey think Bibo’s going to dismember him one day. But Bibo’s been the best doctor Leo’s ever had, so Leo thinks it’d only be fair to give him his arm or something. “Wouldn’t my shell get in the way?” Leo asks, looking away from the stitching process.

“Oh you would have to be separated from your shell, that needs to go right next to you so I’d see all the delightful patterns.” Bibo explains.

Bibo knots up the stitch and says “Oh, that reminds me! I’ve heard that Big Mama has another turtle.”

Suddenly, Leo feels very very fake. Bibo's not supposed to know that. He’s a thousand miles behind himself, he can barely register himself as being there. He mentally stakes himself to the ground, pulling himself to ask in his normal voice “Oh, my. What have you heard?”

Bibo holds out a hand for Leo’s other arm and Leo gives it to him “Well, not much. There’s lots of hearsay and drama because people can tell that you and Big Mama bicker for a living. But I don’t think she’d replace you for anything. Anywho, they couldn’t get a picture so they had somebody draw one.”

“How did they figure out about this supposed mystery turtle?” Leo asks

“Oh, there’s a bunch of different stories.” Bibo waves his hand dismissively “It all honestly sounds a little yellow around the gills to me. But the one that sounds more realistic to me is that a person tried to infiltrate The Nexus and happened upon one mean, green, attack turtle.”

They did have a lockdown a few days ago, characteristic of an infiltration. Leo looks at Bibo “You sure it wasn’t just me having a fit?”

“From all the pictures, no it doesn’t look like you. Though it does look enough like you that I am surprised. I thought you were unique enough to not have such a thing.” Bibo says.

What the fuck does he mean by that? Leo laughs, adding a shade of envy to his tone, “What, did they have hair?”

Bibo shakes his head “No. They had spots. And strange markings on their plastron.”

Leo is going to have a long, long talk about this with Big Mama. Bibo patches up another cut on Leo and Leo stands up. “Are you all done?” Bibo asks politely, still sitting on the couch.

“Yeah.” Leo says stretching “Wanna go back to my cell and hallucinate myself to sleep.”

“I could give you a sleep aid.” Bibo offers.

“Nah, I doubt it’d work much on me.” Leo says, though his fear is that it would work too well.

Bibo shrugs, packing himself up. “Well take care.”

Bibo professionally pats Leo on the shoulder “I do have the rights to your body after you die. So try not to get too mutilated.”

Bibo leaves. One of the guards gasp “What the fuck is up with him?”

Leo laughs a bit nervously “You get used to it.”

“And this is the only doctor you like?” The guard says, exasperated

Leo smiles charmingly “He’s good at what he does. Plus I’m like, seventy percent sure he just says shit.”

“That’s not very sure.” The guard says, concerned.

“It’s sure enough.” Leo takes off his bloodied shirt and throws it at the guard.

Leo steps into the shower and begins planning his next moves. He punches the wall, cracks running up the porcelain. He’s terrified, the press knows about Mikey and they will eat him alive. He’s angry that Big Mama didn’t tell him; he had to find out during his gossip session with Bibo. He can’t let Big Mama know what Bibo told him. She probably wanted it to be kept a secret from him. Leo can say he overheard it from the guards. No, he needs to visit Mikey first, figure out how Mikey got exposed, then go to Big Mama after and say that he guessed it all from that situation. It’s a reasonable lie that effectively gets Big Mama off of Bibo’s back.

“Your hour’s up.” A guard says gruffly.

Leo turns off the shower, dries himself off and holds out a hand for his clothes. He dresses himself in the shower, same as yesterday, denim jacket with hoodie. He wraps up all of the injuries in white bandages, pulling it off as more of a fashion choice than an injury to his brother. He takes his phone and shoes, throwing on a pair of blue converse before walking out of the winner’s room with guards trailing behind him. What is he going to say to Big Mama? A part of him wants to go in and yell about the press knowing about Mikey. This would pull on the emotional heart strings, but Leo is not Big Mama’s favorite. He would have to stay in control of his emotions in order to get the information he needs. Maybe, if he’s lucky, she’ll be in good spirits to tell him information outright.

The first thing Leo notices is that there are six guards outside of Mikey’s room. Grounded? He’ll have to ask what Mikey did, maybe its involved with him being discovered. The guards let him in uncontested, and Leo sees Mikey going through an aerial silk routine. “Gimme a minute, I’m almost done.” Mikey says, six feet off the ground.

Leo climbs one of the ladders built into the wall, flipping himself onto a hammock. He looks up at the vent cover, seeing thick, uneven, caulking around it. Sealed vents, more guard activity. Leo looks behind him, to see that the tv has been removed entirely. This situation reeks of Mikey being grounded. For what, is the question?

Well, Leo has a vague idea. He passively watches Mikey twirl and twist in incredible ways, before climbing up his silks and jumping to the hammock above Leo. “Did they look for your stashes?” He asks

Mikey scoffs “Oh, you bet they did. Apparently, medkits and snack stashes are a privilege that can be taken away. Psh, they underestimate me.”

“Do you know what you did?” Leo asks, stretching his bad leg out to relax.

Mikey hangs his head off the hammock “Yeah, but Mama told me not to tell you.”

A red flag. Mikey leaps to the hammock adjacent to Leo, so they can face each other and talk normally. His legs kick as he sits off the hammock “Which I actually agree with. Because you would freak out about it and I don’t want you to freak out.”

Leo grins “Oh please, Miguel, I never freak out.”

Mikey throws a stuffed animal at Leo “Oh please, when I broke my leg you nearly had a heart attack.”

“Ah, but I did defeat the creature that harmed you.” Leo says melodramatically.

“Remind me, was that gravity or the floor?” Mikey grins.

“Gravity, the floor was an innocent bystander that did nothing wrong. I did fly that one time.” Leo declares.

Mikey bursts into a fit of giggles. “Yeah, you most certainly did. Now come on, I want to draw in the nest.”

Naturally. Leo climbs down and makes his way over to the conjoined couches known as the nest. Blankets plop down from above, followed by Mikey. He wraps his arms around Leo and nuzzles into his chest. Normally, Leo is filled with warmth at the motion, but now all he feels is dread. He cannot let anyone know of this, he cannot let anyone hurt his little brother.

Mikey curls up underneath Leo’s arm, and pulls out his ipad. Leo guesses that Mama already locked out netflix with parental controls. Leo puts his chin on Mikey’s head, halfway chilling out as he watches Mikey sketch and grumble about the entire drawing process. He remembers that he needs to tell the guards that he’s going to be meeting with Big Mama, so he feigns needing to go the the bathroom, and instead opens the front door, mumbling to the guards “Appointment with Big Mama after.”

Leo returns to the nest, and Mikey eyes him but cuddles up just fine. Occasionally Mikey asks for Leo’s opinion on things, even though Leo knows nothing about visual art. He can perform, but he knows nothing about things like color theory or lineweight. Mikey has explained it to him a thousand times over, and a thousand times over it goes straight through Leo’s tympanum. He likes having Mikey explain things though, seeing the passion expressed as Mikey rambles about things like cool and warm grays.

The anxiety of the press eventually takes a backseat through the sheer force of Michelangelo’s smiles and thinly veiled grumbling. Mikey hears Leo’s stomach growls, and hops up into the rafters to toss down a bag of chips. Leo takes them, snacking as Mikey paces, walking over the furniture as he does so, complaining about a proxy anime that was obviously not the main thing he was upset about. The character in the anime even got grounded. Leo watches amusedly, never tired of his brother's antics. Guards file into the room, and Mikey groans “Ugh! Can’t you guys at least knock!”

The guards confiscate the empty chip bag, gesturing for Mikey to step off of the side table. Mikey groans and Leo shrugs “Welp. See you in a few days, Miguel.”

Mikey hugs a goodbye to Leo before he’s escorted out of Michael’s room. Thankfully, it seems like Leo’s request for a meeting with Big Mama was granted, as he’s being guided to her office. His hands are cuffed together before they push him into the office.

She’s in her human form, a rare sight for the battle nexus. She must be stuck doing business calls. He tilts his head up as he says ”Sup.”

Big Mama has her legs crossed over each other, leaning back in her chair. She smiles softly “Hello, Leonardo. What brings you here, this fine evening.”

“My brother’s grounded.” Leo states.

Big Mama’s face remains neutral. It’s an obvious fact, of course Leo would know this. Leo states “He snuck out again, didn’t he?”

The corners of her mouth quirk up, she always appreciated Leo’s observance. “What makes you think that?”

“The haste of the caulking. You were worried he was going to sneak out again.”

Big Mama sighs, smiling fondly “He complained about it, didn’t he?”

Leo chuckles “You have no idea.”

Big Mama gestures for Leo to continue, knowing that it’s not the end of the conversation. “Well, continue on flim-flamming my dear champion.”

“He said you didn’t want me to know about what happened.” Leo says, gesturing with his limited ability “He agreed with you this time around.”

“Which implies something that you’re not fond of.” Big Mama guesses.

“The bandaids in his trash can implies something even worse.” Leo says.

“Please, we both know that he likes emulating your appearance.” Big Mama excuses.

“His blankets have been washed recently, out of schedule mind you, which is unusual." Which also indicates that he bled enough for it to get on his blankets "He had a fight with you recently, didn’t he?” Leo asks.

Big Mama waves dismissively “He always gets irritated when he’s grounded.”

Leo points out “But he understands fair process. He understands what he is and isn’t supposed to do. I’d dare wager that he disagrees with what you grounded him for.”

Big Mama raises an eyebrow “So you want him sneaking out of the complex?”

A blatant attempt to get him riled up. Leo replies “We both agree it’s good for him to exercise a degree of rebellion. Best for him to cook, rather than starting fights with the guards.”

A miniscule furrow of the eyebrows, Leo latches onto it “He did get into a fight didn’t he? One he thought was justified.”

A moment passes as Big Mama thinks of how to respond. Leo loves putting Mama on pause, but the anxiety of not knowing what she’s going to say next puts him on the edge of his seat. Big Mama narrows her eyes. “No use lying, you know too much. Ah, I'm so proud of how far you’ve come in the family business.” She clasps her hands together and smiles warmly “Our dearest Goldenberry’s relationship with the guards has improved, thank goodiness, and now he has the guards eating out of the palm of his hand. They snuck him into the kitchen and, well, you already know that we had an intruder a few days ago. He got into a bit of a tusslefuss, thankfully no major injuries as the intruder seemed to be keen on running away.”

Notably keeping the fact that the press knows about Mikey now conveniently absent. “What happened to the intruder?” Leo asks.

“Oh, we caught him. No biggie.” Big Mama replies matter of factly.

This was a lie. If they caught him, Mikey wouldn’t have been released to the press. “There’s going to be more.” Leo blurts, tense.

“There’s always going to be saboteurs when you’re at the tip top of the business.” Big Mama croons.

She stands up out of her chair, walking around her desk “No worries, my little blue, Mikey will remain safe. That’s part of the reason why I grounded him.”

She drapes her arms across his shoulders and pulls him into a hug, “I wouldn’t let anything happen to my little boys.”

Leo can’t exactly hug back, his hands being in cuffs. The hug lasts blissfully short, Big Mama pulling away and looking at Leo with an incurable fondness. “Now is there anything else you’re worried about?”

Leo’s mind is blank, he thought he could pull information from this, but Mikey actively not telling him things did hinder him and does Mikey even know he was exposed? Though Mikey doesn't know that in public statements, Leo doesn't have a brother. Of course Mikey doesnt know he was exposed! He doesn't know he's supposed to be secret! He can’t think of anything that he could blame for the press knowing about Mikey. He can’t put the fall on Bibo, he can’t blame the guards, and knowing Big Mama, she’s going to keep him out of any line of questioning from the press. So no parties for a while. He knows what happened now, but Big Mama won’t let his knowledge go so easily.

So he needs to organize a press conference himself. “I’m all good now, Mama.” Leo says.

“Good. Now go back to your room, I have business to deal with.” Big Mama says, retreating back to her desk.

He walks out of her office. The guards don’t bother taking off the cuffs, thinking that it makes transporting Leo easier. They walk him to his cell. He needs to talk about this with Mikey, but he’s not going to see him again for a few days. He wants closure to this entire situation right now but he needs to wait but waiting is killing him. He takes a deep breath. He’s learned how to wait for Mikey, for the fights and the excitement and being out of his dingy cell. They take off the cuffs and put him into his cell and Leo begins pacing.

Staging a press conference would also give him the valuable information of what the press is thinking about Mikey. Bibo isn’t exactly the voice of the people. He needs to rehearse. Now what are all the lies that he told the press already? Big Mama's paying him, no brother, (he told Draxum that Mikey's dead), mild mentions of childhood trauma, his living conditions. He can pretend not to be related to Mikey. He also lied about being friends with the guards. Okay, he just needs to rehearse. “Hello, fans- no. Audience of the battle nexus! Who wants a little bit more bloodshed. No, no.”

Okay, so he would climb the walls of the arena using the provided weapons, hang off the edge of the wall and say “Well, questions? Words? C’mon people, talk to me? This guy ain’t much of a talker is he?”

Not bad, a little desperate though. Try another version, make it smoother. “This guy ain’t much of a talker is he? I’m sure you can offer me a much better conversation?”

Okay that’s good, but it doesn’t guarantee information about Mikey though. He could just climb into the seats to talk to the folks after the battle, though Big Mama would’ve probably told the guards to keep a tighter hold on him. Or maybe she didn’t? He hates this about Big Mama, throughout all of his years of being a gladiator, a champion, he still has no idea what she’s going to do next for sure. He can quote Mikey word for word, he knows his little tics and habits and he still knows nothing about Big Mama. Even after all these years, she’s still leagues ahead of him, she’s still lying to him.

Leo punches the wall of his cell.

Chapter Text

Mikey spends at least an hour fixing the murals around the vents. He's procrastinated long enough, knowing that eventually it's going to be removed on the basis of allowing more room for "creative flexibility" as Big Mama called it. Which really just feels like a lie. He's locked in, never allowed to leave Big Mama's hotel, and after his first few "explorations" there's been adjustments made to the hotel. The wire netting behind the vents, more keys, more locked doors, and the not being allowed to talk to anyone. Those couple months were hell, barely being allowed to socialize. After a while though it was all pulled back for some reason, only being reclaimed when he was grounded like this.

He's done fixing the murals, thankfully a mechanically easy process. The murals are made out of paint instead of fresco. Leaving him to his thoughts. A flaw to this entire grounding process. A part of him wants to plan an escape from all this, destroy something to make Big Mama pay, but the better part of him tells him to look inward. He's still tense from all these days, feeling a seething anger constrict his shoulders and the sides of his plastron. He doesn't know, exactly, what he's being punished for. Attacking intruders is a good thing, right? Why did he attack the intruder?

He felt something before he attacked. He'll have to draw it and see how it compares to the rest of his feelings. Mikey pulls a hidden sketchbook from beneath a set of drawers, and begins painting what he remembers of this feeling. Mikey knows how all of his feelings affect his body, how happiness rises from his chest and cheeks, boredom behind the center of his plastron. Some of these feelings didn't have a name, like the one for Leo. It's similar to happiness, but there's a release to it. Like unclenching his jaw. Like emerging from his shell.

The sketchbook contains all of his emotions, and occasional memories. Mikey doesn't remember much about before Big Mama. He knows there was a before, because she doesn't let him go outside and he remembers outside and a different inside. So when he does remember, he paints it out and writes a description next to it to not forget it.

He probably shouldn't forget this feeling, the one that got him into trouble. Probably should've painted it earlier, but in his defense he was caught up in the feeling of all the emotions involved with being grounded for a reason you don't understand. He would try to artificially bring it up via watching youtube, a method he did with the more common emotions. But right now he has his memory to draw off of.

Okay, so, there was the feeling inside his chest. Moving, like a vibrating churr but not quite, dissipating towards his stomach. An energy in his legs and fingers, to run, to grasp. He thinks his nictitating membrane moved? He doesn't know. He felt something in his eyes so let's color that yellow. Hm, he felt numb? No. Tunnel visioned. He wanted to get rid of the intruder. The thought of calling the guards didn't even occur to him.
He bit the intruder. When was the last time he bit somebody? Mikey closes his eyes to remember, thinking he last bit somebody around two years ago. He got into a fight with a guard, he doesn't really remember why. It wasn't that bad, Mikey thinks, though Leo freaked out about it.

He should stop chewing on his paintbrush. He turns his head at the sound of the door opening, and Cathead comes in with a plate of food. “Got your dinner.”

“Hell yeah!” Mikey cheers.
He puts his drying sketchbook on top of his drawers, hiding it immediately would be suspicious so he treats it normally for the time being. He grabs the plate and sits on top of a table. Breaking apart the wooden utensils, Mikey notices that Cathead hasn’t left yet. “You wanna chat?” He asks, sticking his fork into a steamed apple.

Cathead’s restless, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “How do you feel…about your brother?”

Mikey chews for a moment, mostly giving himself time to think if this was a trick question or not “Leo? Yeah, he’s fine.”

Mikey keeps an eye on Cathead as he continues to eat, nervous about the anxiety emanating from Cathead. What did he have to worry about? Cathead asks “Just…fine?”

“I mean, he’s my brother. Sure he’s the greatest nexus champion of all time, but he’s a dork at the end of it all.” Mikey says with his mouth full.

“What if you had more?” Cathead says nervously

“More brothers?” Mikey stuffs some croutons into his mouth “I think that’d be great. I always liked the idea of a big family. Me, Leo, Big Mama, and everyone else. We’d watch anime together, maybe one of ‘em can join in on my silk routine.

“Yeah...Big Mama would be in there.” Cathead states hesitantly.

Mikey leans his head on the palm of his hand as he asks “Why wouldn’t she?”

Cathead looks from side to side, anxious. “Yeah, it's only natural that you- that she’s a part of your family.”

Mikey eyes Cathead, trying to read him. His tail is fluffed up, he’s trying and failing to keep his ears straight forward, Cathead really is full on terrified. Why? “Are you scared of me?” Mikey asks, lowering his head.

“What?” His ears swivel back in panic “No, no, no. I could never be scared of you.”

You should be, Mikey thinks. Though in reality he knows his want to be feared is really just a want to be taken seriously. Mikey also knows his family is very scary. Leo’s ruthless, though wouldn't mind the idea of more brothers, and Mama…

“Mama then?” Mikey asks.

She would not approve of this line of questioning.

Cathead’s eyes widen as he stammers “I should go.”

“You should.” Mikey echoes.

Cathead walks out of Mikey’s room, leaving Mikey alone to eat. He thinks for a moment, briefly wondering what all of that was about. He wants to watch something while he eats, but he’s still grounded so even youtube isn’t allowed and what does “until you’ve learned your lesson” even mean? He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to learn!

Chapter Text

Leo's imagination and memories meet to where he's falling off a roof into Kraken Tom's mouth. A knock at the door and Leo jolts up "I'm alive!"

"You better be." Grumbles one of the guards

"Look alive, sunshine." Another chuckles "Fight's in twenty."

The guards take him out of his cell and into the plush champion room. He changes into his fighting uniform. A short sleeved shirt with a wrap around the waist and pants with stripes down the side that mirrored his own. He takes his odachi from the weapons rack, pops his neck and a few other joints, and goes through a few katas. Goal: stage a press conference.

Step 1- Stall

The time's up and he's thrown into the arena. An octopus yokai with an excessive amount of tentacles, tentacle beard, tentacles for arms, tentacles for legs, steps out of the opponent's door. Holding a scimitar in each hand tentacle. Leo smirks "Woah! You got a little tentacle, uh everywhere my man."

The yokai glares at him.

One of the quiet types it seems. A little irritating but Leo can deal. He shrugs. "Well, nice to hurtcha reject Davy Jones."

Reject Davy Jones huffs. The announcer counts them off and Leo slices at Davy Jones. He sidesteps Leo's first strike, scimitar briefly embedding itself in Leo's shell before he rolls away. The instinctual turtle panic of my shell got stabbed goes underneath the bridge of Leo's Internal checklist. Alive? Yeah. Pain? Not yet. Get moving. Duck beneath another swing of swords. Backstep swing from the other sword. Sharp pain nibbles at his spine. Try not to anger it.

Oh, there's an idea. Prepare. Gather information. Parry scimitars, hazard a few backflips to entertain the crowd, manage a few cuts on Davy Jones. Processing, done. "You know, I always wanted to dual wield." Leo says, stepping closer to Davy Jones.

Leo grabs his right tentacle and steps back as Davy Jones attacks him only to slice through his own tentacle. Leo grabs the scimitar from the fallen arm and says "Thanks for letting me try it out."

Parrying is easier now that Davy Jones only has one sword left. Slide the scimitar down one blade, slice with the other, Davy Jones is down two tentacles. Davy Jones' feet tentacles grasp around Leo's foot and pull him off balance. Pain shoots through his shell, dropping his swords and paralyzing him for a moment. Davy Jones feet tentacles wrap around Leo's throat and he can only laugh "Foot fetish much?" Before Davy Jones begins to choke him.

He hates it when people go for the neck, and for a moment his only thought is panic before he reaches for the scimitar and stabs for Davy Jones. Unfortunately, he leaps off before he can be stabbed.

Leo coughs "Fucking. Asshole."

He leaps onto his feet, grabbing his odachi and the scimitar before running towards Davy Jones. Davy Jones keeps on side stepping him, and Leo's keeping aware of his feet. He will not be tricked twice, thank you very much. Lower to the ground, coral Davy Jones closer and closer to the wall and stab him in the shoulder, pinning Davy Jones to the wall with his own scimitar. He cuts off Davy Jones legs, and holds in a breath of relief. Step one is done. Take a squirming tentacle, stick the second scimitar up in the wall, step off of the scimitars and jump up to the top of the wall. His shell complains as he hoists himself up, easing as he sits up on the top of the wall. He holds up the tentacle "Who wants a souvenir!"

The crowd cheers and begins writhing. Leo tosses the tentacle into the crowd, not caring who gets it really. It's just an icebreaker. He points below him "This guy ain't much of a talker, think you guys can do better?"

"Leonardo, I love you!" Shouts a fan

"I love you too!" Leo returns

"Leonardo, I named my baby after you!" Shouts a lady.

Leo finger guns "Weird!"

"Leonardo, can you answer a few questions?" A microphone is shoved into his hands.

Leo gestures with the microphone easily "Of course! I always have time for my fans."

The microphones and lights of all the press organizations turn on, the press eternally outmaneuvering Big Mama's attempts to limit them. Big Mama's smart, but the press are stubborn and have laws protecting them. News reporters begin to shout for Leo's attention and he begins calling out. "Yokai with charms on their antlers!"

"How do you feel about the Mriga triplet fight next week?"

"Looking forward to it! Haven't fought a tri opponent in a while, it should be fun!" Leo grins.

"Alligator yokai!" Leo points

"Crocodile." Corrects the news report.

Leo winces at the mistake "Sorry."

"No problem. Happens all the time. How do you defeat so many gladiators and monsters?"

"Oh it's a challenge, just not the challenge that most people expect." Leo says cryptically before calling on the next reporter.

He sees a reporter with no camera crew or lights, just a notepad and a
Pen. An amateur, he can respect that "Yokai with the face and green jacket!"

The yokai blinks for a moment, before saying "Um, who treats your injuries?"

"Dr. Stormrake, best doc I've ever had. He says I'm one of a kind." Leo gestures to himself, baiting for the questions he really wants.

"Have you heard about the rumors of another turtle?" Blurts a reporter.

There we go. "Another turtle? What could Mama need another turtle for?"

Another reporter shouts "May I speak, sir?"

Leo waits a moment before saying "You may."

"The last champion disappeared rather abruptly, she might be wanting a backup." Explains the reporter.

"Where did you even hear about this other turtle? You sure it aint just somebody's turtlesona?" Leo asks.

The reporter says "Information is still being gathered, sir."

"So it's fake then." Leo states, knowing he'd be jumping to conclusions if he didn't already know everything.

"It's still being considered." The reporter says, cryptically.

"Do you want there to be another turtle?" Shouts the green jacketed amateur from earlier.

Leo scoffs, taking comfort that Mikey isn't watching "Please. All Big Mama needs is me."

A tentacle wraps around his waist. "Well shit."

It pulls him back into the arena, throwing him onto the ground in a cloud of dust. He's going to be in so much pain after this, shell injuries always did. The dust cloud clears, Davy Jones stepping through it. Revealing his regrown tentacles and the several more emerging from his back. "Took you long enough." Leo groans.

He did not expect there to be limb regrowth that fast. He knows that octopus and yokai like it can regrow their limbs but usually it doesn't take a couple minutes! Usually they don't multiply so it's probably mystic bullshit. As tentacles wrap around Leo and he's tossed through the air he thinks. Yup. He hits the wall. Definitely mystic bullshit.

Okay. Get up. Get up. Get up, already. Leo's body begins to catch up to his brain, getting up from the pit in the wall. Davy Jones pulls his scimitar out of the wall, snarling as he steps towards Leo.

Plan: stage a press conference
Step 1- stall
Step 2- win

Easy. Totally easy. He's the champion, better than Lou Jitsu. He can do this.

He needs to grab his odachi from the other side of the arena. Feint to the left, go to the right. Cartwheel away from secondary tentacle hit, zig zag to confuse Davy Jones. He's keeping the scimitars close, the back tentacles flailing and stretching across nearly the entire arena. Leo's going to get hit, he needs to choose where. A tentacle clobbers Leo to the ground, breath knocked out of him before he rolls back onto his feet. Davy Jones lunges towards him with a wordless roar. Leo blocks the oncoming scimitars with his forearm, kicking Davy Jones in the chest. Something cracks beneath his foot and all of his thoughts narrow down and focus. Leo knows that some octopus/squid yokai have a shell underneath there. Break it. He still needs his sword.

Leo scoops his odachi up from the dirt with a roll, spinning on his feet to face down Davy Jones. Roll dodge, run here, jump there, tentacles have tied themselves into a knot. Cut off a part of the tentacle, grab scimitar, turn scimitar around and bring the handguard hurdling into Davy Jones' chest. Davy Jones' breath gets knocked out of him, and Leo rounds with his odachi, stabbing it into Davy Jones' stomach. Push forward, Davy Jones stumbles and Leo bludgeons the hand guard against Davy Jones' chest.

With a large crack, he twitches. And falls.

He won.

Red petals fall from the stands. Leo cheers and kicks the tentacles in pettiness. Take that you fucking hentai joke! He smiles up at the crowd, though ot smile falls once the door closes behind him. To his relief, Bibo's waiting on the couch. "Can you take off your shirt?"

Leo hands off his odachi then one handedly takes off his shirt, throwing it at one of the guards. He sits down on the couch, shell towards Bibo as he looks over it. Leo likes to joke that Bibo thinks loudly, with his filtered breathing through the mask. Its like his thoughts are leaking. Leo winces at the pain as Bibo withdraws, saying "It's not bad."

"Cool." Leo breathes.

"You are dealing with the pain well." Bibo states.

"Please give me painkillers before it gets worse." Leo begs

"As you wish.” Bibo holds out a hand “,Arm."

Leo hands Bibo his arm, who preps the area and injects the painkiller with immediate effect. Probably an opioid unfortunately, but damn Leo loves not being in pain. Bibo shows Leo the alcohol wipes and antiseptic before cleaning his shell. He says "Your shell has mostly done its job, you have survived worse. The initial cut was pretty minor, the compounding blunt force trauma was what made it worse."

"Coulda guessed." Leo says with his eyes closed.

"Yes. Though the microfractures of being thrown into the wall are not enviable. You won't be able to shower after this, by the way." Bibo says.

"I know, I know. The fiberglass?" Leo asks.

"It's coming. Your shell regenerates unnaturally, so I want to wait to see if resin will be needed. I doubt it, but do check up with me. How's your knee?" Bibo rambles

"Painkillers." Reminds Leo "Can't tell."

"Right, right." Bibo begins applying the fiberglass patch.

It's quiet as Bibo focuses and fixes up Leo's shell. Bibo announces "All done."

Leo turns around and offers Bibo the arm where he blocked the scimitars. Bibo cleans the area and numbs it with a topical ointment "You did well today. You mentioned you wanted to dual wield?"

"Yeah. It's cool, two swords. You've seen one piece? Zoro has three swords. Crazy" Leo mumbles, his brain fogging.

"Ah yes, Zoro One Piece. I know who they are. Totally." Bibo says sarcastically, pulling out his stitching kit.

Leo bulldozes past the sarcasm and complains. "It's so long though, and I do not have the attention span. Why does it need to be like over a thousand episodes long!"

Bibo hums. "Yes. You are easily distracted."

Leo runs his hand down his face, grogginess and brain fog getting to him. "I don't like this."

"The brain fog? The drugs? Yeah, I've been working on it. The pain receptors need to be stopped somewhere though" Bibo says, typing up a stitch. "You do have a high pain tolerance however."

Yet Bibo numbs wounds that need stitches. Yet Bibo doesn't chastise Leo avoiding looking at needles. Leo leans against Bibo "I love you, so so much. Thank you for dealing with me."

Bibo gently pushes away Leo "Don't know where this is coming from, but neither of us need your affection right now, let me tie this up."

Bibo ties up the stitch and starts the other. "Do you want help getting dressed? And getting cleaned?"

"Yes please." Leo says.

"Lovely. Are we going to talk about my concern for your spinal chord?" Bibo asks.

"Nope." Leo says, knowing the leap of logic.

"I would really prefer you don't end up with a broken neck." Bibo says.

"It hasn't happened yet. I think its equivalent to hair pulling or something?" Leo shrugs.

Bibo groans, "Ugh. Hair. We are truly lucky neither of us have it."

Bibo ties up the stitch. Information about Bibo's physical appearance (vomeronasal organs don't count) is hard to come by due to the nature of his toxicity and privacy, so Leo would normally take this information and run with it while screaming "No take backs!" But with the brainfog Leo nods because it makes sense. Of course Bibo doesn't have hair, he's bald on the outside of his weirdass hazmat suit so he must be bald on the inside. Bibo's very soul is bald.

Bibo pats Leo on the shoulder to prompt him to stand up. He helps Leo onto his feet, and requests "Clothing for the patient please."

The same drab clothes from everyday, Leo groans from the sheer boredom of it all as Bibo takes him to the bathroom. Bibo mostly stands there with an arm outstretched for Leo to balance on. He helps Leo put on his denim jacket as he can't stretch his arms that way when there's a stiff patch on his shell. Bibo ties Leo's shoes and pats Leo's head before leaving.

The best spiritblessed doctor.

Big Mama steps into the plush room, ducking underneath the doorframe and immediately ruining Leo's mood. Rage hidden behind her face, she purrs softly "I thought we had an open communication policy."

Hit him while he's a bit loopy on painkillers, now that's just cruel. "You didn't tell me that the press knows about Mikey."

"I have the situation handled." Big Mama says sternly

"Doesn't matter. I want to know everything he's doing, everything that happens." Leo says.

She narrows her eyes "You argued against my cameras."

The age old argument of how much privacy Mikey gets. Leo says "I argued against your fifty fucking thousand cameras, man, he's thirteen leave him be."

Big Mama studies him for a moment, spying the fiberglass patch bulging underneath his hoodie. "Ah. You got struck in the shell this fight? A bit reckless of you."

She sounds surprised. She wasn't watching. Leo snarls "I can fucking deal."

"Yes. You can. And you will.” She says sternly “You can deal with the fights and I will deal with everything else. You will not stoke any sort of media, press, or any other synonym you will try to use. The best course of action is to let this die down."

Leo shakes his head, "You still could've told me."

"This is not something for you to worry about." Big Mama says.

Leo starts "This is exactly what I worry about. This is Mikey we're talking about and the parties-""-are not the press." She interrupts "you know this. You are smarter than this. I want to talk about this when the painkiller wears off, I'll discuss with Dr.Stormrake the dosage. This needs to be discussed."

"Hmm, fair." Leo does not like playing mind games when on painkillers, especially one strong enough for a shell injury.

"Good." She gestures to the door "Now go visit Mikey, he's resorted to playing games with the guards."

Leo smiles and leaves. Looking forward to Mikey's antics. He walks to Mikey's room being minimally trailed and finding four guards outside. Two more than the normal amount. "What's going on here?" Leo asks the guards.

"The horrors, sir." One of the guards says.

"The horrors." The other echoes, haunted.

Leo laughs and enters Mikey's room. All the guards are huddled around something on the floor. He looks over, resting an arm on one of the hunched over guards to see the Monopoly board with money surrounding a very focused Mikey.

Leo says. "How are the horrors, boys?"

Mikey looks up, just noticing Leo. He jumps over the board to hug him "Leo!"

He winces, and Mikey immediately pulls back. "Oh no, did you get hurt?"

"I get hurt everyday, Michael." Leo says nonchalantly.

Mikey says "Well duh. But did you get hurt badly?"

Leo rolls his eyes, keeping his gaze off of the guards trying to sneak past him. "Beebs said it wasn't that serious. He's going to check in with me tomorrow."

"Are you going to tell me what happened or are you going to pull your mysterious cool guy act?" Mikey says bluntly.

"Please, I'm always cool." Leo smiles.

Mikey lets out an annoyed chirp, stepping closer to Leo to whisper threateningly "I am this close to enacting brotherly violence."

He spins around and points at the guards "You are NOT dismissed. Go get a cool pack, a hot pack, seaweed chips, you know that heated blanket? Get that too."

"Didn't you lose it?" One of the guards ask sheepishly

"Your point?" Mikey asks.

"And aren't you still grounded?" Another asks.

Mikey pulls out a piece of paper and says "I've forgotten where in the clause for grounding that forbids seaweed chips."

He throws the paper at the guard "Go get it!"

The paper floats uselessly to the ground. A small bird-like guard asks "Um, sir? What are the priorities of each item? We can't leave you unattended."

"Finally! A good question.” Mikey declares “,The seaweed chips should come first as it's just a fetch quest, but I want the hot and cold packs to be their respective temperatures so take your time to get it right. I also expect towels with the hot and cold packs so Leo does not spontaneously combust or freeze. Heated Blanket is the lowest priority, and could easily be replaced by a heat lamp. I will tolerate a respectful search of my room, and if you find one of my stashes, haha," Mikey grins menacingly ",no you didn't."

Mikey puts a cutsey smile on his face "Now, do we have any more questions?"

"Can I clean up the Monopoly so you can spend more time with Leo?" A guard ask cautiously.

"Hmm, sure." Mikey shrugs, grabbing Leo by the wrist and pulling him towards the nest.

The guards split. They both sit down in the nest and Leo says "You did an okay job commanding them."

Mikey groans "It'd be easier if they could just respect me as like, a basic person. I get it, they're part of the babysitter corps and they're meant to protect me but ugh! I'm tired of being grumpy."

Leo bonks heads with Mikey "It comes with time, little brother."

"I know, I know, I know." Mikey says, leaning over to pull out a desk drawer.

He tosses Leo a rubiks cube and several other fidgets, which he immediately begins using.

Mikey pulls himself off of the couches, feet still hooked behind the arms, and pulls out a familiar box. Leo smiles softly, putting the Rubik's cube aside, and helps Mikey open up the chess box. It's old and worn, with the checkerboard printed on the outside of the box to serve as the board. With more pieces than the normal amount, some rough around the edges, some brand new that Mikey carved himself. Leo fidgets with the pieces, moving them so they are in the middle of their boxes. "You know you're going to lose, right?" Leo says, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"Winning is not the point." Mikey gestures with the queen piece in his hand.

He puts it on the board and begins to push a pawn forward. "Now, tell me how you're going to defeat me."

Leo grins, his heart and soul laid out before him on the chess board. Entering an infodump as he and Mikey exchange moves. The seaweed chips arrive, Leo explaining all of his ideas as he snacks on them. He puts Mikey in check and they swap sides. The hot and cold packs show up. Leo puts the warm pack on his shell and the cold pack on his knee. Mikey claims that due to a rise in religious power he gets three more bishops. Leo works with it, planning around Mikey's advantage. Leo still wins.

A heat lamp is brought in and so brings the insatiable sleepiness. Leo tries to persist, still half drugged and mixing up his chess openings. Mikey sneakily puts away the chess box, putting it off the side of the nest. He gently wraps his arms around Leo, noticing the well recognised texture of a fiberglass patch and adjusts his grip because of it, and puts his tympanum against Leo's chest to hear his heartbeat. Leo falls asleep immediately. The warmth and urge to lounge was enough, but to add cuddling to the whole bit? Leo had no chance of staying awake.

Mikey falls asleep as well, nuzzled into his older brother. A tale as old as time, Mikey tricking his older brother to get some rest. Leo vaguely registers it, but through the brainfog of the meds and the sweet heat from the lamp, he's just content for a brief moment. Eventually he is gently nudged. Leo blearily blinks his eyes open, now keenly aware of the pain in his shell. He pulls Mikey closer, still asleep, and looks around. One of the guards holds a broom by the bushy end, looking at him warily. Did…did they poke him with it? Seriously? Leo glances at the clock. Time's out. Leo groans "Five more minutes?"

The guards look at eachother, a shaggy dog looking yokai shakes their head "Nah. Gotta getcha back soon."

Leo's head falls back as he groans. He looks down at Mikey, all curled up and cozy warm. He kisses Mikey's forehead, gently rubbing the back of his head, before skillfully slinking out of his grasp. Replacing himself with a large plush turtle. Leo stumbles as he emerges from the nest, one of the guards catching him before he could fall. Leo brushes it off, and is escorted back to his cell.

The comparison of the warmth of Mikey and his dingy cell does not make him feel any kind of good. It's not cold, per se, nobody wants him brumateing again after last time. He lays down on his side and almost begins reviewing the day when the door opens. Oh yeah, how could he forget? Turning over is a painful process, he hates shell injuries so much, does he really have to talk to her? Can he pretend to be asleep?

He sees the familiar silhouette against the wall and groans internally. It's Big Mama. Shrunken down in her more humanoid form, as the arachnoid form would not fit in Leo's cell.

"Have they worn off yet?" She asks.

"Yup. Feeling every injury I've ever had." Leo replies, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

"Now." She claps her hands and one of her assistants places a chair across from Leo's bed, she gracefully sits down "I want to see it."

Oh, fuck, seriously? Come on Big Mama cut him some slack here. "No." He states.

"Darling, I need to see it." She says seriously.

Leo snarls "Fuck off, Bibo already saw to it."

"But I didn't." She tilts her head in a manner to expose her several glaring red eyes ",Now, let me see it."

Leo is tired. He's done a lot today. There was good today and bad today. Objectively better than the days when there was nothing. And it seems like there's still bad to be done today. He doesn't have the energy to argue or deal with her threats. So he struggles through a very long couple of minutes taking off his jacket and shucking off his hoodie. He turns around, shirtless, to show Big Mama the cast. He cranes his neck to see her look over it analytically. Probably calculating how he's going to fair with the Mriga triplets soon.

He clenches his teeth, willing himself to not do anything as she carefully traces the edges of the patch with electric, teasing fingers. Eventually she's pleased and leans back in her chair. Leo puts his jacket over his shoulders. "Now, let's discuss the punishment for your surprise press talk-squabble."

"Let Leo take the month off?" Leo jokes.

Big Mama laughs, "Oh dearie, no."

She leans forward, elbows resting on her knees, and Leo's breath hitches. "It was an act of mercy, you know. To allow you to restructure our deal. I mean, you made the first deal when you were five, it was objectively horrible. Help me recall what you told me, then? What you offered me to help save our Michelangelo's life?"

Leo holds his tongue. He doesn't want to partake in this charade. Big Mama repeats "What did you proceed to give me?"

He doesn't want to do this. Leo says it clearly, looking off to the side "Mind, body, and soul."

She nods "That's right. And you promised me that things would get better once you could restructure it."

"I did." Leo's point of view slowly pans out to about three inches behind his head.

"Really, I'm proud of you. To see the progress that you made between the first and the second deal. Oh, the discussions that we had about ethics, about Goldenberry. They were a delightful exercise." She smiles fondly at the memory.

Is this another lie? Leo's tense, his heart beating against his plastic plastron. She chitters "Now. Can you tell me what the focuses of the secondary deal was?"

She knows this already. Leo knows this already, counting it off like ribs "Improve Mikey's quality of care, limiting his connection with my gladiator life, open a line of communication with you so we could both take care of Mikey and make plans about Draxum, and offering myself up in almost every possible way."

"Yes, you wanted to cooperate with me.” Her eyebrows furrow as she says “So why. Didn't you. Tell me. About this little press conference."

Leo looks down at his feet, a part of his brain going off about chess openings for some reason. He says a tad sheepishly "You would've said no, obviously."

Big Mama's voice begins to rise "I would've said no, because it was so poorly organized a dead rat could've done better. Do we need to make a contract about how to conduct ourselves in front of the press? Namely, not being beaten after lauding yourself as great and grand champion Leonardo."

"I didn't know- "-you dont fucking know anything.” Big Mama clenches the arms of the chair “,I swear to the spirits, if I need to keep cleaning up your messes I will throw you back out onto the streets and keep Mikey with me!"

Leo is silent. And so is Big Mama. It's a lie said in haste with hurt feelings, Big Mama would have too much loose if she discarded Leo, especially with Draxum wanting to scoop him up. It still hurts though. It still scares him. Does she really think so little of me? He thinks.

Big Mama sighs, putting a hand over her eyes "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

It doesn't change anything.

She waves her hand dismissively "Really, it should all be a relatively minor rumor that should be taken away with the drama around the Mriga Triplet battle."

But what about Draxum? He would’ve heard the rumour.

Big Mama stands up and places a kiss on Leo's forehead. She smiles at him, "Now, rest well, my dear. Dr. Stormrake will be here soon."

And she leaves.

Leo is not a real person. So he can be whoever other people want him to be. He can be whoever he needs to be. The crowd wants to be entertained, so he sings. Mikey wants a brother, so Leo praises and hugs whenever Mikey needs. Bibo wants somebody to talk to, and Leo listens. Big Mama wants…a loyal champion. A charismatic party goer. A toy. A game. A secret. A son.

What does she want from him?

Chapter Text

Mikey's life is ruled by a weekly schedule. Leo trains and is a general celebrity for most of the week, sometimes showing up out of the blue to say hi for a moment, and always spending two and a half hours with him after a fight. Big Mama checks in with him twice a week, unless she's mad. Foxface's off days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Cathead's days off are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. So when two weeks pass, Mikey knows what Mama's called him in for.

She's running a bit late, so Mikey knows she's going to be irritated. He's left alone in her office, so he spins in her chair until he sees a picture of them all on her desk. He takes, looking at the photo. He remembers taking this, he went through a photography phase. He's around ten or eleven in the picture, with Big Mama holding him, Leo striking a flamboyant pose next to them. "Knowing people is intimate business." Big Mama told him once during a tea party "That's why I'm so good at what I do."

Maybe that's why Mikey is the way he is. He once wondered what made Mama and Leo the way they were, but they keep on lying about it. Vulnerability is scary to them, they deal in environments where any weakness is preyed upon. He knows that's affected him, as he distinctly remembers thinking, all alone in his room "I gotta be a safe place for them."

He's gotten bits and pieces of truth. Like Big Mama did not create them, but she did take them in. Something happened to Mikey when he was younger that scared Leo real bad. Big Mama had siblings. Big Mama is not her real name, but it is her preferred one.

His family is very stressed, and Mikey needs to help them. He tries.

Big Mama steps in, closing the door behind her. She sighs, exhausted. Mikey looks up from her desk. She smiles "Hello, Mikey-boo. How are you today?"

"I'm doing good." Mikey leans into the headpats.

"Can I have my seat back?" She coos.

"Only if I can have the desk." Mikey says.

She chuckles, "Might as well, there's no paperwork up there yet."

Mikey crawls on top of her desk while she swings back into her chair. Clearly, she enjoys the spin as well. He's looking down at her, a bit taller as he sits on the desk. She relaxes, leaning a head into her hand. "Now, we need to talk about your grounding."

"Yeah?" He absentmindedly kicks his legs.

She raises an eyebrow "Did you learn your lesson?"

"Yes."

Big Mama tilts her head "What was the lesson?"

"Um. Don't start fights?" He guesses

"With…" she waits for him to insert.

Mikey takes a moment, coming to what he thinks to be a logical conclusion "Intruders?"

"Good, good. Intruders are not yours to worry about." Big Mama nods.

"So what am I supposed to worry about?" He asks.

"Your art, which guards to menace, learning to abuse your cuteness" big mama lists off.

"I'm only supposed to worry about my art?" Mikey asks

"Yes. You can occupy yourself just fine creatively. No need to get destructive about it." Big Mama says a bit dismissively.

Mikey squeezes the edge of the desk. Not knowing why he's so apprehensive about that statement. "I understand." He says with a smile.

"Good. Good." Big Mama tents her hands, and Mikey knows that this is part of the discussion where change is discussed "I'll get it organized to put everything back in its dimliddle place. I will be adding a few cooking utensils to your room-" "-really!" Mikey squeals, imagining a whole, fully stocked, kitchen attached to his room. Shining gloriously as music goes on in the background as he makes food for Leo.

Big Mama raises a hand "Hush, no interrupting. You are going to be permitted a singular rice cooker."

Mikey deflates. Well, it's on him for dreaming so big. It took a lot of arguing to get his minifridge and microwave. Big Mama announces "I will be making your little cookventures more official, and I am tempted to put a schedule on them. But you will just follow your whims, so I will put a pin that thought until something explodes. Try not to do it on the days of Leo's fights or in the evenings so as not to disturb kitchen staff. I've informed the guards that they will not get in trouble for escorting you to the kitchen, so it should be easier to go there."

Mikey smiles at the information, though it's a bit disappointing because part of the fun is convincing the guards to let him go. Big Mama seems to notice this and says "If you want to charm somebody, I've scheduled an inventory check on Saturday mornings. And if you need something to be in the oven for over an hour, return to your room and leave a note as me to not disturb it."

"Why wouldn't you bake in the hotel kitchen?" Mikey asks

Big Mama smiles at Mikey wanting to structure the lie "Privacy, obviously. The arena kitchen is not always attended, where the fancy kitchen has a near constant stream of people."

"Cool. I can work with that." Mikey begins to formulate the various ways he could phrase the lie on the post it note. "Am I going to have all this written down?"

"Of course, dear. The booklet will be delivered soon after this meeting." Big Mama states.

Mikey is astounded at Big Mama's memory, as his memory always seems to supply him short on the remembering important stuff thing. He asks "Okay then. Is there anything else?"

Big Mama jumps up, excited "Have the guards told you about it yet?"

"What yet?"

"Delightful! Means I get to do it!" Big Mama rummages through her desk drawer before pulling out a rolled up poster. Mikey takes it and unfurls it and bursts into glee. Its his design! He got the gig!

"And!" Big Mama shows him a picture on her phone, of his banner design hanging above the arena.

Mikey takes it, eyes sparkling with delight "It's beautiful."

Big Mama chortles, "That's because it's yours, silly."

"Did you tell them?" Mikey asks, suddenly insecure, he doesn’t want people to just choose his designs because of his relationship with Big Mama.

She rolls her eyes. "No. Nothing about it being from my son. I simply supplied it among several others that were presented in the meeting, and they loved yours. Said it had an aura of mystery that added to the mystic tensions of the fight."

Mikey jumps off the desk and does a happy dance. Big Mama joins him. It's moments like this that make Mikey feel understood. Big Mama doesn't have to dance with him, and yet she does.

Mikey hugs Big Mama, and she giggles and hugs him back, pulling him off his feet. She sets him down, smiling, though the crow's feet around her eyes subtly deepen, she's feeling sad but she's trying not to show it. "What's wrong?" He asks.

"Nothing, my turtleyboo. What could possibly be wrong?" She pets his head.

"You're feeling sad." Mikey says.

"Nonsense. Why would I be sad? I've had a delightful meeting with you." She declares.

Mikey pauses before saying "I don't know."

"See? I'm fine." Big Mama says, unknowingly echoing Leo.

Mikey eyes Big Mama "Mama."

She huffs. "You and your brother. Getting all up into businesses you don't need to worry about it. Mama's got it handled. You two don't need to worry about a thing." She pats Mikey's head "Now, let's get a move on. I'm sure we all have a good schedule going on."

Mama opens the door and gestures for Mikey to leave. Mikey hides his own apprehension, emotion stirring in his chest. He smiles. "Okay, Mama."

She escorts him to his room, she rubs his cheek, leans over and kisses him on the forehead. "I love you."

"I love you too." Mikey says.

And she walks down the hallway. Mikey walks into his room and flops onto the nest. Curling up next to a squishmallow. He feels bad. Why? He's glad that he's not grounded anymore and that his art got approved. But he still feels bad.

It's confusing. Emotions are confusing. He should look through his emotion journal, that could help him. It's frustrating, how sometimes it feels like his happiness is so limited and short lived. He wants to be happy. He wants to be happy.

He's happy when Leo visits. Leo visits tomorrow, after the fight with the Mriga Triplets.

Chapter Text

Anxiety and arrogance fills Leo's chest. He's excited. He's nervous. He's angry because everyone wants to see him try to use mystic bullshit this fight, from what he can tell from all the ads. They think he can control it, which is on purpose, but its still irritating. Maybe he will somehow use mystic bullshit this fight? Who knows! Not him! Aha!
Man he's feeling super fake.
Breathe. Lower heart rate. What does he know? Mriga triplets, three deer yokai well known for their mystic powers. According to the newspaper Big Mama gave him three hours ago, they were a major pain to arrest. They killed a lot of cops, and caused a lot of property damage. The mystic lid to the arena will be applied, definitely, so the audience will be safe from their mystic bullshit.
Big Mama did not give him the official arrest report, claiming that he can only use what the public knows. Which is irritating because they keep a bunch of stuff secret from the public. So he doesn't know the specifics of their mystics. There's some kind of mobility enhancement, trap setting, and some kind of mystery ability that's probably telekinesis from the pictures of the cars haveing blunt fource damage. Since one popular way to use telekinesis is to grab something and flail it around until it stops moveing. Though this telekinesis seems to not be able to grab living tissue because, in Leo's personal opinion, if he could telekinetically grab somebody and shake them till they're dead, he would do that instead of going for the cars.
The doors open and Leo steps into the cheering crowd. Ramps and the odd boulders with a fine sprinkling of dirt make an interesting fighting environment. The Mriga triplets are waiting for him on top of an artificial hill, glaring at him as he waves at the crowd. Why is everyone he fights so angry? Come on! Joke with him! Live a little before you die!
The announcer rings off a few statistics as he approaches the Mriga triplets in the center. One holding a pike, a chigiriki, and dual hook swords. Leo holds his odachi loosely, resting it on his shoulder as he smiles charmingly "Hello, hello, hello. How are you three doing today?"
"Oh, just fine." Pike says sarcastically.
Leo grins, liking this one. "Gotta love the hotel service, am I right or am I left?"
It takes Chigiriki a moment to realize the joke before frowning. Leo offers a hand "May the best man win?"
None of them take his hand. Which tells him either they are all grumpy pants, or researched him well. One time he disarmed an opponent through feigning a pregame handshake. The announcer calls for the start of the fight. Leo huffs, and turns around to walk away.
They took the bait, aiming for the staples along his shell. He bends backwards in a limbo against the pike, he grabs it and pulls forward, the deer yokai going with it. He kicks the deer yokai in the jaw. He partially ducks his head into his shell to dodge the chigiriki chain. He rolls away, assessing the situation. Hook Swords glides about on the dirt floor unnaturally, a green glow emanating from their hooves. Friction manipulation. He was right. Pike runs at him and Leo side steps, earning a minor graze on his cheek. He elbows Pike in the chin before stepping away from a slash. Chigiriki comes at him, holding the chain close to the staff, and Leo parrys with a clang of his odachi hitting the chain Noticing that Chigiriki and Pike are maintaining distance. Makes sense. Where the hell is Hook Swords?
Something hooks his shell and pulls him backwards, a crescent blade coming towards his face as he rolls away and jumps onto a boulder. He needs to think. The chigiriki chain wraps around his foot and pulls him off, narrowly retracting his head in time to not be hit on the rock. He's beginning to get a feel for their tactics here. He rolls towards Chigiriki, tackling them in the legs. Chigiriki holds onto their weapon, until Leo stabs them in the arm and they let go on reflex. A hook catches him by the shell and pulls him off. As Hook swords help Chigiriki up Leo shakes the chain off his foot.

Mikey shouts at the tv screen at the good play his brother made. He thinks he knows what the Mriga Triplets are doing, having two of them keep Leo occupied while the other works their razzmatazz. The one with the pike, Rigel if Mikey remembers correctly, seems to be implanting mystic energy into the ground. He wonders what that's going to do later. The camera refocuses back onto Leo as he's disarmed by Vega, the one with the hook swords. Mikey gasps, "No!"
Leo's odachi surrounds itself in green energy as the one with the chigiriki, Alioth, grabs it with telekinesis. Leo is officially on the defensive, dodging Vega's attacks with relative ease. "Seems like the champion's in a tough spot! Whatever will he do!" The announcer calls.
"Win, obviously." Mikey says to the tv, eating popcorn.
The popcorn spills as Mikey's startled by the loud screeching noise of bars going over his windows. Guards begin to file in. "What's happening?" He asks.
"Minor lockdown." One of the guards reports.
Mikey climbs onto the back of one of the couches "What for?"
"Continue watching the fight, everything's okay." Another says.
Everything is clearly not okay if there's twelve guards in his room. Mikey looks up, seeing a few of his more agile guards up in his hammocks. Cathead waves. Mikey waves back. Okay, make that twenty guards.
Anxiety thrums in his chest, but Mikey can't exactly do anything right now. The guards probably don't know what caused the lockdown exactly, as all of these people are part of the babysitter corps and are stationed to protect him specifically. He'll ask about it later, but right now, he should be (relatively) safe. So he should watch Leo's fight. He turns back towards the tv screen, just in time to see the chain from Alioth's chigiriki wrap around Leo's forearm and send him flying onto one of the places Rigel infused with magic.
Boom! It explodes!

So that's what pike was doing all this time? Without him? Oh, Leo feels offended. And hurt. He hurts. Where is his sword? Chigiriki threw it somewhere. Eh, he'll just do a theft for hook swords. Dual wielding, baby!
Leo coughs dust out of his lungs and gets back up onto his feet. He grins, having fun in a distant sort of way. His first instinct is to orient himself but these three are putting him on a run for his nonexistent money. Yeah, they definitely researched him well.
The dust shifts, and Pike comes running in. Leo flips away, dodging the repeated stabs, before stepping closer to Pike. You see, Leo imagines himself explaining to Mikey, the best way to deal with polearms is to not be afraid of getting stabbed a little. Even as Pike riddles him with near miss cuts and gouges, Leo grabs Pike by the snout and pushes it to the side, their prey eyes darting from side to side. He gives a lazy smile, blood running down his cheek as he says "Missed me."
He bites Pike on the shoulder as they squirm under his grip. They push him off him and he lets go. Wiping blood off his mouth, licking his sweaty hand to get the taste of iron out of his mouth. Pike, visibly terrified, takes a step back into the caring arms of their siblings. Leo smiles "Really, you should be honored. Can't remember the last time I bit somebody."
Chigiriki's ears lower as they let out a kind of growl-grunt. Leo shrugs "And I take it you don't either. Well, consider this a souvenir! Want me to sign it?"
He laughs. The ground shakes from a distant vibration. Leo dismisses it as a hallucination as Chigiriki swings the weighted chain at him. He ducks, and Hook swords grab him by the shoulder, leaving a deep gash there. He rolls away, nursing it slightly as he chuckles "An eye for an eye, I suppose."
"They really weren't kidding when they said you don't shut up." Hook swords snarls.
"It's one of my many charms." He remarks before backstepping another strike.
Behind Hook swords, he sees Pike and Chigiriki talking about something. Probably about where more of the traps were set. They split and Chigiriki joins Hook swords while Pike goes to the back, hovering near the walls of the arena. Pity he didn't somehow get an artery.
Blood loss of any kind will help him with this fight however. "You know, if you just surrendered to the cops you wouldn't be here." Leo blocks the chigiriki staff with his forearm, which is already beginning to bruise.
He ducks to the side, "Theft does not usually warrant Battle Nexus treatment y'know? But murder of like, eight cops?" Leo fake examines his nails "Yeah, there would've been easier ways to go."
"What are you trying to do?" Hook swords ask.
"I mean," Leo ducks underneath a swing ",aren't you supposed to be smart?" He gets a free punch against hook swords, landing in their chest.
He steps behind Hook swords as Chigiriki tries to hit him with their staff, pulling back at the last minute to not hurt their sibling. Leo rolls his eyes "I mean, over eight hundred thousand dollars of items stolen, and you get yourself locked in here," he wraps an arm around hook swords' shoulders "with me?"
Leo sidesteps their attempted elbow to his stomach, flipping away with a faint ache on his shell "Seems kinda stupid to me."
As he lands back on his feet, the ground vibrates again. Is he actually hallucinating? The chigiriki chain lunges at him, he ducks into his shell entirely. No time to think.
He looks out from his shell, and why look at that! A hoof is practically right there! Deers aren't horses in terms of leg fragility, but they are related so-- Leo reaches out and jerks the hoof towards him. He lets go as the yokai screams. The other tries to step on him, he rolls out of the way. The ground is still vibrating, he feels it through his shell. What is happening? The Mriga Triplets would have to feel it too, right. He must be hallucinating.
An audible explosion finally hits him and all the opponent's in the arena freeze for a moment. Hook swords and Chigiriki look over at Pike who gives a who?-not-me expression. Another explosion bursts through the arena, and the magical lid fractures with a whining screech. The audience screams and begins running away. Leo's heart sinks to his stomach, he can't fight without anybody watching, he almost reaches out to the audience. As he almost tells them not to go.
Focus! In the arena! Yokai, all cloaked to look the same, all carrying various weapons, begin marching through the hole in the wall. Leo glances around the arena, looking for his odachi. One of the yokai raises their arms, and a disguised voice declares "Do not worry! We are here to set you free!"
What.
Chigiriki squints suspiciously and Pike comes running over to join their siblings. The Mriga triplets talk briefly, too quietly for Leo to hear, before going towards the mysterious people, Pike and Hook Swords supporting Chigiriki’s broken ankle. His heart leaps into his throat. Leo takes a step forward, numbly saying "You can't leave."
Hook Swords opens their mouth to snark at him before one of the cloaked yokai steps in between them. "Do not worry, Big Mama will not hurt you."
Not everything in his life is about Big Mama, dammit! "This isn't about her." Leo snarls before turning to the Mriga triplets "You can't just leave."
Hook Swords lets out an amused huff and asks "Why not?"
"Because I'm not done with you."

Mikey stands right in front of the tv, watching the blue dot of his brother. All of the camera men fled, all of the audio jockeys fled, leaving Mikey with so precious little of his brother. The group of intruders dont wander far from the hole they made. He hears them talking, but there's no clarity. What are they doing here?
Leo enters a battle stance and roundhouse kicks an intruder in the face. Mikey cheers. The intruders begin to surround his brother, the Mriga Triplets being lead away as Leo moves through the crowd like water.

"Alert: Champion is crazy. I repeat. Champion is actually crazy." Somebody urgently says into their comm.
Leo lunges underneath the swing of a blade, breaking the swordsman's wrists with a twist. He grabs the katana, smiling inwardly to himself at the feel of it. He stabs the invader through the neck, where the least amount of armor padding is. He kicks off somebody, aiming for the Mriga triplets as they hobble off down the hallway. He slams into a wall of dirt and rock and snarls. They can't do this! They can't do this!
He glances around, seeing one of the yokai with their arms raised and glowing behind several other yokai. Leo lunges at them, hissing a wordless threat. A knife glances off his shell, he slides past another invader and he's almost in stabbing distance of the earthbender. The wall falls, probably needing to focus on defending themselves against Leo as he races towards them, planning to decapitate the earthbender, a visor goes down on their helmet-
White blinds his vision. Sudden debilitating pain across his tympanum. He squeezes the katana hilt against his head, trying and get the pain to stop.
Leo's thrown against the wall, dropping the katana as brick cuffs restraining him to the wall.
The ringing lessens and one of the disguised yokai stands in front of him. "You do not need to be the champion." They say "You can be free."
"Get out of my arena! Get out!" Leo hisses, wiggling in his restraints, mind still stuttering from the sudden interruption of his fight.
The invader's voice is disgustingly soft "You don't need to prove anything. We can keep you safe! Give you an actual room with actual food."
They don't know anything. They cannot know everything. They don't know why he's actually here. Leo laughs, grounding himself a little from the thought. This isn’t a fight anymore, they’re trying to convince him of something. He grins. "Listen. I'm not going to leave."
The invader tilts their head "Why not?"
"I know better than to answer that." Leo says, gesturing with limited capability "I'm the best champion there is, remember?"
The invader sighs, disappointment, looking behind themselves towards somebody. A gesture is given, and Leo is stabbed in the stomach.

Mikey almost remembers this.
This has happened before.
He steps through the golden glow of the tv as the brick cuffs are released and Leo falls to the ground. He hisses at the intruder, who, honest to spirits, steps back as he kneels next to Leo. The intruder begins "Kid-" "Fuck off." Mikey barks.
He pulls Leo onto his lap, putting pressure on the wound. "Kid, what are you doing?" The intruder asks.
"What do you think I'm doing?" Mikey snarls.
The intruder slowly approaches him, not heeding the warning growl emanating from Mikey's throat. "I'm not going hurt you." The intruder says with an outreached hand.
Mikey thinks, I can't let go of Leo, threat approaching, panic, anger, panic. A golden chain flicks itself around the intruder's ankle, they make eye contact with Mikey before being yanked away. A mass of intruder's reach for their weapons, and the chains multiply. Mikey's eyes glow yellow as chains flail across the entire arena, weapons being thrown away from their owners. Intruders shout in pain as chains dislocate and break limbs. Intruders drop as their necks snap, eyes disintegrating into a golden glow before they hit the ground. Mikey's hurting people, he's hurting people, he's hurting people he cant stop what's happening. Leo blinks, confused "Mikey?"
He knows this one. Mikey nervous giggles, looking down at Leo "I'm here, I'm here. Don't worry, Leon. We're gonna be a-okay in a moment."
"You shouldn't- you shouldn't be here." Leo squints.
Mikey is going to hate himself for this. "Be where, Leo? We're in my room."
"Oh." Leo blinks before leaning into Mikey "Okay."
Mikey is trying to control his breathing, trying not to hyperventilate as he pulls off his shirt to help staunch the bleeding. The intruders are not helping, a few of them understand that they don't get attacked if they don't attack. Eventually they all stop attacking. They stare at Mikey and Leo, tense about the situation. What do they have to stare for? Rage boils in his teeth and he shouts "YOUR MAMA NEVER TEACH YOU IT'S RUDE TO STARE! MIND YO' BUSINESS!"
They look away and talk amongst themselves. They murmur on their comms and Mikey cannot find it in himself to care what they're saying. They begin to leave, a few at least now pretending not to look at him. Their heads jerk towards the hole in the wall they created, as Mama's guards have arrived. A fight ensues, with loud clashing and shouts. Mikey looks down at Leo, trying to block everything else out. His brother is pale, eyes half lidded by nictitating membrane. Mikey holds Leo like his life depends on it. "Leo?" Mikey says.
"Mmm?" Leo looks up at Mikey.
"You're not allowed to die." Mikey grins weakly "If you die, I'll kill you myself."
Leo smiles "Yeah. Go figure."
Leo nestles back into Mikey's stomach. Is Leo even aware that he's been stabbed? He can get pretty out of it at times, and he seemed to genuinely believe they were in Mikey's room right now. Or maybe he was just playing along with the lie. Mikey did that sometimes.
Guards begin to rush around them, guards that Mikey doesn't recognize. He pulls Leo closer as they approach, and instead of trying to take Leo away like he expected, they grab him.
They drag him about three feet away from Leo when they grab him by the shoulders and a visceral terror emerges from Mikey’s chest as he screams. Biting the hand of the guard dragging him away. They drop him and he scrambles over to Leo, screeching "Don't touch him!"
He jumps onto a guard and digs his claws into their eye socket. Another grabs him off the guard, and Mikey elbows the yokai in the face. Pins and needles run up his arm as he ducks underneath the following punch, grabs onto the shirt and plunges his knee into their crotch. He runs next to Leo, breathing hard, spitting out a chunk of flesh. Jaw smarting from the pressure of biting someone like that. He checks over Leo, eyes still glazed over.
The guards assess the situation, a tiny little terror of a turtle appears out of nowhere to protect the injured champion from all perceived threats? This is not where they should be spending their energy, they have better places to be rather than tussle with a mean, green, attack turtle. They call in doctors for the champion. The doctors come, and they leave missing eyes, fingers, and more. Mikey does not trust white coats or reaching, grabbing hands. Nobody is going to touch them. Nobody is ever going to hurt Leo again.
He hears footsteps, and looks up with a snarl already on his face but it falls as he recognizes this one. He never met this doctor, but Leo described Dr. Bibo Stormrake perfectly. Pale gas mask with ventilator hoses attached to a small backpack. Mask being subtly adjusted by clawed fingers, Bibo sits down. Mikey holds Leo closer, still hesitant at the sight of what he knows to be a doctor.
Bibo takes off his shoulder bag and begins rifling through it. He pulls out a small, rubber mat and unfurls it onto the dirt floor. He begins placing various items on it; needles, syringes, stitches, ointment, every so often looking over at Leo and Mikey before pulling out more items. Mikey is confused, having no idea what Bibo is doing.
The doctor rolls the rubber mat closed, with all the items on it, and hands it over to Mikey "I assume you know what you're doing."
Mikey blinks.
"It's for you to use." Bibo reiterates.
Mikey hesitantly takes the mat and unfurls it in front of him. He removes his bloodied shirt, trying to ignore the way Leo groans in pain. He cleans away the blood and adds antiseptic to the wound. It's…really big. Bigger then he first thought. Mikey can see the keratin, the hardened cartilage connected to the fat connected to the muscle, they ripped through the entire plastron. His eyes widen in horror as he sees the ripped intestines and liver inside of Leo, spirits, he can see the internal bleeding.
Bibo scoots a bit closer. "You did a good job cleaning the wound." Bibo says comfortingly "It is understandable if you do not know how to fix this. I can fix him up, but he is going to need a blood transfusion. Do you know if you're the same blood type?"
Mikey nods.
"Good. I am going to approach now." Bibo announces as he stands up.
He sits down next to Mikey, pulling out a few needles and begins the blood transfusion process "It is good that you put him on your lap. Elevation is good. If you are okay with it, I would like you to keep him on your lap."
"Am okay." Mikey says, wincing from the needle going into his skin.
"Good." Bibo says.
Red blood begins to flow down the tube from Mikey to Leo. Bibo says "Please tell me if you are feeling lightheaded. It is normal, but tell me anyway. I like knowing things."
Bibo pulls medicine from a bottle with a syringe. "Painkillers." He announces.
He flicks the air bubbles from the syringe and injects it into Leo's arm. He pulls out a little curved, stitching needle and begins stitching up the intestines. After a moment of Mikey watching Bibo tenderly pulling the needle in and out of internal tissue when Bibo says "You don't need to watch."
"I need to." Mikey says.
"Okay." Bibo responds.
Mikey numbly watches Bibo stitch Leo up. Holding his brother, covered in blood. Mikey matches him, almost. People tried to grab Mikey, he hates it when people grab him, people just need to fucking ask but they dont and then he needs to bite and go for the eyes because nobody fucking asks to pick him up or touch him. Leo complained about his previous doctors, how grabby they were and urgent to get the entire being injured part done. Who didn't believe Leo when he said he was in pain and told him that he was addicted to drugs. How sometimes Leo would rather get medical attention from his little brother rather than any attention from those doctors.
That hasn't happened in a long time though.
"Leo tells me that you would like to cut him up." Mikey says, remembering.
"Yes?" Bibo says, clearly telling that the statement is going to go somewhere.
"He tells me, that you have told him, that you have the rights to his body when he dies." Mikey says.
"Yes." Bibo says, cleaning up the internal stitches.
"He told me that you would like to taxidermy him, one day."
Bibo sighs, a bit irritated from beating around the bush, he knows all this already, "What do you think of it?"
Mikey thinks for a moment, chewing on his lip before asking "Do you really mean to hurt Leo? Or taxidermy him, or something like that."
Bibo sighs, less irritated and more thoughtful. "That is a difficult question but I will do my best to answer it."
Bibo grabs a very thick needle and thread from his bag and says "He will need to have these manually removed by the way. Make sure he doesn't miss that appointment."
He begins the stitch and says "Leo is…a good person. Morality is hard to define, it's something I'm trying to work on. But Leo is a good person."
A level of amusement enters Bibo's voice "He's awful in a good way. Like wine. So I mostly joke about taking him apart, because he amazes me, but also because he is built in a very unique way. He should've bled out by now, but he didn't. Because he's Leonardo, the greatest champion, and refuses to die in any reasonable way."
Bibo chuckles "Honestly, I think one day he's just going to get a surprise allergy to empyrean or something and go into anaphylactic shock."
Bibo quiets, and for a moment just focuses on stitching closed the wound. Mikey thinks he's all done talking before Bibo carefully explains "When people die, they're in a vulnerable state. They can no longer defend themselves in any kind of way. And Leo. Leo's so…so him. And I think he deserves to be safe when he dies."
"And you think he'd be safer with you?" Mikey asks, feeling oddly territorial.
"Well, I know he has you now." Bibo finishes the stitch.
Mikey is comforted by that idea. That Bibo thinks Leo would be safe with him. Then his brain does a screeching halt, as information catches up to him. Mikey assumed the information went both ways, that Leo told Mikey about Bibo and Leo told Bilbo about Mikey. "You," Mikey asks, "didn't know about me?"

Chapter Text

Tubes and monitors cover Leo, almost consuming him. The machines beep rhythmically, Leo was now stabilized. Mikey almost wants to fall over. “Do you like orange juice?” Bibo asks, out of the blue.

Mikey’s mind takes a minute to catch up “What.”

“You donated a lot of blood to your brother, you should be feeling woozy right about now. You should go get some orange juice and a cookie.” Bibo explains.

Mikey does not move, awkwardly standing in the hospital room, fidgeting with his fingers. Bibo says “He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be sleeping for a while, and the painkillers will make him a little loopy. I can monitor him while you go grab something to eat.”

Mikey looks at the tiled floor, an invisible chill running up his shell “Leo won’t be able to eat for a while, right?”

“Correct. Only soft or liquid foods.” Bibo states.

Mikey bites his lip, mind pausing at the idea of not knowing what to give Leo other massive amounts of food (it wasn’t stress baking if he doesn’t bake), before his eyes widen and he bounces in excitement “Oh! I could still get things for him! Like Chess! And blankets! And toys! Oh he is going to be so bored in here! You said he’s going to be here a while yes?”

“Yes.” Bibo says.

“Then I’m gonna bring all the entertainment I can bring!” Mikey declares, flapping his hands in excitement.

Bibo looks at Mikey, face unreadable behind the gas mask, and says “Sure.”

Mikey leaves the room, giving himself a moment to memorize Leo’s room number before dashing off. He tries not to think about Bibo’s assumption of Leo simply forgetting to tell Bibo about him. The anecdote of one of Bibo’s patients forgetting to mention that he swallowed several kinds of change was funny, but that wasn’t Leo. What’s it called? The thing where the fewest assumptions need to be made. Or the patterns involved in behavior. Leo lies. Big Mama lies. Mikey doesn’t mention the lies because it’s polite. Leo could’ve lied to Bibo about him, the question is why? Is…is Leo not proud of him?

He’s trying not to think about it.

He knows it's a bad idea, bottling things up like that, but Mikey thinks he might still be in shock. So he makes himself feel useful, by walking into his room, giving a brief greeting to the guards. One of their eyes is contracted, they open their mouth as Mikey opens his door and freezes.

Big Mama stands in front of his fried tv, hands behind her back. She turns around, smiling ever so sweetly, and waves at him; gestures for him to come over.

Mikey did not expect to feel this rage. Not this anger. Why is he angry? Don’t let it out, don’t let it out, don’t let it out. “What are you doing here?” Mikey manages a polite smile as he walks over.

“Seeing what happened. Of course.” Big Mama says, giving Mikey a side hug. “You’ve been visiting your brother?”

“Yeah.” Mikey says.

“Good. Good." Big Mama says solemnly, looking up at the tv.

The wall behind the tv is blackened, with the screen itself having warped and bubbled like a bad resin project. Something weird definitely happened. Big Mama clears her throat "So, Michelangelo. I have been informed that you have created quite the mystic mayhem.”

Mikey tries to keep his breathing even, Mama’s in information gathering mode. He shouldn’t be afraid, he has nothing to hide. She doesn’t know what happened, she’s probably stressed so just give her what she wants. He smiles softly “I don’t know what you mean?”

Big Mama’s eyebrows furrow in distaste “This again.” She rolls her eyes and Mikey feels so so small “,Tell me, how did your tv get so thoroughly fried? Cooked? Absolutely meltisazzled?”

Mikey rolls the memory over again, with obvious black spots. He forgot. He glances at the door “I don't know? I assume I ran out and went to the arena.”

“You assume?” She asks.

“Yeah. I saw everything that was happening on the tv and I panicked.” Mikey says.

“Hmmm, yes. I’ve already seen the tapes of you protecting Leo. What do you remember of the intruders?” She asks, interrogating him.

Mikey’s irritated at that. She’s seen the tapes already, her first instinct was to watch what happened rather than ask, or even visit Leo. She knows he got stabbed and she did nothing about it yet. Isn’t he supposed to be her son? He shrugs, tone a bit terse. “They just stared at us and left.”

Big Mama taps her chin in thought. “Hmm. Interesting.”

“Interesting? Is that it?” Mikey blurts.

He immediately regrets it and puts a hand over his mouth. Stupid! Stupid! Shut up! Don’t say anything! She raises her eyebrows “Is there a problem, goldenberry?”

Mikey shakes his head, smiling to try and disarm Mama “No, no, no. I’m good. I’m okay.”

“Child, I am doing my best.” Big Mama says firmly, before seeing something twitch in Mikey’s expression “You disagree?”

Mikey awkwardly stands there. Big Mama leans forward to his eye level, and puts a hand on his shoulder “Come on. Tell Big Mama what your problem is.”

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do, but the rage in his teeth slowly seeps into his tongue and he begins speaking against his will "You--you weren’t there.”

“Hmm?”

Anger begins to rise “You weren’t there. Isn’t Leo supposed to be this big important champion? Isn’t he supposed to be your son? He nearly got disemboweled and you weren’t there.”

“Dearie, I was dealing with Baron Draxum.” She croons.

Mikey throws his hands up in the air “You say that like I know what it means! I get it, you and Leo are all about secret keeping, keeping it close to your chest and all that. But maybe, MAYBE! Trying to hide me from everything bad that happens is a bad idea!”

All I know is that I saw my brother get hurt! And I had to keep him safe!” Big Mama opens her mouth and Mikey bulldozes past it “Don’t! You weren’t there! You didn’t listen to him complain about all those doctors. You weren’t there to patch him up! You don’t know the fucked up things those doctors did to him. So no, I couldn’t let just anybody touch him!”

Mikey remembers what he was here to do and slams open a desk drawer “Everybody is just so fucking touchy! Everybody thinks that they can touch me and my brother and get away with it!”

“You injured a lot of staff.” Big Mama states plainly.

Mikey pulls the chess box out of the drawer “And you know what?” he turns to Big Mama with a glare “I don’t care.”

She squints at the box “What is that?”

“Chess.” He states simply.

“What’s it for?” She asks.

Mikey guffaws “Seriously?”

She gives him the look that signifies that she doesn’t know.

She has to be kidding. “It’s Leo’s favorite game.” Mikey says like it's obvious, because it is.

Her eyebrows raise slightly, she’s surprised. Mikey snarls “Are you kidding me? You don’t even know his favorite game? With how much you two fucking lie to eachother?”

Mikey laughs as he turns around, being interrupted by Big Mama stating “You’re going back to his hospital room.”

“Yeah. Somebody’s gotta be there.” Mikey growls.

He’s halfway to the door when Big Mama declares “I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”

Panic! Shut up! She can’t do this! What,is Leo supposed to wake up alone? Mikey jolts around and snarls “Fucking try to stop me.”

“You’re not that strong.” Her tone lilts “A few guards could stop you.”

“And I’d fight back.” He punctuates the sentence by dropping the chess box “,You know I’d fight back. I hurt a lot of staff in that little kerfuffle? I can hurt a whole lot more.”

She shifts her weight, thinking carefully on the situation. She knows many things that Mikey doesn’t, and it makes him feel stupid. She glances at the guards in the rooms, the babysitter corps, people who should know how dangerous Mikey can be after he killed a guy when he was nine. They know the rules well, they know Mikey well. They know he will not hesitate to gouge out every single one of their eyes if they genuinely thought they could keep him away from Leo. Not to mention the sudden use of mystics making them all much more iffy about the idea of keeping him here, in his room, against his will.

Cathead steps up and asks “Is there anything else you would like to be carried to Leo’s room, sir?”

Big Mama glares directly at Cathead, shocked by the disrespect. Mikey smiles out of relief, briefly wondering if that means he’s more feared or respected then Big Mama. He lets the thought dissipate along with all the other thoughts he’s not thinking about and begins ordering his guard around “Grab Leo’s favorite blankets, they’re the Jupiter Jim ones. The turtle plush, the narwhal squishmallow, hot and cold packs, no snacks. He cannot eat today. Get some gum though, blueberry and blue cotton candy flavor. I like watermelon by the way, so get some of that too.”

He picks the chess box back up “And some comic books, the easy ones mind you. Everything is about the same priority as he’s still asleep. So don’t worry about everything too much.”

Mikey leaves with Cathead, who insists on carrying the chess box anyways. He recognises this as a blatant attempt to avoid Big Mama, so he lets Cathead be.

Leo is keenly aware of the feeling of being drugged, specifically the kind that makes his thoughts slug forward as the cost to being blissfully not in pain. In this moment, Leo does not so much as think why he’s on drugs, and only thinks where. He opens his eyes, a laborious activity, and sees a little bundle of orange laying on his bed from the chair, hand already in his. Leo smiles to himself. As expected, Mikey got visitation rights.

He looks around, finding himself attached to a heart monitor and an iv drip. A numb, distant part of him begins to writhe and scream and tear all these needles and monitors out of him. A familiar doctor walks in, and Leo takes a releasing breath. Bibo says something that Leo can’t hear, “Eh?”

"You are awake." Bibo states a bit louder but still soft so that Mikey doesn’t get disturbed.

Leo grunts the affirmative.

Bibo rounds the bed and checks the iv bag "Saline and opioids by the way." Leo grimances at the information ",Do not try to give me any sort of look, you were nearly disemboweled."

Leo blinks. Trying to remember what being disemboweled felt like. Bibo adjusts the bed settings so Leo can sit up in a more comfortable position. He pulls up a stool and produces a clipboard "By the way, we should see how your memory has been impacted by the event. What do you remember?"

"Hnnn. I remember." Leo says things in the order they come to him "The deer- the Mriga triplets. They're good. Kept me on the run, didn’t want me to think. And they tried to quit the fight, and I got mad. Then I got restrained." He looks at Bibo with an irritated look as he realizes what happened "We got invaded, didn't we?"

"Yes. What else?" Bibo says without looking up from the clipboard.

"And they talked to me and stabbed me and then…Well Mikey said we were in his room but his ceilings aren't depression gray. I was definitely not present anyways so I dont think it matters anyways. I passed out. The end. ” Leo shrugs.

"Good. Good." Bibo writes down Leo's record of the events "The invaders were a liberation group by the way. They freed a lot of gladiators."

Leo frowns, mumbling "F’cking, dumbasses."

Leo may not be able to see Bibo’s face, but with the pause in writing, and the subtle tilt of the head to signify that he was looking at Leo, Bibo is thinking very deeply.

"They offered you freedom, didn't they?" Bibo says bluntly.

"They sure did." Leo says.

Leo briefly wonders what Bibo thinks of this information, then Bibo looks at Mikey, and Leo remembers that Bibo isn't supposed to know about him. Leo puts a protective hand on Mikey's head. Bibo hums "Don't worry. I think very kindly of your brother."

Leo remembers all the guards running it and knows that they are prone to gossip. Part of the reason why the babysitter corps was created was to keep Mikey a secret, and now all of these guards not sworn to ndas are going to start talking, not to mention all the invaders, and spirits where the cameras still running? If they were, that’s probably going to be leaked somehow. Bibo awkwardly pats Leo’s hand "Worry about what everybody else will think of him, later. Right now you need to tell me what you remember."

Leo was in the arena, and Mikey was in his room. How did one go from the other? "What happened to Mikey? He was supposed to be not in the arena?"

"We have no idea. Mikey says he doesn't remember, though the guards reported a golden glow." Bibo reports "The current theory is mystic awakening."

Leo rubs Mikey's head. Mystic awakening implies that this is the first time Mikey has used his mystic, which is wrong. He remembers a quote from somewhere, history doesn't often repeat but it frequently rhymes. It keeps on happening. Leo supposes it will never stop happening.

Breathe.

"Is he okay?" Leo asks on impulse.

Bibo chuckles lightly "He's fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises from chasing off half the medical staff."

Leo smiles, looking at Mikey fondly "He's like that."

"I don't know what that means but yes. Sure. He's like that. And he's a very nice young man." Bibo sets down the clipboard.

"Has he shown you his drawings yet?" Leo asks.

Bibo says "Yes. He's a prodigy in art, and a decent field medic. He's very impressive, you must be proud of him."

Leo looks down at Mikey with the utmost fondness "I am."

Mikey begins to stir, chirping quietly as he blinks awake. His sleepiness is instantly vanquished when he sees Leo “You’re awake!”

“Yup.” Leo says as Mikey squeals.

Mikey scrambles into the hospital bed, Leo moves over to give Mikey more room. Mikey nuzzles into Leo’s chest, beginning to chur contently, and Leo feels okay. Bibo stands off to the side awkwardly. “I…assume that I will have no effect in this situation.”

“Yup!” Mikey declares.

Leo says “Yeah. We’ll be careful.”

“Well, Mikey, you know what to do if the iv comes out?” Bibo checks.

“Yup!” Mikey says.

Bibo nods “Well,” he puts the call button over the rails of the hospital bed to be closer to Leo “,this is to call the nurses. These buttons control the angle of your bed. I will check in tomorrow afternoon. Do not touch your stitches.”

“Yeah, I know.” Leo says dismissively.

Bibo stares at Leo in a way that means he doesn’t trust Leo for a second. He turns to Mikey “Michelangelo.”

“Yeah?” Mikey says, muffled from his face still being pressed against Leo’s chest.

“Make sure he doesn’t touch his stitches.” Bibo states.

Mikey gives Bibo a thumbs up. Leo rolls his eyes.

“Now excuse me. I need to dismiss myself, as my filters need to be changed.” Bibo states.

Bibo leaves and Leo lets himself be at least sorta kinda present. With Mikey next to him, everything seems okay for just a moment. His lurking anxiety is dimmed by the medication, and floating memories pass through his mind. Mystics are…complicated. There was a hydra. And Leo was hurt. He couldn’t use one of his arms from the paralytic venom. A blue glow appeared beneath him and he was up in the air. Coaxing the heads into the portals to chop them off abruptly. Then tearing through the creature’s stomach. Big Mama later yelled at him about it. He could not make a portal again.

Chapter Text

Mikey does not know why he feels like shit.

Well, there's the easy reason, his brother is in surgery. That hasn't happened before. Leo gets injured, yeah, it comes with the job. Usually its his bones and joints that get the worst of it, that's what happened to his knee. He jumped off of one too many things, that his knee is now permanently damaged. His arm has been dislocated, he got a broken collarbone, jabbed finger, split scute, cracked shell, hell! Leo's been stabbed before!

So what makes this different?

Physically, it feels like nervous energy running through his entire system, tapping his foot, flapping his hands, and an all encompassing dread like premature adrenaline.

Was he scared?

Mikey holds his head in his hands as he swings on a hammock. He wasn't scared. His home was just invaded for whatever reason and Leo was just spontaneously stabbed! For whatever reason! Not even just stabbed! They tried to disembowel him! Make his inside guts outside guts. Why would they do that to him?

It wasn't fair. There was the number advantage, but Leo fought against the number advantage all the time. They had a mystic user, but Leo fought mystics all the time. Was it the flashbang? Is that unfair? Mikey doesn't recall ever seeing a flashbang in real life.

He needs to get this energy out. This is awful.

Mikey approaches the unfinished sketch of a mural that he's been procrastinating for weeks. He thinks it looks dumb now anyways, so he's going to start over. He pulls out his acrylics, oils, spray paints, india inks and alcohol inks from various motley places. Try as he might, he cannot keep his art supplies in one place, so he puts them in every place. He stares at his spread of supplies and opts for the spray paint, he straps on his gas mask and begins with his only plan being get the feeling out.

Mikey does not feel smart sometimes. His mom and brother tell him all the time that he's a genius. But he's at the very least not smart like them. They know what's happening several moves ahead, they can guess what you were thinking several moves behind, they're like Sherlock. They seem to know everything, and if they don't know something they will fight to know it.

They're so…
So…
Conniving?

Words are hard.

But this. This is easy.

His mom is purple, obviously. Shapes upoun shapes winding in on themselves, covered in tangents and repeating lines and colors. He puts extra care to make sure that she doesn't drip.

Mama's all tight and contained. Mikey doesn't think she wants to be. She complains about the meetings and the laws and the meetings with the council of heads. But what Mikey thinks doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

Mama doesn't drip, but Leo bleeds. He winds around and around in one continuous blue shape, full of negative space and sharp corners. He's a spiral, covered in lines and spaces. He's there, ever present, dripping down Mikey's wall till it reaches the baseboards. He's bled in this room and he will bleed again.

He will bleed again.

Delve into that thought, work through it. Why?

Leo and Mama fight alot. Sharp and pale shapes between them. What are they fighting about? They try to hide it from him, but Mikey knows at least some of it is about him.
Him, circles upon circles bubbling up from the clash, colorful silks dripping down from an eye with four irises.

Where is he?

He needs to get higher.

Mikey secures his paint cans to a harness and climbs onto his silks, twisting himself up into it so he can paint how he wants.

Why are they arguing about him? Differing ideals. This all goes back to Mama and Leo being smarter than him, they hide information well.
They're hiding information from him.

Okay, normal. This is normal. But but but- It involves him, right? Why are they hiding it? It involves him, he could help. What is stressing his family out? They’re always stressed though, but if they’re stressing out about him then he can’t be a safe space for them because then he would just be a reminder of all the stress. Right? Right? Why are they stressed about him? Why was his home invaded? Why was Leo stabbed? Why wouldnt it fucking heal right!

Mikey falls from his silks and lands on the cushioned floor below. Breathing hard, tears coming from his eyes, he hugs his knees and lets himself cry. Why did he yell at Big Mama, why is he so scared, why does he hurt people?

There's a knock at the door. "Come in." Mikey croaks.

Big Mama ducks underneath the door frame. "Hello there, my Goldenberry. Um, can I ask what you're doing?"

Mikey takes off his gas mask and wipes at his tears"Art therapy."

She walks over to his silks, the cushioned floor shifting with her weight.

She looks up at the piece. Analyzing it carefully. There's a bit of distaste in Mikey's chest as he stands up. He looks at the mural, and it kinda looks like a Basquiat? More shapey and abstract. Though the eye does bring up his vibes.

Mikey grabs his posca markers and begins scribbling on the mural. He likes Basquiat's messiness, there's thought behind it, though sometimes the thought was this might look good. Add some red here on mama's shape and it looks more like berries so add some vague leaf shapes and now you can't tell if it's a stylized eye or berry! He totally did that on purpose!

"Is it working?" Big Mama asks.

"Yeah." Mikey croaks, working his posca pen on Leo again and again till it begins to drip like he wants it too.

"Could you explain it to me?"

He supposes it makes sense, for a family so keen on secrets, that infodumping would be a love language. "Basquiat liked anatomy." Mikey explains "I like psychology." He grabs his white and black poscas "This isn't how you look. This is how you are. How you feel. How you interact with the world around you." Is there a chance Mikey will be a tragedy like so many other artists? He doesn’t want to be.

He lines out some shapes, switching from black and white. The lines blur slightly as some of the paint isn't quite dry yet. This is bad for his poscas and he doesn't quite care. "It's not meant to be accurate. It's meant to be."

"Like impressionism?" Big Mama asks.

Mikey smiles softly. She remembered that from one of his previous infodumps. "Something like it. Impressionism is more foggy. This. Is. Representative. This Chair is Not A Chair kinda stuff."

Big Mama nods, though Mikey does not think he told her about the controversy of that entire piece. Whatever, he has a bad memory anyways. He gestures for Mama to come closer and he climbs on top of her, standing on her shoulders so he can line the drips from his little orange bubbles into braids. She holds him carefully, asking "Do you know what it means?"

Mikey growls slightly at the question "Meaning in art is a very debated term. Like, yes there is meaning to artist work. But why does everything have to have meaning? Why can't a chair be a chair? Why can't you just enjoy what you look at or just try to improve your skill?"

Big Mama rewords her question "Is there meaning in this one?"

Mikey's quiet for a moment, posca hovering off the wall and deflating from his art rant before chuckling "I have no idea. I just put paint there man."

Big Mama giggles and scoops him off her shoulders, holding him in her many arms. "I think it looks nice."

"Take a picture while it lasts." Mikey says, having repainted his entire room over the last couple years.

She looks at Mikey with the utmost fondness and says "I came in to check on you."

"Unlike how you did with Leo?" Mikey screams internally, why did he say that outloud! They were having a good moment!

She winces a little and says "I am sorry that I am the subject of your ire for this period of time."

Mikey has researched on how to apologize. This is not it.

Big Mama says in a low, conspiratory whisper "I have a gift for you."

Mikey perks up in her arms, "What is it!"

"I'll show you. Come follow me." She titters happily.

Big Mama brings Mikey down a handful of hallways. Slowly, doubt begins to gnaw at Mikey. What kind of gift would she give him that's so far away? She approaches a door with a lot of guards around it. Not a good sign.

She sets Mikey down and opens the door for him. It's a small room with a window on one wall and Mikey stumbles from the sheer force of emotion that hits him from what's on the other side. A still in disguise intruder, stripped of armor, tied into a chair surrounded by several guards.

Mikey's heart sinks as Big Mama cheers "Surprise! I caught you your own home invader! I thought you'd want to do something with him."

He's overwhelmed, that's the only thing Mikey can identify through the complex rush of emotions. He wants to cry, a sob crawling into his throat. He wants to rip them limb from limb, at their sheer audacity of coming into his home. He wants to yell at Big Mama, what the fuck kinda gift is this?

He wants to talk to them.

He can do that.

Mikey steadies his voice before he softly asks "Can I talk to them?"

"Of course! The PA system is right over here." Big Mama points to a bit of machinery.

"N-no. I wanna talk to them." Mikey fists his hands "In person."

Big Mama appears to take a moment to process this moment before saying "Of course dearie! Though I'll be watching, just to make sure you're safe."

She pinches his cheek. Mikey smiles up at Big Mama as she calls over one of her assistants to make a portal into the doorless room. He feels a little silly not realizing that there's a door, but he supposes it's a good idea for an interrogation room.

He steps through the portal and first looks at the intruder, their pupils contract slightly at the sight of him and their muscles tense. The portal closes behind him, leaving him locked in with a potential aggressor.

He knows he could dance around this person, play into the whole childish act. He could play bad cop, demand answers immediately. He could ask what could cause a person to join such a group. He could immediately go for chopping off limbs. Goodness, he really should've thought this out more.

Instead, Mikey stands there and says "Hi. My name is Mikey and you stabbed my brother."

"Fuck off."

Mikey blinks. Not expecting a reaction so fast. He tilts his head from side to side as he speaks "Oh. Okay. Um. I'm thirteen years old. My brother's the champion of the battle nexus, and you tried to take him from me."

The intruder frowns "We didn't try to take him from you. He's a gladiator in the battle nexus he needs to be free." They gesture slightly with their head "But since he's been brainwashed by Big Mama, we needed to kill him."

Mikey scoffs "He's not brainwashed by Big Mama."

"Exactly what somebody brainwashed by Big Mama would say." The intruder says.

This is emotional bait, except this is also just stupid. This is stupid. This person is stupid. Mikey looks this yokai up and down, still disguised. Meaning Mama couldn't get it off. Must be mystic.

"You recognise me." Mikey says, not knowing where he's going. "Don't you?"

"I mean, duh." The intruder deadpans "You used your mystic powers to disarm half of us."

A sudden spike of anxiety zaps through Mikey, he puts it in a jar, shelves it, and says "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you portaled in out of nowhere, and summoned buncha chains to tear us apart." The intruder explains dismissively "Do I need to say it again?"

"Yeah, but only for yourself. Because I did not do that." Mikey says, smiling nervously.

The yokai wiggles in their restraints, growling "You aint gonna fucking gaslight me man."

"I'm not gaslighting you. I mean, it's on you if you assumed I did that. Look at me! I'm just a little guy!" Mikey taunts "Could I really do that?"

"Yeah, cause when I woke up, you were tearing everyone a new asshole." The intruder says "Fuckin' hoppin between em and shit. Like some kinda mongrel."

"Was mystic involved in that? No! I tore out that guy's eyeball all by my itty bitty myself! No mystic help needed." Mikey says proudly.

"I know what I saw." The intruder says firmly.

Mikey shakes his head with a grin plastered on his face "I don't think you did. I mean, yeah, little guy taking on all of you? Maybe it would just make more sense to your brain if mystic was involved, was it? That'd be easier."

"You were an unpredicted issue! You only surprised us! That's the only reason you took out so many of us. " The intruder declares.

He didn't say anything about them losing, so he either knows or is guessing that a lot of gladiators escaped into the city. "Why try to rescue so many people without consent anyways? Mama treats her people well." Mikey says, folding his arms "They have dental."

"Have you seen the cells the gladiators live in?" The intruder asks.

"Yeah, and those aren't her people.” Mikey explains, channeling a little bit of Leo “They are given to her by the council of heads, legally might I add! Including the monsters! Do you know how many monsters the hidden city would have if it weren't for Big Mama! Really, you should be thanking her."

"I'm not thanking her for shit."The intruder snarls in a way that reminds Mikey of his more dogged guards.

The disguise can’t cover everything. Mikey says "Well I am. Because she gave me you! To do whatever I want with."

The intruder squints at Mikey "Why would she give a brat like you anything?"

Mikey says matter of factly "Cause I'm her son-"
The rope snaps and he's slammed against the window. Mikey begins to pull himself up as a guard drops in front of him, blood seeping from a large gash on their face. Mikey scrambles to the side, looking up as the guards surround the towering intruder. He throws them all against the wall and takes a step towards Mikey with a wicked grin on his face. Do something, do something, do something, don't just sit there! A loud screech! The intruder's head falls to the floors, disguise flickering off to reveal a furry wolf yokai, eyes rolled into the back of his head and tongue lolled out.

Mikey throws up on the floor as Big Mama rushes into the scene. "My Baby Goldenberry! Are you okay! Are you hurt!"

She scoops him up into her arms and points towards a guard and says "You. You are getting a raise."

Mikey curls into Big Mama, shaking violently as images begin to replay in his head. It's so much much worse in real life. Why does he have to hurt people? Why is he a bad person? Why is he the way he is?

Big Mama coos, rubbing the back of his shell "I'm so, so sorry, Goldenberry. I thought-No it doesn't matter what I thought. I put you in harm's way, it will never happen again. I'm so so sorry!"

Her chattering fades into the background as Mikey squeezes closer to her.

An hour later Big Mama is in her office, as she always is. She hears a knock, five minutes early as always, and invites Dr. Stormrake in to his appointment. To her surprise, two individuals walk through the door. She eyes the stranger carefully. A gangly sort, with a baggy jumpsuit and gas mask with red and blue lenses, not too dissimilar to the doctor's. She chitters "What's this now?"

"That requires context, ma'am." Stormrake informs her, arms folded behind his back in a professional manner with his guest copying his mannerisms.

"Please sit and tell me all about it." She gestures to the seats.

They both sit down. Stormrake begins "I am unfortunately, a mostly unpublished scientist as most ethic committees find me too unnerving and most peer reviews too critical of my work. A great disappointment to me, as I would love to share my research with others. So imagine my great surprise when an eager student found me through my meager publishings."

He gestures towards the stranger who nods and raises their three fingered hand slightly, to indicate that they were the eager student. Stormrake continues "I have been keeping him separate from the more private work of our contract, but he's gone above and beyond in all areas of study. He's been helping me dissect bodies, collect essences and humors, as well as organize my personal data records without asking. He's even done my taxes!"

Stormrake chuckles "He's been a great deal of help to me in my own personal work. As I have already had my hands full with the work you have given me and the work I have taken upon myself. So I am concerned that I would not be able to keep up with the additional work you have set to put on me, especially with the boisterous Michelangelo. I wish to do things to the best of my ability, and when I reach my capacity I only strive to go beyond. So therefore, I request an official medical assistant from my fair companion here."

Big Mama doubts that a student could be an effective assistant to a fully trained doctor, but she is not very knowledgeable in the practical side of the medical field. She'll need to trust Stormrake, an easy task as he's been working here for some thirty odd years now. He knows what he's doing. Big Mama writes down a few key items in shorthand and asks "You know I could have supplied you with a satisfactory assistant. Why bring your own?"

"Mostly because I thought you'd be impressed by his tech work." Stormrake states, gesturing vaguely to his companion.

On the command, thin metal legs unfold from the newcomer's back, his feet no longer touching the ground as he climbs on top of the chair with these legs, the chair not even topping as the mechanical limbs spread his weight throughout the chair and without moving an inch of his physical body. All relatively silently too. Big Mama raises a brow, impressed. Bibo says, with a lilt in his voice "He thought that you'd be amused by artificial spider legs."

"Is there a reason why he isn't speaking for himself?" Big Mama asks.

"He's mute, and speaks using a modified form of sign language." Stormrake explains.

What a fascinating character. Find the elusive doctor through his scant articles and manage to pull himself underneath the doctor's wing? Must be quite dedicated. And odd. Most who acquaint themselves to Stormrake are, the man himself is an enigma. She looks at the newcomer closely, finding a mechanical bracer containing a screen on his wrist. His technology is impressive, but ultimately she needs to see more of this person's work to come to a fully formed conclusion about it, and in order to do that she'll need to hire him. She sets her pen down "Consider him hired, you get to decide his hours, he'll start at twenty dollars an hour, I'll draft up an employment contract for him by the end of the week. He can start then. What's his name?"

"Othello VonRyan."

Chapter Text

Playing chess by yourself is interesting for about two minutes until you start making soap opera dramas for yourself. The bishop married the queen! And their child? The knight who is secretly a rook and trying to overthrow the king. Stab the king! Stab him! Now eat him! The king shall become a feast for all his subjects! "Having fun there?"

Leo jolts from Bibo's sudden intrusion on the hospital room. "Spi-ruts Beebs, you ever knock?"

"I did and I'm thinking I should check your hearing at some point in time." Bibo sighs, checking his watch "Now. You are going to meet somebody new. An assistant that I have been training. To assist in this training, you will tell him to fuck off when required, yes?"

Leo smiles a but hesitantly, "Well as long as I can tell him to fuck off." He cheers, preparing himself.

"When required." Bibo repeats before opening the door.

The assistant is kinda tall, a few inches taller than Bibo though shorter then most of the non-babysitter corps guards. Wearing a baggy jumpsuit with purple accents, though it shared some similarities with Bibo's attire such as the sleeves cinched at the elbows. The hood is sealed around his gas mask that's the same model as Bibo's but has some alterations made to it. The most obvious difference is the lack of hoses dangling off his face, suggesting a more simplified form of ventilation rather than the complex seventeen step process for Bibo's breath to become non toxic. The red and blue lenses are mirrored, though with the way the rubber and plastic are reinforced around it, Leo's guessing that there's some kind of scanner in those lenses. As the assistant turns to look at Bibo, there's large circles around where his ears should be. Hearing aids? Headphones? Probably something to do with sound.

He's moving his hands at Bibo, who nods "Yes, we will be checking the suture."

He moves his hands some more, and Leo remembers what sign language is and notices that this guy has three fingers like him. Bibo walks over to Leo's bedside, gesturing as he talks "I'm sure you've heard of him, this -" Leo grabs the assistant's hands and measures it against his own "Hey bro, we're twinsies."

The assistant is frozen, completely rigid, Leo bets he could try to tip him over. He almost tries until Bibo pats him on the head "-is Leonardo. Still on morphine I hope."

"You know me doc, once every spirits-fuck-shit I am in pain." Leo shrugs with a lazy smile.

Bibo sighs before prodding "Mental status report?"

Leo gives a thumbs up, still holding the assistant's hand, and cheerily says "I feel like shit!"

Bibo clears his throat, a funny noise through his voice synthesizer. "Please let go of my assistant."

Leo looks at the assistant and grins "Nah, I think I'm gonna keep him. He's gotta hold my hand like this forever now. We're bros now. What's your name?"

The assistant is still rigid as all hell. Leo continues, waving the hand hold slightly "You can call me Neon Leon!"

"Do not call him that." Bibo speaks. "And Leo, he's mute. He can't speak without his hands."

That's when Leo lets go of the assistant's hand. Who massages it oddly. Leo slaps his thighs "Well now you can tell me what your name is."

The assistant sighs, audibly irritated and does a bunch of hand gesture stuff that Leo does not understand until he's distracted by metal popping out of the assistant's back. He nearly leaps off the hospital bed and the assistant looks at him in a what-the-fuck-bro manner as the metal leg writes something down on a post it note. The assistant sticks the note to Leo's forehead, who picks it off. It reads Othello VonRyan.

"Othello? Ain't that from Billy Shakes?" Leo says.

Othello looks at him, looks at Bibo, massages his tempels and says "What the fuck."

Leo wheezes so hard the heart monitor goes off. Mute and thats what he first says to him? Bibo waves his hands in the air "I can explain!"

Leo waves him off "Dont worry about it. You lie to your employer! Get that tax fraud!"

"I have several tax frauds, actually." Othello deadpans.

Leo is beginning to love this guy. "Wish that were me!" He leans against the railing and says smoothly "Now tell me, Tello, you ever heard of chess."

"We are here! To conduct! A medical examination!" Bibo says, trying to wrangle cats.

"C'mon, Beebs. Let me live a little." Leo lightly jabs Bibo in the ribs.

"I am going to fire you both." Bibo says, exhausted.

Leo gasps dramatically "You can't fire me, I'm your star patient!"

"You're getting a good grade in being a patient, which is a normal thing to want and achieve." Othello says in a monotone voice.

"He is not getting a good grade." Bibo turns to Leo "I am failing you."

“No!” Leo shouts.

“Yes, now show us your stitches or you are getting an F.” Bibo says.

Leo sighs and dumps all of the pieces in the chess box and close it before putting it off to the side. He kicks off the many many blankets (thank you, Mikey) and sits off the edge of the bed. Bibo carefully removes the bandages, with Othello leaning over. A dawning realization hits Leo as he sees his stitches, that's why he feels like shit. It’s inflamed, the stitches rolling over the bulging scutes, with something weeping out of the wound. That does not look good. Two days post op and it’s already infected, it looks like. Bibo quizzes “How’s the healing factor?”

“Rejecting the stitches. Though it graphed itself together enough to reattempt. Needs antihistamines. The internal stitches are fine, with minimal internal bleeding, though this.” Othello gestures to the wound “Is gross.”

“So it’s not infected?” Leo says.

“It’s acting like it is. It’s reading the stitches as a foreign body and trying to reject it.” Othello explains “Inorganic stitches will most likely lead to a less dramatic response.”

“Is that why the internal stuff isn’t tearing itself apart? Cause its inorganic?" Leo asks.

“Most likely, the internal stitches are designed to dissolve whereas the exterior stitches are not. Though to clarify, the internal stuff is tearing itself apart, just not as dramatic as the exterior stitches.” Othello explains.

“Which is all characteristic of Leo.” Bibo interjects, beginning to pull supplies out of his purse.

“You got an x ray in there?” Leo gestures to his eyes, referring to the lenses of Othello’s gas mask.

“Something like it.” Othello says “More like a mobile CT scan.”

Othello turns to Bibo, whispering loudly “Does he know what a CT scan is?”

“Ask the patient, not the doctor. Could you review his shell injury when I’m done?” Bibo asks, numbing the area.

“Yes.” Othello turns back to Leo “Do you know what a CT scan is?”

“It’s one of the ones that scans your brain.” Leo says “Bibo tells me everything about medicine. Including the stuff that he desperately wants.”

Othello chuckles, “I can resolve that issue.”

Leo huffs amusedly “Just as weird as Beebs. You two are perfect for eachother.”

“Leo can you please lie down?” Bibo asks.

Leo lies down on his bed, Bibo begins to snip away at the stiches, a tedious process with the inflamation. He says “You are going to feel a slight pressure. Othello, keep him occupied. As in, talk to him.”

Othello hovers over Leo in a way that might be considered creepy, but Leo recognises the similar body language to Bibo. Othello is just feeling awkward, and maybe a little nervous. He is an assistant afterall. Leo smiles at him charmingly and says "You have any questions for the mighty Leon?"

“Your healing factor is very reactive, do you know why?” Othello spitfires like he had it preloaded.

Leo shrugs “I’ve been injured at least once a week in a dirty arena, I’m guessing it has something to do with that.”

“Can you list your notable injuries?” Othello asks.

Leo frowns “Isn’t there a paperwork about that?”

“Medical history doesn’t include your review of the experience. I want to hear what you think about it." Othello explains.

Leo grins, loving to give his input on things and complain. “Well, I jumped off too many things too many times and now I got no cartilage in my knee,” he wiggles his bad knee with minimal threats from Bibo “,so I gotta wear a knee brace sometimes else my bones attack each other. Pretty neutral about that experience, plus I think I look kinda cool in a knee brace.”

Leo winces from the stitches and continues rambling on at an increased pace “One time I had a greenstick fracture and the doc, this was before Bibo, didn’t even warn me before setting it so I punched him and broke his arm. He quit immediately after, stating workplace hazards as the reason, as if I’m not the greatest champion of all time? Bruh, my self defense mechanism is literally hitting people, what else did you expect?”

Leo laughs coldly and begins counting on his fingers “Oh! And one time there was this doc, also before Bibo, who kept me on a drug out of the arena to make me fatigued and therefore less of a problem, another who gave me an upper before fights that made me have a seizure that one time. Not very fun. That fight was canceled due to unforeseen medical issues, HA! Like, bitch. I foresaw it! I foresaw it since day one!”

“Stop moving.” Bibo states.

Leo tries to keep his energy under control, folding his arms and lowering his voice “But no, I’m supposed to do what the doctors say no questions asked or else I get in trouble.”

Othello hums “Sounds like those doctors were horrifically unprofessional.”

Leo scoffs “No fucking shit. You can say that again.”

“Sounds like those doctors where horrifically unprofessional.” Othello repeats.

Leo laughs, and Bibo sighs like he regrets everything "Othello."

"Sorry." Othello's voice is small and distorted.

Bibo's head jerks up, and makes eye contact with his masked assistant. Leo gets a bit irritated, as he has no idea what nonverbal communication is happening between the two, if any nonverbal communication is happening at all. He wants to feel included so he says "Guys, guys. There's enough of me to go around for everybody."

Bibo turns back to the hole in Leo's stomach "I need to finish this stitch."

Othello perks up, "Which reminds me, I need to send you an essay about the effects of medication on kidneys."

Leo does not get the connection, he makes a confused face at Othello. Who says "Doesn't concern you."

Leo's offended at that comment. He raises an accusatory finger and Bibo stands up. "Alright. Done. Now review his shell."

Bibo holds out a hand and helps Leo back up into a sitting position. Leo adjusts his shell towards Othello. A choking gasp. Leo turns his head around to look, seeing Othello with his hand over the filters in his gas mask. "Beebs said it wasn't that bad." Leo says.

Othello doesn't reply, simply breathing harshly for a moment. "Othello." Bibo asks "Are you okay?"

Othello recenters himself, flapping his hands like Mikey would, and shifting his weight. He gestures to himself before putting his thumb against his chest and wiggles his fingers. He puts his hands to the circles on the side of his head and turns it, seeming to adjust something in his lenses. Maybe it's not even related to anything auditory. The previous humor gone from his voice as Othello states "I am going to touch your shell for a moment."

"I'll tell you to fuck off I get uncomfy." Leo says.

"Perfect." Othello says.

Othello touches the part of Leo's shell that overhangs over his shoulder, thumbing a few chips and scrapes that thin the edge of his shell pretty badly. Though it shouldn't matter because its only the edge, its not protecting anything. Othello pulls his hand back, knocking the lens of his gas mask slightly. "Hmm."

"What is it?" Leo asks.

Othello gently touches a part of Leo's shell, "Is this resin?"

"Correct." Bibo states "Not done by me."

"Zero out of five stars. Do not recommend." Leo complains.

"Who did it?" Othello asks.

Leo's quiet for a moment before saying "One of the previous docs did."

"What was their name? I might need to talk to them about this." Othello says.

Ugh! Leo's terrible at fake names. "You wouldn't be able to find him."

Othello chuckles "Try me."

Leo mirrors Othello’s chuckle "No."

Bibo perks up "Is it your brother?"

Oh yeah, Bibo knows about Mikey now. Leo rolls his eyes, not dignifying that with a response. Bibo gestures vaguely "Othello already knows. Part of the reason I hired him was to help me with Mikey."

Leo smiles slightly, remembering Bibo sitting next to his hospital bedside and soberly informing Leo of his new job position. Then Bibo asked for permission. Permission. To take the job position. Leo glances at Othello, barely being able to read a thing about the yokai. He does not believe in the whole if I can trust him I can trust his friend thing. But maybe Leo should try to trust Bibo's skills in choosing an assistant. He sighs, "Yeah. Mikey did it. He worked really hard to get the right resin."

"Understood. I'll note it down." Othello says blankly.

"Cool." Leo says, a little relieved that Othello wasn’t weird about it "Anything else?"

Othello brushes the lower part of your shell "Improper shell growth here. Review the patient's diet and basking spot."

"Basking spot?" Leo asks.

"Yeah. It's where you have a heat lamp to bask under. There should be a heat lamp in here, it’ll help you feel better." Othello explains.

Leo thinks of his cell. Yeah there's no basking spot. "How often should one bask." He asks uncertainly.

Othello looks at Leo, then turns to Bibo and says in a semi-hushed voice "He has a heat lamp right?"

Bibo says "I don't think so, but I'll have to check."

"Does he have a pool? He's a red eared slider, he needs to have water activities." Othello says very seriously.

Leo raises a brow ridge. Needed? Whatever does Othello mean by that? Leo opts to listen in rather than interject.

Bibo tents his clawed fingers "He can't have water activities with his healing shell. We're concerned about shell rot."

"Separate issue." Othello waves dismissively "Does he have a pool? A large bath at the very least?"

"I'm afraid I don't know." Bibo says

Othello gestures incredulously for at least a minute, obviously very upset by the lack of information. Leo chuckles at the dramatics. Othello takes a deep, exaggerated breath and says. "Okay. Put that on your list of information to gather. The staples should be removed before the shell grows over it."

"Yes, that was a part of the itinerary today." Bibo agrees.

Othello summons a metal leg holding something sharp and Leo jumps onto his feet, shell to the wall. Bibo steps between him and Othello, hands up placateingly as he explains "It would be good to show the patient the tool."

Othello sighs exasperatedly, and lowers the metal leg. Leo looks over it, seeing a pair of scissors on the end. Not a chainsaw or anything. He pokes at it, and Othello playfully snips at him. Leo smiles. Othello says "Now, can I remove the staples?"

Leo sits back down on his bed and turns his shell to Othello. He snips all the staples in half before showing Leo a pair of tweezers, just normal tweezers in his three fingered hand. "Why don't you have that in your back?" Leo asks.

"Actually, it's in my medical bag." Othello deadpans.

Othello begins to pick the staples out of Leo's shell, stinging a little bit by bit. Though it doesn't hurt a lot, really, so Leo almost gets bored. Until he hears the synthesized voice of Othello, get this, humming ABBA. Leo sideeyes Bibo and mutters "Is he--"

Bibo shrugs helplessly. He might not even know who ABBA is. Leo chuckles, listening closely to Othello focusing. Leo grins widely. He likes Othello right now. Wildly intelligent and wildly amateur, Leo can respect both. Plus, Othello's funny. Bibo tries but all of his jokes are weirdly centered around kidneys and spleens.

Othello finishes removing the staples and declares "All done! Final medical question, what is your experience with brumation?"

"There was a time when I was around ten? Eleven? Around that age. It was a really cold winter so I entered brumation and everyone thought I was dead until I walked into the pantry and passed out in the rice." Leo says "Don't rate it too high. Felt like I took a major downer drug. Could barely think."

"Hmm, is that the only time?" Othello asks.

"Yeah, it should be. After that they put a heater under my bed." Leo explains.

Othello looks at Leo for a long moment before taking a deep breath. "Okay. I. Am. Fine. Lovely even."

Okay, reading Othello might be easier than he thought it would be. He's obviously not fine, about what, Leo doesn't know. So Leo just grins and says "Why would I think otherwise?"

Bibo steps forward "You still need to keep to soft and liquid foods. I'll discuss your long term diet with Big Mama. And you should try and take a nap."

Leo scoffs "Pft. Wish it were that easy doc."

"I could help you." Bibo offers.

"Nah." Leo says.

Bibo certainly has an expression behind his mask, most likely disappointed. "Well. Keep yourself out of pain at the very least. Watch your…one piece or something. You said it was long? Watch that for a few hours. Relax."

"But if I relax, all my muscles untense and I’ll unravel like a ball of yarn." Leo whines.

Bibo pats Leo's head. "Your brother could probably crochet something out of it."

"He totally could." Leo says with his eyes closed.

"Feeling awkward!" Othello declares before pointing at the door "Are we done yet?"

"Almost. I'll be back in a few hours to replace your saline drip." Bibo says.

They leave, with Othello waving a metal leg goodbye, and Leo is left alone. It almost feels like his cell, but he has Mikey blankets and toys and things to entertain himself with. Primarily, a place to plug in his phone, so he can watch all the one piece he wants without worrying about his phone dying. Also, did they forget to give him antihistamines? Eh, they'll remember when they get back, right now Leo lays down and puts on One Piece.

Later, Mikey bursts in with five balloons shouting "It's visiting hours baby!"

Leo laughs, feeling a little groggy. Mikey recognises this and quiets down. He ties the gradient blue balloons to the armrest railings so that his view of the door isnt blocked. Then proceeding to crawl into the hospital bed like he's done every time, and watches One Piece with Leo. The added weight of Mikey leaning on his shoulder to get a good look of the small screen is a comfort, which is when Leo really begins to fall asleep.

He blinks awake when he can feel his iv being moved and an awful taste in his mouth. He turns to the side to see Bibo replacing his saline bag, with Mikey up and talking to him in a hushed voice. Leo looks to his other side, where Mikey should be, and in his place there's the turtle plushie. Leo begins to pull himself up and Mikey groans "Damn, I thought I finally got you to sleep."

Leo blinks tiredly "You did. Now. What's in the new bag, it tastes horrible."

"You can taste it?" Mikey asks, a bit concerned.

"When delivering medicine intravenously" where did Othello come from, has he always been here ",patients commonly report tasting something bad or smelling something bad due to the medication and slash or saline being excreted in the saliva and slash or respiratory system. It is relatively harmless and mostly just unpleasant."

Bibo answers Leo's question "Standard antibiotics and antihistamines with saline, a backup saline drip because of your semi-aquatic nature needing more hydration then the standard yokai. And also a solution to inhibit your overactive healing factor to make sure you heal right instead of fast."

Leo throws his head back and groans "Ugh, does that mean I need to be here longer?"

"Ideally? Yes." Bibo states.

Leo likes the glorified break that this entire hospital thing really is, don't get him wrong. But he can't just stay there. He can't. He's gonna need to talk to Big Mama about this, she can override a hospital stay. She will override it, right? He can't just stay in this hospital room, stagnant with nothing meaningful to do. Mikey's eyes Bibo weirdly before blurting "Anyways, what's with the hazmat suit?"

"Mikey, you don't just ask somebody what's with the hazmat suit." Leo hisses.

"I've been trying to ask but I have no idea what Bibo's thinking! He just goes mhm, and talks about spleens!" Mikey defends himself.

Bibo was trying to make Mikey laugh. He does respond best to more blunt questions anyways. Leo sighs as Bibo pipes up "I am okay with talking about it. It is important for all my patient's to know."

"Can I talk about it?" Othello interjects, seeming weirdly excited.

Bibo shrugs, saying good naturedly "Sure, go for it."

"Yes!" Othello pumps his fist and begins "Okay! So Bibo comes from a very long line of poisonous yokai! Not venomous! Poisonous! Usually this only takes effect when they're bitten, which most yokai don't do nowadays. But! But! But! He was a triplet! And then he consumed all of them in the womb! And now he has three times the amount of poison in his system. His bacterial system is so incredibly sparse that he doesn't need to wash his hands because all bacteria that tries to reproduce on him gets murdered to death! And his gut bacteria are classified as extremophiles! And he produces, get this, nerve gas in his respiratory system! Isn't that so cool."

Bibo clears his throat. Othello says "Oh and it's also a very difficult disability because not having a bacterial biome makes a little bit of everything hard. But Bibo also made his own medication so he can eat things like a normal person! He still needs to do it in a vacuum sealed room. And I have a prototype to make the filtering process much more compact so he doesn't need to carry around a giant backpack everywhere!"

Othello's flapping his hands in excitement, and Mikey joins him. "Ohmigosh! That's so nice of you to help him out!"

"I know right!" Othello says loudly "It still needs to be tested out and some of it is really theoretical but you know the difference between theoretical and practical science? Making shit happen!"

"Yeah!" Mikey shouts

Leo leans over to Bibo and says in a normal tone of voice that the other two can't hear because they're busy screaming "He's really passionate about helping you out, eh?"

Bibo nods "Yes. He wants to help everyone he can. He may not seem like it at times, but he's a very kind person."

Leo smiles, "A yokai after your own heart, then?"

Bibo huffs amusedly "Yeah I suppose so."

Suddenly, Othello tenses and stops talking. "What is it?" Mikey asks, concerned.

Othello turns to the door as Big Mama steps in. Her disguised self in a brand new suit. Leo “Hellooooo my dearies. How are we healing up?

Mikey backs up, putting a hand on Leo’s arm. Mikey’s worried about something that Big Mama would do, unusual for him. What changed? Bibo says “The recovery time has been lengthened, if Leonardo were to heal right, he needs time.”

“Took you long enough to show up.” Leo grumbles.

“I am so terribly sorry, I have brought cake, the bellhops should be getting it right about now. Mikey, why don’t you go make sure the cake is in tip-top shape?” Big Mama asks.

She’s trying to get rid of Mikey. Leo makes eye contact with Mikey. He knows Big Mama is trying to get rid of him. But what is Mikey supposed to do? Stay and face Mama’s wrath? Mikey squeezes Leo’s shoulder, and Leo gestures for him to go. “Make sure to get one of them to taste test it, I don’t want poison in my cake.”

“Alright.” Mikey squeezes Leo’s shoulder one last time before leaving.

Bibo and Othello have fallen into parade rest, arms behind their back. Big Mama’s heels click clack against the tile as she approaches Leo. She rubs the top of his head in concern (he doesn’t know if it’s real or not), and he figures now is better than never. “Will I still be able to fight?”

“Of course.” Big Mama says with a lilt to her voice, "I'll make sure to redirect Mikey.”

Is Leo a bad person to be relieved? She leans over him, “,Speaking of, there’s going to be a party soon.”

“To prove to the public that I’m still intact?” Leo guesses.

Big Mama chortles “Correct. I expect you to be walking by then. I’m sure you can coordinate your outfit to hide any sign of,” she gestures vaguely.

Unfortunately, he knows what she means. She wants him to hide any sign of injury. He doesn’t want any questions from the press either, so he’ll do it. “Cool. You know I can’t eat anything right now?”

“I assumed as such. But the intentions are what really matters, doesn’t it?” She smiles sweetly.

Passive concern reads through her face and she asks “Do you know if something is wrong with Goldenberry?”

He doesn’t know, but he can bullshit “It’s just the stress. His home got invaded and his brother went through surgery for the first time. Give him some space to feel things.”

She shakes her head lightly “Whatever you say.”

She pulls out her own phone, which has a lavender case with a spider logo on the back. “I’ve put all the dates and times on your calendar. Make sure to not lose track of time. Your babysitters should help you keep everything moving smoothly, so try not to act too surprised.”

“I get it.” Leo says.

“Good.” Big Mama says.

“Coming through!” Mikey shouts.

An incredibly large bright blue cake on a little trolley bursts through the door. Leo chuckles, “That is incredibly blue.”

“Just for you.” Big Mama coos, kissing Leo on his head.

Leo turns to Bibo, “Can I at least have some icing?”

The caterer pokes their head out from behind Mikey, who closes the door on them. Bibo gives an amused, autotuned huff and says “Only a little bit.”

Leo pumps his fist “Hell yeah!” He reaches for the cake “Gimme!”

Mikey begins serving everyone cake. Bibo and Othello awkwardly hold it, both unable and or unwilling to take off their masks. Othello never explicitly stated why he wears a gas mask. Mikey carefully slides the icing off a slice of cake onto a separate plate he gives to Leo and eats the rest of the cake slice himself. Mikey sits at the end of the bed, rambling about everything he can tell from eating the cake. Big Mama sits on the visiting chair, nibbling her cake in such incredibly small bites Leo wasn’t entirely sure if she was actually eating it until a few minutes later he looks back at her and the cake is all gone. She asks for seconds. They all talk, mostly being Mikey, having enough skill to keep the conversation going for at least an hour. Othello does not talk, at all. Barely even signs anything to Bibo. A while in, Othello just pulls out his nondescript phone and begins typing something on it.

Big Mama glares slightly once she notices, thinking it rude to be on your phone during a conversation. Leo impulsively speaks up, giving an emotional bait to Big Mama to get her attention off of Othello. It works, and she politely roasts Leo instead of directing her passive aggression to the newbie. Mikey’s tense, though he smiles and talks a mile a minute like usual, he hunches up into himself when he’s not talking and when he thinks the attention off him. Leo’s worried. So he beckons Mikey closer, only to rub his icing stained face onto Mikey’s sleeve.

Mikey jeers good naturedly, shouting a few harmless insults at Leo who returns the verbal jab. It leads to an entire story of when Mikey broke his leg and Leo being hilariously concerned afterwards. Leo knew Mikey would be fine, but he hammed up his worry mostly to make his little brother laugh. Anything to make Mikey happy.

Chapter Text

Mikey likes stories.

You've heard of this one before.

Daedalus was a genius, a skilled strategist who took great pride in everything he did. After all, he was Daedalus, world renowned genius, there was nothing that could challenge him. Queen Ariadne thought Daedalus was wasting his potential, as she was a genius too, just the more quiet kind. So she made a challenge, open to all who were willing One that would last as long as Ariadne's kingdom would prosper, and would eternally be enjoyable with never an ounce of boredom. Of course, Daedalus partook of this challenge.

Daedalus thought he had this in the bag, for Ariadne never said who exactly the game was meant to entertain. It was a game to watch, for the audience to gawk and gasp at all the twists and turns in the game. Of course there wasn't a win condition, at least not the kind that would end the game, that would be boring. Ariadne was impressed at the concept, and enjoyed watching Daedalus create a unique stadium, where the audience could always watch but the players would never know when. But there was no guarantee that the game would actually work.

So, upon completion, Ariadne brought Daedalus into her castle to receive a prize. He boasted that he was the best, the only one to succeed in such a challenge, and then he realized that he could not let the prize go, as it was made out of spider silk. The prize grew and grew, and Daedalus was forced to playtest his own impossible game.

Living in an impossible game meant that there was no such thing as safe. Safety meant boredom, and boredom meant people wouldnt be entertained. And if people were not entertained, they wouldn't see that Daedalus was still alive, that he was still there, that he still existed. That's what Daedalus tried to believe, at the very least.

It was very hard, living in an impossible game. But Daedalus had stolen away a little bit of light, his little brother, Icarus. None of the monsters, made entirely out of hands, whent for Icarus. His big brother was smart though, and used that to their advantage. Together they evaded capture from the terrible minotaur, the boss monster of the game. Who wasn't as big as the advertisements wanted you to believe.

Icarus grew up within the game, and Daedalus provided for him, giving him food and toys. They found a secret room, out of boundaries yet technically within the rules, and they lived there for a long long time. Icarus knew nothing else, the game was normal, the game was safe. What else could there ever be? All he knew was that some days, his brother felt bad.

On one of these days, Daedalus was tired, and Icarus wanted to take care of his brother so he went out into the maze to collect fruit.

The Minotaur was not mindless, and he knew that with one there would be the other. So he followed Icarus home. Icarus was sneaky however, and the Minotaur lost him. Daedalus was not yet awake, and would not know better than to eat the fruits that Icarus gathered, thinking that he already gathered them.

The next day, Daedalus was sad and Icarus wanted to cheer him up. So he snuck out looking for some shiny rocks. The Minotaur decided to talk to Icarus. Icarus was suspicious, knowing of the game's many grabbing reaching hands. But he could talk to this monster, unlike the standard mobs of creatures reaching for Daedalus to take him away. And talk they did, walking through the maze. Eventually, Icarus found his shiny rocks and snuck home, losing The Minotaur along the way.

Daedalus appreciated the shiny rocks and kissed Icarus on the head. Getting up out of bed to play with Icarus.

The next day, Daedalus was in pain and Icarus wanted to fix it. So he snuck out to retrieve some oily herbs to make Daedalus feel better. Icarus searched and searched and searched but he could not find any. The Minotaur watched, accompanying the small boy as he searched, quietly offering his assistance. When the boy accepted, The Minotaur showed Icarus a patch of the herb, just out of the small boy's reach. And Icarus, tired and anxious to get home, ran back to his brother without even thinking to hide his tracks.

Icarus got home and began treating Daedalus, who instructed Icarus throughout the whole process. Then The Minotaur found them. "You were perfect." The Minotaur said.

Daedalus and The Minotaur fought, and Icarus could do nothing but cry. Daedalus shifted weight to his bad knee, wincing from the pain, and The Minotaur flung him out the window in that brief second. The Minotaur smiled at Icarus "Thank you." He said.

The Minotaur wanted to keep Icarus, but Icarus wanted to keep his brother. Icarus dived towards his brother. The wind screamed as Icarus fell, The waving depths below reaching towards Daedalus with thousands of hands. "He's too pretty." The depths roared, fingers brushing against Daedalus "I will make him mine."

Icarus screamed and found his brother in the air.

Icarus held on to Daedalus, who told Icarus to let go. Icarus screamed.

And for a moment Icarus grew wings.

Mikey rubs at his eyes, a bit confused that he was no longer flying. He chirps a vague question about what happened. “You fell asleep.” Leo says.

Mikey slumps against Leo, not getting up from the hospital bed. "Was it the cake?" Mikey asks rhetorically.

Leo churrs amusedly, the vibrations rumbling through his chest. What was that weird dream? It left Mikey feeling a bit off and shaken. As if it was a nightmare, but it had a good ending, right? Nightmares don't have good endings.

Mikey nuzzles closer to Leo, the dream filtering through his mind. Leo's plastron hums as he speaks “Mike?”

“Hmm?” Mikey hums in response to tell Leo that he’s listening.

“Do you remember being sick?” Leo asks, with a worried tone of voice.

“Nope.” Mikey says, popping the p.

If Mikey can guess right, it's one of those contenders of being The Big Thing that happened to Mikey when he was a baby that made Leo freak out. But Leo could also be referring to just another, random sickness Mikey had that was insignificant to him, but important to Leo. Leo churrs “Do you remember being four?”

“I don’t remember things till I was like. Six. Seven?” Mikey says, sitting up so he can stretch a little “Eight years old is a little foggy.”

His first, concrete memory was his room before he got to decorating it. With white plaster walls and ceilings, it was horrifically bare and horrifically lonely. Before that it's just a bunch of leftover sensory information, like how concrete smells and tastes. “I don’t remember being four either.” Leo lies.

Mikey thinks Leo lied about it because he doesn't want Mikey to think he's strange. But what Mikey thinks isn't necessarily true. He almost wants to confront Leo about it, instead he offers comfort “I read about this thing called pruning. Your brain does it to cut down on clutter. I think my brain just saw all that and marked it as unimportant and threw it away.”

He plops down next to Leo, who smiles at the motion and stretches his arms out, inviting Mikey in. Mikey embraces Leo, still careful with his shell and curls up into Leo's chest to listen to his steady heartbeat. Mikey counts the rhythm, until it changes. A beat more than it is. Mikey looks up, seeing Leo, eyes glazed as he stares into the distance. He's lost in thought. Mikey grabs Leo's face and pulls it close, Mikey grumbles "You're troubled. Either stop it or talk about it."

The corner of Leo's lips quirk up, thinking the entire idea of talking about his feelings is hilarious. But he sighs, making the right decision to at least kinda sorta talk about it. He gently knocks his forehead against Mikey's and says "I'm just worried about you."

"Me! ME!" Mikey whisper yells "Son, you got a hole in your stomach! What's there to worry about?"

Leo shakes his head softly "Shoooosh. Not so loud Mikey. And, don't worry bout it. It's just. Know. I worry like I breathe."

Mikey grumbles, knowing that he'd be a hypocrite if he said he doesn't worry about Leo "Unfortunately, I do."

Mikey nuzzles against Leo's chest. Resting for a moment before asking "Did you even sleep?"

Leo just laughs. "Ha! Sleep! Who's she?"

Mikey sighs, shifting his weight as he goes through a lot of effort to check all of his pockets without getting up. His sewing phase began mostly as a practicality, as a shell is hard to size for most clothing, but it quickly became impractical as Mikey added seventeen pockets to everything he owned. He pulls out his phone from his third hidden pocket and declares "Anime time! Let's watch Fairy tail so you can ooggle Gray."

Leo giggles before correcting "I don't oogle, I tastefully observe."

"Whatever." Mikey rolls his eyes "He's better than Hisoka."

Leo frowns, groaning "I made. One Comment."

"Yeah and it was a stupid ass comment." Mikey says bluntly "Leorio's right there!"

"He dresses like a middle aged business man going through his second divorce." Leo explains.

"Exactly!" Mikey declares "You could fix him! Imagine! A Leorio with a Leo's touch."

Leo smiles "Well first he needs to drop the use of my name."

"But consider it! Your shipname could be Leoleorio!" Mikey declares excitedly.

"That's a terrible shipname." Leo states.

"It's a great ship name! Now move over!" Mikey shuffles closer to Leo, setting up his phone so they can both watch anime. Making sure to turn on the captions, Mikey leans the phone against a wrinkle in the blankets.

Leo opens his mouth to say something, but the episode starts and Mikey tells him to shut up and watch. Leo rolls his eyes, and watches. He gives a small applause when Gray first takes off his clothes in the episode.

Chapter Text

Mikey gets it, Leo needs to rest to be able to heal, as if Leo can sleep on demand. But the anxiety bouncing around inside his chest like a demented pinball machine, is making Mikey pretty restless as well. So he opens his door and does a double take. “Cathead?” He says.

Cathead chuckles sourly “Yeeeeah.”

“You’re bald!” Mikey declares.

“Yeeeeeeah.” Cathead says, not making eye contact.

Mikey’s immediately concerned “Is it because of Big Mama?”

“At least I’m not dead.” Cathead says faux-cheerfully.

“At least you’re not dead.” Mikey repeats “Come on in, you must be cold.”

Cathead looks at his fellow guard, who nods and gestures for him to go in. Mikey says “You can come on in too. You can protect me better if you’re in my room.”

"Nah, I’m good.” Says the other guard.

Mikey shrugs “Whatever you say.”

Mikey leads Cathead into his room, pulling leftover chicken nuggets from his minifridge and putting it in the microwave. “Is this because of you going to be me for directions rather than Mama?”

“Yeah.” Cathead says “She was really pissed off.”

“Why did you do that by the way?” Mikey leans against a table “I mean, I’m grateful. But why?”

Cathead shrugs “I. I don’t think Big Mama was right in that situation. And I think that sometimes Mama forgets that the babysitter corps was created to serve you and your brother. Not her.”

Mikey hands him a soda, which Cathead pops off and sips. "I think she realized that though, which is why she declared me bald instead of dead."

Mikey holds out his own can of soda, "Well, you can get better from baldness."

They cheer, knocking their soda cans together "True."

They both take a sip. Cathead asks "Did you know your doctor's appointment is today?"

"My what?"

The door bursts open to Othello and Bibo politely saying "He wants me to yell that he has arrived."

"Oh! My doctor appointment!" Mikey says "Its today?"

"Did you forget?" Bibo asks as Othello seems to be appreciating Mikey's art.

"Oh I knew it was tomorrow. I just forgot that today was tomorrow." Mikey explains.

Othello gestures to the vent art regarding Big Mama and Leo. Mikey shakes his head "Ugh. Don't look at that. I was just working through some things."

Mikey rummages through his minifridge and offers Bibo a soda "Do you want something to hold?"

"Soda's bad for you." Othello remarks, taking Bibo's soda.

"Hey!" Mikey says, putting his hands on his hips "That's rude!"

"I wasn't going to take it." Bibo says.

"Yeah, he wasn't going to take it." Othello parrots, the soda disappearing into the strange mechanism on his back.

Mikey sighs, but he perks up "Well let me show you around the house."

Bibo shakes his head "It really isn't necessary."

"You can tell us about your medical history while you show us around." Interjects Othello before pointing upwards ", Quick question, are those climbable?"

Mikey looks up towards his colorful silks and hammocks. "Those? Yeah, we can start there."

Othello wiggles excitedly, metal legs launching out of his back as he immediately begins climbing. Mikey laughs, following upwards. Bibo quietly shakes his head from down below. Othello swiftly reaches the top of the ceiling, and gently knocks it "Is this fresco?!"

"Yes, it was horrible." Mikey says from three hammocks below.

Othello gasps "It's amazing! You did this?"

"Everything you see in this room I made in my own image." Mikey grins.

"Everything?" Othello says skeptically.

"Yep. I've been through virtually every phase known to man. I'm a lil bit of a jack of all trades." Mikey wiggles his fingers and his own personal showcase of calluses.

Othello crawls down on his metal legs, looking at all of the murals "You seem to favor painting."

"Yeah. It's a good fall back. I like how messy it is. I've repainted everything in this room at least twice. Though it is not very kind to my silks." Mikey kicks his legs off the hammock.

"Everything? Where do you have the time?" Othello asks, at roughly eye level.

"Where else am I supposed to spend it? I'm rarely allowed to leave." Mikey explains.

Othello hums cryptically before gesturing to the two orange silks flowing from the top of the ceiling. "Are those aerial silks?"

"Yeah! I wanted to do some kind of exercise, so Mama bought me these. Including the squishy floors underneath. It's what inspired me to add all these hammocks and swings and silks and stuff. Adds a level of multi dimensionality to my room that makes it real easy to get all my energy out. I did break my leg that one time." Mikey says, swinging on a piece of silk.

"Also dislocated my shoulder when doing aerial dancing the first couple times without a bar. But that was an easy fix." Mikey continues, remembering that he's supposed to be telling Othello about his medical history.

"Who treated your injuries?" Othello asks.

"My guards mostly. They're trained to help me," Mikey shouts down below "Ain't that right Cathead!"

Cathead had settled himself in the conjoined couches of the nest, and shouts back up, confused "Uh, sure?"

Mikey giggles and looks back at Othello, who seems to have gotten a lot more tense. "I have heard that you have been the main caretaker for Leonardo for quite some time."

"Caretaker?" Mikey scrunches his face "No, no, no, Big Mama takes care of us. I just helped stitch him up sometimes."

"It's inadequate care if one brother has to stitch up the other at force of being drugged without his consent." Othello monotones.

"Oh? Uh. Yeah. Guess Leo told you about that." Mikey smiles nervously "Leo did not have a great time with those doctors. They did a lot of horrible things to him."

He looks down at the floor, almost seeing the memory of Leo bursting into the door, rambling about nonsense while he bled all over the floor. Maybe that's why the tarps are a near permanent fixture, now. Mikey turns his head, watching Bibo talk to Cathead in a hushed voice. Leo has a good doctor now. "It's fine though. We have Bibo. I haven't needed to patch him up for a long time."

Othello hums, a hint of frustration behind the tone. "Let's meet on the floor. I want to conduct a more formal examination."

"Cool." Mikey says, dropping off.

He meets the ground first, curling into a roll. With Othello climbing down more cautiously. Its an interesting contrast, Mikey thinks, Othello reaches the top first but the bottom last but Mikey's the opposite. Othello's boots touch the floor and his metal legs retract. Bibo approaches them "Have you done a thorough medical history?"

Othello presses a hand against his gas mask "Working on it."

He looks at Mikey, carefully saying "Can you please take off your shirt."

He looks at Bibo for approval, who nods in confirmation. Mikey smiles at the interaction, shucking off his shirt with ease. Bibo stands off to the side as Othello looks at Mikey. "Do you have trouble breathing?"

"I mean," Mikey shrugs ",not more than usual."

Othello gestures "Elaborate."

"I mean, when I exercise I get short of breath and tired?" Mikey doesn't know what Othello is expecting of him.

"Hmm. You have scar tissue in your lungs. It's not a lot, but we should obtain a blood test, and do a walk test to determine your oxygen levels during activity.” Othello states, side eyeing Bibo who nods approvingly.

"Scar tissue?" Mikey asks, curling his hands into his chest.

"Yeah. Scar tissue can appear anywhere, not just on your skin. Scar tissue in your lungs means that they have been damaged somehow, do you know what could have damaged your lungs?" Othello asks.

"Uh. I know I got sick a couple times when I was younger? But you really got to ask Big Mama or Leo about it cause I don't remember those things well."

"Do you know what it is?" Othello asks.

Mikey groans "No, I just said I don't remember those things well."

Othello hums as Mikey grows a little irritated. What does the humming mean exactly? Well, calm down Mikey and look elsewhere for clues. He's typing information down his little bracer, it's hard to see how tense he is due to the baggy jumpsuit, hard to see his expression due to the gas mask. But, he does flap his hands when he's excited, like Mikey. That is something he has on Othello.

"I am going to examine your shell now." Othello declares "Bibo, can you draw some blood?"

Bibo huffs, a little disappointed sounding but he walks over to Mikey and pulls out a needle. Othello walks behind Mikey, which puts him on edge. Othello claims "I'm not going to touch you, only examine."

Mikey doesn't know if he believes Othello. He tries to keep Othello in the corner of his eyes, and Bibo holds out an empty hand. Mikey grabs it and squeezes. Bibo holds out the needle "I am going to prick your finger and collect the blood with a special medical strip. I am going to need three strips, so I'm going to squeeze your finger a little bit. Afterwards you get to pick out some bandaids."

"I have my own, are those allowed?" Mikey asks.

"Yes. I can go get them right now. Where are they?"

Well, Mikey has several places for everything, but he'll opt for the simplest one "Behind the bathroom sink."

Bibo steps towards the bathroom, and then does a double take. He repeats "Behind the bathroom sink?"

"Yeah. It's behind the water filter, duct taped right in the little cranny there. You can't miss it." Mikey gestures at the instructions to make it more clear.

Bibo stares at Mikey, seeming a little perplexed by the whole situation but he goes off to the background. Mikey turns his head fo look at Othello "What are you doing?"

Othello hums cryptically. "A medical examination."

"Yeah, but what does that mean?" Mikey asks.

Othello explains "Checking for shell growth irregularities, mostly. On your charts there was very minimal information about your shells, which is problematic for a whole list of reasons-" "I got the med kit." Bibo walks in, interrupting.

He sets the box down, a small metal lunchbox that Mikey repurposed, and says "You have a medical cabinet, why not put your supplies in there."

"Well people check the medical cabinet for supplies, duh." Mikey says.

Bibo and Othello make eye contact over Mikey's shoulder, clearly being able to read eachother better than Mikey can. Mikey huffs, irritated and Bibo says "Sorry, sorry. I'll get this blood test over with. Can you give me your finger?"

Mikey gives Bibo his hand, who gently pricks it. Bibo struggles to get blood for a minute, needing to prick Mikey again just for the second strip "Well, good news. You have a healing factor like your brother."

"Unclear." Othello states "Need more data. I'd prefer an experiment to be run, but noooo, it's unethical."

"Oh, Othello." Bibo groans, exasperated though fond.

Bibo finishes the second strip and sighs. "Okay. I am going to need to prick you again."

"I'm sorry that I'm not bleeding alot." Mikey apologizes.

Bibo chuckles "Normally, I'd take that apology. But you are not one of those patients."

He pricks Mikey's finger again and says "Othello, why not explain to him your findings."

"Oh I'd love to." Othello says pridefully, stepping into Mikey's field of vision with a hand to his chest like Leo sometimes did

"I'm just trying to script in a way that does not involve me screaming." Othello groans.

"What's the problem?" Mikey asks.

Othello breathes for a moment, stating "Loading…loading. Done! You don't have a regular basking spot, do you?"

"I had a heating blanket, but I lost it." Mikey says.

"Which is inadequate.” Othello says “,A good, healthy basking spot involves a heat lamp."

"Oh I have one of those! It's over there." Mikey says gesturing with his free hand.

"Good. You need to have at least thirty minutes of basking everyday and some form of calcium supplements should be prescribed." Othello says a touch flippantly "If you don't want to accidentally spend all your day basking, I recommend a timer, or to have one of your weird servants wake you up."

Othello types away at his bracer screen "It is very important that you have a regular basking schedule Because you have not been receiving enough UVB light, in fact, your shell is deformed because of it." A hologram of Mikey's shell appears with small circles highlighting certain areas pop up out of the bracer "Thankfully it's not severe, mostly causing minor irregular growth here and here. Leo has it much worse, it's why his shell cracks so often and easily."

A hologram of Leo's shell pops up out of the bracer, highlighting all of the injuries and growth deformities. Mikey takes a step back. "Othello!" Bibo hisses.

The hologram drops as Othello hisses back "What."

"Have you ever heard about doctor patient confidentiality!" Bibo stresses.

"He cared for Leo for years! He deserves to know." Othello declares.

As Bibo and Othello argue, Mikey steps back and looks inwards. He…kind of already knows. He never put it into actual words, he just knows that Leo cracks his shell alot. Like he would watch Leo's fights and know what action caused which injury. Leo would try to hide the injuries behind bullshit, but after years of dealing with Leo's stupid I-don't-want-to-be-a-burden Mikey's learned how to deal with it.

It's still scary though. The fact that it isn't normal. The fact that it could've been prevented. "Does Big Mama know?" He asks in a small voice.

They stop their arguing and turn to Mikey. They look at eachother, empty gas masked faces reflecting in each other's lenses. Bibo turns back to Mikey first while Othello walks off with tight, fisted hands. Bibo tents his fingers, in a way that he knows he's going to be explaining something difficult "We told Big Mama of Leo's health concerns, and she wanted us to figure out the specifics. So we reviewed Leo's diet to find it actually perfect. So we concluded that it was a lack of UVB light, something all reptilian yokai like yourselves need." Mikey hears the unstated words, she should've known this much earlier. ",So we told her this information and she thanked us and told us to leave."

There's a lot of emotions in Mikey right now.

He can feel himself begin to boil over, he squeezes himself in a tight self hug. Rage licks at his teeth, urging him to burn, to scream. But he can't do that, being angry is bad, it'll make Mama look bad.

Why didn't she know? She's in charge of caring for them, why wouldn't she know? She's did everything else, provided a house, a home, food, entertainment. Why not this little thing? It had to be an accident, but Big Mama does not like accidents, she likes everything clean and organized. It's why everything is on a schedule. Obviously she had to be hiding her true feelings from Bibo and Othello, she couldn't have a breakdown in front of them, obviously. She can't show vulnerability. Why is Othello taking apart Cathead's phone?

"Why are you taking apart Cathead's phone?" Mikey asks.

"I was going to make your microwave fly to make you feel better. But Cathead said no and complained about his phone's haptic feedback, so I'm fixing it." Othello explains, flicking a cat hair away "And I figured to clean it too. You do not believe the amount of shed fur can get into machinery. But it seems like that won't be a problem for a while."

Cathead looks at Mikey, a little stressed and overwhelmed from Othello's helpfulness. Mikey can't help but breathe a little easier. He can read Cathead at the very least, with the furrowed eyebrows and lower tilt of the head, he's concerned. "Um. Are you okay, sir?"

Mikey plays by the facts instead of the several thousand emotions and thoughts running through his head "I have received very distressing news about me and my brother's health. I definitely need time to process it." He presses his fingers to his temples, stressed "Can I, like, get all of this information printed out?"

Bibo says, "That can be arranged."

"And Cathead," Mikey says, "could you arrange an appointment with Big Mama? Like? Eventually? Not now. I need to feel my feelings before I talk about my feelings or else I will just yell at Mama again."

"Yes, I can do that, sir." Cathead nods, resolute. "Is there anything I can arrange right now?"

"I don't know." Mikey whines, everything feeling overwhelming "Ask me in a few hours, I might know then."

Othello puts Cathead's phone back together in less than a minute with five metal legs helping and tosses it back to him. "All fixed. Well, I am also emotionally exhausted for today! To make it clear though, you do appreciate the information I have given you, yes?"

Bibo seems to glare at Othello for the question. Mikey hesitantly says "Yes. I…kinda already knew but to have somebody else say it wasn't normal was definitely important."

Othello gives a pointed look at Bibo before jumping back onto his feet. "Great! Glad to be of assistance. Now excuse me, I am going to be looking through your medical charts for the next two hours! Buh-bye!"

Othello waves and leaves.

Bibo sighs, shoulders slumped, he is tired. Mikey picks a squishmallow from the nest and says "You make sure to take care of yourself."

Bibo shakes his head in a way that seems to convey disappointment and follows his assistant out of Mikey's room.

Leaving Cathead left. Standing awkwardly, wringing his hands together, Cathead quietly asks "Do you want a hug sir?"

"Yes, please." Mikey's voice cracks.

Cathead opens his arms and Mikey hugs him. Cathead rests his head on Mikey's and begins to purr, a familiar and pleasant sound. Though Cathead's sharp chin prevents Mikey from imagining Leo in his place. Mikey pulls back, and Cathead says "We're here to serve."

Mikey croaks weakly "I know."

Cathead pats Mikey's shoulder and leaves, closing the door behind him.

Mikey stands in the middle of his room. Not sure how to feel or what to feel. Leo's not dying, he's just…different. He's not weak, he's different. But isn't that just a stupid way of saying he's weak?

Mikey lets himself boil over.

Chapter Text

Server name > Babysitter's club

Channel-
CONCERNS ABOUT THE BABY

[8:30 pm]
Cathead: so are we allowed to talk about The Incident yet

Namija: Please Regard Pinned Comment For Codes About The Various Incidents

Cathead: oh cool when was that created

KaniOni: Made in the support group last week. Think ya missed it

Cathead: om, so are we allowed to talk about Incident Reverse Ringu

TakaOnna: to my knowledge mum didnt forbid it

Cathead: i know but we have been awful quiet about it

Namija: You Need To Attend The Support Group, Cathead, We Talked About It Then

Cathead: give me a break, ive been busy but like whats the idea on it

TakaOnna: busy wif what mate, youre hobbies invole sleepin all day

KanaOni: invole

TakaOnna: bitch

Cathead: mike melts his tv via turning it into a fucking portal isnt that crazy

Tweeti: well if he was going to have a mystic awakening then that was the time to do it

Namija: Leo Does Have Mystic Under Certain Circumstances, It Makes Sense for Angelo To Have A Similar Experience With Mystic

Cathead: yeah, but get this, he doesnt even remember it

ImOnFireBabay: is prolly a trauma responde

TakaOnna: but the mystic wasnt the traumatizijg experience tho was it

KanaOni: traumatizijg

TakaOnna: i will turn you into a gumbo

Namija: I Wish To Assist

TakaOnna: you dont have arms

Namija: All The More To Drown You With

Namija: We're Getting Distracted

Namija: CatHead What Did You Want To Discuss About Incident Reverse Ringu

Cathead: honestly im just scared for the kid

Cathead: like mikey whent absolutely feral protecting leo and mama tried to stop him from visiting leo in recovery

TakaOnna: then you got shaved

KanaOni: you got shaved because of it

Cathead: Yes! I got shaved! What of it!

Tweeti: he whent for the eyes

ImOnFireBabay: thank goodness he didnt kill anybody this time, else mums would've definitely gutted his toom

Namija: I Stand By My Belief That Mikey Did Not Intend To Kill Anyone, Therefore, It Wasnt His Fault

Tweeti: that's on you girl

KanaOni: ah, the illusive Incident Baby Fucking Killed Someone

Namija: Please Regard Pinned Comment For Codes About The Various Incidents

TakaOnna: Say Aye to change code?

Tweeti: Nay

KanaOni: aye

Cathead: we really need to talk more openly about this kind of stuff

Namija: I Would Rather Die

Cathead: we know Nami

TakaOnna: id watch

Cathead: we know Chip

Cathead: i wasnt there when it happened as i only got hired three months afterward so i dont know everything

Cathead: but some poor sap picked Mike up without asking

KanaOni: oof

TakaOnna: oof

Laika: ouch

ImOnFireBabay: he did, as Kana said,"go for the eyes” and he took off a lot of face and neck and shoulders and everything really

ImOnFireBabay: the yokai later died in the hospital

Namija: He Cried For Three Days Straight About It He Felt So Bad

ImOnFireBabay: the worst part about it was lil leo, he was so angry about the guards not listening to him about Michael, he gave us all a thirty minute speech about it

ImOnFireBabay: which is impressive for a ten year old

TakaOnna: can somebody pin this

Namija: No

Tweeti: we all know Mike can have a bad memory, i think its natural for him to block all this stuff out

Cathead: im still nervous about it

KanaOni: understandable really, but cmon cathead the support group is here for a reason

Cathead: i know i know ill try to show up next time

Channel-
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

[2:00 am]
Namija: Michelangelo Got Attacked He Is Okay Information Being Gathered If The Other Guards Not Apart Of The Babysitter Corps Try To Get Involved Again Do Not Let Them If They Get Rough Send Them To Me @everyone Send Post

[5:00 am]
ImOnFireBabay: Ok, so they got pics circling on social media now. Mums getting it taken care of but to assure all of you, don't worry, the blood is not Mikey's. @everyone

ImOnFireBabay: official report coming soon/eventually

Channel-
GENERAL

[3:20 am]
Laika: "ysee sis, you know that babysitting job i took up? Yeah the one I had to sign an nda for? Yknow the kid may or may not have had an attempt on his life and Im wondering if I should run over there and make sure he's ok because spirits, even if he can be a bit of a brat sometimes he's a brat that learns all of our favorite foods"

[4:00 am]
KanaOni: according to the schedule Nami, and Slagger where the supervisors, and Foxface and Shepard where on primary gaurd duty with Megari watching so try not to bug em too much and like Mikey should be safe with all those badasses on board

Cathead: @Laika you still wanna go see if mike's ok

Laika: is this healthy? To have such an attachment to this kid

Cathead: Mama kept me alive for prioritizing Mikey over her so you could probably get a raise

Laika: fuck it @cathead meet at the breakroom we can at least give mikey a few more friendly faces

[4:20 am]
Laika: @cathead where are you

Cathead: on train rn, needed to get some toys for him just in case

KanaOni: you know, i would say youre not paid enough for this but you literally are

Laika: gotta love mom's probable tax evasion ♥️

KanaOni: i'd join you two, but mike's gotta be ok and i'd rather not take that two hour transport but like. Cheers for takein care of him

KanaOni: also insert nami essay about how everything Big Mama does is "A Wonderful Masterwork of Avoiding Illegality" cause nams busy right now but I'd think shed appreciate it

Channel-
CONCERNS ABOUT THE BABY

[4:55 am]
Dodomeki has posted a picture!
(It's a blurry picture of Mikey with a thousand yard stare being guided away by a blue snake yokai. He's covered in blood.)

TakaOnna: FUCKING WHAT

TakaOnna: I THOUGHT SHE SAID THAT HE WAS OKAY

KanaOni: we all just wake up buttass early for this man to be covered in blood smh

TakaOnna: nam mentioned the other guards causing problems

TakaOnna: im gonn fucking kill the bitch thet put this fucking up hes gonna be fucking dead twice bitch fuck shit hell

KanaOni: add more swear words in there why dont you

TakaOnna: i know this is you form of coping but i swear that i will peel off every piece of exoskeleton you have peece by peeces and sell you as an upper class buffet to the humans

KanaOni: peece
(Dodomeki has reacted to this comment: 👎)

KanaOni: oh come on

TakaOnna: dodo, my beloved, can you like reverse search this pic to find the op or something so i can murder him
(Dodomeki has reacted to this comment: 👌👍)

TakaOnna: react to this comment if u need to say anythinf elze
(Dodomeki has reacted to this comment: 🦅👀🕓🕟🔥)

Channel-
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

[8:00 am]
Namija: Mikey Got Attacked During A Shiftchange While He Was Asleep But He Woke Up And The Intruder Is Now Dead But The External Gaurds Apparantly Failed Their Mission And Let One Of The Prisoners From The Invasion Go And Thought They Had To Cover It When We Were Trying To Cover Mikey And Get Him Transported Safely When These People Arent Supposed To Know Of Mikey's Existence Which Was Already Breached During The Invasion Because Baby Can Teleport Now Apparently And I Kept On Trying To Tell Them That We Had It Covered But Then It Came Down To Clerances So Mikey Had To Be Moved And They Had The Fucking Audacity To Post Him OnLine As If I Wasnt Going To Get In Trouble For It And The Protocol For This Situation Is Inadequate Because Mikey Was Supposed To Be A Secret But Not Anymore And Now We Need To Fucking Deal With It And And AnD I Had To Deal With EveryOne Makeing ComMents About Mikey being a bloodthirsty killer As If He WaSnT FuCkInG tHeRe And Spirits I Am Getting Paid So Much Overtime For This And I Havent Even Talked To Leo Yet @everyone

ImOnFireBabay: tldr? Baby's killcount is now two, minus whatever happened with the disguised folk, the external guard made everything worse, protocol needs to be changed because the secrets out, and Mikey is currently being housed in room 10050 for the time being because blood is everywhere and alot of things got destroyed and also crime scene

ImOnFireBabay: continue shifts as mostly normal for the time being, nam and mike are sleepin rn so be careful when you enter the room if you have questions right them down on a little paper and ask admins LATER gn @everyone

Chapter Text

Leo's life is dominated by schedules. Except when he gets disemboweled apparently. He should do it more often, really if it gets him this much freedom. He knows he's supposed to like the cushy bed and the toys and Mikey being able to visit whenever he wants, he knows. But even with the cushy bed, he can't sleep after the fight. So Leo falls back on staring at the ceiling and hallucinating all his memories and half dreams. The hospital room is bigger than his cell, isn't that kinda sad?

His skin is like an eggshell, nothing is inside of him. There's plenty of evidence otherwise, the blood he's spilled, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, the tapestry of scars and cracks decorating Leo from head to toe. He is not a complete person, parts of him have been lost as he's been chipped away at over the years. He is not a complete person.

Bibo comes and goes, his filtered voice muffled at the passive static of existence. He pats Leo's head, and for a moment Leo worries that he's going to break into a thousand little pieces. He doesn't. Bibo leaves, dimming the lights.

The door opens.

"Wakey wakey! Its visiting hours babey!" Mikey cheerfully declares.

Leo sits up, and the nothingness inside of him jolts as little chess squares spread out before him. Mikey smiles too wide, not quite meeting his eyes. He is almost frantic as he goes through the numerous board games, hands stuttering as he goes from game to game and toy to toy, hideing it behind endless rambling sounding like a spurting flame. Mikey settles on a deck of playing cards and almost falls onto the visiting chair. His eyes are red, as if he's been crying.

"Whadya want to play." Mikey says shuffling the cards.

Leo stares at Mikey for an elongated moment "Cheat."

Mikey nods, still smiling nervously. Almost placateingly. Was he trying to do his pacifying grin on Leo? "Alright, alright, alright. Let's get this baby started."

Mikey splits the deck like a pro, muttering off his count of each card until he says "Twenty five? If you have more then twenty five just put it in the discard." He taps the side of the bed, where theyre putting the discard pile.

Leo brushes past, roughly guessing twenty five cards. Arguably, the game's harder with only two players, as you not only have more cards to keep track of but you cant go under the radar and quietly win the game. It's just player one and player two. Catch the lie.

Leo is technically on the right of Mikey, but it all loops back to him being on the left of Mikey, so Leo starts. "Two Ace." He says while placing two ace face down.

He looks at Mikey. Faint eyebags around his puffy eyes, he has been crying hasn't he? Hasn't been sleeping either. He didn't look like this yesterday, didn't he? What did Mikey look like yesterday? "One Two." Mikey places a card face down.

"Two threes." Leo partially lies, he has one three and one ace.

Meaning Mikey should only have one ace. Mikey looks over his cards. This is the first time Mikey's looked like this right? Leo isn't just being neglectful right? He wasn't just ignoring Mikey right? "Two Fours."

"Two fives." Leo lies, putting down two fours.

So did it happen last night? Did something happen last night? Dureing the fight? Mama said she'd figure something out with Mikey. But Mama is like…incapable of hurting Mikey. She can't hurt Mikey. She loves Mikey, she loves him more than Leo. "Two six." Mikey puts down two cards.

"Cheater." Leo states.

Mikey smiles like he's been caught and turns over his cards, a six and an ace. Leo has the other sixes and already discarded the aces. Mikey takes the discard pile into his hand.

Leo looks over his hand and finds two sevens, meaning Mikey has the other two. He calls out "Two seven."

What was Leo thinking about? Mikey. Its fine? Mikey sways side to side slightly as he struggles a little bit to keep all his cards in his hands. He's here. He's sad. He cried for a long time. He's trying not to mention it.

"Two eight." Mikey puts down two face down cards, he's trying to hide his face, hiding his heart in his sleeve.

"Where you crying?"

"What?" Mikey barely manages to disguise his panic "Don't worry about it. I was just-" a slight pause "reading letters between the Van Goughs last night." An interest that they do not share, something entirely of Mikeys.

He's lying. He did not read their letters last night. "Why?" Leo croaks.

"I dunno? I just felt like it. Why does everything have to have meaning anyways." Irritation at being prodded at "Let's just get back to the game." Mikey shakes his head dismissively.

Leo looks at Mikey's claws, spread out to hold his massive deck. Well manicured, in contrast to the chopped back to the nail beds of Leo's. Mikey recently had to file them back due to chipping a few nails after fighting the guards in the arena. They were never anywhere near the size of Big Mama's, Mikey preferred practicality, but they were stronger than hers.

A bandage, around the tip of his finger.

Pinkish swelling around the callous.

Mikey is prone to small incidents, he works with a little bit of everything and sometimes you do just get injured. Mikey frequently gets little cuts and bruises from his entire lifestyle of having a billion hammocks in his room. He doesn't. It's hidden. What. What. What is he supposed to do about it? It's fine. It's fine.

Panic? "Leo?" Mikey calls.

Leo blinks. "Yeah, yeah. Right. Its my turn."

Oh look at that he has two more fours, meaning Mikey was bluffing when he earlier put down two fours. Too bad Leo can't call on it now. "Uh. Where are we?"

"Nine." Mikey says patiently.

"Nine, yeah, yeah, yeah, nine." Leo glances over his deck, and the numbers blur. Where's the rook, it needs to protect the king and the knight moves to f3 and the bishop can take the pawn then the knight and this is a card game.

Leo puts down his two fours and lies "Two f- nines."

Mikey lightly shakes his head, smiling politely, and places a facedown card "One ten."

Breathe.

Mikey is wearing an old orange hoodie, Leo can almost pretend that the medical aftertaste in his mouth isnt there, and the world almost warps at the edges but right now he will play card games with his brother.

"Two jacks."

"Cheater." Mikey states, flawlessly.

Leo takes the discard pile.

They go back and fourth, going through several rounds of it with not enough banter to fill Leo's empty vessel. He's feeling more half empty when a babysitter guard comes in and says "Mikey? Your new supplies arrived."

Mikey drops all of his forty eight cards "Aw, sweet. I was about to win anyways."

Leo wrinkles his snout "No you weren't."

Mikey sticks out his tongue "I changed the winning conditions last second."

"Oh bullshit!" Leo shouts.

"That's the name of the game." Mikey smirks.

Mikey puts all the cards back together and in the box before gently bonking Leo on the head. Leo smiles, squeezing the fabric of his blanket as he watches Mikey leave.

Bibo rounds by on his shift, opening the door to a sudden "Am I on something right now?"

Bibo sighs before stepping in "You're on several things."

Leo holds his head "I think…I might be hallucinating?"

"It could just be your vision going. And also don't you say that you hallucinate yourself to sleep?" Bibo says, typing something up on his phone.

"Yeah, but this is different. No memories or thoughts. Just a weird amount of chess and anxiety. It's like…all the corners of the room got pinched and my soul got plucked out of my body." Leo struggles to explain.

"Interesting!" Bibo says cheerfully "I can do something about that. It's a little theoretical, however."

"No experiments." Leo blurts.

Bibo chuckles "Nothing experimental. Having you walk around, in a controlled manner, could make your soul feel better. Let me grab your brace."

Bibo pulls a knee brace out of his purse, because he is like if Mary Poppins decided to be Dr. Frankenstein. Bibo straps the knee brace on him and holds out a hand for Leo to pull himself up on. Leo gestures to the iv. "Can we get rid of the visible dying in a hospital look."

"Of course." Bibo says, disconnecting Leo from the iv and wrapping the tubing closer to his arm with tape and putting a sleeve over the cannula.

"Try not to bend your arm too much." Bibo says, helping Leo into his jacket.

"I know I know." Leo groans as he shrugs on the jacket.

"Talking about how to insert a cannula is different from having a cannula." Bibo reminds.

Leo stretches slightly “Don’t worry, Beebs. It’s fine. I’m the greatest champion of all time. I can survive a little internal bleeding.”

Bibo sighs in disappointment. Leo chuckles and walks out of the door. Bibo follows slightly behind “Uh, shouldn’t you wait for your guards?”

“Nah.” Leo says with his hands in his pockets.

“Where are you- where are you going?” Bibo says slightly panicked.

“Mike’s. It’s not like I can go anywhere else.” Leo counts off on a hand “Can’t swim with the cannula, don't wanna go back to my cell, so,” he turns to Bibo with a shrug “, Mikey’s.”

Bibo struggles to speak, fidgeting with his hands “Um…shouldn’t you…call him first?”

Leo recognises that Bibo is acting weird, but he also thought Mikey was acting weird and Mikey’s fine so Leo’s probably hallucinating or something. He gestures as he talks “Why would I do that? So far our visiting hours have been so crazy, he just shows up. And I’m like Mikey! And he’s like Leo! And we end up playing games or whatever.”

Leo takes a turn and Bibo says “Um. I don’t think that’s the way to Mikey’s room.”

“It’s a shortcut.” Leo says.

Bibo makes an anxious, disapproving noise. Leo moves to the side of the hallway so Bibo can be in the corner of his eye. He’s typing something on his phone. “Um. I don’t think you should go to Michelangelo’s because…what if he’s busy?” He tries.

“Then I can just sit in the nest or a hammock and hang out with him. Still more entertaining than a hospital bed.” Leo says nonchalantly “I love watching him work anyways.”

A guard, not a part of the babysitter corps, passes through the hallway and grunts at Leo “What are you doing out of your room?”

Bibo sputters. Leo rocks on the back of his heels “Oh, I’m just taking a lil walk. Doc’s orders.”

The guard looks pointedly at Bibo, asking “Is this true?”

“Y-yes.” Bibo stutters.

The guard grunts to themselves and walks away. This is not normal, guards not apart of the babysitter corps usually are not permitted this close to Mikey’s room. Something can’t be wrong though, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Mikey probably knows something about it, he knows everything happening in the babysitter corps since they’re the only people he can really socialize with. Leo’s walking pace gets faster as he gets closer to Mikey’s room, only to find a bunch of standard guards ambling in front of Mikey’s room with the door open.

Leo pushes past a guard, a hand grips his shoulder “Hey! You can’t be here! Active crime scene.”

Leo’s eyes go white at the words active crime scene. He judo flips the guard and ducks into a roll to get into the room. Bloody footprints on the tarp, the room is crawling with guards, where is Mikey, where is Mikey, where is Mikey. Leo rounds the corner and.

Blood.

Blood splatters over everything. The two couches that make up the nest are an absolute mess, Leo hovers closer, vaguely hearing Bibo shouting. The desk nearby, the stickers and paint stains hidden by the massive amounts of drying blood. There’s a chunky grayish substance in the blood, around the corner of the desk. He follows down the edge of the desk and

Oh

That’s a body.

Brain matter seeps out of the broken skull. Its eyes are scratched out. Several pens and pencils are lodged into its torso. There seems to be defensive wounds on its arms. Everything is carefully notated by little numbered cards. The guards, not the babysitter corps Leo painstakingly crafted to keep Mikey safe, cautiously stare at him. What are they- what happened- what-

Leo grabs Bibo by the shirt and pulls him down so they’re face to face. He snarls “You knew.”

They all know.

Bibo holds both hands up, stuttering “I-I-I treated him. He’s okay. He ju-just broke a nail. Everything else- else healed up practically within the hour. Medically, he’s-he’s fine. ”

Leo pulls Bibo closer, so that their foreheads are nearly touching. His lips curled to expose his faint fangs, his voice low as he asks “Did Big Mama make you not to tell me?”

“Yes.”

Leo smiles. This is why he likes Bibo. No excuses or defending her or himself. No nothing. Just a simple statement.

Leo lets Bibo go, who habitually checks all of his ventilators. He grabs a pen from Mikey’s desk, and stalks off. Time to John Wick this bitch.

A rhinoceros yokai dashes at him, he sidesteps, jumps over another lunging guard. Stab the pen into a guard’s throat, run for it as the blood spurts.

He sprints down the hallway, the tile turning into black and white checkerboard beneath his feet. A horde of guards appear at the end of the hallway. A small guard steps aside for a large hairy yokai to step forward and slams its fists into the ground. Leo jumps over the shockwave, the pawns stepping forward as the knight moves to the left, pulling out a large club.

Feint left, go right as the club slams into the wall, slip a wakizashi straight from a pawn’s sheath, split the artery of another pawn. The knight grabs for Leo, earning a few lost fingers from the wakizashi. He blocks an opposing wakizashi with his forearm, roundhouse kicking the pawn in the face and snatching its wakizashi while it’s in the air. Leo sidesteps the knight as the club slams into the ground, some of the pawns struggling to keep their balance. Leo pushes past the stumbling pawns, leaving a line of canonfodder between himself and the knight.

He bursts into Mama’s office, sharp disappointment hitting his gut at her absence but he knows how to find her. He pulls out her desk drawer, rustling through all the papers. Knowing people is an intimate business and all that shit, and he knows Mama likes her itinerary. She keeps her planner with her, but she got a backup enchanted so that whatever she writes in her main planner also gets transferred to her backup. There it is. What day is it? Leo checks his phone and flips over to that page and the date reads room 603 meeting at 8 pm.

Guards begin to file into the room and Leo throws the planner at one of them. He tosses a letter opener into somebody's chest. They’re trying to surround him, he holds the duel wakizashi in a white knuckled grip, he stabs a pawn in the stomach. He climbs on top of the desk and jumps from pawn to pawn, ducking out of the door to get slammed into a wall by a waiting bishop. Leo growls, his heart hammering inside his chest, he needs to get to floor six and there’s going to be hordes of guards trying to stop him. He rushes towards the bishop, already in a defensive stance. Anger pulses out of time with his heart, as he slashes against the bishop’s hardened skin. He needs to get answers, he needs to know what happened to Mikey because nobody else will fucking tell him. Mikey got hurt and nobody fucking told him.

Something clicks.

He portals to the back of the bishop and stabs it in the neck. There’s resistance to pulling one of the wakizashi’s out, so he leaves it lodged in as he flips off and slices a portal into existence.

Leo lands in front of a projected picture of Mikey, covered in blood and utterly shell shocked, his expression numb and emotionless. His heart drops at the sight, before he turns around to look at the long table full of business partners. On the other end of the table, a disguised Big Mama smiles calmly “I see your mystics are working again.”

Leo points the wakizashi at Big Mama, a manic grin plastered across his face “Yeah, I was just coming over here to tell you due to the what? Open communication policy? Is that what you called it?”

Leo hops up onto the table, some of the policyholders and businessmen get up out of their chairs in a panic, the others just sigh disappointedly and stay seated. His voice a low whisper “Reeeeal hypocritical there, aren’t ya? I mean,” he puts on a bad british accent “Leo, you are such a disappointment, you’re supposed to tell me things. Leo, you’re irrational and can’t be trusted to handle these sorts of incidents.”

The smile falls, his voice a low whisper “It’s nearly been a full day and you haven’t told me anything.”

The smug smirk returns as he gestures with the wakizashi in hand, narrowly missing a few businessman “Kinda pathetic really. Doesn’t that kinda ring any bells? Of broken deals? Broken contracts? Weren’t we supposed to be a team on this?”

“You make hasty assumptions, Leonardo. Not the kind of behavior I’m looking for in a business meeting.” Big Mama says.

“Hahahaha, assumptions,” Leo stands in front of Big Mama, wakizashi in hand “You wanna know what I can assume from this?” He gestures to the picture of Mikey “, you wanna know?”

He crouches down to be face to face with Big Mama, “One of the guards took this picture, on the spirits damned company phone no less, and guards are gossipy as fuck. Especially in a work environment where an nda is slapped on nearly everything. So you wanna know. What I’m thinking…happened to this lil’ picture here?”

“Mikey went viral.”

“Didn’t he.”

Big Mama stares at Leo with a measured gaze, her eyebrows furrowed and shoulders tensed. “Who told you?”

Leo tilts his head mischievously “Consider it an exchange of services. You don’t tell me something and I don’t tell you something.”

“I have cameras everywhere, you know.” She states.

“Then better start looking.” Leo responds with a minute smirk.

They stare at each other for a long moment. She eyes the wakizashi carelessly slung over Leo’s shoulder and she smiles slightly. Her shoulders relax and she leans back into her chair, “Well. You’re here now, might as well pull up a chair. Come on now, chop chop! Get a move on. Don't want to delay the rest of the meeting now, do you?”

Leo hops off the table and turns to get a chair as Big Mama calls out “And fix your eyes now, you’re going to spook the buissnessmen who aren’t as experienced with your twiddly antrums.”

Leo rolls his eyes, in the motion his nictitating membrane closes.

One of the yokai speaks up hesitantly, “You’re just going to let him stay?”

“Are you questioning my decision?” Big Mama giggles maliciously, "Besides, he has more than enough stock in this situation to be concerned about it.”

“The champion’s allowed to purchase stock in your companies?” Another yokai asks.

“Oh, no, no, no.” Big Mama chortles, "Then, people would accuse me of rigging the games to benefit my stockholders.”

Leo pulls up next to Big Mama at the head of the table. She looks at him, silently telling him that if he makes her look like a fool in front of her business partners she will vivisect him in front of a live audience, and he begrudgingly slides his chair over to her right. She continues, tenting her hands “I was talking more of…an emotional stock. Leo, why not tell them your relationship with this mysterious newfound turtle.”

Leo grips the wakizashi tightly. He doesn’t want to say it, why does he have to say it? They don’t need to know his relationship with Mikey, they don’t need to know anything about the deal he made with Big Mama, he doesn’t want to talk to or with these people at all. Big Mama nudges him and repeats herself “Leo. Why not tell them your relationship with Michelangelo?”

They already know his name. And at least if Leo does it, it’s not Big Mama. He could lie, maybe. But then Big Mama could expose him as a liar and make him look bad in front of all the businessmen. Leo states clearly, so Big Mama does not make him say it again.

“He’s my little brother.”

Chapter Text

Leo sits alone in his cell for the first time in a month.

Is it weird that it feels like he's coming home?

After everything he's just exhausted. Bibo was kind and patient, gently informing Leo that he was very lucky he didn't rip his stitches. Only to turn around with venom dripping from his tone to tell Big Mama that sticking him back in the cell would negatively impact his healing process. When Bibo and Mama began arguing about his health, Leo just took a step back from his body. He's tired and numb from the entire thing, can't they just argue elsewhere.

Eventually they stopped arguing, eyeing Leo. Big Mama snapped her fingers in front of him, and Leo slowly blinked. She's disappointed somehow. Bibo led her out of the room, to leave Leo be.

He curls up on his bed, with a new heat lamp installed in the corner. He's tired, but his insides curl and press against his plastron. Leo calls it hallucinating, mostly because he doesn't know what else to call it. He reviews his day. Thinking so loud he can't hear his other thoughts.

After Leo's fight, Mikey got attacked by one of those disguised invaders. Mikey killed the guy. The babysitter corps had conflicting interests with the normal guards and in the process of figuring out what happened one of the guards took a picture of Mikey and posted it online. (Draxum knows)

One step at a time. Do it linearly. After Mikey got evacuated from his room, Bibo was called to treat the strangulation.
Mikey is currently in room 10050 and has been painting the walls to cope. There was a video recording of the entire debacle, but Leo wasn't allowed to look at it. (He needs to know what happened exactly.)

Mikey almost leaked during the invasion, but Namija, one of the heads in the babysitter corps, caught the stray footage before it could go anywhere meaningful.
If Draxum didn't know then. He knows now.

Dread fills Leo's chest and he curls into a tighter ball. Draxum knows, Draxum knows, Draxum knows, it was already a hard enough time to get Draxum off of Leo's back (he remembers it clearly. Big Mama smiling coyly as she says "in the words of my beloved champion…eat shit and die." (One of the few times Leo felt genuine love towards her)) it would be hard to get Draxum off of Mikey's.

The golden glow of a portal transporting them to the ground. It's raining. Mikey's raspy breaths ringing throughout the warehouse. He curls into Leo's plastron, listening to his heartbeat. Mikey asked where Leo got the food, and Leo said some kindly old yokai gave it to them. Mikey looked at him, and maybe he knew then that Leo lied.

Mikey does not remember their time on the streets but Leo sees it everywhere he goes. He sees it in how Mikey breathes and carries himself, everything he has is something that can be taken away. It's raining. Leo is struggling to carry Mikey, a kaiju sized Big Mama watches them from atop her hotel. Mikey wheezes on the chair as Leo speaks a mile a minute.

It's raining. Draxum grabs Mikey by the shell, and the turtle screams bloody murder as he claws out Draxum’s eye. He drops Mikey (there are around eighty large nerves and around 7000 nociceptors in the cornea, imagine the amount of pain.) Leo catches Mikey. They run. But Draxum isn't the type of man to stop a chase due to a measly case of eye injury. They lose him, but the gargoyles follow, sweet talking and kind until Mikey lunges.

The door opens.

The lights don't turn on.

(Don't look.)

Breathing through a voice synthesizer. Bibo?

(Don't look.)

"He's asleep." There's Bibo. Is he talking to somebody? "We should sleep as well."

Silence. Bibo sighs "It's been an exhausting day for everybody. I haven't slept since last week and I know you haven't slept either."

A beat of silence.

Bibo says "And we're working on fixing it now, aren't we? It doesn't need to be fixed today."

"It's a hypothesis, we don't know if its true yet." Bibo says.

Extended silence.

"Yes, yes, if it is true then you can eat her." Bibo says, with slight humor in his voice.

An autotuned chuckle. Bibo says "You're the only one who appreciates me. Now let's get a move on and let him sleep."

Footsteps approach Leo, he tenses. He still can't look, he can't look, he's pretending to sleep. It can't be. It can't be.

A blanket is draped over him.

The new heat lamp turns on with a click.

"Good thinking." Bibo compliments.

The door closes with Bibo defensively saying "What, it's a compliment."

Leo finds himself relaxing. Because it isn't. It isn't anything for him to worry about. At least not now.

Maybe Leo sleeps. Maybe he doesn't. He can't really tell. It all slogging together into a colorful mass of half memories, lies, and truth. When he gets tired of laying down on his bed, he sits up and turns off the heat lamp.

The terror of somebody hurt Mikey still buzzing inside of him, there's no guarantee that Mikey is safe now. How did the attacker even get through the guards that are supposed to protect him? That Leo made to protect Mikey. What happened? What was the failure and how could this be prevented in the future.

He's got nothing in this cell. He feels his pockets. Not even his phone. Maybe he dropped it in his rampage. Maybe Mama pocketed it without him noticing. The cannula is still in his arm which is irritating. But the incoming boredom dulls a bit at the thought. If Leo has the cannula, it means Bibo will come back. It means he won't be alone.

Breathe.

He's home.

Okay but what is he going to do?

He can't exercise. Well. Maybe he can. Just not with his left arm. He can do that easily. Basic kata here we go!

Leo takes off his shoes before he begins. He tries to half meditate, his brain a natural mess of thoughts with strings attached to the most random of things. He can not not think. So he just…does the reverse of whatever he does when he's in bed. It barely makes sense to him, but it works.

He hears vibrations through his feet, of the guards walking past in their big heavy boots. It's a nice pattern that he tries to pace his kata too, until it changes. Lighter footsteps, purposeful, barely noticeable. Leo presses his hand against the metal door and hears the vibrations of a vocoded voice. It's not Bibo, who has short heels that click against the floor. It must be Othello.

The door opens, red and blue mirrored lenses reflect Leo back at him. "You were expecting me?" Othello asks.

"You're kinda loud." Leo says.

Othello walks into the room, setting his purple bag on Leo's bed. "About that, you sure you aren't just hearing vibrations?"

Leo's face scrunches up in confusion "What do you mean?"

"Let me rephrase it. You have gone swimming before, right?" Othello says, pulling out a tablet from his bag.

"Yeah, like a couple times a year. If I'm really good I get to go more times." Leo says.

A low growl emits from Othello, nearly incomprehensible from the vocodeing "Disregarding the blatant neglect. When you are underwater can you hear better?"

Leo pauses for a moment. "Yeah actually."

Othello turns to Leo with a flourish, announcing "Congratulations, Leonardo! You are hard of hearing!"

"Wait, wait, wait." Leo says "You can't just not drop that information and not explain why."

"I was getting to it." Othello says, irritated as he types something on the tablet "As a turtle you have a vibratory sense to sense when predators or prey is underwater. Air is just thinner water. So your vibration sense is weaker when on land. Which makes you hard of hearing, but only out of water."

Leo processes this for a minute before saying "That's stupid."

"Eh, many things are stupid." Bemoans Othello "But I make an effort to not think of your body trying its best as stupid."

"What do you know about it." Leo says defensively.

"Well." Othello turns back to the tablet, fidgeting with something on the screen. "I'm autistic and have several thousand sensory issues which at times are inconvenient to deal with but if I touch something sticky I will die. I am barely even joking. Sometimes I have days when literally everything is too much and I just gotta sit down and watch Bluey or else I will also die."

Othello doesn't look as he says "I don't hate my autism by the way. It's just me. But you're not bad in any way shape or form by being hard of hearing. You're just here."

Leo gestures vaguely, frustrated, confused, and not entirely sure what he’s supposed to get from this conversation “You have terrible bedside manners?”

“Bibo talks about removing your limbs. He thinks amputating your arm would be fun. What’s the difference?” Othello shrugs.

Leo exclaims“Oh, you just walk into my room and go, you're hard of hearing! With no tests? No easing in! Usually the exclamation comes up without asking? What the hell is up with that? What do you even know about hearing?”

“I don’t know about hearing, I know about turtles.” Corrects Othello idly.

“And what do you know about turtles!” Shouts Leo.

Othello stops typing on his tablet and looks at Leo. It’s unnerving, the mirrored reflection of Leo in the red and blue lenses showing his haggard appearance. He’s lost weight, covered in bruises from the fight due to the solution halting his healing factor. His gaze softens and Leo looks away first.

“Do you want to know a secret?” Othello says softly, turning back to his tablet.

Leo has no idea what this conversation is. Why is Othello even here? Leo looks at Othello “Yeah, I love secrets.”

“Great." Othello states ",You can get one once I remove your cannula.” Othello gestures for Leo to sit down on the bed, still looking at the tablet.

Leo sits down, rolling up his sleeve and relieved that he actually knows what this conversation is now. “So this is bribery, right?”

“Absolutely.” Othello confirms.

Othello sets down his tablet, looking like a spreadsheet of some kind with a little messaging bubble on it. Leo asks “Is it a good secret?”

A metal leg produces a new set of gloves that Othello slides on “You have two options. Secret one or secret two.”

“Oh come on, that tells me nothing.” Leo complains as Othello slides Leo’s sleeves ever so slightly higher.

Othello breathes in and out, before taking off the sleeve of the cannula. “That’s the point of a secret.”

“Yeah, but I always hated game shows that are like door 1 or door 2! It’s just gambling on live tv.” Leo says, subtly looking over at the tablet to not look at the cannula.

Leo feels the tape being removed, Othello says “There’s ways to cheat at gambling.”

The number on the messaging bubble goes up. Leo asks “How do I cheat at this one?”

The pressure of the cannula is removed, and a new pressure returns. Leo looks back at his arm, finding a cotton ball being taped to the inside of his elbow. Othello has taken a step back, shucks off his gloves, handing them off to a mechanical leg while another pinches the cannula which gets put in a box labeled MEDICAL WASTE. He flaps his hands in an anxious manner and makes a distressed noise that gets garbled by the vocoder. He turns back to Leo “Gamble on this one.”

“I gamble my life everyday, baby.” Leo smirks, thinking it rather odd that for a medical assistant Othello seems oddly grossed out by everything.

Othello rubs his hands together, seeming to think about Leo’s comment. “One of the secrets is about Mikey,” Leo's eyes widen “,and the other is about me.”

There are sooooo many implications to that. Leo leans forward “And no I’m secretly in love with Bibo shit. Right?”

Othello scoffs, sitting next to Leo “No. I’m not in love with him. I think that would be rather weird.”

“Good, because that would be weird. So like.” Leo shifts his weight so that he sits criss-cross-applesauce on his bed “On a scale of one to ten, one being I’m gay, ten being I secretly killed Big Mama and am puppeteering her corpse how bad are the secrets.”

A beat of silence, Othello looks at Leo with his expressionless mask “You’re gay?”

Leo scoffs “Wow, jeez. Sound more surprised next time. Yeah, don’t worry about it. How bad are the secrets?”

Othello pauses for a while, Leo could almost see the little equations float around his head. “I’m bisexual.”

Leo is a little taken aback. He says “That’s great honey. Weird time and place to come out. But the secrets?”

Othello fidgets with his hands, shaking them a little bit “Right, right, right. Recalibrating. Um. Well, it all depends on how you’re going to react and I don’t know how you’re going to react.”

Leo gestures encouragingly “Take a guess.”

Othello looks down at the concrete floor, worn down over the years of Leo pacing and doing katas to keep himself occupied. Othello tents his fingers “The Mikey one…I think it’s an…eight. It’s something you technically already know from what I’ve gathered. But I think you would want the finer details because I would want the finer details if my brother got attacked. It is going to prrrrrrrrobably fuck you a little bit, it fucked me up a little bit. It will probably give you more questions that I will not answer. But you deserve to know the details because something horrible happened to your brother.”

Leo shoves down the comment ‘it has only been a day’ and instead says “And the you one?”

Othello gulps “The me one.” Othello shrinks in on himself “Yeah. I don’t know how much you do know, or what kind of information you do know that would affect the me secret. But from what little I do know, which is infuriating, I think it would…surprise you to say the least. I don’t think the Mikey one will readily change anything in the near or far future. But the me secret…might change some things. I don’t know, but you will need to know eventually.”

The wording there is weird. He holds his chin in his hand “Why can’t you tell me nothing? Just keep your mask on all the time, like Bibo."

“Well. Frankly. One; I hate it. It is so sweaty in this thing, this is literally supposed to be a non breathable fabric and two…” Othello trails off.

He looks towards the corner of the room “I guess it’s not a part of the me secret…but it’s close to it.”

Leo tilts his head “Will I get two secrets for one?”

“Maybe. You could probably guess it.” Othello still isn’t looking at him.

“Will I eventually get to know the Mikey secret?” Leo asks, leaning a little towards Othello.

“Hmmm. Maybe.” Othello hums, turning towards Leo “If you learn the me secret now and accurately guess the secret, third secret, then I’ll be able to eventually show you the Mikey secret.”

“The secret, third, secret. Hmmm, who coulda guessed?” Leo says, half heartedly mimicking Othello.

Othello gives an amused huff, a brusk noise from the vocoding. “I should’ve rehearsed this more before coming in here.”

Leo melodramatically “No, don’t, it means I get more information.”

Othello shakes his head “Well. Is that enough?”

“One more question." Leo says "Will I learn the you secret if I learn the Mikey secret?”

“Eventually. It will just take longer.” Othello says.

“So the you secret is like the express speedway for all the secrets?” Leo says.

Othello shrugs “I suppose.”

“Great! Well then I choose that one.” Leo decides, wanting to gain as much information as possible.

Othello stammers. Half sounds distorting by the vocoder. He cracks his knuckles and says “Okay. Don’t…scream. Or something.”

Othello scratches his neck, pulling off his mask, as Leo says “What are you, like super ugly--”

Green skin, faint segmented scales stretching across his face, purple rectangular markings crossing his heterochromic eyes. Faintly bloodshot red and blue irises just like Leo's own. Beak set in a thin line, expression blank yet hesitant.

(DRAXUM FUCKING LIED TO HIM.)

Leo chuckles, laceing his fingers in-between Othello's, he should've guessed earlier from the three fingers “Guess we really are twins.”

“That’s biologically impossible. I’m a spiny softshell, you’re a red eared slider.” Othello says, his voice sounding weird without the vocoder and he's so much more expressive without his mask.

Leo scoffs, shaking his head “Family ain’t biological.”

Othello blinks. “So you know?"

"That there’s four of us?" Leo nods "Yeah.”

Leo hesitantly asks, worried that its a sensitive subject “Did the other one survive?”

Draxum always told Leo that the others died, nothing more, nothing less. Othello stares, visibly processing “Yeah. His name is Raphael and he’s an alligator snapping turtle and he’s a very good big brother.” His eyes widen a little bit as he speaks about Raphael, clearly caring a lot about him “He really wants to meet you and Mikey.”

“Why can’t he just make a visit?” Leo asks lightheartedly, giveing Othello a friendly arm punch.

Othello's happiness freezes, and he looks at Leo with a harsh look in his eye, the lines around his eyes deepening, and Leo realizes what he’s trying to do. The hidden identity. Why Othello is here doing something that grosses him out so very much. “You want to break us out.”

Othello looks away, muttering “That’s…the goal.”

Leo’s brows furrow. “I’m not--” He grabs Othello’s arm who jerks away with a sharp “Don’t.”

Leo looks Othello up and down, the tense shoulders, the awkwardness, the pursed lips. He wasn’t planning this through at all, was he? “Why now.”

A beat of silence, Othello's eyes distant as he thinks, before saying “I have evidence that Big Mama organized the attack on Mikey.”

“WHAT.”

Leo stands up, hands on his head, stammering “Just-just because she didn’t tell me anything the day after does not mean that she organized this.”

Othello explains softly “She requested for Bibo to stay late, only for a few hours later to be called up to treat Mikey.”

Leo begins to pace. “That-that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Did you even hear about the time that Mikey got attacked before this?” Othello asks, brows furrowed “She brought him to interrogate one of the attempted liberators that was poorly secured.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Leo reasserts, thoughts swirling in a vortex. (Mikey got attacked twice! And didn’t tell him!)

“I’ve been through her systems, all of her paperwork, Big Mama is a meticulous woman.” Othello emphasizes, slowly losing his cool “She doesn’t typically make mistakes such as leaving a liberator poorly secured, such as interrupting the shift change just long enough for them to escape, such as going through the entire list of all of her prisoners to find just the one to lead into Mikey’s room! There’s even footage that I think she had looped!”

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Leo insists, pacing between one wall to the other, his knee starting to hurt.

“If she was taking this seriously, she would’ve had all of these prisoner’s under lock and key. They hurt you, they tried to take you away from her, she would’ve been treating them like a serious threat! Instead she’s-she’s lackadaisical in their imprisonment! It’s a notable outlier from literally everything else she has done!” Othello shouts, rising from the bed.

“But why would she do it?” Leo says finally.

Othello sits back down. “I don’t know.”

Othello doesn’t speak as Leo hyperventilates, holding himself tightly. Draxum fucking lied, Mikey didn’t tell him anything about getting attacked, Big Mama didn’t tell him anything. What is he supposed to do. Othello is real, he’s alive, Leo has another brother- two other brothers. He can’t--he can’t keep them all safe. He can't do this, this can't be happening. “You know I’m not going to go with you.” Leo says, looking away from Othello.

“But we can take Mikey too!” Offers Othello “You’ll be able to see him more than two hours a week! You won’t need to fight--” “I have a responsibility.” Leo interrupts.

Othello hisses WATCH IT and Leo is taken aback from the turtle noise, clearly recognisable without the vocoder. Othello growls, gesturing wildly “Bullshit! You don’t have any responsibility towards that hag! If she really cared about you she would’ve let you see your brother more times a week! She wouldn’t have told you that you limped off stage and that you should just do better! She wouldn’t punish you by giving you more fights!”

How does he know? How does he know all this? What is he doing to get this information? Leo huffs, “She saved us.”

“You went from one pan to another! Draxum is no better or worse than Big Mama and you know it!” Shouts Othello.

“At least Big Mama gave Mikey a room! Paints! She keeps all of the things he makes her! She loves him!” Leo justifies.

Othello guffaws “Disregarding the entire her organizing attacks on Mikey bit.” He gives a dismissive hand wave “Are we really gonna ignore the you in this entire situation? You are being used to get Big Mama more money. No sane person fights like you do, and you don’t refuse the fights because it’s been beaten out of you! She’s made more than several deriding remarks towards your person while I’ve been hired here, more than several in fact! Should I list them in order chronologically or in order of severity!”

Leo punches Othello in the face. Hard enough for Othello to be flung from the bed.

(Draxum fucking lied, Big Mama fucking lied, Mikey fucking lied.) Othello looks up at Leo with a surprising amount of hurt. (That’s family, this is family, this is family, this is family. He needs to stop, he needs to stop, he needs to stop.)

Leo steps on Othello’s hand and presses down with his full body weight. The bones crack, Othello yelps, trying to pull his hand away, only makeing it worse. Leo snarls with a sickening grin, “I could report you to her right now.” (He needs to stop.)

“She would love to get her hands on you. She loves dealing with no good filthy traitors.” Leo twists his foot, making the fingers twist “You made a deal with her and if you break that deal she is going to string you up alive. Who knows? Maybe she’ll eat you!”

Leo laughs with no humor. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he doesn’t know why he’s doing this, he doesn’t want to be doing this. He leans closer to Othello, his irises small pinpricks with barely concealed horror. “But I like yah. So, I’m gonna pretend that none of this ever happened. I’m gonna let you go, and you tell no one about this. Not Bibo, not Mikey, no one I tell you. Capiche?”

Othello stammers, no words coming out of his throat. Leo distantly remembers Bibo saying that he was mute, the sign language. You don’t just learn sign language for a lie, not with the fluency Leo saw. “Capiche?” He repeats.

“Capiche.” Othello repeats.

“Good.” Leo steps off.

Othello sits up, carefully holding his hand. Leo tosses him his gas mask, which Othello barely catches. Othello turns towards the door, resting his hand on the door handle, he looks back at Leo. Steely hatred from red and blue eyes, so much like his own. He pulls on his gas mask, and all Leo is left with is a reflection of himself.

Chapter Text

Mikey flinches when his door bursts open to reveal Othello with a toolbox in one hand, and a microwave the other. Laika, a winged dog yokai jumps into the air with a spear pointed at Othello before she realizes it’s one of the medical staff. “What are you doing here? Mike’s not scheduled for an appointment.” She asks.

Othello ignores Laika entirely and asks Mikey "Where's an outlet?"

Mikey points towards an outlet on the other side of the bed. Othello stalks across the room, rounding the bed and announcing “I’m fixing you a microwave.”

He parks himself down on the floor, setting down his toolbox and pulling out a pair of gloves far more robust then the one’s he’s currently wearing. Mikey lays across the bed to get a better look at what Othello is doing, since this room is much smaller. Othello takes off his medical gloves, “You’re green?” Mikey asks, a little excited.

Othello looks at Mikey “I have every disease.”

Then he pulls on these other gloves and goes back to the microwave like he didn’t say the most absolutely batshit insane thing Mikey has ever heard. Mikey can't help but grin, laying on his plastron as he kicks his legs in the air, “Don’t you have work to do?”

Othello rolls his entire head, like he’s rolling his eyes with his entire being. He begins unscrewing parts of the microwave “Well, I was helping Bibo dismantle a golem, which is more gross than I thought it was. I don’t care that I’m wearing a hazmat suit, it was disgusting!”

Mikey narrows his eyes. Clearly this is something that bothered Othello. But it’s not the real problem that Othello’s here for. He could’ve been doing this in whatever creepy basement Mikey assumes Bibo does his creepy work in. Instead he’s here. In Mikey’s temporary room. Making him a microwave. Maybe he's worried about Mikey? Afterall, he was hired to help with the extra workload of Mikey’s medical stuff. But this could just be a displacement technique. He wants to ask him if he’s worried, but that won’t work so instead he says “You know I already have a microwave in here?”

“I don’t care, it’s trash and it’s not the one from your room.” Othello snarks, opening up a panel.

Mikey’s voice cracks from surprise as he asks “You got that from my room?”

A metal leg gives Othello a tool from his toolbox. “Yeah. Where else would I get it?”

Mikey does not know what that’s supposed to mean. “Why would you get it from my room? There’s literally a million like it.”

“But this one has a sticker on the bottom.” Othello says, holding it up to show Mikey the old and worn sticker of a cartoon cat that Mikey stuck to the bottom of the microwave when he was like nine.

Mikey thinks he’s beginning to get it. “It’s mine?”

Othello works on the microwave. “Yes. It’s yours. And it’s very inconsiderate that you’re just expected to function without your microwave. Or your sketchbooks.”

Six legs unfold from Othello’s back, each holding a sketchbook. Mikey gasps and grabs all of them. “You didn’t look through them, did you?”

Othello has one of the metal legs hold the microwave so he can get a better look at it, his left hand resting in his lap “Noooooooo, I’m not a heathen.” He grumbles “Unlike some people I know.”

He seems to have limited use of his left hand. Which is new. Interesting.

Mikey sets his books down underneath the bed, not getting off it. Othello looks up at him “If you need help hiding them I can totally do that after I’m done fixing your microwave.”

“It was broken?” Mikey asks.

“It deserves better.” Othello mumbles, turning back towards the microwave.

What an odd way of wording it. Huh. Mikey hangs an arm off the bed, letting his knuckles touch the floor. His arm covered in chipped, drying paint of an art piece he did on himself. He watches Othello work on the microwave and it begins to click together. Mikey makes things to calm down and Othello fixes things to calm down. They’re the same. They’re creators. “Do you make your own things?”

Othello says without looking up from the microwave “Of course, that’s what these are.” One of the metal legs pats Mikey’s head.

Mikey smiles at the contact. “But making things for others is a different kind of joy, isn’t it?”

“Ab-so-lutely.” Othello clearly enunciates, shifting his weight to a more comfortable position. “I have this…brother.” Mikey wonders why he hesitated “He’s huge, positively ginormous, an absolute unit, and because of that he sometimes broke things.”

Othello continues as he idly works on the microwave “He always felt super bad about it, since he’s a big old teddy bear who's terrified of being a burden. But I like fixing things for him. He hasn’t broken things by accident in a while, he’s gotten better control of his strength as we’ve grown. He does try to trick me sometimes though, when I’m feeling bad and literally everything is so overwhelming I can barely concentrate, he pretends to break something so that I can fix something simple. Something easy.”

I make things for him too. He likes wrestling, you see, but he can’t wrestle with me because I’m so much smaller than him and scrawnier. I mean, I’m not weak, but my brother is an absolute tank, he is a lorge boy with an ‘o’ lemme tell you and we love him for it." Mikey smiles at that "So, he can’t wrestle with me, but I did make a wrestling bot for him to play with and he loves it. Even programmed it with aid from all of his wrestling shows. He literally squealed when I told him all about the Ghost Bear moves I added, who definitely cheats but don’t tell him that.”

“That’s a really thoughtful gift.” Mikey says.

“Yeah it is. But I don’t really consider it my best achievement. Well.” Othello pauses in his work to tilt his head to one side “My best best achievement doesn’t count because it’s mostly there to calm me down and it just happens to help him.”

That sounds like downplaying if Mikey ever heard it. Maybe he can help Othello figure that out. He tilts his head “What do you mean?”

Othello turns back to the microwave “Well. Um. When we were small an incident happened. And…it really hurt everyone involved. Now, whenever Raph is alone, he freaks out. Badly. I did some research in psychology, which was an absolutely infuriating research period, but I think I’ve determined that Raph goes into a dissociative fugue state whenever he ends up alone, which paired with his…instincts? Yeah, I’ll go with instincts. Which added with his instincts make him extremely aggressive while in a fugue state.”

Mikey rolls to his other side, commenting “Aren't fugue states associated with DID?”

“Dissociative identity disorder? Yeah, but I’ve yet to find any evidence for Raph having it, which doesn’t mean much because it’s a mental illness and it’s all about the experiences of the person involved, and Raph has like…chronic normal guy syndrome. He assumes everything he experiences must be the average, which is most of the time, not the average!” Othello complains while he works on the microwave.

Othello rolls his head to the side, an audible pop coming from it “Like I only learned he was autistic after I learned I was autistic and looked at him for three months while compiling a spreadsheet of evidence and slideshow presentation. When I showed him that, he asked me if I knew that he would take what I said seriously, without the evidence. Honestly, I mostly just wanted an excuse to make a spreadsheet and slideshow. Raphie even printed out the spreadsheet and hung it up in his room!”

“Aw, that’s cute.” Mikey says.

“It absolutely is!” Othello cheers.

After a moment of relative silence, minus the sounds of Othello working on the microwave, Mikey figures it’s his turn to talk. “You know Leo dissociates too? I think he dissociates during fights to feel less pain, not on purpose or anything. It just happens. He gets weird if his fights are interrupted. Like that one time he had a seizure? He woke up brawling, and it took me to calm him down.”

“Hmm, interesting.” Othello says, “Is he normally aggressive when he dissociates?”

“No. Not normally.” Mikey rolls over onto his shell, “He just gets spacey and doesn’t always remember things, when normally he remembers things really well. It can be hard to notice when Leo’s dissociating because he does not want anyone to know anything about what he’s actually feeling. So sometimes he dissociates and is nonverbal and all quiet, and other times he overcorrects and is loud and overbearing.”

“Under what instances is he aggressive?” Othello says.

Mikey recognises that tone of voice as information gathering. Under what instances does somebody ask about why somebody would be aggressive? Under what instances would Othello come into Mikey’s room, talking about brothers and dissociation and aggression. Is Raph even real? Mikey pushes himself up on the bed “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Othello looks up at Mikey for a brief moment “What on purpose?”

Mikey wants to believe Othello doesn’t mean it, but he can’t really be sure with the mask and relatively monotone voice. “Manipulating me to talk about Leo?”

Othello’s shoulders jerk up to his ears and he pushes the microwave aside to stand up, flapping his hands “Nononononono, I would never. I hate hate obfuscation and I hate how everything is infuriatingly nondirect and I went through all twenty eight pages of my employee contract and it was infuriatingly exhausting and long winded and I would never do that to you and I swore I wouldn’t do that you guys and-” “Okay I believe you.” Mikey states, smiling slightly from the sheer genuinity from Othello’s tone.

Othello stands there for a moment. Mikey smiles disarmingly “Okay. But you did have a problem with Leo the other day, right? Because those followup questions definitely imply that you did.”

Othello fidgets with his hands. Mikey sits up, turns around to face Othello and pats the bed for Othello to sit down. Hesitantly, he sits next to Mikey. Mikey asks “Did Leo hurt your hand?”

“Yeah. How’d you tell?” Othello asks.

“You’ve been using more legs than usual.” Mikey says. “Can I ask what happened?”

Othello tenses and looks down at the floor. “It’s…complicated.”

“You don’t need to tell me everything,” Mikey holds up his hands placatingly “But do you know what could’ve caused it?”

“Oh yeah. I was talking to him the day before yesterday, when I removed his cannula, the iv thing in his arm. I was talking to him… about some…pretty sensitive topics…and he punched me and broke my hand.” Othello says.

Mikey knows Othello is hiding information, after saying he hated obfuscation. It’s a little hypocritical, Mikey digs his fingers into his pants. Everyone lies, don’t they? Truth is never going to arrive on Mikey’s doorstep and tell him everything he wants to know. What are Leo and Big Mama hiding from him? What exactly do they argue about? Why was Leo moved to his cell? Why is everyone so busy? “Do you know what you did wrong?” Mikey asks.

“To a certain degree, yes. I was sent home early due to the entire incident. Had to deal with Bibo’s whole I’m-dissapointed-in-you speech. Really, the content of what I said was flawless, it was the truth-” Mikey doubts it -”, really the delivery was the main issue.”

“What was the delivery?” Mikey asks.

Othello shrinks into himself a little bit. “Lots of…swearing. Yelling. Shouting.”

Mikey winces "Yeah that'll do it. I'm really sorry that happened. When he feels trapped, or when Leo feels scared, he tends to fight back."

Othello hums "Yeah. He did kind of tell me that during his medical screening."

"You're still allowed to feel hurt about it though. Yes, Leo has like a bazillion issues, but none of those justify hurting you." Mikey says.

Othello's quiet for a moment. Holding his hands together, staring at the wall, contemplating "I worry about you."

Mikey smiles, swaying from side to side "Everybody does, I tend to worm my way into people's hearts. Sorry not sorry but you ain't ever gonna be getting rid of me."

Othello looks at Mikey for a prolonged moment before saying "I'm smiling at you by the way."

"I could kinda tell. Its all about the vibes." Mikey says. "Anyways, I wanna work on this mural, so how do you feel about coexisting? Together? While we each work on our own things."

Othello stands up "That sounds like the best thing to ever happen. Feel free to invite me over to look at it."

Mikey flaps his hands in excitement and begins working on the mural partially inspired by Othello's split colored lens. Red and blue distorted reflections split off into four-ish figures. There's this fifth almost figure, a little fuzzy from the warm colors blurring with the red, but it feels like a secret you're meant to find and think you're so cool for finding. Warm greens and yellows curling like the leaves of a vine. It's nice.

Cathead walks in with a sandwich platter, "Okay, I got ham, turkey, cherry tomatoes on the side, spicy jack, mozzarella, and," Cathead does a double take towards Othello, half hidden by the bed.

Othello stops shrimping and his head pops up from the other side of the bed. He waves and goes back to working. "O-othello? What are you doing here?" Cathead stammers

Othello shouts back "What was that? Sorry I'm listening to some really loud music!"

That was a weird lie. Mikey looks over from his mural to look at Othello, hunched over the microwave. Well, the source of the lie is easy, Othello doesnt wanna talk to anybody right now. That's fine. "He's fine Cathead. We're bonding. Let me just wash off the paint and can you get a second plate for Othello to hold? Leave the plate on the bed."

Cathead shakes his head slightly, his fur thin but steadily regrowing. "Okay. Got it." He sets the plate down on the bed and talks to Laika about guard stuff.

Mikey scrubs off the paint, distantly knowing that he could really damage the plumbing by washing the paint down the sink but Big Mama watched him do it last time and said literally nothing. So Mikey assumes its fine. He washes off his brushes, dumps the paint water, and puts them rightside up in the jar. By the time he's done, Othello has an empty plate next to him, and Laika and Cathead are quietly conversing in the corner. Mikey grabs the sandwich and small bowl of cherry tomatoes. Scooching over on the bed so he and Othello are more together.

Mikey puts a singular cherry tomato on Othello's empty plate. Othello hums contentedly, seeming to appreciate the notion. Mikey smiles at Othello and moves to watch something on youtube when Othello asks "Are you okay with lasers?"

"No." Laika and Cathead say simultaneously.

Chapter Text

Mikey takes a deep breath. This has been a long time coming. A little delayed due to the attack, but he's got it now that he's back in his original room no matter how wrong it is. He reviews his note cards. He needs to discuss Leo's metabolic bone disease diagnosis, what exactly happened during the home invasion, Why she and Leo fight with each other so much, why Leo was pulled out of the hospital room, and try to get general information out of her? He's nervous. He knows Leo and Big Mama hide things from him. Its part of their nature. They lie as they breathe. But lately…Mikey just kinda wants to know what's going on. He's confused. Its probably a little selfish of him to be doing this but he just wants to know what's going on. That's not too much to ask, right?

Breathe. Okay, let's get going.

"Helloooo, my little turtley-boo." Big Mama calls from her desk as Mikey walks in.

She raises a brow, eyeing his colorful note cards "Cards? Those make you look unprofessional in a business setting."

Mikey shuffles his cards "Well this isn't a business setting. And I have bad memory and want to make sure I cover everything. Speaking of." Mikey pulls out a recorder from his pocket and slides it onto the desk "To help."

Big Mama considers the recorder before turning it on. "So you have some big topics planned for today." She asks rhetorically.

"Yes and a follow up appointment would be appreciated if we can't cover all the topics I have here." Mikey says with his best business voice.

Big Mama smiles proudly, leaning back in her chair. "Well then, let's begin."

Mikey clears his voice and goes to his easiest, least confrontational, topic. "So when the battle nexus was invaded by the gladiator liberation front, do we know why they stabbed Leo?"

"Why would you want to know that?" Big Mama asks politely.

Mikey prepared for this and flips to his next card. "You need to understand how things happen in order to prevent them."

Big Mama giggles and says cheerfully "Good one. Though you do not have the power to prevent an invasion and the fact that you were even involved was unfortunate. Next time, pull at the pathos of the argument, use the whole cutie pie schtick I know you've worked so hard on."

"It doesn't work on you though." Mikey clarifies.

"This is about the hypotheticals, darling. Not about me. Now, why did they attempt to disembowel our beloved champion?" Big Mama looks to the left to recall.
"From what we've gathered from the prisoners, there was a fear that if a champion so emboldenly denied their offer of freedom, then I could just--" she giggles ", send him after them. On a grand old hunt for the ages! Wouldn't that be a show! Isn't that such a grand idea?"

"How has your relationship with Leo has been going?" Mikey asks, reading off his cards.

Her eyes jerk to Mikey, intensity quickly wavering as she leans forward "What do you think of our relationship?"

"That's not what I'm asking." Mikey says, knowing this is a diversion tactic.

"Well. We're still tense, as I'm sure you know. Lot's of bim-boddled ideas up in his head, as I'm sure you know." She says cheerfully.

Mikey thinks that maybe one of the reasons she uses made up words is to hide what she means. She already hides her intention, but what's another lock to a layer of doors? He knows that the phrase 'explain what you mean' isn't going to get anything out of Big Mama, so instead he shuffles through his cards and says "Recently, Leo has been pulled back to his cell for a reason that the doctors seem to disagree with and none of the guards are able to tell me what happened. Does your tense relationship with Leo have something to do with that?"

Big Mama lovingly tilts her head "Lovely transition dear, but don't mention the guards next time. It's already clear that you know nothing. Don't need to restate it again out loud."

"Noted." Mikey says, trying not to let his voice waver "Now can you answer the question."

Big Mama leans back into her chair, hand on her knee as she looks around and hisses through her teeth and says "I'm afraid I can't, dear."

That was not apart of the script.

Mikey looks back up at Big Mama who laughs. "Oh look at you." She reaches over the desk to pinch his cheeks "Look at you! So utterly surprised. Oh, you're so cute!"

Mikey swats Big Mama's hands away from him and snarls "I need you to take this seriously. I'm trying to understand what's going on here! Why is Leo outside of the hospital when he's still healing!"

"Because the doctor's don't know what's best for our Leonardo." She coos "Really, its cute that you think you know what's best for Leo, but dear he hides the worst of it from you. He feels a kind of joy in the arena that I've yet to see from any kind of gladiator. Who are we to deprive him of that?"

"People that are supposed to care for him." Says Mikey with short and clipped words. "Yeah it sucked that I couldn't climb anywhere in my room for a week, that's literally designed for climbing, but I needed to not climb because I broke my leg."

Big Mama taps a pen against her desk "They overstepped by giving him that solution to slow his healing factor, though. He could've been back to normal in a week if it weren't for them."

"They said he needed it to heal right instead of fast." Mikey exclaims.

Big Mama chortles "And you really just believe anything people tell you?"

Mikey flinches. Don't cry.

She sighs, "You're naive, my little Goldenberry. Ignorant of the world. That's why we need to protect you."

Mikey's hands begin to shake, putting forth a mental effort to not crumple his cards in his grip "I killed a man last week."

Big Mama rolls her eyes, spinning the pen in her hand "That does not make you worldly, young man."

"Are you trying to keep him from me." Mikey growls.

Big Mama taps the pen against the desk, true feelings hidden by an expression of smugness. She points the pen at Mikey "Elaborate."

"Are you trying to keep Leo from me." Mikey reiterates.

Big Mama smiles, she rests her chin on her hand, pen clicking "Now what makes you think that?"

"You tried to keep him away from me at the beginning and now you're trying to keep him away from me now." Mikey says through clenched teeth.

"That's because I knew you'd become spoiled, dear." Big Mama shakes her head chastingly, "You'll still get your two hour weekly, and everything will be back to normal. Just like how its meant to be."

Mikey spurts "Just because you're resistant to change-" "-who said I was resistant to change?" Big Mama interrupts with a glare in her eye, "Really, you should look at yourself. One month of getting to visit your brother every day and now look at how spoiled you've become. Can't be without him for more than a few hours. Isn't it enough that you based your entire identity off of him? Isn't that why you wear that silly little bandana? That you let him tie into a bow that one time and now you can't handle it being anything else? A bit pathetic don't you think?"

Mikey looks at the desk, the organised papers and rumbling recorder. He urges himself to not crush his cards, urges his voice not to wobble. "I'm not…pathetic."

"What else could you be?" He does not look Big Mama in the eye.

"I'm…" don't hesitate Michelangelo ", really creative."

As soon as it left his mouth he knew it was the wrong choice. "Tch. What kind of practical skill is that? I love your work, I really do, but not everyone will be so lenient with housing as I have." She gestures with the pen in her hand.

"You're supposed to keep us safe." Don't cry. Dont ruin the cards.

Big Mama says in a measured tone "That is what I am doing, Michelangelo. I am keeping you two safe. I have been doing my best and you two keep on making everything harder." She scoffs "I swear, every day you're beginning to sound more like your brother."

Mikey's notecards crumple in his grip.

He's been trying so hard not to ruin them. He's been trying so hard. "Oh baby." Big Mama coos as she steps around her desk. Leaning down to cup his cheek "Why are you crying? You know all of this already, you're a smart boy. I'm simply telling you the truth." embraces him and it makes him feel nauseous "This is why you need to be protected. So you don't get hurt. Imagine if you had to deal with that kinda talk all day."

Don't touch him, don't touch him, don't touch him, don't touch him, please stop touching him, please stop touching him, please. She kisses the top of his head "Now let's get you back to your room. All spick and spinnity-span."

She holds his hand and for a second Mikey thinks she's gonna walk him to his room until she opens her office door and tells the babysitter corps guards to be extra soft on him. Mikey grits his teeth. She hands off the recorder to one of the gaurds and they walk him to his room. Slagger, a molten metal elemental, nudges Mikey a little bit and asks "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"No." Mikey says.

Slagger raises his thick eyebrows in doubt and it makes Mikey want to bite. He barks "I said I didn't want to talk about it!"

Slagger raises his hands placatingly "I didn't say nothing kid."

Mikey scrunches his already ruined, absolutely useless cards. He wants to stomp his feet and scream, but he doesn't want to be a child. He doesn't want to be.

Being back in his room does not bring as much comfort as it should.

The blue tarp that served as the welcome mat to Mikey's room for years has been removed to expose the smooth wood paneling underneath, the two couches that were pushed together to form the nest where replaced entirely, the desk that Mikey worked on for years was unnaturally clean, no stickers or stains of any kind, the clock was cleaned from any paint spray, all of his hiding spots for food and medical supplies where gutted.

He's so so thankful that Othello found all of his sketchbooks before Big Mama's cleaning crew did. Mikey believed Othello when he said he didn't look through them, Othello's a creator, who understands the intimate process of making things. Big Mama…isn't.

Mikey thinks he understands what Othello meant by 'yes it's yours, and it's very inconsiderate for big mama to think that you can function without it.' He wasn't attached to the microwave before Othello worked on it. He wasn't attached to the couches before he sewed 15 pockets into the cushions, before he practiced all the different types of stitches on everything he could a hold of, he carefully composed where all the stickers would go on the desk, he thought the paint spray on the clock was charming, the hidden food and medical supplies made him feel safe. Made him feel like Leo would be safe.

He's been stuck in this room for close to a decade and he's become intimately familiar with every inch of it only for it to end up a stranger.

He's lonely.

He wants to break something.

Mikey tears up his useless notecards into the trash and listens to the recorder at his desk. To figure out what went wrong. To figure out how he could improve. He mentally berates himself, too stupid, clumsy move, everything she said about you is right- it cuts off abruptly. Mikey slumps into his desk. Of course she wouldn't allow this. Not with how the conversation was going.

He hears something rattling in the vents. Mikey considers ignoring it till he looks down at the recorder, and doesn't want to do this anymore. He grabs a pen that secretly works as a screwdriver and climbs up to the vent cover, still partially unscrewed since Mikey lost one of the screws while checking to see if a stash of bandaids was still there. He unscrews the vent cover and out comes tumbling out a screaming yokai.

The yokai hits him square in the chest and knocks them both off the hammock to fall into another, bigger hammock below them. Mikey recovers faster then the yokai, still dazed in his lap. Small, black, kinda frog like with a bit of a bobblehead. White claw mark scars cover half of the head, blotting out an eye and leading to a stubby broken horn. From the red eye and rough skin it might be a gargoyle?

"Uh. Hi?" Mikey picks up the yokai by the armpits "Are you okay? You were in the vents."

The gargoyle shakes his head "Ugh! Where am I?"

"I don't know? Where do you wanna be?" Mikey asks.

"Um. Not here?" The Gargoyle asks, before squinting at Mikey.

"Oh! Dude!" The gargoyle's little hands grab Mikey's cheeks "Have you been crying?"

Mikey sets down the gargoyle in his lap, absentmindedly scritching the gargoyle's back, and rubs at his face, feeling his wet mask. "Gosh, I'm feeling all soggy up in here." He remarks absently.

Mikey pulls his mask off and the gargoyle gasps. "You have little anime blushies!"

Mikey touches his cheeks,"Yeah, I kinda do."

The gargoyle flutters out of Mikey's lap "You look like Ochako from MHA! She's super badass."

Mikey smiles, putting his hands in his lap "Yeah. She's really cool."

"Thanks for helping me out by the way. You have no idea what kind of things are in the vents." The Gargoyle smiles.

Mikey says "Well, actually, I kinda do. I used to go through the vents when I was younger."

"Oh! Well then you do know what's in the vents!" The gargoyle corrects himself "Could you help me back up there?"

"Yeah, of course. Just grab onto my shell." Mikey says, gesturing to the part of his shell not covered by his shirt.

The gargoyle flutters to Mikey shell, cheering "Ooooh, piggy back ride. I love those."

Mikey mentally adjusts to the small weight hanging off his shell, and responds "Yeah, piggy back rides are the best. Too bad I'm too big for those anymore."

Mikey shuffles over to the wall and finds a built in ladder. The gargoyle insists "Nonsense! You just need to find somebody big enough and willing. That's what me and my brother did!"

"Well it must be easy for you. You're small." Mikey hoists himself up.

"And mighty! Small and mighty!" Clarifies the gargoyle "But there is such a diversity in yokais, I'm sure you'll be able to find somebody big enough to give you a piggy back ride eventually! You're really nice too, so like, people will have to give you piggy back rides. Lining up to give you piggy back rides, even!"

Mikey chuckles slightly "Yeah. That's the goal."

He grabs the hammock in front of the vent and slides on over to it. The gargoyle flutters off of his shell and into the vent, says "Thanks for the help, man. I'll make sure to put in a good word with the boss."

"No problem." Mikey says.

The gargoyle flies off into the vents, with some banging and clanging going off into the distance. Mikey fixes the vent cover back onto its place, distantly wondering if he's a bad person for helping the gargoyle.

Chapter Text

Leo walks into the room "Hey Mikey, what's uuuuup," he eyes the pile of gifts in the center of the room, "with the gifts."

"Future bonfire in the making." Mikey responds from the top of the mountain of gifts.

Leo takes a marker bag from the pile "Dude! Aren't these copics!"

"Yup." Mikey slides down and tosses the copics back into the pile "Bonfire!"

Leo looks at the pile, looks at Mikey, looks at the pile, back at Mikey "Can I asked what happened to cause Big Mama to be this generous?"

Mikey impulsively says "Nope!" But he really doesnt wanna be a hypocrite with not telling Leo things so he adds "Me and Big Mama had a fight. A kinda big one. She's trying to make up for it."

Leo raises a doubtful brow. "Is it working?"

"Nope!" He says, popping the 'p.'

Mikey grabs Leo's hand "Your shell is all healed up right?"

"Yeah?" Leo says, squeezing Mikey's hand.

"We're going to the pool today." Mikey declares, walking to the door.

"Woah woah!" Leo pulls Mikey back, wanting more discussion "But you hate swimming."

"Right now I like it more than this." Mikey gestures vaguely to his entire room.

Leo's silent for a moment, his eyes darting across the room, seeing all the new things, all the wrong things. Leo slowly begins to nod "Yeah. Yeah, let's go swimming."

He squeezes Mikey's hand. Mikey grabs the swim bags from their place, shouldering them and walks out of his room. "We're going swimming." He announces to the guards.

"Cool, I'll call Nam about it while we walk there," says the guard.

Mikey and Leo hold hands as the guards lead them to the pool. Leo asks in a low voice "Can I get a one word answer about what the argument was about?"

Mikey grips the strap to the swim bag. "You."

"Oh." Leo says.

He looks at his feet and mumbles "Sorry?"

"Don't." Mikey growls.

A beat of silence "Are you okay?" Leo asks.

Mikey doesn't respond, simply squeezing Leo's hand. Leo nods "Well! Let's move on then!"

The babysitter corps escort Mikey and Leo to the pool. They change separately, hang up their masks, and by the time they get out a water snake yokai sits coiled around the lifeguard tower. Mikey waves at Nami as Leo nonverbally checks in with Mikey with a look. Mikey nods, telling Leo that he's fine. Then Leo chirps excitedly and throws himself into the deep end. "Could you make some waves?" Mikey asks, setting the swim bag down on a lounger.

Nami's tail flicks into the pool, and slow waves begin to form. Mikey grabs a few toys, mostly tennis balls, pool noodles, a few floaties and a bright purple air pump that Othello obviously snuck into the swim bag. Mikey rolls his eyes, recalling the diagnosis of scar tissue in his lungs, and uses it. He tosses the floaties into the pool and Leo surfaces to pull one under. Mikey puts his feet in the cold water, hearing Leo giggle as he gets shot back to the surface of the pool. Mikey gently kicks his feet in the water, feeling a little more okay with Leo having fun in the pool.

Leo grabs a tennis ball and dives down. Bubbles begin to seep to the surface. It must be the ball with a hole in it, it hasn't been retired because its fun to watch the air bubble out of it. Mikey smiles at the antics and peaces out just kicking at the water.

"Spinball!"

Oh yeah. That also.

Mikey gets hit by the water filled tennis ball. Mikey rubs his head and points accusatory at Leo "You whore!"

Leo bares shit eating grin as he gestures to himself "The one and only."

Mikey throws the ball back at Leo for him to dodge. Mikey declares "Namija! Evict him!"

"As you wish." Namija says smugly.

The water collects around Leo and throws him out of the pool. He complains "Oh come on!"

"But now we're on even ground!" Mikey says maliciously, rubbing his hands together.

"No roughhousing around the pool." Namija calls dully.

Leo rolls his eyes "Yes ma'am."

"But I can do-" Mikey says quietly as he approaches Leo "This!" He licks Leo's elbow.

Leo pulls back "Ew! Gross! Man! My elbow! Come on man! My poor elbow!"

Mikey giggles mischievously "Really, I wasnt that quiet."

"Quiet? All I heard was mememememe and suddenly you attacked by elbow!" Leo's melodramatics pause, and he sighs like he's tired of himself. "Hey, can we try something?"

Mikey is immediately filled with doubt, since trying something at the pool usually ends up with Mikey somehow drowning. Leo says "It's nothing bad. Just like. Go over to the shallows. I'll stand right here."

Mikey does as he says and stands knee deep in the shallows. "Okay!" Leo calls from across the pool room "Now say something!"

"Something!" Mikey responds loudly.

"No, like a normal tone of voice!" Leo says.

"Something." Mikey shrugs, confused. What is Leo doing?

Leo turns around, so his shell faces Mikey "Okay! Say it again!"

"Something?"

"Cool!" Leo turns back around and waltzes over to the deep end, a good eight feet away from Mikey.

"Say it when I'm underwater." Leo says before ducks underneath water.

"Leo, what are you doing?" Mikey asks.

Leo emerges. "Okay this time, can you say it underwater with me?"

"What are you doing?" Mikey repeats himself.

"Trying something. Can you say something underwater? It's the last part. I promise." Leo says.

Mikey grumbles but he submerges himself in the shallows and says "Watermelon."

He pulls himself up at the same time as Leo who asks "You said watermelon right?"

"Yeah?" Mikey asks with a so-what gesture.

Leo frowns, grumbling "Dammit."

"What?" Mikey asks, pulling himself back up out of the pool.

"Othello was right about something." Leo explains, swimming over to Mikey.

Mikey sighs "What, that you're deaf?"

Leo half heartedly grins "Yeah, actually. Well. He phrased it as hard-of-hearing."

"Yeah. Hard of hearing means you still have some hearing left if I remember right. Which makes sense, you do hear some things and you don't hear some others. Especially if you're out of it. I also know you lipread." Mikey says.

"I what?" Leo says.

Mikey says "Lipread. You read people's lips."

"What makes you think that?" Leo says defensively.

Mikey is getting a little tired. "Repeat after me."

He whispers "Something."

"Something? You just said something." Leo says, gesturing as he hangs off the edge of the pool.

Mikey covers his mouth and whispers "Softly."

"You just said something again." Leo says dismissively.

"No, I said softly." Mikey corrects.

Leo's brows furrow, thinking. He looks up at Mikey "You knew?"

"You didn't?" Mikey asks.

"Look, my hearing isn't that bad." Leo says defensively.

"Yeah and your shell is not that fragile." Mikey snarks.

Leo's face goes blank, stormy emotions underneath the mask. Tense as he treads water on the other side of the pool. Mikey regrets everything. "I'm sorry." Mikey says "I'm not feeling well. Can we go home?"

Leo's expression saddens, but he says "I'll go grab our masks."

Leo pulls himself up out of the pool and goes to get their masks. Mikey sits on the edge of the pool. Idly kicking his legs in the water. "Are we all done?" Namija asks.

"Yeah." Mikey says.

Namija uncoils herself from around the lifeguard tower and slithers towards Mikey. She puts a hand on his shoulder before calling for the escort babysitters to return. Four years and she's still not comfortable with anything more than that. Mikey's okay with that though. He needs to be.

Leo returns and ties Mikey's mask into a bow while Mikey kicks his legs in the water. Mikey hops up and gently knocks his forehead against Leo's. They hold hands as they leave the pool, entering a circle of babysitters. Leo rubs the back of his neck with his other hand and says "Look. I'm sorry for whatever argument you had with Big Mama. Really this is a right of passage. I think we all argue with Big M at least once in our lives."

"Big M?" Mikey questions.

Leo chuckles and whispers conspiratorially "Don't tell her, she hates it."

Mikey giggles, leaning into Leo a bit "Yeah it's not on the corporate approved list of synonyms for Mom."

"It is a weird name to choose for yourself though, right?" Leo says "Big Mama? Not just Mama but make it Big. She's the biggest Mama in the whole hidden city!"

Nami interjects "It's because she takes care of her people."

Leo scoffs doubtfully "And where did you hear that?"

"She told it to me when she sent out a manhunt for the previous champion, Lou Jitsu." Nami says.

"Well, she must not care for him very much because that man has to be dead." Leo says meanly.

"She cares enough for him that she replaced him with his near exact replica." Nami responds with a smirk.

Mikey squeezes Leo's hand, worried that they're losing time together. "Right, right, Mike. Still here." Leo comforts "Do you wanna talk about something else? The price of rice in China's hidden city?"

"Sorry for interrupting your time together." Nami apologizes "I do need to start a very convoluted text conversation with a babysitter. Everyone got this handled?"

The circle of babysitter corps guards call out "Yes ma'am."

Nami nods "Good. I shall be off now."

She slithers away and Leo whispers "Can I ask about the convoluted text conversation? Why not just call. Like. She doesn't have any arms."

"We have lots of mute and nonverbal staff in the babysitter corps." Mikey explains.

"What would make it convoluted though?" Leo asks.

Mikey shakes his head "That one I don't know. Maybe try asking her next time. Or Slagger maybe. They're both heads of the babysitter corps."

"Wait." Leo says, visibly processing "Is that Nemo?"

"Nami." The entire circle of guards around them corrects at once.

Mikey giggles, the loyalty and sense of community in the babysitter corps being admirable "It's Nami, now."

Leo's face goes through several expressions of confusion, realization, and disappointment in himself. "Damn, somebody on staff transitioned and I didnt even notice."

"To be fair, Nami was telling everyone that she fought Nemo, her long lost brother, to the death for this job position." Mikey laughs.

Leo laughs and says "Well. I guess only some things change."

Leo's amusement fades, and his shoulders tense. Mikey squeezes his hand, a silent question to ask if he's okay. Leo doesn't respond, frozen like a statue. "Leo?" Mikey says.

Leo tackles Mikey to the ground as spindly yokais drop from the ceiling.

"Are you fucking kidding me!" Shouts one of the guards, drawing a sword.

A wave of glinting light as all the guards draw their weapons. Mikey pulls himself closer to Leo.

"Get in your shell." Leo commands quietly.

Mikey has no idea what's happening. He gets in his shell as commanded, hinge shutting behind him. He's in his little box. He's safe. Leo's got him. He still feels his tight grip around his shell. He's in his little box. "Get him out of here!" Shouts one of the guards.

Leo's running. Mikey knows that they could both be faster if he got out of his shell so he opens his shell. "Get back in there!" Yells Leo.

Mikey closes his shell.

Leo's still running. He's in great shape, he exercises nearly everyday, though the past month of medicine has been hard on him. He's breathing heavily. Mikey needs to get out, he needs to help. He can help. A doorknob is struggled with, and more running. Mikey doesn't hear any following footsteps. What's happening? He doesn't know what's happening.

Leo sets him down on tiled floor, and gives him a quick pat, a nonverbal sign for 'be back in a minute.' Then his footsteps turn and his breathing changes. His breathing changes, and he grunts like he punched somebody and says smugly "Aw, and you caught us just after I was warming up."

The near silent footwork of trained professionals, body slamming against tile, a series of punches, the shing of metal being drawn: Mikey remembers watching Leo being disemboweled on the tv. He opens his shell to see a second attacker with a long syringe needle, behind Leo. "Behind you!" Mikey shouts.

Leo turns with a swinging kick, the syringe goes into his neck, a pantera claw scrapes across the plastron. The needle breaks and Leo winces as he kicks the secondary attacker in the head. He ducks underneath the pantera claw, elbows the attacker in the stomach and kicks them into the wall. "Get back in your shell!" Leo yells.

"You're hurt!" Mikey cries.

"I'm fine!" Snarls Leo, blood trailing down his neck as he punches one of the porcelain faced attackers.

Think, Mikey! Think! Why is the opponent acting this way? What are they doing? What could cause this? Why is this happening? Who are these people? Are they hired assassins? What kind of people break into the Battle Nexus hotel? He can't think, he can't think, he slams his fists against the side of his head, tears running down his face. He can't think.

Leo is shaking. Not normal. The only time he shakes is his knee when it's bad and it's not his knee that's shaking, it's his entire body. Is he sick? He got injected with something-- something bad. His breathing is different. Mikey needs to get up "Get back down!" Leo screams.

Leo's bleeding.

He's bled in this hotel and he will bleed again.

That is not the normal amount of blood for a graze to the side. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. He needs to get up. Leo's breathing changes, and he picks Mikey up in a run. "Leo." Mikey tries to say but it only comes out in a whisper.

"Get back in your shell." Leo commands.

Mikey follows orders, feeling a sharp turn that he knows hurts Leo's knee. Then he's sliding along the tile floor. Mikey pops out of his shell to find Leo on the floor. Passed out, blood pooling against the white tile.

"Nononononononononono." Mikey begins to hyperventilate as he runs over to Leo.

Leo begins to spasm. His head pulling itself back to where it touches the rim of his shell, the needle still in his neck. Short chirps and clicks coming from his throat. Mikey folds at the knees, hands hovering over his spasming brother. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do. Before he even realises it Mikey screams "Mooooooom!"

Nothing.

He doesn't-- he needs-- stop stop stop thinking so much! What's happening! Tears roll down Mikey's face as he screeches "Mommy! Please!"

Nothing.

"Please help me!" Mikey looks at Leo, facial muscles spasming.

Leo isn't dying, Leo isn't dying. The spindly yokai round the corner, porcelain faces tilting in study. They make a mad dash towards them. Mikey bares his teeth, grabbing Leo's hand and screaming "No! No you're not taking him! Get away from him!"

Chains protectively wrap around Mikey and Leo in a dome, whipping at the attackers. One dodges, but the chain rounds their back and grabs them anyways, flinging them into the wall. The other ducks underneath a flailing chain, reaching through the dome before the chains pull themselves taught and their arm is cut off. They don't even scream, just take a step back in momentary shock before a chain snatches them by the throat and pulls upwards. Mikey wants everyone to get away, go away, go away, don't hurt Leo anymore, don't hurt them anymore.

A sound of a choking, Mikey jerks his head around to find another attacker is chained to the wall, a bright orange chain tightening around their throat. The noise stops. What's happening? What's happening? He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He's so stupid! He's so stupid! He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what's happening.

An attacker emerges from the wall, stumbling, mask cracked revealing a glowing purple eye. Suddenly, it multiplies and Mikey tenses as the flailing chains seem to phase through all of them. The clones get closer and closer, don't touch him, don't touch him, don't touch him. Something explodes, and the clones fizzle out. Gray smoke curls around the attacker. They shake their head, turn, and get hit by a gigantic hammer.

The attacker crumples underneath the weight and flies into the wall. Cracks spattering from the impact. Othello walks through the smoke, hammer reverting into a bo staff. He puts a finger to his headphones and says "Something happened while I was getting here, give me the report."

He stalks over to the little protective bubble "Ah! The ol' silent treatment game. Well, fuck you too, I'm going to hack your phone and replace all of your songs with marimba covers."

Othello types something on his bracer, and three little drones emerge from his pockets. "Map the area. Alert me if anybody, and I mean anybody, is approaching within a 60 meter radius and shock them if they don't get the memo."

"Yes, father." The drones all say in sync.

Othello hesitates in front of the bubble made of chains. Mikey wants help, and the chains part like ocean currents for an Othello-shaped hole to form. He walks in. "Hi Mikey. So sorry it took me so long to get here. Can you tell me what happened?"

Mikey sobs "I- I don't know. They-- they injected him with something. The needle."

"Good job not removing it." Othello states, tapping his headphones "Sheldon you with me?"

Othello frowns, "Well sorry, but my mentor is being a fucking dickhead and isnt answering my calls. So, yeah. You're going to have to help me. Looks like we're having a seizure here."

Othello types at his bracer "Giving you access to everything."

Othello turns to Mikey, "How long has this been happening?"

Mikey struggles to breathe, grasping at his head and face "I can't. At least a minute?"

"Cool." A metal leg shoves a timer into Mikey's hands "Time it."

Mikey starts the timer "When should I panic?"

"Give or take four or five minutes." Othello responds, pulling out several syringes that Mikey eyes warily.

Othello notices and begins to waver "Um. Shit." Othello taps his headphones "Sheldon, you're on speaker."

"What the hell dude!" Emits an automated surfer-dude voice from Othello's gasmask.

"Explain to Angelo what I'm using." Othello commands as he uses two metal legs to hold Leo still enough for injections.

Somehow, there's an audible eye roll and Othello says "Limited time, buddy. You're meant to multi-task."

"Right right." The voice says "Okay, so there's heparin, to prevent blood clots, narcan on stand by for the potential overdose, epinephrine on stand by for potential allergic reaction, and a homebrewed painkiller that shouldn't be addictive."

"You said it was a seizure?" Mikey asks, watching Othello take out the needle and wrap up Leo's neck.

"Tell us when the timer's past four minutes and we'll administer buccal." Says the automated voice, 'Sheldon' Mikey supposed.

They all look at Leo, seizing and spasming. Othello turns to Mikey, flapping his hands "Okay, so, for seizures you just kinda gotta wait it out. I'm definitely drawing blood after it's done so I can find out what caused the seizure. It's his brain freaking out, lots of extra electricity up in there. Now, do you remember anything else before he had a seizure?"

Mikey looks at Othello "Sh-shakeing. He was shaking. Not just his knee."

"Shaking. That's--" "You gotta look at this Don." Sheldon interrupts.

Othello turns his head when he says a soft "Oh."

His shoulders rise as he mutters "I'm gonna fucking kill somebody."

He turns to Mikey "Not you. You're fine."

"What's happening?" Mikey asks, keeping an eye on the steadily increasing timer.

"Unconfirmed. I have several ideas that are definitely not OSHA approved." Othello explains, gesturing with his hands.

"Intruder approaching." Says a different automated voice from Othello's bracer.

Othello looks at his bracer, and Mikey peaks over to see Nami discussing things with the guards, an electrical burn scorching her scales. Mikey says "That's Nami. We should tell her that I'm fine."

Othello shrugs "Alright."

He types something on his bracer and speaks into it "Michelangelo is alive, though is currently having a panic attack as Leo is having a seizure. It is recommended not to crowd him."

"Who is this?" Nami hisses.

"Othello VonRyan, a poor unfortunate apprentice who has been abandoned by his mentor." Othello says melodramatically.

Nami pauses, before saying "I haven't reported this yet to the medical staff."

Othello's shoulders shoot to his ears as he begins to stammer "Uh! Bzzzzzt! Oh sorry we're breaking up! Bzzzzzzt!"

Othello hangs up. He looks at Mikey "Am I allowed to kill her?"

"No." Mikey says firmly.

"Aw, shucks. Welp. This guy looks like one of those assassin motherfuckers-" Othello pulls up a hologram of a porcelain masked individual. "Can I kill him?"

Mikey hesitates. Reciting something from half memory. "We need one alive for interrogation."

"So I can kill this one! There were five in total." The hologram drops as Othello types something off in his bracer.

"How did you find us?" Mikey asks.

"Ir-ireelevant!" Othello stutters, turning to the still seizing Leo "What's the time."

Mikey looks down at the timer. "Over four minutes." He says somberly.

"Okay. Time for buccal." Othello's metal leg pulls out a syringe.

Othello holds Leo's head, and injects the needle into Leo's jaw, where his gums where be. Mikey flinches from empathy pain. The syringe is emptied and pulled out with no problem. After a moment, Leo's body just sags. "What-- what did it do?" Mikey asks.

Sheldon responds "Buccal is a sedative, calms down the brain. But it can mess with breathing so Leo needs to go under observation."

Sheldon continues "Also I informed Nami where the remaining assassin was. So that's taken care of."

"Great, lovely. Mikey can you-" Othello looks around them, the bubble has been dropped "uh nevermind. Sheldon, can you request for a stretcher to be brought over."

"Got it." Sheldon says clipped. "Apes and Raph are freaking out by the way."

"I know, I know, I'll deal with that later." Othello says, irritated.

A small horde of babysitter corps come running down the hall with a stretcher. Othello stands up, "Okay! Everybody come lift this bitch!"

The corps surround Leo and with a countdown they lift Leo onto the stretcher. The mini drones return and he pats all of their little heads before they return to his pockets. The corps begin to push Leo towards the hospital room and Mikey hesitates, standing there. Othello looks around the crowd of individuals, and looks back to Mikey. He holds out a hand, and Mikey smiles slightly. He takes Othello's hand and follows everybody to the hospital room.

Once Leo is moved to the hospital bed, Othello sends most of the guards outside of the room so that he has more space. Mikey almost follows them when Othello catches him and sits him down next to the bed. He draws Leo's blood, attaches various monitors to him so that the heart monitor beeps rhythmically. He moves Leo so that he's on his side. "Helps him breathe easier." He explains.

"Is it a turtle thing?" Mikey asks.

"Might be. Probably." Othello shrugs.

Nami bursts through the door with a crash "I demand an explanation of everything."

Othello seems to have a lightbulb moment as he says "Ah. Nami, right? Come with me while I get this blood test done. And also alert Bibo that medical assistance is needed so he will fucking talk to me."

"Mikey, you got this handled?" Othello asks.

Mikey nods.

Othello throws something at Mikey, he catches it, a calculator looking with way less buttons. He has no idea what this is or how it works. Before he can ask a question Othello walks out the door with a flippant "Cool, page me if anything interesting happens. Be back in a minute."

Othello leaves with Nami and Mikey is left alone with Leo. There's not a lot to do, or think. He's tired. He's confused. He doesn't know why this keeps happening. He lays his head down on the hospital bed. Falling asleep while holding Leo's hand.

Mikey vaguely recognises that Othello has returned, mumbling and grumbling about something before sitting in a chair near the door. Mikey falls back asleep to the rhythm of the heart monitor. Count if off, like in music. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two three, four, five-- What? The pattern's changed.

Mikey wakes up, looking at the heart monitor. The change in rhythm is still there. Where's Othello? Mikey hears mumbling outside. Maybe Othello is talking to Nami? Mikey presses his tympanum against the door. "- little game of yours?" Big Mama's voice.

She says "Really, there's no need. I'm impressed, really. With how much you've lied to me."

No response "If you really wanted to do more than learn medicine, then we could've had a conversation about it," her heels click against the floor "you really didn't need to do all these things by yourself. I could have you moved to the IT department, would have that make it easier on you?"

Silence.

"Speak!" She demands, " I know you can."

A prolonged moment. Big Mama says with faux amusement "Well then, let's stop beating around the bush then."

A thud against the wall, Mikey holds his breath "I know you talked to Leonardo, about something you didn't want me to know. I saw the looped footage. Don't tell me you're trying to free him, darling, that would be ludicrous. Didn't you hear about what happened last time?"

A labored breath, synthesized through a vocoder. Mikey needs to do something. He twists the door knob and opens the door, feeling the slight break of tension as one of Big Mama's tripwire threads breaks. A minute gasp, Othello's boots hitting the floor and Big Mama smiles charmingly. "Hello, my dear. What do you need?"

Mikey takes a moment to speak, struggling to get the words out, gesturing behind him "Leo's heart s'weird."

Othello massages his neck as he passes Mikey. He checks over Leo, Mikey hovering in the doorway. Big Mama puts a hand around his shoulder, "Was a report made yet? Do you know?"

"I don't…think so." Mikey rubs his arm

"How unfortunate. It seemed like there was mystic activity in the area and I was wondering whose it was." Big Mama says smoothly.

Mikey curls in on himself. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about. Othello hands him a slip of paper, reading "Whatever abnormality you saw seems to be gone now. Stimulants affect heart rate, that might've been it. Nightmares and other such things can also affect heart rate. Right now, Leo is fine. He woke up earlier, exhausted, so he went back to bed."

Mikey smiles and turns to Othello "Can I have a hug?"

Othello considers, and shakes his head, though a metal leg emerges and pats Mikey on the head. Mikey squeals "That'll do."

Othello hums and sits down on a chair near the door. Mikey sits on the chair near the hospital bed and returns to holding Leo's hand. Big Mama stands in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, she's not pleased. She turns around and leaves. Mikey lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. He's not as tired anymore, so he pulls his phone out and starts playing games.

The games aren't enough stimulation, so Mikey begins to think. Mama's pissed. Othello's pissed. Othello hasn't talked since Mikey woke up and Big Mama definitely has something to do with it. They were having a very one sided argument. Mama did everything wrong in terms of interacting with a nonverbal individual. Which he supposes makes sense, since Nami and Slagger are in charge of hiring new people to the babysitter corps.

Othello talked to Nami about something while he was synthesizing Leo's blood. Oh, that must be done by now, right? Mikey asks "Hey. So. Do we know what Leo was injected with?"

Othello types something on his phone and a mechanical voice responds "Partially. It takes a long time to synthesize blood even with my additions. But I do know that its a stimulant and that he got injected by mass amounts of it."

Mikey furrows his brows "Injecting somebody with a stimulant during a fight is weird."

"Yes. It is weird." Says the mechanical voice from Othello's phone "Since they injected Leo with two times the average overdose rate, and instead of immediately having a seizure then and there, it took a few minutes for him to drop."

"So he's had this drug before? And he's gotten used to it?" Mikey asks, thinking of all of his vague medical knowledge.

"Yes. They knew what dosage it would take to make him seize." Othello's phone says.

Mikey grows concerned. "When Leo seized during a fight, it was a big drama and everyone was talking about it. But Big Mama did what she does, and kept everything from getting out. She fired the doc who did it and bleached all of his tools so that nobody would know what drug it was."

"Yet it somehow has been released to this group of assassins." Says Othello's phone.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just give him a downer?" Mikey asks.

"The amount of depressant drug that it would take to affect him is more than the amount of stimulant drug would take." Says Othello's phone.

Mikey nods "Because he only got that stimulant once a week, but he got the depressant everyday for a while."

"That's what I'm thinking." Othello types out.

Mikey thinks, and looks at Othello, curled up on the chair, with his phone on his lap "You do know this makes you incredibly suspicious right?"

Othello throws his head back and sighs. Typing on his phone, deleting something, and retyping "Yeah. I know. What would it take for you to believe that I don't want Leo dead."

Mikey purses his lips, thinking legitimately what would make him believe that. He looks at Leo, breaths even and deep. "I don't know." Mikey lays his head down on the bed, groaning "I don't want to deal with any more evil doctors."

Othello hums. A moment of silence passes between them, Mikey is not sure if it's awkward or not. Othello is typing something out on his phone, deletes it, types it out again, sighs, and Bibo walks in. He shows his phone to Othello, saying through clenched teeth "Make it work again."

Mikey can almost imagine the shit eating grin on Othello's face. Bibo shoves the phone closer to Othello "Make. It. Work. I know you did this."

A specialized metal leg emerges from Othello's back, giving Bibo the middle finger. Bibo shoves it away "You transliterated all of my research into wingdings! That's a lot more than turning all of my songs into marimba covers!"

Othello laughs.

Bibo looks at Mikey and at Othello. "We need to talk about this somewhere more private."

Othello wordlessly groans, the sound mangled by the vocoder. Bibo snaps "Don't be such a child."

Othello's hands move, pointing at Bibo and gesturing back to Othello, a finger tapping the filters on Othello's gas mask. Bibo hisses "I was trying not to be implicated in-" Bibo seems to remember that Mikey's in the room "-look, can we go talk somewhere more private."

Othello groans, though he stands, about to walk out of the door when Mikey grabs Othello by the wrist. Othello looks down at Mikey. Honestly Mikey's a little surprised by this turn of events himself. "Don't go." Mikey says.

Othello looks at the waiting Bibo, and steps back. He goes through his pockets and pulls out a tablet. He types some things out on it and gives it to Mikey. At the top of the screen in big font is OTHELLO VONRYAN and below it is heart rate, oxygen, blood pressure, location, and a little messaging bubble pops up with the text "I'll make sure to text once in a while."

Mikey looks up at Othello with a small smile. Othello pats Mikey on the head and turns to have hopefully a good conversation with Bibo.

Mikey squeezes the tablet. He doesn't know what's going on. Big Mama definitely made a few assumptions about Othello. And maybe Mikey is too. But whatever you think isn't necessarily reality, it's how your brain interprets reality. You see what you wanna see, most of the time. Mikey wants Othello to be good, but if Mama interprets Othello trying to take Leo away-- Mikey's not so sure. She shouldn't have thrown Othello against the wall, though. That wasn't right. Yelling at Mikey yesterday, making him feel pathetic and useless? That wasn't right. It isn't right.

Mikey looks at Leo, still sleeping. Mikey knows who else has access to Leo's medical records.

But why would she do things like that?

Mikey looks at one of his hands, calloused from his hard work on everything he does. She keeps on asking what Mikey remembers, remarking about mystic powers and the like. He doesn't quite remember what happened when they were invaded, but the memory is now bathed in an orange glow. He doesn't want the orange chains to be his. He doesn't want it to be. A childish part of him says, no, obviously it isn't his. No. It can't be. Somebody else.

Another part of him asks why? Why is he like this? Why can't it be his? Why now?

Mikey puts both sides on the metaphorical shelf and sits down with the tablet. He watches the heart rate for a minute, but it's different then actually hearing it, so Mikey gets bored. He quickly finds out that the screen is modular and he can move all the little numbers around. He does so, feeling vaguely entertained. Othello texts "Being lectured about morality from a morally ambiguous individual is not a positive experience. ⅕ stars. Violence tempts me."

Mikey lets out a small huff of amusement and responds "Highly poisonous remember?"

A minute later, Othello responds "Unfortunately, it's a highly effective defense mechanism."

Mikey smiles. He can work with this.

Chapter Text

Leo wakes up without Mikey.

He rapidly blinks, pulling himself up to look for him. "Big Mama sent him back to his room." Bibo announces "She declared your two hours was up."

Leo relaxes, though he still has very little idea on what happened. "Bring me up to speed." He says.

Bibo "You were injected with a ephedrine-" "Okay, my turn." Othello interrupts, getting out of the chair. "You have developed an allergy to ephedrine. The cause of the seizure during your fight two years ago was ephedrine. It was hidden from the public. Nobody could've known." Othello says "Your medical information had to have been released somehow."

"Othello! I thought we agreed we needed more time." Hisses Bibo

Othello steps up to Bibo "And we're out of it, this is several steps too far."

Leo leans back against the medical bed. A bit irritated "And the evidence that it's not you who released my medical information?"

"I know why she's doing this now." Othello declares.

Leo takes a moment to remember their previous conversation and eyes Othello’s hand, which seems perfectly healed up. He wants to apologize but it gets stuck in his throat. He’s doubtful Othello found anything real without any reality based information anyways, but he is curious on what Othello thinks is the reason. Why Big Mama would cause all of this mayhem. He sits back up, "What's the reason?"

"She's after Mikey's mystic."

Oh.

Oh fucking shit.

That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. If they really were just after Leo, it would be a whole lot easier to get him when he's in his cell. Not while he was hanging out with Mikey. Maybe they don’t know the precise reasoning, maybe they were just trying to get Leo out of the way before getting to Mikey. These people seemed coordinated, with a matching uniform and everything. He covers his mouth, eyes wide in horror "Explain to me the sequence of events."

Othello counts off on his fingers "Inciting incident, gladiator freedom bullshit tries to free you, Mikey bodies them with mystic. Mama's impressed, so, first, she has Mikey be attacked while he's awake, he can see the attack coming, he should already be on edge. No mystic. Second, she has Mikey be attacked in his sleep, a surprise. Still no mystic, just a brutal murder. Thirdly, she recreates Mikey's mystic awakening by attacking you."

It's not his mystic awakening. That happened years ago. Why is she after Mikey's mystic? Because it's powerful? What does she want with it? What are her plans? Leo asks "Does he remember it?"

Othello shakes his head "I don't know. But Big Mama kept bugging him about it while he was here."

"And he didn't try to explain it away? No, oh boy guess I just ran really fast when I actually made a portal." Leo says, heart rate raising.

"No. He just said he forgot or changed the subject." Othello says with a hint of suspicion in his voice.

Leo’s hackles rise, instinctively wanting to not trust anything Othello says. Wanting to scream and hurt Othello for even suggesting Big Mama would be anything but kind towards Michelangelo. "She cares for him." Leo says offhandedly.

Yet. They got into an argument yesterday. Leo thinks he might have been a part of the gifts Big Mama gave Mikey. He thinks that Big Mama's kindness is distorted after years of business in bloodsport. Othello explains "The only reason why Mikey's shell isn't as bad as yours is because one of the heads in the babysitter corps is a reptile and ordered for all of his lightbulbs to be replaced with lowlight MVB. Also, one of the yokai in the babysitter corps who has like a bazillion eyes was told to stay home today by Nami, even though Nami didn't do it. This yokai could've caught the assassins on the ceiling without even looking up."

Leo chews on his nails "It's shockingly easy to get a voice changer."

"I know, it is incredibly suspicious, right?" Othello says. "That one of the only yokai on rotation today that would have caught the attack early was sent home."

This is a lot. Evidently, Othello has been gathering information. "Give me everything." Leo states, needing all of it.

Othello moves closer to his bed but Bibo holds out an arm to stop him "No. We need more time."

Leo can recognise a glare even behind the reflective lenses as Othello cries "Leo could've fucking died!"

"He almost dies every week." Bibo responds coldly.

"And that makes him fine?!" Othello pushes Bibo "Mikey's been fucking traumatised twice over, did you even watch the video of him killing that guy!"

What? Othello has that on video?

Bibo starts "It's unnecessary--" "Unnecessary my ass!” Othello interrupts “,You just don't wanna feel bad that you're complicit with her machinations. We need to get them both out tonight."

"Tonight!" Leo exclaims, his heart almost stopping.

"We don't even have a plan." Bibo says.

Othello gestures frustratedly "Then we can make one. I've been brainstorming for weeks. I've been stockpiling resources for. Weeks. Tell me! What've you been doing to prepare for this?"

Leo's head is spinning a little bit as Bibo and Othello argue. Tonight? That's too soon. Tonight? He can’t do that. Can't do that. He can't just break the contract. He can't just break the deal. "I can't just leave." He whispers, holding his head between his hands.

Othello's head jerks to look at him with a snarl "Why not."

"I can't. I can't just break the contract. Take Mikey. He doesn't-just take him. He already likes you." Leo says, desperation in his voice.

Othello scoffs "And leave you with Big Mama? Ha! Not a chance!"

Leo starts "It's not about me-" "Oh, shut the fuck up already. It is about you, it is about you and Mikey and I'm not about to let some wannabe spiderbitch take my brothers away from me." Othello insists.

Bibo’s muscles tense for a moment before he sighs "I really should have trusted you less. Obviously you can't handle yourself in this kind of situation."

He puts a hand on Othello's shoulder, which gets swatted away by a metal leg. Othello snarls, metal legs unfolding from his back (his shell?) in an intimidation display "Evidently, I can handle myself better than you can. We both take a degree of pride in our moral ambiguity, but at least I have the sensibilities to not leave a fucking thirteen year old alone with his seizing brother."

Othello turns back to Leo, flipping back to ignoring Bibo entirely "Try thinking of it like this. We both know that Mikey's mystics activate when you're in trouble. Think of the power Big Mama would have over Mikey, if we just took him. He's also not going to leave you that easily."

Leo rolls it over in his mind. Mikey is incredibly stubborn, but it’s in his best interest and now that he thinks about it, yeah Mikey’s mystics only ever seem to activate when Leo's in danger. Even before this. Bibo warns "You are being reckless."

Leo can almost hear a sob building in his throat as Othello bites back, "You don't get to be a part of this conversation." His hands clench into fists "You lost that privilege when you left me alone to take care of everything. I'm only an apprentice, remember? I barely know what I'm doing medically! I barely can do what I need to do medically. You left me alone, so no. Fuck you, and fuck your phone, I'm not fixing it."

Leo is missing some context here. He's beginning to get a headache. "You could've just waited for the medical alert to come in." Bibo says sternly, the perfect picture of composed.

Othello chuckles sourly "And risk losing Leo? Not a chance."

He can't focus on two things at once. He can't focus on the entire Break-Mikey-Out plan if Othello and Bibo are too busy arguing. He would prefer to focus on Othello and Bibo arguing, analyze the shit out of that, but he can't do that when there's a solid chance that Big Mama might put Mikey in the ring with him "STOP!"

Both of the doctor's look at him. Leo tries to control his breathing "If you two are going to be fighting, then at least do it some other time when Mikey's life isn't on the line! Because, frankly, I dont fucking care enough about the intricacies of your mentor-apprentice relationship to hear about it right now!"

A moment of shocked silence.

Othello perks up, a little too eager "Wait you said you couldn't just break the contract right?"

Leo furrows his brows, nodding slightly. "Great!" Cheers Othello, typing away at his little bracer screen "I can work with this!"

"Othello, what are you doing?" Bibo asks.

"Loopholes, bitch." He turns to Leo, visibly excited. "Okay, so you have some kinda sense of faux loyalty towards Big Mama because of this contract, right?"

It's a bit more complicated than that, but Leo nods and says "Yeah?"

"But you also trust me enough to take care of Mikey in your place?" Othello gestures to himself.

Leo wouldn't describe it like that, but he nods and says "Somehow, yeah."

"So then, then." Paper prints out of the bracer, what the fuck "We can make a contract. That says you need to abolish other contracts before it, because you are a part of the Hamoto clan and all the duties involved and all that shit. And and and if Bibo as our witness, this could be held up in yokai court."

Leo blinks as Othello hands a piece of paper. He glances at the camera in the corner of the room “What about them?”

“Oh? Security cameras like that rarely have audio." Explains Othello.

Leo looks on the back of the paper he was handed to find it blank. He shakes his head, softly saying "This isn't enough."

"I added a clause so that it can be amended later." Othello points out the clause.

“That’s not what I mean.” Leo looks at Othello.

“Oh?” Othello says softly, shifting his weight slightly, his tone soft “What do you mean?”

“I can’t break the contract.” Leo says.

“Why not?” Othello says, voice cracking at the end.

“Because I just can't! okay!" Leo yells.

"Why not?" Othello insists.

Leo growls "I can't-""-that's not an explanation." Othello interrupts.

Leo slams his fist into the bed "I can't just fucking break it again!"

Shitfuck, he just gave away information didn't he? Leo rubs his eyes, feeling the tears on his cheek. Why is he crying? Leonardo doesn't cry. Man his neck hurts.

Othello looks at Leo for a prolonged moment. It’s somehow easier to read Othello now that he’s seen him without the mask. He can read the calculating intensity radiating off of him, and maybe there’s some tears in there. Leo’s not the only one who's been struggling with this polarizing conversation, hasn’t he?

Bibo strides up to Othello and says “I told you it wasn’t gonna be that easy.”

Othello leaves with a distorted and wordless growl.

Leo thinks he feels bad. Bibo sighs “Sorry about that! Now let's get you all cleaned up and back to your room!”

Great. Where he can do nothing else but think about how he messed everything up. So cool. So fun.

Chapter Text

Mikey is all up for feeling your emotions. You gotta process that shit, you need to feel your emotions in a healthy manner, you gotta cry, you gotta scream, or you’ll explode. He’s seen it happen time and time again with Leo. With Big Mama…

But the thought of him having magic terrifies him.

Which is why he’s wandering somewhere in the hotel. Keyword is somewhere, though. Mikey only has a vague idea on where he is. He's still in the staff area, where the guards pass every ten minutes in pairs. It's a little tiring dodging them, but it's routine. It's a pattern.

Getting lost on purpose is a kinda trust-the-process thing. Mikey needs to get past his babysitter's, the guards, and then there's just the normal people. It gets worse before it gets better. Mama's business gets a lot of people jobs, not only for the battle nexus, but for the hotel too. She takes great pride in being the best of the best, and Mikey almost swears that there are faint eyebags beneath her makeup. Mama works very hard to stay where she is, constantly stressed by the babble of business life and so incredibly enthralled by it. Once she was explaining to Mikey that one of the contractor's used a loophole in the deal to get her less than she was paying for. Only to then giggle and say she planned this from the start and that she was going to take the entire thing to court, in which she could only profit.

A mask is a complicated thing. You use it to protect yourself. To feel safe. But at what point does the mask start being a face? Leo talks and he grins and the whole audience is absolutely enamored with him. Mikey's been on the forums, and frankly it's rather creepy. He doesn't want these people talking about his brother like they know him, especially when Leo so blatantly lies to the presses. They know nothing about it, and that's what Leo wants. Leo wants secrecy.

Big Mama wants secrecy.

Mikey…

Doesn't know what he wants.

He thinks he's supposed to want secrecy. His family does. Leo and Big Mama are awful to each other, but they both love Mikey so much. (Is that what happened the other day? When he had an argument with Mama? When did he start being so angry?) Are you allowed to love somebody who makes the life of somebody else you love a living hell? But they're so nice to you? And nothing you do will ever be able to fix their relationship?

Will his family ever be fixed? Are they broken? Or is it just him? Is he at the center of all the problems in his family?

Mikey wipes at his tears and forces himself to keep going. He walks along the lines of the tile until he gets to an elevator, he's about to press it when he feels a sense of impending doom in his chest. Which means a set of guards is about to pass. The staff areas are clean and barren, meant for very minimal sneaking. But the exposed pipes on the ceiling make some things a lot easier.

Mikey clings to the pipes as the guards pass, measuring his breathing in the same way he does when he does his aerial silks. The guards turn the corner and Mikey waits a couple more seconds before dropping to the floor and pressing the elevator button.

In a pleasant exchange of harmless information, back when Mikey was just learning psychology and it wasn't so deeply ingrained in him, Mama told him that she designed this place to be as confusing as possible. It's why she offers an extra service fee for specialized teleportation chips so the guests don't need to bother with things such as getting lost on the way to their rooms. It's also why there were no clocks in the customer part of the building, because she wants people to lose track of time and pay her more than they were initially expecting. Then she gave a preloaded infodump about feng shui and how she uses it to design hotel rooms and the hallways.

The elevator door opens, and Mikey steps inside, pressing one of the weird buttons.

He adjusts the lollipop in his mouth and pulls the loose thread at the edge of his sleeve cuff. He was a problem child. He killed a man when he was nine. He killed people today. He killed a lot of people during the invasion. Does that make him a bad person? Big Mama doesn't kill people as often as she did, when she was in her 'younger, more bloodthirsty days' as she recalled it. More preferring to somehow use people for their own benefit. Leo kills people every week. But that's different.

Okay, logical fallacy there. Why is it different?

It just is.

Okay, brain. Work with him here. Name one reason why Mikey's different from his murder happy family?

Well…Big Mama usually just hurts people. When people wrong her, she doesn't usually resort to killing, she resorts to debts. Leo kills people as part of his job as a gladiator. Leo can't not kill people. Mikey…has mostly killed for self defense? He thinks?

He looks down at his hands, claws sharpened and long. When he was younger, angrier, the babysitter corps put blood, sweat, and tears into making sure Mikey's nails were trimmed. Because he scratched people, bit people, he was overall a little menace. He wants to believe he outgrew that and now has a much better relationship with the guards, but here he is. Psuedo-running away.

Guess some things never change.

The elevator door opens and carpet runs out beneath him, with tastefully nailed down furniture lining the halls. Looks like Mikey found the customer area. He loosens the cap around his head, and slightly pushes back his hood. There's a bazillion dillion kinds of yokai and with it being rather rude to ask what kind of yokai a person is, Mikey can chillax. He can always say he's just a frog or something. It's not like people can see his shell in this hoodie.

Turtle yokai have gone extinct thousands of years ago, during the great and horrific war between yokai and humans that caused the entirety of yokai kind too conceal themselves. Though Mikey chooses to believe they just hid themselves away like the lion turtles from Avatar: The Last Airbender and grant people's wishes. It makes him feel better. No harm in that. No harm in pretending to not be Michelangelo, Big Mama's orange banded turtle son. He's seen what the press are like with Leo, to a certain degree he can appreciate being protected from that entire mess.

Mikey finds the bar, with each table having an orb displaying the battle nexus and the murmuring crowd. He wanders through the area, remaining cautious as the occasional pair of guards pass through. Through listening to the babysitter corps chatter and gossip, Mikey learned that these people are called the 'social guard,' meant to mostly deal with drunken and unruly customers. Most of the babysitter corps didn't like them, thinking that they were lazy in their jobs and lousy at secret keeping. Mikey thinks that's almost the point though. Big Mama wants people to trust her to a certain degree, and what better way to make people trust you then to maintain a false sense of transparency. Which is why the social guard are so spoiled. They are one of her many faces.

Mikey used to feel like he was the only one who completely understood Big Mama, but lately he's not so sure. A thick, musky cologne passes him that almost makes Mikey cough, he holds it in and thickly swallows around the stench. Ugh! Gross. He tosses his lollipop stick into the trash. Ice clinks against glass, coins get tossed in betting machines, and people cheer. He likes hearing people. The crowd ASMRs are a helpful replica, but they are nothing in comparison to the real thing. The quiet thrum of living life around him gives Mikey a beat to his step. He's alive here.

Mikey asks for a paper cup from one of the bartenders. The tapir yokai looks at him strangely, though hands Mikey a cup from over the counter. Mikey fills the cup with water from a water fountain. He sits down at the bar counter, and politely listens to the conversations around him.

He's thankful to be sitting next to a very enthusiastic and very drunk entomologist talking about that one time, they were holding a bug in both hands, and then they saw a super rare beetle! Under the extreme duress of having less hands than they wanted, they put one of the bugs in their mouth, which proceeded to shoot acid down their throat. Mikey covers his face, trying to hide his giggles. The entomologist smirks, their ear flicking in amusement as they clearly hear Mikey's giggles. "Anyways," they say nonchalantly, "that's how I got my tonsils removed."

Mikey bursts into laughter. The entomologist spins their chair towards Mikey, their conversation partner fondly rolling their eyes. They lean their head on their hand, gently nursing a cup of something with whip cream "Ya like bugs?"

Mikey giggles "Is that a bee movie reference?"

Their eyes widen and say "Yes! That's what's on mah shirt!"

They pull their shirt out to show Mikey that it's the entire bee movie script. Mikey laughs, and the entomologist grins excitedly. "It's my favorite movie!"

"Notoriously underrated." Mikey says, holding his water cup close to him.

The entomologist offers a hand "M'name's uh. Uh." The entomologist put their hands on their head, stressed "Goodness, there's only bugs up in here."

"Garder." Offers their conversation partner.

"Ye?" Responds the entomoligist.

"That's your name." Their conversation partner gestures with their cup.

"Oh yeah!" They turn back to Mikey, hand outstretched "My name's Garder. She/hers!"

Mikey shakes Garder's six fingered hand and responds "Theodore. He/him."

"Theooooo. What a wonderful name." Garder says, leaning back to introduce Mikey to her conversation partner. "This is my bes' bud. Mah numbah one. The one who will tolarate my entire existence."

Garder's conversation partner scoffs "I do more than tolerate, thank you very much."

Garder relaxes backwards into her partner's body, though neither seem particularly put off by the weight or the weird back stretch Garder's doing to do this. Garder perks up "I'm forgettin somethin."

"I think you were trying to introduce me." Her partner responds with a raised eyebrow.

Garder leans forwards to Mikey, her entire body like a slinky, "I. Am. So frazzled. Out of my mind. Ants leak out of my ears."

"Anywaho!" Garder explains "Dis is Soleil Rouge Surlamer De Minuit. Soleil for short. Pronouns? Uuuuuuuuuh. All of them."

"Your French actually improves when you're drunk." Says Soleil, taking a sip of his red drink as he scrolls through his phone.

"French...is a verociously drunk language." Garder says conspiratorially.

Soleil rolls their eyes "You can blame the newspaper."

Garder leans towards Mikey, where is her spine? He envies her flexibility "So! Ya here allby yourself? You got ssssuch a depressin outfi' on. Where's the pizzazz!"

Garder does little jazz hands. Mikey smiles "Normally I have soooo much more pizzazz. I got paint splatter on all my clothes! And I like it that way! It adds a kind of live in feel to the whole thing."

"Ooooooo. You're a pain'er? Whaddya paint?" Garder slurs.

Mikey tries to recall the latest bug related thing he's made. "Yeah. I do a lot of housework to make my home feel a lot more like me. Like I have a very vertical house, lotsa hammocks and hammocks and all that stuff. So making things at the altitudinally accurate level makes it whimsical. So I like to paint a lot of bees. Just everywhere. I like to think they're collecting pollen from my other murals to go back to their hive."

Garder stops sipping at her colorful drink and asks "'nd yer whole house's one thing?"

"Oh, no, no, no. I'm waaaay too scatterbrained for that." Mikey corrects "My workspace is my entire house, so I work on my walls to help with my commissions."

Garder pats his shoulder, Mikey tries not to wince "Honey. That's. So wonderful. You dooo commishins you say?"

"Yeah." Mikey prepares to lie "My most recent one was for my brother. Kinda. He's part of a theater troupe, and he got the star role. So of course I had to design the banner for the play. It was a lil' bit of a convenience hire, they definitely could've gotten somebody better. But they thought I was cool and I got paid."

"Ikleast ya got paid. It ain't neposm if it aint done all th'time. Don't worry bout it, yer fine." Comforts Garder.

"I try not to feed into nepotism. Though my brother would definitely get me a role somehow and my mom…" why did he bring that up! She's ninety percent of the reason why he's here! Is that fucking Cathead in the crowd! "...um. I'm gonna go to the bathroom for a bit."

Mikey stands up, leaving his drink on the table as he walks away. Garder shouts "We'll watch yer drink for ya Theo!"

Mikey tugs his cap closer over his face. How long was he out? He doesn't know. He can't guess due to Big Mama's STUPID NO CLOCK POLICY. He steps into the bathroom where somebody is throwing up in the stall over. He locks the door and sits with his feet up to the toilet so nobody can see his shoes. He doesn't wanna go back now! Yes he was ruining the conversation he was having! But he can fix it! Garder and Soleil seem really nice! He can fix it! Just give him a little more time!

He's spiraling right? This is what spiraling feels like? Mikey opens up his phone gallery and looks for his feelings page on spiraling. It has several renditions of the feeling, of Mikey trying to make the feeling of spiraling look good. It's black, spiraling mostly being about texture. Peeling and warped paper from too much ink and paint, like a fuzzy outline of the body. It's meant to inspire cringe in Mikey, as acrylics and watercolors mixed wet on wet. It's meant to be uncomfortable. It's meant to be awful.

Mikey puts his phone back in his hoodie pocket, remembering the awful day he made for himself when painting this. Yeah. That's what's happening. He's spiraling. He's okay. He's not dying. He just feels bad. Mikey's felt bad before. He can live. He just…feeling bad in the bathroom isn't productive. He can feel bad somewhere else. Somewhere safer.

Though Mikey can't come up with what safe means to him anymore, the thought inspires confidence in him, and steps outside of the bathroom. No babysitter in sight, so he takes a deep breath and walks back over to where Garder and Soleil are. They're arguing over something on Soleil's phone. "You can't show him that!" Hisses Garder.

"Show me what?" Mikey asks all innocent like.

Garder slams Soleil's phone into the bar counter "Heeeeeeeey, Theo." She says, trying to hide Soleil's big phone underneath her little paw "How're'you doing?"

Well now he has to know. Mikey scoots a little closer to Garder, a little too close, "If you think it's funny you should show me. I like funny things." He says sweetly.

"How many ribs do you have?" Soleil asks.

Garder elbows Soleil in the ribs. "I'm sure y'have the perfect amount a normal ribs for aniguana."

Mikey just gives Garder a look.

"Frog?" Garder tries, sweat rolling down her brow.

Mikey is beginning to get just a little disappointed.

"I ate your cup?" Garder tries.

"Bro. Just what do you not wanna show me?" Mikey says with a low growl.

Gardner finger guns with her paws "You're stubborn! I like it!"

Soleil takes back their phone from underneath her "It's not that bad." They say.

"Ya don't! Ugh! Leel! Ya don't just goin around askin folks if they're a turtle!" Hisses Garder.

Mikey's eyes widen in horror as he asks "How did you?"

Soleil steps around the wailing Garder and shows Mikey a picture on their phone.

Of him.

Blood trailing from his mouth, eyes a thousand yard stare, maskless, reddish pinpricks of broken capillaries, bruises on his throat hidden by the blood, plastron exposed by the baggy shirt Mikey used to like wearing to bed, the chaos of the exterior guard and the babysitter corps trying to figure out what happened, Nami stressed out of her mind and yelling at everything that moved, Big Mama making Mikey promise not to tell Leo.

What does this mean?

Garder tries to touch him but he steps away "Are ya ok, hun?"

"Don't touch me." Mikey mumbles.

Soleil had long since put his phone away "I'm sorry if I triggered you. Let's sit down." Soleil puts a hand on Mikey's shell.

Mikey grabs Soleil and judoflips her into the bar counter, glasses shattering. The crowd gasps and attention immediately turns to him. Nobody starts a fight in Big Mama's house. He's beginning to hyperventilate. He turns to a shocked Garder, grabbing her by the shirt as he enunciates every syllable "Do you know who I am?"

Garder's tail anxiously swishing from side to side as she smiles awkwardly, trying to make the right answer "Theodore? Big Mama's secret, second turtle?"

Mikey snarls and lets go of Garder. A pair of social guards walk up to him, one with their hands up in a placating gesture "Heeeeey, buddy. Had a bit too much to drink now, have ya?"

No.

No he hasn't had anything to drink.

The other guard points at Mikey "Hey! Isn't he that guy from the meme?"

He's been turned

Into

A

MEME.

Mikey launches himself at the social guard, claws shredding their face into ribbons. Something hits his shell. He slowly turns to face the remaining social guard, shakily holding a taser clearly not meant for turtles. Mikey rises from his place, his voice dead as he asks "What's my name?"

The guard stumbles back. Mikey grabs the guard by the throat, a claw hovering over a one way trip to an artery. Mikey repeats himself. "What. Is. My name."

"Mikey!" Mikey mechanically turns his head to look at Cathead "So glad I found you! My uhh nephew! My nephew. Let's uh, let go of the social guard and go back home. I'll get you some cherry tomatoes if you let him go."

Mikey lets go of the guard, who gasps in relief. Cathead has the audacity to smile "Good! Good! Now let's go home and-"
"No." Mikey interrupts.

Cathead blinks. "Uh. Why?"

"They don't know who I am." Mikey says quietly.

Cathead's pupils narrow, revealing his true anxiety about the situation "And the problem with that?"

Mikey doesn't want to explain. Doesn't want to explain everything that's putting itself together in his mind piece by piece. And the slow. Rising. Anger. Of realizing.

Cathead knew.

Of course.

Of course nobody would even bother in fucking telling him.

Of course he's too fucking precious to even be known to the world.

What's worse is that everybody just went along with it! "Oh, Mikey." Cathead croons, caressing Mikey's wet cheek.

Mikey grabs Cathead's hand and twists it, forcing Cathead to kneel. Cathead gasps in pain as Mikey hisses "You fucking lied to me."

Cathead tries to smile, laughing nervously "Haha, about what buddy."

Tears run down his face as this rage tells him to destroy everything in sight. Mikey says in mock joy "Oh! Poor Mikey! So precious that he's a fucking liability to be known or whatever the fuck your reason is."

Cathead says "Oh yeeeeeeah. About that…"

Mikey twists Cathead's arm further, "Ow, ow, ow. Please stop, I was just following orders."

"Of course you were." Mikey says monotone.

A door opens and a loud booming voice covers the entire bar "Everybody out!"

The crowd immediately disperses. Mikey turns his head to look, seeing a bunch of babysitter's being headed by Slagger. He makes eye contact with Mikey with too soft eyes. Mikey growls, and breaks Cathead's arm.

Cathead yelps and Mikey stalks towards Slagger. The rest of the babysitter's spreading out to surround him and block off the exits. Mikey looks up at Slagger with a snarl. Slagger gently says "You are angry."

"No fucking shit. What gave you that idea?" Mikey snarks.

Slagger breaks eye contact, looking away, "There are a lot of things to talk about. A Lot of things I'm afraid to talk about. Big Mama is going to throw a fit over this entire situation, you know?"

"I dont care." Mikey states.

Slagger sighs and runs his hand through his molten metal hair "I know. I know. I. There's lots of emotions you're feeling right now, I'm sure. How about we go back up in your room and feel those emotions there."

"You can't trick me, I'm not gonna get locked up in there." Mikey growls.

Slagger looks down at Mikey, and he just looks sad. "Mikey. We love you. But the sooner we can get you out of this bar and back into your room means less trouble for us. You revealed yourself to the entirety of the bar, who are definitely going to be talking about this, we had to evacuate this entire bar for you, all of these are things Big Mama told us to prevent from happening. And they happened. We need to fix this."

Mikey wipes at the tears running down his face, his teeth clenched so hard it hurts "Nobody told me. I might've been okay with it if somebody told me."

"It's a messed up situation with no clear answer. I'm sorry for the role I played in it." Slagger puts a large hand on Mikey's head "But I do not regret being a part of your life."

"I shouldn't be angry at you." Mikey says, holding himself ",I- I know Big Mama is…y'know."

Slagger gives a warm, amused huff. "Yeah. I know."

Slagger gets down on his knee to be on eye level with Mikey, gently holding Mikey's shoulder. "Look. Ultimately, we are employees underneath Big Mama, and she has the ultimate say in what we do. Nobody likes an angry Big Mama. Now let's run some damage control and get you back to your room. Running away and injuring guards is not going to help this situation, but sitting down and taking time to think about it will."

Mikey gulps a bead of sadness down his throat "I know. I don't know why I did all that. I don't know why I hurt Cathead."

Slagger's expression softens " You're a kid, and you know how kids sometimes struggle with expressing their emotions? And they learn how to express their emotions from their guardians?"

Mikey nods "Yeah?"

"And who are your guardians?" Slagger asks.

"You?" Mikey asks.

"No. I'm talking about the people who can give you more emotional support than us. People you look up to." Slagger explains.

"Mama?" Mikey asks, worrying his hands.

"And Leo." Adds Slagger. "And we both know how they express their emotions."

"Violently." Mikey fills in.

"Yes. You don't know better due to the example of the models around you. That's okay. You're a smart kid who works very hard to understand the world around you. You will figure it out eventually."

"Eventually?" Mikey repeats, despairing at the idea of never getting better.

"To the full completion. You are working on it as we speak, and as long as you work on it. You will turn out fine. Now, let's get you back to your room, get you some paint so you can figure out what you want to say, schedule an appointment with Big Mama and maybe cry a little bit. Does that sound okay?"

Mikey looks down at his feet, saying in a small voice "Can I have a hug?"

Slagger smiles "Yes."

Slagger's hugs are warm by his very nature, and he's slightly squishy, like hugging memory foam. Mikey pulls back "I'm ready to go back to my room."

Slagger asks "Do you want to be carried?"

"No, I wanna walk." Mikey responds.

Slagger nods and holds out his hand for Mikey to hold. Mikey takes it and Slagger calls the rest of the babysitter corps back. Cathead's arm is in a sling, being led out by another guard. He looks at Mikey from across the room. Mikey mouths "I'm Sorry."

Cathead smiles comfortingly before the door closes. The rest of the babysitters surround Mikey and he's led back to his room. He feels like he's nine years old again, holding Slagger's hand as he walks Mikey to see Big Mama in her office.

He's exhausted. It feels like the world's ending. He feels silly for freaking out in the bar, he feels like a bad person for sneaking out of his room, he's sorry for hurting Cathead. He feels bad. He's been feeling bad for a long time now. He remembers falling asleep with Leo in the hospital bed after eating cake. That was nice. It was nice watching Leo giggle like a child as he circled around the pool.

Why do happy moments feel so small in regards to everything else? He's tired. He feels small.

The babysitters set down a tarp where it's supposed to be, prepare all of his painting supplies, and give Mikey a large canvas. Big canvas for big emotions and all that. Most of the babysitter's leave to perform their guard duties and to give Mikey space. Minus a lone babysitter on standby to help format his conversation with Big Mama as if that would actually help.

It's a conversation with himself and for himself. But everything is indescribable and is eating him alive. He stares at the blank canvas, the paints around him overwhelming. He holds a paintbrush in his hand in a white knuckled grip and punches through the canvas.

Chapter Text

Mikey leaves Big Mama’s office after five hours.

She didn’t show up.

To her own office.

For five hours.

What bigger fuck you could’ve Mikey gotten?

If he knew where Leo’s room was, he’d go and yell at Leo about it. But he doesn’t. And he still isn't answering his phone. It’ll be a couple more days till their scheduled two hours and Mikey doesn’t want to spend those whole two hours yelling at Leo. He loves his brother, and wants to cherish every moment he has with him, but damn this is something that needs to be discussed immediately. He can’t not discuss it when it’s so fucking big that its crushing him.

The Babysitter Corps definitely know more about the entire situation then Mikey does, but they also don’t want to get brutally murdered for giving Mikey more information then he already knows. Which is fair. Frustrating, but fair. He half wants to shake the information out of them, but he doesn’t want to hurt anybody that doesn’t deserve it. He's already done it, and he doesn't want to do it again.

Mikey’s missing out on a lot of information. To help visualize it, he takes his tablet and writes down everything he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who created them. Doesn’t know how they got adopted by Big Mama. Where Leo’s room is. Who was that intruder guy Mikey bit a while ago. What does Leo say about him to the press (even if it’s a lie)? Why isn’t Mikey’s shell as bad as Leo’s? What does Big Mama think about Leo’s diagnosis of metabolic bone disease? What is she going to do about it? Why is Mikey being attacked so much recently? (Was he revealed to the public earlier than him freaking out in the bar?) Why does he have magic? doNT THINK ABOUT IT

Don’t think about it.

He hates having a mental landmine in his head. It’s really exhausting.

He closes his tablet and leans back into the couch, which has been embroidered meticulously in the past couple hours, along with several new pockets he added. He sent a very lengthy apology to Cathead over text, organized all of his stickers and meticulously destroyed all of the canvases the babysitters got for him. All leaning against the walls of his room in various states of disrepair, all horrifically ugly with thick, bubbling, impasto dripping down the ruined canvas.

It’s all consuming, the emotions he’s feeling. It's scary. He went through the pain of having several scripts created for the appointment with Big Mama, which ended up being just as useless as he expected. It’s destructive, he’s destroyed nearly all of the canvases he’s worked with. He wants to scratch up his arms and make himself bleed for a reason he doesn't understand. He wants to see himself be obliterated because he doesn't want to be here anymore.

Does he hate Othello?
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.
.
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No. No he doesn’t hate Othello.

Othello seems like a good person. Though Leo thinks that doesn’t mean much. You can very easily be a good person to anybody if you were in tune enough with what they wanted. And Othello is someone he likes, and therefore that makes him a good person so it all goes back to Leo doesn't know if he can trust Othello.

Is this a shitty philosophy? Mikey would know, since philosophy and psychology kinda mixed.

Spirits, he’s gonna lose Mikey.

He hoped Othello took him seriously on the whole “take Mikey” thing. At least then he'll lose Mikey on his own terms instead of whatever Big Mama has planned. If the worst case scenario happens, which always happens because the universe is out to get him, Big Mama is planning to put Mikey in the nexus. Thus exposing Mikey to the reality of the world that nobody cares about you.

Well…

Mikey cares.

Oh, Mikey is going to hate him for doing this. But it’s for his own good! Everything Leo has ever done is for Mikey’s own good.
.
.
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Othello and Raphael never experienced Draxum.

What the fuck is up with that. That’s crazy.

Obviously they had to escape somehow. Somebody had to have helped them escape because little baby turtles can’t exactly do much of an escape from a big sheep man.

The sheer relief and envy Leo feels at the idea that two people, two people that Draxum created, didn’t get to experience him. Didn’t need to deal with him. They didn't need to go through the first five years of life being yelled at and thrown into a pit to fight a giant rat.

Leo doesn’t know if he’s making the right decision. Which all circles back to morality. He hasn’t done this in years. He’s stopped thinking about what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and moreso ‘what to hide from Mikey.’ He’s such a selfish person for doing this. Mikey has every right to hate him. They all do.

Fuck Bibo. Fuck Leo. And most of all, Fuck Big Mama. Donnie reviews the plan again with a spiteful vigor. He wishes Leo could’ve been a part of the plan, that man’s a genius, but that man is also unbelievably stupid. Okay, he’s not stupid, just incredibly traumatized for feeling some kinda sense of duty towards Big Mama.

It doesn’t matter if Big Mama cared for Leo and Mikey, all that does matter is that she has substantially damaged both of them, and for that she does not deserve them. Does Donnie think he deserves them? No. But anything outside of Big Mama’s sphere of influence is a vast improvement and he thinks he could care for them until they got a place of their own. Likely, they might try to ghost Donnie since he took them out of a toxic habitat, the only one they have ever known, and hate him for that. He’s fine with it. He just hopes they don’t hate Raph.

He texts April.

Bootyyyshaker9000: You got the goods?

APRILOOOONEIL: ofc course i got the goods don, who do u think i am? An amatuer??

Bootyyyshaker9000: Great! Meet at the dumpster near Hueso’s when you’re out. You good with the story I sent you yesterday?

APRILOOOONEIL: nah that story was shit i told my parents somthin else more believable

APRILOOOONEIL: like seriously man “picking up some turtles from the stream” bro what stream we live in new york! What stream is there to take turtles from!

Bootyyyshaker9000: It's new york idk there could be an artificial stream catch your own turtle at the fair day?

Bootyyyshaker9000: As long as they don’t bug you during the mission it should be fine.

APRILOOOONEIL: hows bibo in all this

Bootyyyshaker9000: Still being an ass. Refusing to participate in anything regarding this. Says we’re being “too reckless.”

APRILOOOONEIL: reckless? What as if we can’t handle ourselves? Ikikik that he technically only knows that you exist but bitch im still offended like bros are in worst case scenario and gettin them out asap is the most important part so that Big M doesn’t like liquify their organs or some shit

APRILOOOONEIL: and i got stabbed by a weirdo sheep man i can handle getting stabbed again

Bootyyyshaker9000: Lol, your parents might need to start a board for Number of Muggers April Fought This Year if that’s the case

APRILOOOONEIL: hows your contacts in the house?

Bootyyyshaker9000: One of them’s got the day off due to a broken arm. The rest of my contacts should be good though, should be willing to give us some leeway here and there.

APRILOOOONEIL: coolcoolcool, do we have a plan to tell splinter yet

Bootyyyshaker9000: Yep, it's called, "ta-da! Surprise! Long lost brothers!"

APRILOOOONEIL: terrible. Let's do it.

Mikey does not know if he should be trying to feel better. Which he distantly recognises as a kinda messed up thought. But like-- being out of control when he does talk to Big Mama or SOMEBODY about it isn’t a good idea, yeah, but feeling the emotion of being absolutely destroyed by your family’s lack of faith in you as an individual and believing that you need to be hidden away from the world to stay safe is better then talking about that emotion when you’re not feeling it. It being genuine is what he’s worried about, really. But he’s also beginning to think that this feeling isn’t going to be going away any time soon no matter what he does.

Mikey climbs up to the ceiling, watching the ground below him as he sways on the hammock. He's tempted to work on a mural, but he is feeling something desperately ugly. Something he can't hide between shapes and metaphors, this emotion is thick with all the colors improperly mixed into an ugly brown. He spots something black on his wall. Weird because he rarely uses pure black in his murals. Especially just a weird random dot.

He hops on over to the weird dot and plucks it off the wall, examining it. It’s partially shiny on one end, matte plastic on the other. He feels a seam and hops down to the ground to pry it open with his secret screwdriver.

Two coin cell batteries pop out.

It’s a camera.

Raph paces next to the dumpster, his heart thump thump thumping against his chest like he’s about to explode. He honestly just might. But he needs to calm down, they’re the MAD DOGZ. They can do this! They’re cool ninjas! They can break into a crime boss’ territory and break out their long lost brothers no problem!

“Whatcha worrying about Big Guy?” April asks as she walks into the alley with her bat swung over her shoulder.

Raph smiles at her and Donnie jerks up from the lengthy argument he was having with Shelldon over the phone “April, you’re here!”

Donnie snarls into the phone “That’s because she’s more experienced than you!”

Raph faintly hears Sheldon’s voice over the phone. Donnie shouts “Hey! You do not disrespect your aunt, young man!”

April raises an eyebrow “What am I hearing about bein’ disrespectful? Give me the phone.”

Donnie frowns and hands the phone over to April. “Hey, Shelly. It’s me.” She says.

Raph hears Sheldon speaking faintly on the other side of the phone. April nods “Uhuh. You really did just say that.” She squeezes the phone between her shoulder and ear as she takes off her backpack ”I know you’re not just the average thirteen year old, but since the mech Donnie’s building yah isn’t done-” “-hey that was supposed to be a surprise!” Donnie yells.

April waves Donnie off, rummaging through her backpack “You are going to need to deal with being the man in the chair, because this far in the plan it ain’t changing. We need one because we are gonna be splitting up with this and having somebody on the cams to watch our backs and make sure we’re keeping up with the timeline. Communication and all that.”

Sheldon snarks about something and April scoffs “Yeah, well, Donnie kinda is essential in all this considering he got employed.”

Sheldon says something and April rolls her eyes, tossing out various gems to Donnie and Raph “I know, I know. I’ll hand the phone back to him.”

She holds out the phone for Donnie to take, which he does and they begin snarking at each other immediately though it sounds a lot friendlier this time. Raph fiddles with his hands, watching in fondness as Donnie and Sheldon bicker. April sets her ogre mask on the ground and pulls her hair back into a ponytail, and takes out her earrings. “So, how are you?”

Raph points to himself, “Who? Me? I’m good. I’m good. Don’t worry about it.”

April looks at him with immense love and kindness and gently shakes her head. She sits down to put on a pair of rollerblades “Raph. Somethin’s buggin you. I know it.”

Raph grimaces “Well it’s a very stressful situation!”

“You didn’t break a sweat when we raided Draxum’s place.” April points out, useing Raph as support for standing up on her rollerblades.

Raph pauses and looks at the ground, twiddling his fingers “Oh yeah…that.”

“Do you know what it is?” April asks cautiously.

Raph thinks for a moment, still looking at the ground as he stutters “Raph thinks…what if they don’t like him? He means, we only learned about them a few months ago. What if it doesn’t…click?”

April just smiles at him, saying “Raph. They’re going to love you. I mean, look at you! You’re a teddy bear! They’re going to be excited to have you as an older brother.”

Raph looks away bashfully. “Aw, April.”

April puts up a finger, formally saying “And, worrying about what if’s in the future just takes away from the present. And even if they are strangers, we can all still learn how to be a family.” She looks up with a mischievous grin “I mean, that’s what happened to me, didn’t it?”

Raph huffs amusedly “I’m still sorry about that one time.”

April groans, leaning off of him “Raaaaaaph. That happened when I was eight and I told you already a billion times, there's nothing to apologize for.”

Raph chuckles and April lightly glares at him. Donnie declares “Allright! April, you got everything.”

April grabs her bat which starts glowing green in her grip “Boy, if I hear that you need me to do an inventory check again, Imma beat you with this.”

Donnie breaks into a nervous sweat “Haha! Noooo, absolutely not.” He says carefully hiding an inventory sheet behind his back. “Just. How are we feeling? Todaaaaaay?”

April straps her ogre mask on. “Great! I am full on ready to beat some ass and save some bros.”

Raph punches a fist into a flat hand, hyping himself up “LET'S DO THIS!”

Mikey studies the technology rubble spread out on his desk.

Lens, batteries, wires. They were all hidden. Disguised as something else. His knuckles bandaged up after he destroyed the mirror to find the hidden camera inside. A clock, a magnet, an outlet, the mirror, they were hidden from him.

The babysitters gave him a wide berth after they gave him a medkit because all of his wheRE FUCKING STOLEN.

Process it. Mikey doesn’t know alot about tech but he does know patterns. Only one wasn’t disguised, it was just small in the hopes that he didn’t notice it. Very different tactics between the two. Does this imply that multiple people were watching him? They were watching him.

They were watching him.

They were watching him.

In total, Mikey found five cameras.

“Everyone hear me?” Donnie’s voice comes over the earpiece.

“Loud and clear, Don.” Raph responds, his voice a little distorted.

“Gotcha Donathan.” April says into her own ear piece.

“Sup.” Sheldon says boredly.

Donnie sighs “Auditory engineering is so not my strong suit. Anyways. Everyone in position?”

A chorus of affirmations. Donnie begins to countdown from ten, and April does not have the patience for that. She crushes the seed in her hand and she gets teleported three feet to the left. She rolls her eyes, crushes another seed and teleports in the building. Straight into a pair of guards.

They all blink at each other for a moment, processing each other's existence. Honestly, to April, they just looked like furries. It is shocking how many yokai just look like furries. She waves at them “Hi~”

The yokai guards lunge, April skillfully dodgeing to the side. Thank god for roller derby. She bursts into a laugh, and skates off on her rollerblades. She runs into another pair of guards, tripping head over heels and slides back onto her feet. She grins, she’s so cool for that without falling flat on her face! Training’s really paid off. She wiggles her fingers at the prone guards “Nanananana, you can’t catch me!”

One of the guards growls and April skates off again with a manic grin hidden by the mask. She runs into a group of guards surrounding a watercooler and spins her bat in her hand. April throws the bat, spinning to hit every guard. It returns to her hand with a thunk, and all she can think as she skates off is how much she loves mystic.

“Um, sir.”

Mikey looks up from his desk, seeing the babysitter corps filing in behind a particularly nervous canary yokai. Mikey covers his eyes with a hand and sighs “Let me guess, there’s been a breach?”

“Yes. Um. Hopefully nobody targets you this time. You can-- continue. With. What you’re doing. But um. We’re just going to be here.” Explains the guard.

Mikey shoves all of the camera parts aside as he lays his head down on his desk.

Leo leaps to the other side of the room when his door bursts open and Othello comes walking in with a metal bo staff in hand “Knock knock! Time for an old fashioned rescue! Leo, you're coming with us!”

Unlegible thoughts race through Leo’s head before he responds “I told you not to save me! I can’t break the contract!”

Othello theatrically spins the staff and points it at Leo “Too bad! So Sad! Do you wanna come with us to pick up Mikey or not?”

Leo hesitates. Big Mama and Draxum’s rage flashing through his mind. Othello sighs and takes off his gas mask, resting it in the crook of his arm. Leo unconsciously untenses, now being able to read Othello’s facial expressions. He looks pointedly at Leo, brow ridges furrowed and mouth pursed into a thin straight line “Look. From what I gather, we’re all stubborn as hell. So I am going to tell you the two most likely chances that are going to happen.” He holds up two fingers. “Either Big Mama kills me, or you go with us. Because I am not just leaving you here.”

That’s emotional manipulation. But what isn’t manipulation, people are always trying to control what other people think, people want to be liked, what is a joke but trying to manipulate a person into laughing. Othello’s eyes glare into Leo’s and Leo thinks for a moment.

“Wait. Us?”

Something smashes through a wall, a massive cloud of dust curls around Othello who deadpans “That can’t be good for our lungs.”

A large, hulking brute in a red ski mask lumbers over to Othello “You doin’ good Donnie?”

“Yeah, I’m just talking to him.” Donnie replies nonchalantly.

“YOUR NAME IS DONNIE!?” Leo shouts, pointing an accusatory finger at Othello/Donnie.

“Donatello actually.” He corrects with a blank expression “Would you believe me if I said I forgot?”

Leo processes it, Othello/Donnie casually leaning against his metal bo staff. His jumpsuit is scuffed and tearing in some places. Small bruises seem to be forming around his cheekbones from being jostled around in his gas mask if Leo were to guess. He's gotten hurt. He has a six foot plus yokai standing behind him, but he's really just waiting for Leo to make a choice.

He cares for Leonardo. Doesn't he? The sheer genuinity in his expression almost makes Leo violent. Instead he hesitantly steps through the threshold of his door. He blurts something out "I can always run back if I end up deciding otherwise."

Othello/Donnie smirks and rolls his eyes, slipping his gas mask back on. A jetpack unfolds out of his back, his shell Leo now realises, and he hovers in the air saying "Well, let's hope you can keep up."

Oh he is so going to regret this.

The guards shout and yell about something in his room so Mikey lifts his head up from his desk to find a familiar tiny gargoyle being pinned by twenty guards. Mikey stands up from his desk “Woah, woah, woah, let’s not suffocate the guy. Get up.”

“What?” Shouts the guards in a chorus of confusion.

“I know him! Let him go.” Mikey says using his best in-charge voice.

The guards all look at each other, extremely perplexed, and get off the little gargoyle. Mikey holds out a hand to help him back up in the air “You okay?” Mikey asks.

The gargoyle rubs at his head “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. No worse than what I’m supposed to be doing as a gargoyle anyways.”

The gargoyle laughs and Mikey smiles. “Did you get lost in the vents again?”

“Oh, nononono.” The gargoyle shakes his head “,I’m exactly where my boss says I need to be.”

“I still can’t believe that’s Raph.” Leo remarks, side eying Raph demolish through walls like they were made out of playdough.

“I said he was an alligator snapping turtle, what else do you expect other than huge?” Donnie retorts.

“I dunno! Someone that’s not an entire foot taller than me!” Leo shouts back over the noise.

“A foot and a half.” Corrects Donnie, hovering with a jetpack like a total cheater.

Leo growls, jumping over the remnants of a wall “Spirits, I am going to strangle you in your sleep one day.”

Donnie turns around to face Leo, flying backwards “Which implies we’d be sleeping in the same house, which means-- booyah baby!”

Just for that Leo elects not to tell Donnie about the wall he’s about to fly into. Donnie smashes into the wall, his jetpack flutters a bit but stabilizes back out before he even hits the ground. He lightheartedly growls at Leo “You could’ve told me about that.”

Leo passes through the next Raph shaped hole in the wall with a smug look on his face. Raph shouts back “April’s working her way up guys! Can you two save the chit chat for later? We still have another brother to rescue.”

Donnie catches up easily “We’re ahead of schedule actually. We should be f-” Donnie adjusts his ear piece “What’s that Sheldon?”

Raph and Donnie both suddenly tense up and Leo gets very very worried. “What’s going on here?” Leo asks with a nervous grin “What am I missing?”

Donnie picks Leo up and they all jet out of there.

Mikey is crying. A wall full of all of his hard worked murals crumbles as a goat man's fights the entire babysitter corps. A vine throws a guard into a wall, which cracks underneath the force of impact. Years of hard work, of keeping himself busy, of learning how to paint, it's all being destroyed. Silks and hammocks flutter down and lay limply on the opposing walls, plaster fills the air with the battle cries of yokais who have done more in raising him then Big Mama ever did. Mikey covers his ears and screams “EVERYBODY STOP!”

It takes a minute but everybody does.

All eyes are on him as Mikey stalks over to the goatman, lowering himself from his vines and onto his feet. Looking at Mikey with a curious look. Mikey needs to look up to jab a finger into the goatman’s chest “YOU need to apologize.”

The goatman’s seeing eye blinks “What for?”

Mikey points to the wall he just destroyed “THAT. Contained nearly all of my hard work. I’ve been stuck in this room for years, claiming every inch of this place as my own and you have the fucking audacity to burst into my room and destroy it!”

The goatman looks behind him at the destruction he created and says. “Ah. Yes. I’ve heard about your artwork. You’ve been described as a prodigy, yes?”

Mikey is about to explode right now “I DON'T KNOW." He screams "I’m not allowed to talk to people and none of these fuckers count,” he gestures to the babysitters surrounding him “, because they’re paid to like me! I just want an apology, okay! A good apology! Not a half assed one that doesn’t mean shit!”

The goatman blinks. Examining Mikey. One of the gargoyles on his shoulders whispers in his ear. “Why would I do that?” He responds.

More whispering. Mikey taps his foot impatiently as the stranger nods “Uhuh.”

“I…am…sorry…for my actions. I promise…I won’t ever do it again.” The goatman says, the apology being fed to him by his gargoyles.

Mikey grits his teeth, it had to be given to him by the gargoyles. But, he did seem to actually agree with the implied fact that the gargoyles think he should apologize. He lets out a breath of air “Okay. Cool. Thank you.” He folds his arms “So are you here to kill me or something?”

The goatman grins “No. I am here to recruit you.”

Leo doesn’t even have time to register the fact that he recognises this April person from the impromptu press conference he gave before he got disemboweled when he sees his worst nightmare.

Draxum standing in front of Mikey.

Leo wiggles out of Donnie’s grip and drops to the floor. He looks to the babysitter corps, some twenty odd people standing around and nursing their injuries and being useless. Leo shakes as he cries out “Do something!”

Mikey’s head jerks to look at Leo, eyes red and puffy from crying, his face contorted in rage “I have a DAD!!!!!”

“AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME!!!!” The babysitters step out of the way as Mikey stomps his way over.

Leo does not know where to even begin. He has no context for this, nothing to work with, so he just puts his hands up in a placating gesture, puts on a disarming grin “I can explain-” Before Leo can finish Mikey punches him in the face.

Mikey yells “You fucking lied to me. You kept me a secret from the greater public for years! You created an entire branch of guards to keep me locked up! You had to have known there were cameras in my room, didnt you!"

Leo hovers a hand over the bruise blooming on his jaw.

"Because it's your job to notice these kinds of things! Because your life depends on it!" Mikey screams.

"Im sorry?" Leo tries.

"No you're fucking not!" Mikey screams "You're only sorry you got caught. You're only sorry that I found out! Well I'm sorry that I'm not as stupid as you think I am!"

Leo starts "I don't…"

"You don't what." Mikey snarls.

For once in his life he truly does not know what to say. Tears roll down Mikey’s cheeks, his face flush with anger. Raph tries to step in, only to be blocked off by Draxum’s vines. Draxum says something to them, everyone that he forgot yells at him, and Mikey just sobs “I know! I know you and Big Mama only care about me! I know you two only lie to feel more in control about the situation, because you’re always surrounded by people wanting to hurt you.” Mikey’s voice cracks as he wipes away the tears “But damn you two are fucking assholes for not even telling me this.”

He tears off the orange bandana wrapped around his head “I can’t believe I ever wanted to be like you.” He drops it at Leo’s feet.

Mikey turns around and walks straight into Draxum's arms. Leo's frozen, his voice lodged in his throat, choking him, as Draxum flicks a teleportation chip into the air, materializing into a portal. He puts a hand on Mikey's shoulder, and guides Mikey through. Before it closes Mikey takes one last look at Leo, not angry or hateful.

Just sad.

Leo collapses.

The vines disintegrate, causing everyone to burst forth shouting. Immediately putting themselves between Leo and the babysitters. The babysitters disperse, muttering between themselves, and Leo just stares. Othello Donnie crouches in front of him, touching his ear piece. "Okay, got it."

He puts all of his attention into Leo and says "Look. Big Mama's coming down and we need to leave now."

Leo says under his breath "But we need to find him."

Donnie nods firmly "I know. But Draxum was not a part of this plan. We need to go home and regroup. Make something new. And pay attention to me: you cannot participate in saving Mikey if you're still here with Big Mama. You got that?"

Leo does not respond.

Donnie takes a noticeable moment. Expression hidden by his gas mask. He rolls his weight onto his heels and stands up, humming. Leo still doesn't know what it means. He calls "Raph come carry Leo, he's in shock!"

"On it." Raph responds, easily lifting Leo up.

Leo snatches the orange bandana from the ground, it almost burns him (He doesn't deserve to be touching it) but he holds it close to his chest. He can't lose it. Can't lose it. His mind is numb and still reeling.

Donnie announces "Okay! An evacuation is in order! Everyone got their weird teleportation gems ready!"

"Yup!" Call out Raph and April, pulling out small, unprocessed, teleportation gemstones.

They all flip them into the air, fizzing out into three separate portals, which they all step through. Once the portal burns out, Leo sees the lights. Colorful and shining in the middle of the night as he's curled up next to Raph's chest. Is this how Mikey felt when he curled up next to Leo? Did Mikey hear his heartbeat like he hears Raph's?

Leo's tired.

Chapter Text

It's raining.

Different from the hidden city. Different as the drops land on his face. The sky is gray. They walk across the puddles, the light distorting off of the water. A vague rumbling as cars pass them by. He's never been topside before. Is he supposed to be excited? Is he supposed to be happy?

He's kind of disappointed when a metal lid is removed and they all descend into the sewers.

He's dimly surprised when April removes her mask to reveal that she's not a yokai at all. She's a human. Leo thinks he's supposed to be afraid of her, angry even. Instead, he is just numb. Raph pulls up his mask so that it rests on his forehead. Raph looks like somebody Leo would fight in the ring, deep set eyes, sharp curve of the beak, snaggletooth, but then he smiles down at him and Leo drops that idea entirely.

"Hey. How you feeling?" Raph asks, his voice rumbling through his chest.

Raph's going to shake off his skin if he does that. Leo puts a hand against Raph's chest to get it to stop vibrating so much. Raph lightly laughs and Leo thinks he's never heard such a joyful noise. "It's okay if you don't talk. Dee is like that sometimes too."

Leo grunts, thunking his head against Raph's plastron. He knows this already.

"Yeah, yeah. I hear yah." Raph nods ",Right now, we are going to get into the lair and get some food in you. You don't have to eat alot but you will need to eat some. We have your own room for you, but its okay if you want to sleep in either of our rooms. Is everything making sense so far?"

Leo nods slightly.

"Good. Today has been a lot so far and it has not been what anybody was expecting. Things were out of our control and things happened. Nothing we can't recover from." Raph informs him.

He shifts Leo's weight so that he rests on one arm and Raph fist pumps with his other hand with a sparkle in his eye "For we are the Mad dogz! We're super tough and can take on anything!"

"Mad dogs?" Leo croaks.

Raph grins proudly, shifting Leo so he's being held in two arms again "Yeah! It's our team name! We're superheros, we gotta have a team name."

Leo takes a second to just behold Raphael. In the short while Leo's known him, he's made himself out to be such a kind and caring goofball. There's so much Leo does not know about him and Leo just wants to sink his hands into Raph and Know. It's refreshing, honestly. He almost doubts Raph is real, he can't be with that supid grin and stupid team name. but right now it doesn't matter if he is real. Leo nuzzles into Raph's chest and whispers to himself "Welcome to the Mad Dogs."

Raph churs in response. Smiling as his new baby brother goes to sleep in his arms.

Raph does a mental headcount. Looking over everyone. April's holding hands with Donnie, likely to help him not scratch his arms. He's grumbling, rapidly flipping through his practiced expressions "It's okay. No its not. One step at a time. One step at a time. We're okay. No we're not. Its fine. Things can be okay." He says rapidly.

"Things are gonna be okay Don." April says, nudging a pallet aside to reveal the hidden entrance to the lair.

"Damn right." Donnie retorts, climbing into their home "I'm gonna make it okay." He stalks off, shoving his boots off along the way, leaving them just lying there in the middle of the floor.

April and Raph make eye contact, communicating the shared elder sibling concern. Her eyes lower to the sleeping red eared slider in his arms. "So what are we doing with big shot, here?"

"I'm thinking we need to feed him. We don't know when he last ate." Raph replies.

"Good point." April says, her face scrunching "Should we like…do the thing we did as kids? Where I helped keep track of when y'all ate?"

Raph nods as he walks off to the kitchen "I think that's a good start."

Raph gently sets Leo down on a chair and gently begins coaxing him awake. Raph gently puts Mikey's bandana in Leo's hoodie pocket, so that it doesn't get ruined by food. April drops her backpack on the table with a thud and begins rummaging through the fridge. She emerges with an armful of pretty much everything they have and she begins picking them up "Do you want dumplings? Calzones? Do you like lettuce? We have lettuce. Sooooo much fish. Bacon, ham, chicken. Brussel sprouts--" April trails off as she looks at the date on the bottom of the box ", that are expired!" She tosses them into the trash.

Leo slowly blinks. Raph says "Remember what I said earlier? You don't have to eat a lot. But you have to eat something."

Leo looks at the food options in front of him. His eyes widen suddenly and he looks side to side, as if in a panic. "What's wrong?"

Leo's hands grasp his head and that's an about-to-spiral move right there. Raph lowers himself down, making him appear smaller then he actually is. "Hey. What's wrong. We can help. What's wrong?"

Leo's hyperventilating "Wh-where's Mikey. I had- I had him. I had him right here and and-"

Raph puts a hand on Leo's shoulder "Hey. Hey, hey. Breathe for me. Like this, in," Raph inhales and holds his breath for a second ,"out." He exhales.

Leo looks at him with his brows scrunched together, but eventually he mimics Raph. He's still crying, and seems more confused then anything. "Okay. Now check your pocket." Raph says.

Leo does, and he lights up when he pulls out the orange bandana that his-their- Raph doesnt know- Mikey wore. New tears roll down Leo's cheeks as he presses it against his forehead. Raph checks in with April, whose been taking an awfully long time taking off her rollerblades. Probably an excuse to help her not feel awkward.

Raph waves so that she looks at him. He signs "Thank you for helping out."

April smiles slightly. "No problem."

"You know the hand thing too?" Leo asks, startling Raph a little bit.

"Oh? Sign language? Yeah, me and Don weren't the most verbal of kids so we made up turtle sign language. Clicks and chirps are great and all but you can't exactly talk about Jupiter Jim movies with them." Raph explains.

April pops in, "I am fluent in all the turtle languages too! Donnie even made me a duolingo about it."

Leo stares at April for a prolonged minute "What's a duolingo?"

"An evil little green bird who threatens your life in spanish." April explains.

Leo is even more confused and Raph is beginning to recognise that they're getting off topic. "Okay! We can talk about stuff tomorrow, first, Leo." He turns to look at Leo, tear tracks still visible on his face. "Think you can eat something?"

Leo looks at all the food on the table, calculateing, his eyes land on the bottle of chocolate syrup. He begins drinking the chocolate syrup. "Hey!" Raph rips the bottle away from him.

Leo smirks, wipeing the chocolate off his mouth "Woo! I can feel my blood sugar rising! Am I going to have a heart attack? I'm gonna have a heart attack. I would love to have a heart attack. Do you have sprinkles? I want sprinkles."

"We have sprinkles." April declares, looking through the cabinets.

Leo slams his fist into the counter "Fuck yes!" He makes grabby hands towards April "Gimme."

Raph awkwardly holds the chocolate syrup, with the conflicting brotherly instincts of not drinking straight chocolate syrup and wanting to join Leo on drinking chocolate syrup straight from the bottle because that sounds fun. "What. Why? Why are we drinking chocolate syrup?"

April sets down the decade old sprinkles and Leo shakes some directly into his mouth "Bro, I have never been allowed a single sweet in my life! The only junkfood I've been allowed is whatever I sneak off of--" Leo's expression stutters and Raph suspects he knows what fills in the blank.

Leo grins, tossing the empty sprinkles over his shoulder where the trash can isn't "Anywho! April! You're a human! What the fuck is up with that?"

Raph grimaces at the swear word. He doesn't like them, but he really does not want to bother Leo. Afterall, he wants Leo to like him as his new big brother. April tosses a tub of ice cream from the freezer in front of Leo and hands him the icecream scooper "What do you wanna know? You best not have a problem with humans after I saved your life."

"I think I'm supposed to? But you seem fine." Leo waves dismissively "I mean, you planning on destroying yokaikind any time soon?"

"Nope." April says, grabbing three bowls and a set of spoons from the cabinets.

"Not when they gave me these." April says with a flourish, pulling out a skull shaped…thing? Raph does not know what it is.

Leo whistles "A death whistle? Must've cost you a lot if it's genuine."

That doesn't sound very safe. April turns the death whistle over in her hands, scoffing "Psh. I don't care if its genuine, I just care that it sounds freaky."

April proceeds to blow into the whistle, which lets out a sharp, blood curdling scream that has Raph covering his ears. Leo just nods along like some kind of connoisseur of screams. Once April's done, Raph yells "What was THAT!"

Before he can get an answer, Splinter comes stomping in, yelling "I thought we agreed no more death whistle blowing in this house! Do you know how-" he trails off, eyes landing on Leonardo.

Oh right.

They didn't tell Pops.

Okay. Damage control. Gauge his reactions. What is he feeling? His eyes are wet, brows furrowed as he looks between April and Raph who are definitely not dressed like their usual selves. Lots of complicated emotions there, Raph doesn't know what Splinter is going to do. His eyes lock back onto Leo, eating ice cream directly from the tub. He gestures to Splinter with the scooper, his mouth full of ice cream as he asks "Who's the rat man?"

"Um." Raph hesitantly starts. "That's our Pops."

Leo's brow raises "Ah. Pops. Hello. Your sons kidnapped me and are planning are selling my organs on the black market."

"Leo!" Raph cries.

Leo gestures to himself "Hey! You know how much money you could make off of my dead body! Alot! Think of all the turtle oil folks could use to con people out of their life savings!"

"You escaped." Splinter states simply.

Raph clenches his jaw. So Pops did know where Leo was. Anger. It would've been so much easier if Splinter just told them. Check in with Leo, how's he feeling? Leo's grin wavers and he shoves the orange bandana into his hoodie pocket "Um. Yeah. I escaped. Just me. By myself."

Raph's brow furrows as that. Splinter approaches, and Leo shifts his weight in his chair, like he's about to sprint off. Splinter freezes. April has her head in her hands and Raph reaches across the table to hold her hand.

"I. Am sorry about what you went through." Splinter says solemnly.

"Yeah, yeah. Big whoop. Whatever. Its fine. I mean. I'm here, right?" Leo says, laughing nervously.

Splinter just looks at Leo with a kind of sorrow in his eyes that Pops only gets when he looks in a mirror. Raph squeezes April's hand, and she squeezes back. "You're here, Leo." Raph says softly.

Leo's head jerks to Raph, and there's a kind of shattered look in his eye. Everything around him has been torn apart and all Raph wants to do it hold it all together for him. "One day at a time." Raph says "Let's all take it one day at a time."

Splinter leaves. Leo's smile wavers as he tries to shovel more icecream into his mouth. April interjects and says "Hey, hey! We can do it in a tad more civilized manner."

April serves everyone icecream and teaches Leo that he can put toppings on the icecream. By the time Leo was done, they ran out of chocolate syrup and peanut butter. Its relatively silent as they eat, the events of the day weighing on everybody. "I thought you meeting Splints would be much funnier." April confesses.
"All like YOU WHENT ON A LIFE OR DEATH MISSION WITHOUT ME and WHO ARE YOU and IM A RAT and YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FATHER."

Leo smirks. "I would've much rather prefer if it whent that way."

Donnie walks into the kitchen, grabs a soda from the fridge, and drops a phone in front of Leo. "You know how to operate phones?"

Leo says "Yeah?"

"Great!" Donnie declares, popping the soda can open "Send me the names of any piece of media you wanna see and I'll get it for you. See you tomorrow!"

Donnie leaves with a wave, sipping on the soda can. Leo stares at the entrance to the kitchen. Raph asks "Confused?"

"So fucking much." Leo confesses, looking completely and utterly lost.

April gestures with a spoon "Well we are going to have to have you catch up with the Lou Jitsu movies."

"He made movies???” Leo asks.

"You know Lou Jitsu?" Raph and April ask at the same time.

"Of course I knew Lou Jitsu? He was the greatest champion of all time." Leo explains.

"He was a champion at the battle nexus?" Raph asks.

April pumps her fist "So that's how he disappeared! I gotta write this down!"

Raph hopelessly sits on his chair, "Raph is a little confused."

April shows Raph her phone screen containing a diagram that he could never hope to read "So you know how I'm all into Missing John and Jane Does? Well Lou Jitsu is the biggest missing person since H.B. Cooper. So I've been working on my own timeline about what could've happened to him!"

Raph gently pushes the phone away "Are you… gonna publish this?"

"Well, not anymore." April says, typing something on her phone "Now that I know that the Hidden city's involved I won't. But its been mostly a me project anyways."

Raph thinks April is maybe a liiiiitttle crazy for being into all this true crime stuff. He remembers watching April and Donnie talk about the JonBenet case and just thinking Damn. That poor girl. It just makes him feel sad. He checks the time on his bracer. Its pretty late. "Alright. We should all go to bed now. April needs to home pretty soon anyways."

April checks the clock on the wall and says "Oh shit!"

Immediately she begins scrambling to put all of her things together "She doesn't live with you?" Leo asks.

"No, she has human parents that she hasn't introduced us too yet." Raph says flatly.

"I am working on it! Okay!" April shouts, pulling on her sneakers.

Raph laughs good naturedly and helps April put her things together. Leo watches as April scrambles to the front door. She takes a deep breath and dusts herself off, Raph standing in front of her with a patient smile. "Now come here you!" She says.

Raph bends down and April squishes his face, making nonsense noises that send Raph into giggles. She grins and bonks her forehead on his. Raph picks her up in a hug, and gently puts her back down on her feet. She pats Raph on the arm and leaves the lair.

Leo jerks back to eating ice cream as if he wasnt just watching that whole interaction. Raph just gently shakes his head and asks "Can you help me clean up? It'll help you learn where everything is in the kitchen."

"Um. Sure." Leo says, standing up with his bowl in hand.

Leo washes the bowls as Raph puts everything back into the fridge. Raph claps his hands together, all done. "Okay. Now let's take you to your room."

Leo tenses at that. Raph tries to comfort "We've been preparing it for a while. You can change whatever you want about it to make you comfy but I hope it at least makes the first night better."

Raph guides Leo through the lair "Over there is Donnie's lab. Over there is Donnie's room. That's Pops' room, don't go in there. This is the living room. We got a skate ramp through there, medbays right next door. We got two bathrooms, one there and the other one is connected to the hang out place." Raph stops in front of a door and opens it to reveal his own room "This is my room. Come to me if you need anything, alright?"

"Mhm." Leo affirms.

"Alright. Now let's get you to your room." Raph declares.

When he opens up the door Leo audibly gasps and Raph thinks that at the very least, he's done this right. Starry blue fairy lights surround the room, thick carpet cover the ground with a nondescript abstract tapestry hanging up on the wall. The bed is overflowing with blankets and pillows. The side table has a little card that Raph made saying how much he appreciates Leo being here, a small purple box containing painkillers, and a glass of water. Empty shelves hang off the walls, optimal for putting stuff on. Optimal for personalizing everything.

Raph begins "Remote for the fairy lights should be in the drawer and," He notices Leo is crying "Are you- are you okay? What can I do?"

Leo wipes away his tears "Nah. Nah I'm good. And I mean it this time. This is…this is perfect. Thank you so much."

Raph can feel his own tears starting to build up "Oh. No problem Lil' buddy. Anything for you."

They stay like that for a moment. Raph thinks Leo is about to say something for a minute before Leo turns into his brand new room "Well. I'm pooped! I'm gonna go to bed. See you in the morning."

Leo hops into his new bed. Raph smiles and turns "Um" Leo interrupts "Please don't close the door."

Raph nods "Of course."

He leaves the door ajar.

He flops belly first onto his mattress and pulls out his phone.

RedAngle: might be out for a few days, family mergency

IHAVE7KNIVES: you gonna be alright there red

RedAngle: aren't u supposed to be asleep

IHAVE7KNIVES: SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK AND I AM STRONGEST THERE IS! I SHALL DEFEAT SLEEP! IN ITS SLEEP!!!!!

RedAngle: yeah that's what my brother says before passing out

RedAngle: jus dont want you to worry i just need to take care of somethings

IHAVE7KNIVES: is it your father?

IHAVE7KNIVES: i shall PULVERIZE him

RedAngle: no its not him. Well. It might be eventually. But not yet. I already told you if it ever gets real bad I'll tell you

IHAVE7KNIVES: PINKY PROMISE

RedAngle: pinky promise

Chapter Text

The door is locked when Mikey wakes up.

He can't even find it in him to be disappointed at this rate.

Last night, after everything, Mikey said he wanted to sleep before dealing with everything else. Draxum proceeded to show him the most depressing looking bedroom ever, a canopy bed, bare walls, chipped veneer on the furniture. Mikey, exhausted, just accepted it. He curled up underneath the covers and cried himself to sleep.

His first instinct is to destroy everything. Tear apart the canopy, upturn the chairs and pull out all the drawers. But he figures it's not as bad as it could have been. Draxum could've locked him in a dungeon instead of an old room that hasn't seen company for over twenty years.

He's still lonely.

He's still angry.

Mikey lays down on the floor and sticks his head underneath the bed. His shell is too big to completely go under the bed but it's okay. It's vaguely entertaining in the same ways humans find throwing and catching the ball entertaining. Humans are the best throwers in the ecosystem, so it makes sense that they take some fundamental joy out of it. Turtles like to hide, so they stick themselves underneath things.

The door opens with the grand voice of Baron Draxum "Good Morning! Today we are going to- what are you doing?"

Mikey pulls himself out from under the bed "I was bored."

He hops to his feet with a little bounce "What are we doing today?"

Draxum looks at Mikey with a bit of an odd look. His shoulders absent of Hugin and Munin. He shakes it off and continues "Today will be a standard tour of the place, followed by-"

The rest of Draxum's words fly through Mikey's tympanum without ever touching his brain. He just smiles and nods, following Draxum through the castle. Draxum doesn't seem to realize that Mikey is not listening, and Mikey is almost relieved. Mama would catch him not listening easily, and she would usually give him an earful. Draxum is still wearing his weird face plate-armor-mask thing. With golden horns swooping behind his head. Mikey wonders if they are prosthetics. He remembers one of his guards having their horns capped, though he can't remember why. (Is this a mistake?)

Draxum's voice is grand and projecting, touring the entire castle while introducing every piece of art that they do come across in what sounds suspiciously like a history lesson. Draxum shows him the library, three bathrooms, an office, and the dojo. He seems to have a very limited interest in aesthetics, only decorating places he frequents in an art nouveau kinda style with a hint of victorian vintage. Mikey thinks it's fair to not try and decorate an entire castle, it would be exhausting. But it also sounds fun. At least to him.

Mikey does a double take when he sees a small kitchen through an open arch. Without thinking he walks through it. It's small-- cozy even. Black marble counters, oak cupboards and drawers. Smooth white tile underneath his feet. There's only one oven, in contrast to the five that he's used to. He turns on the light which bathes everything in an aged, golden glow. He's home.

He begins rifling through the cabinets. Coming out with surprisingly little. But he can work with this. The motions are easy, practiced, requiring just enough thought to keep him occupied. The smell of the frying veggies, the sizzle of the pan, the browning edges, it's a whole sensory experience that comforts Mikey. Its familiar.

Two gargoyles fly into the kitchen, panicking. Hugin shouts over his shoulder "He's over here!"

Within seconds Draxum is skidding into the kitchen, yelling "Do not run off like that ever again, else you will be-" Draxum sniffs the air "What are you doing?"

"Breakfast." Mikey declares simply, serving the stir fry on plates.

He sets them all down on the dining table, bigger then Mikey's old one, and sets down. Hesitantly, Draxum sits down, seeming a little perplexed by the situation. Hugin and Munin grin, and immediately begin chowing down on their food. Mikey smiles, turning to Draxum who is eyeing his stir fry suspiciously. Mikey talks in hopes of easing him "I would like it if we could go grocery shopping. I could cook with what you have but I like having variety."

Draxum hesitantly looks down at his stir fry and takes a singular bite. His ears perk up and he begins eating at a slighter faster than regular pace. "Where did you learn how to cook?"

"Youtube, mostly." Mikey shrugs "And lots of trial and error."

"Fascinating." Draxum remarks "Did you eat all the food yourself?"

"No, I mostly gave it to my guards. I like making things for people. And I would like to make more meals for us in the future." Mikey explains, idly playing with his food.

Draxum thinks for a moment. Chewing on his food. "So you wish to stay?"

"Yes? What could've told you that I wanted to leave?" Mikey asks, taking a bite of his food.

"You ran off quite suddenly during the tour." Draxum states.

Mikey stands up "Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I just got distracted. Saw the kitchen in the corner of my eye and just bolted without thinking. We can continue the tour if you want!"

"Sit down, child. Let us finish our meals first." Draxum says.

Mikey gives a small smile. Draxum thinks his food is good enough to finish. He sits back down, feeling a little relieved. "So I want to talk about living arrangements and stuff. What's going to happen from now on and all that."

"That seems agreeable." Draxum says professionally.

Mikey smiles, a bit nervous but begins to ramble "Cool. So. I definitely want to go grocery shopping with you. Think it'd be a nice trip for us to bond over. And I would like some paints and like--other room stuff. Because I do not vibe with the current one at all. I have trouble absorbing information in one go, so if you could, like, give me a map or something that'd be really appreciated so I don't know how much of a tour will really work. I have a terrible sense of direction."

"Breathe, Four, you'll run out of air." Draxum says cooly.

"That also. Name's Mikey." He corrects "Or Michaelangelo. We can work on it. Eventually I think it'd be cool if I could decorate the whole castle. And about the mystic thing I was hoping we really wouldn't like to work on it right now? Or like ever? I'm feeling very nervous about the whole thing."

Draxum nods. "Of course. It would be foolish to do so otherwise. Over Reliance on mystic can lead to a weak body."

Mikey beams and flaps his hands. "Sounds great. So you were talking about the eradication of mankind. Could you tell me more about that?"

Draxum holds up one finger, telling Mikey to wait as he chews his food. He's probably using it as an excuse to think. He cleans himself with a napkin "The growth of humanity has been damaging yokai culture for years. We used to not need to hide away in underground cities. Yokai-kind deserve better than the meager leftovers of humanity. I originally sought political power as a way to change things. But the council of heads refused to listen to me, even as things got worse, and so I created you and your brothers to assist in the destruction of mankind."

Hateing humanity is not something new to Mikey. Big Mama was tolerant of them, viewing them as just another way to make money in her hotel, human side. Most of his guards where somewhat tolerant, allowing Mikey to watch his human shows and listen to human musicians. The better ones would simply try to replace his human interests with yokai ones. The worst ones would give Mikey an hour long lecture about how humans suck.

He can easily implement human hateing into his worldview, or at the very least hide his human interests from Draxum. He can understand Draxum's concerns, so he nods "Uh-huh, uh-huh." Mikey tents his hands "But what happens after?"

Draxum's eyebrows furrow, confused "What do you mean?"

"What happens after all the humans are dead? Do we just like…Have a party?" He nods to himself "We should have a party. Celebrate our hard work."

"I have created a mutagen to turn humans into mutants, such as yourself. So not all of humanity needs to be dead." Clarifies Draxum.

Mikey smiles "Oh that's so nice of you."

"It is merely a benefit that it will populate my army to rule the revolution." Draxum remarks.

Mikey lights up at the idea "Oh it's a revolution! We definitely need a party then!" Mikey cheers ",We'll need sparklers! And confetti! Are fireworks too far?"

Draxum studies Mikey for a moment, the mask hiding most of his microexpressions, except a small, slight, smile. Draxum says, almost dismissively "No. Fireworks are not too much."

Mikey grins widely. He looks at Draxum's empty plate and at the empty plates of Hugin and Munin. "Are we done? I can wash up."

Draxum nods and Mikey grabs all of their plates. Hugin and Munin whisper to each other, though they are both horrible at being quiet so Mikey can hear everything as he washes the dishes.

"He's great right!" Munin says.

"Honestly, I did not expect him to be this nice." Hugin says.

"And now! We don't need to eat dog food anymore!" Munin declares.

Draxum grumbles "You don't like the dogfood I get you?"

"We do! But for every meal? Gets a lil boring." Explains Hugin.

"We still want the dogfood!" Exclaims Munin ",But like. As a treat! A little snacky treat! That'd be great."

Draxum visibly contemplates this new information and Mikey puts the dishes in the dishwasher. He stands in front of his new family with his hands on his hips and says "Okay! What are we doing today!"

"I figured a medical exam is in order." Draxum states.

Mikey deflates "Oh come on! I just had one of those last month!"

"Well I do not have access to this information. So I will be conducting a medical examination no doubt better than whatever Big Mama had to offer." Draxum says.

"Oh Big Mama didn't do any medical stuff. She redistributed that to her staff. Though I think Othello is like, extremely fired now. i have no idea what he was doing but it definitely didn't look Mama approved." Mikey remarks.

"Othello?" Draxum inquires.

"Yeah, you've seen him. He wears a red and blue gas mask, a bit quiet but he's really nice." Mikey says.

"Oh! I've seen him around while I've been in the vents!" Munin declares "Hangs around that other gas mask guy, right?"

"Bibo? Yeah. 'Tello is his apprentice. I wonder how Bibo is now that Othello rebelled." Mikey can feel worry creeping up his shell, paired with a burbling anger.

Mikey doesn't want Bibo hurt. He seemed nice. But everyone seems nice. Did Bibo know? Did Othello know? Who was with Othello when everything happened? There were at least two other yokai. Is this a mistake? Is he just fucking everything up?

Draxum clears his throat.

Mikey turns his attention to him. Draxum says "Pay no attention to them. They will not contribute to your journey."

What is he talking about? Oh. Did Draxum see that Mikey was feeling bad and was trying to comfort him? Its a kinda shitty attempt at comfort. But Mikey can get where it comes from. It fundamentally disagrees with Mikey's ideals, you are made out of the people in your life, but he can understand Draxum's intentions. Mikey smiles a little bit. "Th-thanks."

They stay like that for a while, Mikey shifting his weight from foot to foot, and Draxum resting his head on his hand. It's obvious that neither of them know what to do in such a relationship. It's new. It will change. One day, it will become something unique. But now, it is Mikey's worst fear.

An awkward silence.
.
.
.
.
Draxum stands up, pushing his chair back into the table "Hm. Follow me."

The gargoyles rise but Draxum gestures for them to stay "I will not demean you with busywork, I can handle this medical examination by myself. I would appreciate it if you two could go grocery shopping."

Hugin nods and clicks a pen, pulling out a notepad "Got it Boss! Whaddya want?"

Mikey perks up "Oooooo! Lemme help!"

Draxum gestures for him to continue. Mikey flaps his hands "Oooo! Yes! Yes! Okay. Water chestnuts, celery, green peppers, red peppers, pork, ham, chicken, big hecken chunks of it I don't mind. Shrimp paste, angel hair noodles, spring onions, bamboo shoots, cornflour, basil, thyme, paprika, avocados, lettuce, lasagna noodles, tomatoes, tomato sauce and that should be enough for the time being."

Munin whistles "Wowee, kid! How'd you even breathe!"

Mikey just giggles, rolling on the balls of his feet. Hugin puts away the notepad and the gargoyles fly away. Mikey squeals, flapping his hands, so many ideas for meals to make! He can't wait to make more food and meals for his family! Draxum walks out of the kitchen and Mikey follows. It takes a minute for Mikey to ask "Where are we going?"

"To my lab." Draxum says.

"Oh yeah! That makes sense!" Mikey says, remembering that he said that today was due for a medical examination.

The hallways are long and baren. Ha! Baren! Baron. Spirits this awkward silence is going to kill him. Mikey blurts "So what happened to your eye?"

Shit. Fuck. Dont just fucking say that. Draxum halts and Mikey is for sure gonna get yelled at. He closes his eyes but he merely gets a soft question "You don't know?"

Now Mikey's just confused. "Um? No? Am I supposed to?"

Draxum stares down at Mikey, reading something off of him. What? Does Draxum think he's lying? Draxum purses his lips "Well, that just adds another thing to the medical examination."

Draxum turns around and begins speed walking. "Well isn't that ominous." Mikey mutters to himself, having to jog to keep up.

They reach the lab, large with a high ceiling with lots of pipework and wires hanging on the walls. Mikey itches to begin climbing. But he puts his hands in his pockets to stop himself. He already did a shitty impulsive thing, he doesn't need to do another one. Draxum takes Mikey to a more enclosed part of the lab and sits down on a chair. Mikey awkwardly stands, rolling on the balls of his feet. Draxum pulls out a tiny pen flashlight and commands "Open your mouth."

Mikey does so and Draxum holds his jaw in a way that is extremely uncomfortable as he investigates Mikey's teeth. Draxum pulls back, announcing "Your teeth are crowding."

"Oh?" Mikey says, having no idea what that means.

Draxum does not catch onto his confusion "You evidently have some form of dental issue. You were not made for biting in mind-" "Oh, I'm not supposed to bite people?" Mikey interrupts with an internalized laugh.

Draxum goes through several emotions at once, irritation, confusion, and the smallest hints of distress. "You've been biting people?"

"Oh yeah. I'm not allowed weapons so I either bite people or claw their eyes out." Mikey wiggles his fingers, where his nails are long and claw like.

Draxum takes the hand and inspects it. "This won't do. A replacement will be needed."

"You aren't gonna cut off my hands are you?" Mikey asks the first question that comes to mind.

"No, that's a ridiculous question. You will simply need an upgrade. A true warrior does not need to resort to fang and claw in order to come out superior in an ordeal." Draxum explains, holding Mikey finger with the broken nail still growing in "Besides. There are more…reliable ways to gouge someone's eyes out."

Mikey's eyes widen "So I'm getting a weapon!"

"What? You thought I was going to send you to deal with the evils of humanity unarmed." Draxum asks, equally offended and amused.

Mikey laughs and squeals, flapping his hands. "Ooooo I'm so excited."

"This won't be happening overnight." Draxum says.

Mikey squeals, jumping up and down "Oh I know, I know, I know. But I'll be able to get a weapon! What's it gonna be? I bet it's gonna be a super cool sword!"

Draxum huffs noncommittally. He does a shell check on Mikey, scanning it with an odd device. A hologram of Mikey's shell solidifying on the desk. Reconfirming the growth irregularities that Othello found. Mikey thinks he can see it now, the growth patterns on his shell diverging in those specific spots.

He could probably make a painting about it. He's done paintings inspired by Leo's shell, the lines and patterns on the scutes. There's been a lot of work surrounding Leo. Its easy to look at him, a tapestry of scars and mutilation. There's a small scar on his chin, old enough that even Leo couldn't put a name to it. The indented scar on Leo's forearm, that Leo got when blocking. A deformity in his shell that split the scutes in half.

A long, shiny scar, right down his wrist. More often covered in wraps.

Mikey isn't allowed to think about it.

Draxum finishes looking at the scan of Mikey's shell and stands up. He turns off the lights. Then flicks a switch next to that and the mini lab is bathed in a blue light. Some of the items on the desk fluoresce, and Mikey jumps when he realizes that he's glowing. Not by much, but faint cracks on his hands glow a dull orange underneath the fluorescent light. "Woah." Mikey turns his hand over, the cracks lining the wrinkles in his palm "What's this."

"Mystic burning." Draxum sits down on his chair, holding Mikey's hand "Mystic burning happens when not properly maintaining the output of your powers, so it seeps through the natural cracks in your skin."

"Can you see these without fluorescents?" Mikey says, smiling slightly.

"Yes, though you have to look very carefully, it blends in with the natural wrinkles of your skin. It seems like your mystics also seep through your optic membrane, as they are fluorescing as well. Obviously this is something we will need to work on."

Mikey gets quiet at the idea of working on his mystics. He still doesn't know why he's so scared. And he still doesn't know so much. Draxum pulls away, typing data down on his computer. Mikey hesitantly he says "Draxum?"

"If you're worried about the mystic thing I already said you don't need to worry about it for a while." Draxum says without looking.

"No. That's not it." Mikey says "Believe me I'm super relieved about it. But…I also have some questions. Y'know…because Mama and Leo were lying to me about everything."

Draxum gazes at Mikey, calculating. He shifts his weight in his seat "What do you want to know, child?"

"Um." There's so much, he feels overwhelmed "Earlier you acted as if I was supposed to know what happened with your eye?"

"That's because you caused it." Draxum says bluntly.

Mikey first panics because no, he would never do that. Then his logic kicks in when he has done exactly that. "I'm sorry?"

Draxum raises a brow "You truly don't remember anything of that event?"

"If I remembered it I would've known you existed, dude." Mikey says.

"Hmm. Fair point. Well then let me tell you about the full story." Draxum turns his chair so that he's facing Mikey "The context is, essentially, your brother had stolen you away from me. I had been searching for you for weeks and had found you. I picked you up and you gouged my eye out, having evidently been poisoned against me. I then proceeded to send the gargoyles after you, you did considerable damage to Munin. And then you disappeared."

Mikey…wants to believe it. But this story definitely sounds suspicious. "Could you tell me more?" Mikey asks.

"Well. I had created four mutant turtles with the aid of a strong human warrior, who turned his back on me at the last minute and took two of them away, whilst simultaneously setting my lab ablaze. I had taken to raising you and your brother as strong warriors, born to conquer the human race. But your brother was weak and pathetic, so he ran away. Taking you with him."

Mikey hides his doubt easily, smiling and nodding.

Too much eye contact, too much control over his body movements. This man was told that he has a tell when lying and overcompensated.

Mikey's being lied to again. So much information is being omitted. Whose the human warrior? What does 'raise a child as a warrior' even mean? What does it mean that Leo was weak? It feels a lot less intentional than Big Mama's, but it's still a lie. Is it an accidental lie? Or is Mikey just deluding himself? He's never interacted with anyone normally hasn't he? Never just met somebody on the street and chatted with them, both in a state of not knowing who the other is. Mikey's tired of all the rehearsal and monitoring it takes to speak. "Do you intend to hurt me?" He says bluntly.

Miley almost regrets it, but he sees Draxum's eye widen in a moment in shock, quickly schooling his expression. "Do you intend to defy me?" Draxum responds.

Mikey sighs and closes his eyes "Well. If you tell me to leave you to die, I'm going to save you. Would that be defiant?"

"Yes, if I tell you to leave me, you will leave me." Draxum says.

"But I'm not going to let you die." Mikey retorts.

"It's beyond your control." Draxum grumbles.

"That doesn't matter, I'm not going to let you die. I know we just met, but…I don't want you to die. And well. I wanna keep you safe." Mikey says.

Draxum stops breathing for a moment. Mikey keeps his own breath steady. It is kinda obvious that Draxum is a touch deprived of kindness and compassion. Mikey continues, looking down at his feet "Bottomline, any relationship is based on respect. When I say I would go back for you, it's not that I disrespect you, it's because I care about you. This is new for both of us, we're both going to make plenty of mistakes but… I'm not going to be leaving my family behind."

Draxum seems stunned. Mikey doesn't know if it's a good or bad thing. As usual, Mikey doesn't know what he did wrong. "So um. Yeah. I do intend to respect you. But, ultimately, I'm not going to let you die on me."

Draxum huffs amusedly, with a small smirk he says "And you have power over life and death, little one?"

Mikey giggles "Yes, I do have the audacity to fist fight death, if that's what you're asking."

On a whim, Mikey holds out his pinky claw "Promise me that you'll try?"

"Try with what?" Draxum asks.

"In this relationship. I promise I'll try too." Mikey says.

"What is this?" Draxum gestures to Mikey's outstretched pinky.

"A pinky promise. It's a more childish version of a handshake." Mikey explains.

"Why not just do a handshake then?" Draxum inquires.

Mikey hesitates. This is not the first time he made somebody pinky promise him. He thinks he knows why but he doesn't know if he should tell Draxum. He didn't tell Mama. Didn't tell Leo. Is he a hypocrite? He doesn't know.

"It makes me feel better." Mikey says with a passive smile.

Draxum narrows his eyes at the outstretched pinky and says "I pinky promise-" "-no, dude. You gotta do it." Mikey interrupts with a hint of laughter.

"Do what?" Draxum says with a snort.

"I'll show. Hold out your hand- no the other one. Okay fold your fingers like mine and bam-" Mikey wraps his pinky around Draxum's "We've pinky promised to both try in this relationship."

Mikey smiles and for a moment, he can swear Draxum smiles too.

Chapter Text

Leo slowly wakes up with an indescribable longing in his heart. He's in his cell one moment, and the next he's laying down in Mikey's room. Mikey walks through the door. Othello is laying on the floor. They're saying something, but Leo can't hold onto the words. Mikey is crying. Somebody's screaming.

Once he pushes through the slog of his brain he sits up. Tired. He doesn't know if he slept or just dissociated for six hours. Sometimes it just feels like a surprise time skip.

Spirits, he wants to keep dissociating. He doesn't want to be here. He fucked up literally everything. He-- he doesn't know how exactly. He was trying to protect Mikey and there was so much Stuff like the deal and Big Mama and the fights. He wants to try and analyze it, analyze everything that went wrong, but every time he does he just thinks of Mikey, angry, crying, throwing his mask to the ground. Disgusted to have ever wanted to be him.

Mikey punched him and Leo didn't even have it in his capacity to feel proud. Mikey's gone. With Draxum of all people. Leo should've argued for more time, argued that Mikey shouldn't be allowed to watch the fight, he should've put more effort in protecting Mikey. But he didn't and now he can only just imagine what Draxum is doing to his brother.

He remembers their childhood vividly. His first scars are from then, long since faded as he's grown. Needed to get the fight grained into them early. It was an accident really, in the grand scheme of things. Leo was four, far too intelligent for his age and far too reckless. Leo lied then. He lies now.

He was a failure then. He's a failure now.

Leo thinks he's never had any control over his life. First it was Draxum, dangling him off the edge of a roof, then it was Mama, who taught him everything he knows. He was saved mostly on a whim of his home, of desperately trying to convince himself that he could take all of his fucking mistakes back.

Leo thinks he's lied to Mikey more than anyone else.

Spirits he was so fucking stupid going to Big Mama for help. Changing one cage to another. They should've stayed on the streets. It would've been harder there, but it would've been easier in the way that there was no fucked up adults was watching over their lives and limiting their time together to two hours a week.

The rat that Raph called Pops, automatically seems a lot less intense then Big Mama or Draxum. It could just be a carefully controlled persona but there is one major difference between this room and all of Leo's previous ones.

The door is unlocked.

He can walk out anytime but that thought terrifies him. He wants to throw up. He still feels trapped. He needs to worry about Big Mama coming after him.

Spirits.

He's free?

He's free.

No, no, no, no. Leo's crazy. This is some stupid dream. Othello isn't actually his brother. Mikey doesn't hate him and when he wakes up he'll be back in his cold, damp cell.

What if he's secretly dead and doesn't realize it? He could've very easily died in Mikey's arms during the gladiator freedom bullshit, what with being disemboweled and all. What would Mama do with Mikey then? Now that the contract that caters to his safety is now rendered null by his death. What's worse is that Leo genuinely does not know how Mama would react in that situation. Would she cry for Leo? Would she put Mikey in the ring as payment? Has she ever actually cared for them?

There's a knock at the door "Knock, knock, coming in." Donnie opens the door, wearing a purple bandana with eyebrows drawn on it, of all things, and a set of goggles on his massive forehead.

Leo almost laughs at the sight as Donnie's drawn on brows rise slightly and he says "Oh, is now a bad time to tell you literally everything I know?"

Leo wipes at his wet cheeks, turning to wrap his mask around his head. His voice hoarse from sobbing "Nah. Nah, I'm good. What time is it?"

"One pm."

Leo huffs through his nose, irritated "That late, huh?"

"We literally rescued you last night. Chill out." Donnie says.

"Yeah, yeah, come sit down." Leo pats the spot of bed next to him.

Donnie walks over and plops down with his legs folded across each other. He curls over to type things into his tablet. He's wearing a pair of sweatpants but no shirt, instead a purple shell clasps around his shoulders. Leo tries to look at it while not trying to look at it. Donnie sighs and looks up, annoyed. "You know I have gotten really good at knowing when people are looking at my shell, right?"

Leo stops himself from turning into a sputtering mess "Sorry. Um. It's just…you said you where a softshell?"

"I am." Donatello says idly.

Leo looks at the hard purple shell and back at Donnie's long snout. "Oh? Oh I'm getting it now." Donnie says "Yeah, I call it my battle shell. I have several varieties. You are most familiar with my spider shell variety. I'm going to be making you one."

"Making me one? Why?" Leo asks.

"You have a disease that makes your shell fragile." Donnie says bluntly.

"I lasted without it for years." Leo says.

Donnie grits his teeth, and growls "What is with literally everyone and saying oh, you were fine for years, so obviously you don't need help! No! Bullshit! Just-ugh!"

Donnie grabs Leo by the shoulders and shakes him as he yells "I am going to make life easier for you! I am going to make sure that you are safe and happy! So shut the fuck up about saying you where fine! Because you weren't! So let me help you!"

Leo pushes his feelings down and gently pats Donnie's arms "Alright alright alright! You can stop shaking me now."

Donnie squeezes, frowning intensely before going back to his tablet. He brings up a calendar and shoves it onto Leo's lap "So I know alot about what happened. And! Unsurprising news! Alot of it is really fucked up! So I have a schedule of things that I will gradually feed you so neither of us will have a mental breakdown. Also! Optional but really appreciated! You give me some information too! Because Splinter is a terrible source of information regarding you."

"Splinter?" Leo asks.

"The rat that lives with us." Donnie explains.

"Oh! Raph said last night he was your dad?" Leo says.

Donnie hisses through his teeth, not a threat display, just the sound of really really not wanting to explain something. "It's…complicated. Do you want me to explain it to you?"

"Preferably, yes."

"Great." Donnie deadpans, taking the tablet from Leo's lap "I'm going to add that entire debacle onto the schedule. How does one question every three months sound?"

Leo guffaws "Every three months?"

"Is that too short? I can make it longer. Every six months then." Donnie says, typing away at his tablet.

Leo laughs, not sure if Donnie is jokeing "Damn. Bro, you are not wanting to explain shit."

"Oh, I want to explain so much shit. I just don't want to explain this shit." Donnie retorts, nursing his head in his hands.

Leo chuckles, "Yeah. I get it. But I will learn eventually."

"I know. It's just...well I suppose it's a sensitive subject. So I will need a few months to prepare a slideshow presentation."

"A slideshow presentation?" Leo parrots.

"A slideshow presentation!" Donnie says, excited "Slideshows make everything better. So how about, for a starting point, we lead with information from my time working with Big Mama every two weeks, and information about familial history every three months."

"So it's changeable?" Leo asks.

"The best schedules need to have a degree of adaptability." Donnie explains.

"You said you were going to tell me everything when you walked in? Does the imply right now?"

"Not yet. In due time." Donnie says, gesturing with his hands "Because in the worst case scenario, you end up crying on me and I don't know what to do other than awkwardly pat your face. So I know that some information I have, guaranteed to make you cry. So I've scheduled that information for later on in the timeline, so we can both mentally prepare and maybe get to know each other so I don't need to pat your face in a bad attempt at comfort."

Leo smiles, nodding "That's actually genius actually. Can you print this out for me?"

"Something like it. I'm going to get you a screen of the calendar to put on your wall so it can update as we change and move things around." Donnie says.

That is so convenient and helpful. Leo says "Where have you been all my life."

Donnie deadpans "Tragically separated. So. First things first. When's your birthday?"

"Dunno." Leo says,

Donnie's head jerks to look at Leo "What do you mean you don't know?"

"You put two kids with time blindness in a room with a culture of no birthdays. Sometimes Mikey would celebrate because he thought it was fun but some years he forgot." Leo explains, grabbing the tablet from Donnie.

He sweeps through the months before finding what he was looking for. He taps the date and says "Here! That can be my birthday!"

Donnie takes the tablet back "Well at least it's-- you can't have that one."

"Why not?" Leo says with a shit eating grin.

"Why not!" Donnie repeats, deeply offended, "That's my birthday!"

"And we're twins! So we gotta share!" Leo says.

"We cannot be twins! Didn't we already discuss this!" Donnie says.

"Family ain't biological, we discussed that!" Leo says.

"We can be brothers! But twins?! Twins! What got that in your brain?" Donnie hisses.

"It's the heterochromia for me, babey." Leo winks.

Donnie blinks rapidly, processing those words "The heterochromia?" His arms go up in the air as he screams "That doesn't mean anything!"

"You find meaning when you look for it." Leo says, quoting one of Mikey's things.

"What does that even mean!" Donnie screeches, a little hysterical.

Leo bursts out laughing, nearly keeling over. He's not entirely sure why he's laughing, he's dead, but Donnie…

He doesn't hate Othello.

Donnie's offended expression has softened, maybe a little confused and trying to catch up to something he felt like he missed. But happy to see Leo enjoying himself. It aches, the bleeding compassion Donnie holds close to his chest, it aches so much that Donnie looks at him laughing with a sense of relief. Leo's a terrible person, he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve anything. He's dead.

Without thinking Leo just leans against Donnie's shoulder. Donnie tenses, but doesn't seem to make a move to remove Leo from his position. Donnie clears his throat "So. I… I am glad that you're here?"

"Is that a question?" Leo mumbles.

"No, I am glad that you're here." Donnie clears up, though he looks pensive.

He fidgets with the drawstrings on his pants "There's so much I want to tell you, because nobody else in the family has interacted with Big Mama and doesn't really get it. But you do. But…I also…really really hate her guts."

Leo chuckles "Yeah? No shit?"

"No shit." Donnie snorts ", I think she fucking sucks."

"You're not the only one." Leo says.

"I know. But evidently it's very complicated. And I know that if you try to defend her, I will end up yelling. Because I just." Donnie's expression notably changed "Well, it's because of the autism actually."

Leo snorts lightly "Really?"

"Yeah. A sign of autism is a strong sense of justice. And even though my morals are undoubtedly chaotic neutral at best, and in this current political age, tragedy is an inevitability. But when somebody, who directly affects me and those I care about, thinks they can hurt my people without me doing anything about it? Ha! I will destroy them from the inside out!" Donnie says, triumphantly, bursting into villainous laughter.

Leo feels something at the phrase 'my people.' He files it away. He also thinks he wants to stash Donnie away into a box. Because he is Such a Guy. Such a dude. Such a character. A literal madman. Just gotta push him into a box to keep hidden, and safe. Donnie stops laughing maniacally and says nonchalantly "Can we go to my lab so I can get measurements of your shell? Afterwards we can have lunch with Raph then we can start on the schedule for information exchange and stuff and start brainstorming about Mikey, kay?"

Leo nods, standing up. He looks down at Donnie until Donnie stands up. Donnie guides Leo into his lab and Leo takes a moment to observe and digest information. It is now becoming very clear to him that Donnie is a purple purple guy, because everything in this lab is purple. Lights blink from nearly every surface. Pipework hangs from the walls. Leo recognises a breaker box on another wall. Another wall where his battle shells are inset into it, with a long mechanical bo staff inset as well. Leo does a double take before analyzing a large whiteboard with the words BIG MAMA IS AN ASS written in big blocky letters at the top. There's different lines of writing, in purple, red, and yellow, with the connecting idea of how to break Leo and Mikey out. They really collected a lot of stuff to do this, talking about contacts and resources and weaknesses discovered in the hotel.

Donnie flings himself in front of the whiteboard, screeching "Don't look at that!"

He flips it over to the blackboard side and the markers fall to the floor. Leo picks up the markers, and discovers a blue and orange marker mixed into the bunch. The words haven't been rubbed off yet. Are they brand new?

Donnie snatches the markers from Leo's hands and shoves them inside of a nearby drawer. Leo's heart aches. Donnie pushes him. onto a table and begins fluttering around. Clearly seeming flustered. Leo hopes he didn't mess anything up. If he understands what it means, its rather sweet, actually.

He hears humming, and turns to see-- a drone? It's bright purple, so it's obviously Donnie's. The drone side eyes Leo, looking nervous "Donnie?"

"Sheldon." Donnie doesn't even look up from his computer.

Leo waves. Sheldon says "So…am I supposed to give you the report now-- or later?"

"Did you upload it?" Donnie asks.

"Yeah, just the raw data though." Sheldon explains.

Donnie looks over at Sheldon "Scale of one to Chernobyl?"

Sheldon tilts his head and inhales, though obviously robots don't need to breathe? Is it recorded? "Weeeelll" Sheldon says uncertainly "she's starting to kill people."

Leo schools his expression. Big Mama does not kill people usually, dead people are useless to her. What does this mean though. Donnie flicks up his goggles "Anyone important?"

"She's targeting the babysitter corps and their death certificates haven't been digitized yet. So some of your contacts might be dead." Sheldon explains. "It's looking terrible for Big Mama. Even in the yokai world, nobody likes it when employers kill their employees. But there's some asshats defending her. I've uploaded a yokai twitter thread so you can better assess the public outlook."

"How are the babysitters reacting?" Donnie leans back into his chair.

Sheldon groans "Scattering. Going into hiding, from what I can tell. They're going to be much harder to track because of this."

"They've been prepared for this." Leo blurts.

Donnie and Sheldon both look at Leo, who half sinks into his shell. He likes attention, why is he shrinking underneath their gazes? What's wrong with him? Donnie's eyebrows raise and he says "Care to elaborate?'

Leo looks down at his hands, and it almost feels like a first person videogame. "Um. So you said they where scattering and- all that?"

"Yup. Decently effective at it as well." Sheldon remarks.

When you die in a videogame sometimes there is a spectator mode. Is that what's happening? Leo folds his hands into fists "So it was planned. At least somewhat. I mean- they are literally called babysitters for a reason. If anything happened to him-- they'd be held liable."

Donnie rests his head on a hand "But killing them is a little unusual for her though. Its an anomaly."

Dead people are useless to her. She doesn't let people just die on her.

"She's upset." For some reason Leo thinks that its a lie.

Donnie opens his mouth, and Leo can almost imagine what's in his head. Why is she upset? Why is she killing the babysitters? The people that Leo made her hire. If she is upset does that mean she cared? Does she blame Leo? Does she hate him? For the deals and arguments and hushed threats and the audacity to give his little brother a higher quality of life. He can almost see it on the tip of Donnie's tounge.

Donnie closes his mouth, without saying a thing. He shakes his head and turns to Sheldon. He says something though Leo can't hear the individual words. Sheldon hovers away, laying down on a counter covered in tech. There's a small tension in Donnie's shoulders as he opens a drawer and drags out tailor's tape. Leo doesn't move or say anything as Donnie measures his shell.

Donnie's drawn on eyebrows furrow together ever so slightly. Leo wonders if the purpose is to make him more expressive. Does he want to be more easy to read? That idea feels laughable. He doesn't like the feeling of distaste, so he tries to tell himself that it's okay. Its fine. Donnie is okay.

Donnie exhales as he sits down at his chair and types in the measurements. "Okay. This is a good start. Have any requests for implementations?"

Leo grunts.

Gears click in Donnie's head, as he visibily thinks, and he immediately focuses on Leo. "Are you here right now?"

Leo grunts.

Donnie rubs underneath his mask, seeming a little frustrated "No. Um. Do you…feel…real? Do you feel real right now?"

Leo remains silent.

Donnie's eyes widened and his lips pursed. He dramatically gestures with his hands "I have no idea what that means! But it's okay. It's fine."

It's not fine.

Donnie sighs, defeated, and stands back up. "Okay. Let me go get Raph for lunch."

Donnie walks away. Leo does not move from the top of the table. Donnie returns and grabs Leo's arm and drags him out of the lab. Donnie deposits him at the kitchen island, pats his shoulder, and leaves the kitchen. Leo remains. Quiet. Fading. Rotting.

He looks up, and sees a rat dressed in ninja gear. Splinter? That's what his name is. Splinter seems surprised, and they both stare at each other for a moment. Leo looks back down at the counter.

The large form of Raph walks in through, smiling with his little snaggletooth. "Hey, buddy. How are we feeling?"

What a bizarre thing to ask. How are we feeling? Strange.

Donnie walks in from behind him. He pulls out a tupperware container from the fridge and sets the table as Raph sits across from Leo. "You not wanting to talk right now?"

Leo grunts.

Raph nods, sagely "Understood. Okay. So, my left hand is yes and my right hand is no. You got that?"

Raph holds out his two large hands. Calloused. Hard working. Leo pats Raph's left hand. "Good! Now. Do you wanna talk about your feelings?"

He holds out his two hands. Leo looks at him. He knows things. Mikey has talked about it before. Frequently tricked him into talking about it. But right now? Right now, Leo left Mikey in the arena. Right now, Draxum didn't lie. His brothers were dead. He is dead. Mikey is alone.

Leo pats Raph's right hand.

Raph smiles "That's okay, man. We can talk about other things."

Donnie sets down three sets of plates of spaghetti, Leo's plate has two leaves of spinach on top. "According to my research, red eared sliders are omnivorous. So you'll need more vegetables then me and Raph do."

"April thinks we should keep track of our food like we did when we were kids." Raph says.

Leo remembers that conversation differently.

"We eat much better than we did as children." Donnie says dismissively.

Raph glances at Leo and back at Donnie. Donnie scrunches his face in confusion "Why are you looking at-- oh! Oh!" Donnie says, realizing.

He nods mechnically "Yes. We should keep track of when we all eat like we did as children."

Its kind of cute.

Raph and Donnie talk about Jupiter Jim and the latest bugs in Raph's wrestling bot and how Sheldon is doing such a good job at dismantling Donnie's firewalls. It…it hurts in a way. But Leo does not mind.

He mostly pushes around the noodles with his fork. He eats a little bit of it. Though it is…a lot. Flavorwise. Mikey's food was infrequent. And healthy does not mean it tastes good. Most of it remains on his plate. Raph looks at him, concerned. But takes Leo's plate and scrapes the remants into a tupperware container.

Leo stands up and walks to his room. He spies Splinter on his chair. There's supposed to be thoughts about that. But not tonight. Leo shuts the door behind him and flops down onto his bed, not even pulling the blankets over him, and falling asleep.

He hears the door opening, and he needs to ignore it. He hears gentle footsteps, and something soft presses into his side. The footsteps leave. And the door does not close. Leo opens a single, groggy, eye, and finds a teddy bear next to him.

Its cute.

Almost on instinct, Leo wraps Mikey's bandana around the teddy bear and brings it close to his chest. The light shining through the crack in his door.

Later, Leo wakes up. Feeling rebellious, he walks out of his room. To his surprise, he doesn't get thrown back in. He wanders a little bit, seeing Splinter snoring softly on his chair, the remnants of snacks surrounding the arcade cabinets. He enters the kitchen to see Donnie, with his bandana pushed up onto his forehead, hunched over a coffee machine with a screwdriver clenched in his hand as if he's about to murder it.

"Uh. Hello." Leo says.

"You're awake!" Declares Donnie, surprised.

"You as well." Leo states.

A moment of silence. Leo holds his teddybear close.

"Is it not working?" Leo asks, half rhetorically.

"No, I'm trying to fuck it." Donnie deadpans.

A moment of silence.

Donnie's expression falls "Don't tell Raph I said that."

Leo rolls his eyes "You will probably end up telling him yourself. You are both terrible liars."

Donnie snorts, gesturing with screwdriver in hand "Oh? We're terrible liars? I'm half convinced you have telepathy when you're not parading around in your delusions."

There's a brief moment that Donnie almost regrets what he said but Leo just grins and says "At least I don't have humongous eyebags with the eyebrows to match."

Donnie's eye twitches, he hesitantly says "Well, at least I don't have the audacity to drink an entire bottle of chocolate syrup. Like, do you know how disgusting that is?"

Leo scoffs, settling down next to Donnie "At least I don't paint my entire purple."

Donnie huffs "Your cell was mental illness gray."

"Yes. That's why I have eighty seven mental illnesses and wasn't allowed in most public places." Leo remarks.

"You sucked the mental illness straight out of that room." Donnie says, tightening a screw.

"Like a sponge!" Leo says cheerfully.

"This implies that therapy wrings you out." Donnie states, a bit distant.

"That's why they call it a wringer!" Leo jokes.

Donnie groans and Leo feels a spark of life inside of his chest "No, no, no! Get this!" Leo says "We should watch a documentary about sponges! I hear its quite absorbing!"

"I'm gonna strangle you." Donnie comments.

"You mean wring my neck." Leo says with a shiteatting grin.

Donnie groans "You're awful!"

"Call me self absorbed." Leo shrugs.

Donnie rolls his eyes and gestures with his screwdriver in hand "Well then I guess we both really are twins because guess who's about to make it all about himself!"

Donnie points at himself with his thumb "Me!"

He rolls forward and says "I still wanna brainstorm with you. Not like either of us are gonna be sleeping the rest of the night. I've read your medical history. So c'mon, let's get this sleep deprivation going!"

Donnie tosses his screwdriver over his shoulder, and it hits something. He hops off the kitchen island, and just straight up leaves the mutilated coffee machine on the kitchen island and walks out of the kitchen. Leo marvels at Donnie's existence for a moment, before Donnie walks back in and drags Leo out of the kitchen by the arm. He leads Leo into his lab, with the lights dimmed. Leo's eyes adjust, and he can feel the humming of electrical currents. He sees Sheldon conked out at his assumed charging dock.

Donnie shoves an office chair over and gestures for Leo to sit down while he goes gets another, commenting "April asked me to add the tagline. She said it was important information."

Leo sits down and looks at the whiteboard. It's been wiped clean, with big blocky words of OPERATION: BAD SHEEP MAN! NO ORANGE FOR YOU! written at the top with a small yellow tagline of HE STABBED ME!! >:( beneath it. An orange marker is taped to the corner of the board.

Donnie returns and holds out a blue marker for Leo. Leo stares at it for a moment, and looks back up at Donnie who shrugs. He's acting like it's no big deal, but Leo recognises the sacred ritual he's being offered to join. He reverently takes the marker from Donnie's outstretched hand and uncaps it.

Chapter Text

The door is still locked.

Mikey doesn't have any of his things.

Ultimately, in terms of negotiation, his paints where pretty low on the totem pole. Arguing for things like, the fact that Mikey is a person, information about what Big Mama and Leo where hiding from him, the ability to go outside of his room, all were much higher in priority. But he thinks he missed one easily dismissible fact about his paints.

They help him process his emotions.

And man there is alot of them.

Mikey does not consider himself an angry guy. Mostly because of his irritating ability to empathize with literally everything in a room. He…he can understand Leo to a certain extent. He would understand more iF LEO FUCKING TOLD HIM ANYTHING.

SERIOUSLY! DO THEY REALLY EXPECT HIM TO BE CONTENT WITH BEING A NAIVE FUCKING IDIOT ALL HIS LIFE! HE WAS RAISED BY THEM! HE KNOWS THEM! HE KNOWS HOW THEY THINK AND THEIR INSECURITIES BECAUSE THEY NEED TO BE SO DEFENSIVE ALL THE TIME AND HE JUST WANTED TO HELP THEM AND HE…

He thought he knew them.

He didn't know them enough.

There's a distinct hurt feeling to the entire situation. Which isn't that helpful because being hurt can mean a wild variety of different things. What is the cause of being hurt?

Well that one is real fucking obvious. He feels betrayed because Leo and Big Mama have been lying to him. Not even lying. Just…omitting-- which is a form of lying. Spirits, he feels so stupid. Okay, maybe its not as obvious as he thought it was. He feels betrayed because…they didn't trust him? Yeah, yeah, that feels more accurate.

Mikey wants to be a capable person. But they deprived him of a lot of resources required to be capable. They were stunting his growth. Right?

You see, Mikey thinks to his imaginary audience, this is why painting is so good for externalizing your emotions. Because if it's inside of you, it's not real. Painting puts it outside of you, making it more real. Its like how time and clocks are related.

But what if he's using painting as a crutch? But that's not how life works. You are not born alone, in solitude. Everyone has people. Everyone.

Who are Draxum's people?

The door opens and Draxum stands there, still wearing his armor set. Does the guy sleep in that thing? Mikey jumps up "Finally! I've been waiting for hours!"

Draxum studies him for a moment before asking "When did you wake up?"

"I have no idea! Now let's get going!" Mikey almost walks past Draxum before he reminds himself that this relationship isn't quite there yet. Gotta prove you're a good little boy™ before achieving little shit behavior.

Draxum seems mildly impressed by Mikey's self control to not go bolting out the door and announces "Come. Let us go to the dojo."

"Oh yeah! You said we were training today?" Mikey says with a bounce in his step.

Draxum starts walking and Mikey makes sure to stay on his heels. Draxum says "Yes. Today is a diagnostic training excercise, to see your strengths and weakness. All of which will be implemented into a learning program meant to improove your-" man, Draxum must really like hearing himself speak.

Okay, Mikey! Focus! What is Draxum saying? Blah blah pity that the training couldn't have been started earlier blah blah Big Mama is out to get him blah blah something something history lesson. Once Mikey sees the entrance to the dojo, he cartwheels onto the padded flooring. He does a backflip and lands into a handstand "Finally! I've been soooo bored doing nothing in my room all night."

"Have you been sleeping?" Draxum asks.

Oops, time to change the topic. He jumps back onto his feet "Where are the goyles' by the way. Thought Hugin and Munin would like to see my sick skills."

"They are off, using their infamous gargoyle strength to gather some alchemical ingredients I am in need of." Explains Draxum.

"Can I learn alchemy?" Mikey blurts.

Draxum seems a touch startled, and Mikey quietly takes pride in constantly surprising him. Draxum schools himself and his expression returns to passively unimpressed "That can be arranged after your physical training. Now, here are your training clothes." Draxum hands Mikey a set of folded clothes "Go change in the bathroom."

Mikey goes change in the bathroom. He stretches in the clothes, getting used to the feel of them. The shin gaurds are weird, but he's used to elbow pads and knee pads, so its fine. The problem is that they are all heinously boring, being an uninspired black all the way through, from the pads to the breathable excercise fabric underneath. He'll have to change that once he can grab a set of paints.

Mikey emerges from the bathroom to find a weird looking vine golem. He looks at Draxum and points at the golem. Which he successfully translates as question, Draxum explains "That will be your sparring partner."

Mikey looks at the golem's blank face "It doesn't have eyes."

"Not every opponent will have eyes." Draxum points out.

Mikey nods, finding this a good explanation. He turns to the golem, bigger than him but that's not surprising, he is pretty small, no face just vague indentations, muscle groups similar to most humanoids, okay, all done. Mikey bolts at it. He lands a roundhouse kick to the golem's face, who stumbles. As it recovers Mikey lands a triple punch into the golem's sides before flipping away from the golem's punch. It steps closer, but Mikey keeps the distance. Slinking throughout the entire dojo. Dodging as the golem throws punches at him. It reaches, trying to grab him, and Mikey simply drops onto the floor, pivoting off the pads and into a backflip.

The golem tries to get Mikey off balance but he rolls with it, grabbing onto the golem, and climbing on. Mikey rolls onto the golem's back. The creature struggles to get Mikey off of it. He scratches into the golem's non-existent face on instinct. The golem screams (?????) and falls onto its back, with Mikey still on it. It stuns Mikey enough that he lets go and the golem is on top of him, wailing on him in a thousand punches. Bad, bad, bad. Reach up, Mikey has slashed the golem's face, throat, and chest. Thrashing and hissing. He bucks the golem off. There's less thought when Mikey leaps back onto it, teeth to its neck and empty arteries. The golem throws Mikey off and into a wall.

The breath is knocked out of him. Mikey remembers watching Leo experience this.

One of the golem's hands morph into long sickles. Something in Mikey screams and he's moving just as the sickle swings. Is this normal? Does it matter?

Is it fair?

Who fucking knows at this point.

Mikey sidesteps a swinging blade. Duck underneath another. Breathe, like you're on the silks or swing. You are not useless. You are not weak. You are not stupid. You are Michael-fucking-angelo and you are going to win this bitch.

Grab the golem by the elbow and swing it onto its back. Something audibly cracks, and briefly Mikey gets excited at the idea of the golem having bones. Pull at the elbow until you see the sinewy vines stretch and CHOMP!

THWACK!

He completely forgot that the golem had two arms.

The room spins, and the golem stands above Mikey with a blade raised. His breath hitches, and he rolls to the side, struggling to keep his breath even. Something's screaming. His face is wet. He wipes at it, finding his hand to return with blood. Head wounds bleed alot. Where's the golem? Not where he left it. Destroy it. Obliterate it.

Mikey gets kicked to the floor by the golem. He rights himself onto his feet in a smooth motion. He stares at the golem. A low growl emanates from his chest. Destroy it. Obliterate it. (Escape.) Lunge. Feint left. Downward motion, plow through the legs, he's got it on its back now. There's a seam between the vine simulated muscles and he digs in. His mind lags, feeling the dry, shifting vines. He's split for a moment, apart of him recognising that he's fighting a construct that doesn't have organs, another part of him goes oh shit what is wrong with this guy, I gotta see.

So he wraps a hand around a vine and yanks it outside of the body. Something squelches. Oh. That is definitely pain. He has been stabbed. Not majorly. Just in the arm. But he uses his arms all the damn time. So he opens his mouth to bite out an artery and--

The golem melts away into a pile of vines.

Mikey thinks he recognises this feeling.

He turns to watch with wide eyes as Draxum clomps over with his hooves. Mikey shakes his hands, jumping up onto his feet. He looks up at Draxum, not entirely sure what to expect.

Draxum clears his throat "You…performed oddly."

Mikey puts on a grin, though he's not really feeling it. "That just means I'm really unique, right!"

"You treated it like it was your average yokai, which it was not. You should've come up with a strategy to deal with a creature that doesn't contain any organs for you to use." Draxum explains.

Mikey tries not to fidget underneath Draxum"s gaze. He's not good with strategy.

"You subjected yourself to several of the golem's attacks."

He didn't subject himself to anything.

"You barely even used you main asset, the one which I designed you for, and you certainly had such an incredibly inconsistent relationship with the distance you keep between yourself and your enemy that I thought you where constantly retreating."

What is Draxum's intentions behind this? What does Draxum think he is doing with this speech?

Draxum clears his throat "But, if this where a normal enemy of yours, you would have succeeded several times over. But why not exponentially increase that?"

Draxum hands Mikey two three fingered gauntlets. Did Draxum make them himself? Its so hard to find three fingered gloves. Mikey grins and slides both of them on. He feels a strange mechanism inside of the glove and tenses his fingers. Finding that a pair of claws extend from the fingertips. He repeats the motion, in, out, in, out. An extension of himself. A way to prevent him from getting hurt. A weapon to protect himself with.

He should be happy.

"Why not give this to me earlier?" Mikey says, more aggressive than meaning too.

Draxum blinks, caught off guard "That would've ruined the diagnostic spar."

"If this was a diagnostic spar why not laying up a bit? I was fighting for my life out there." Mikey keeps a tigt reign on his tone, tense, but terse.

"I made you to withstand far worse things." Draxum says formally "You will be fine."

"I don't feel fine now." Mikey spits, "I am covered in bruises and guess what! I will be covered in more bruises in a few hours as my body realises Aw Fuck those blood vessels are fucking broken!"

"Every injury you recieve is your own fault, child." Draxum says, calmly.

Mikey laughs "Well then I guess you got defeated by a fucking six year old then! Since I took out your eye before I even learned anything."

Draxum growls "You took me by surprise, it means nothing."

"Well, I was taken by surprise by the fact this thing was trying to kill me! Aren't Diagnostic tests are supposed to be basic! Not land me with a stab wound!" Mikey gestures to his bleeding arm.

Draxum's eye twitches "This is basic training for literally every other yokai-" "-Oh! I thought I wasn't like other yokai. I thought I was special!" Mikey interrupts.

"Every more reason to harden your lessons." Draxum barks.

"Every more reason to come up with a better fucking lesson plan then throw a golem at the kid until he nearly gets gutted!" Mikey sceeches, his voice cracking as his brand new claws scratch into his plastron.

Draxum steps up, towering over Mikey "You think you know better than me."

Tears roll down Mikey's face as he chokes "Yeah, I think I do. For all I know this stupid prophecy of yours is merely an old man's narcissistic delusion to try and make himself sound important. The majority of yokai kind got over the war, we are rebuilding and you're still stuck in the past."

Draxum strikes Mikey, throwing Mikey across the room as he roars "You naive and belligerent child!"

Mikey's breath is knocked out of him. He lays on the ground as Draxum stomps across the training room. Draxum picks Mikey up by the overhang of his shell, and spits into his face. "I have been nothing but kind to you. I let you order groceries. I let you cook. I gave you a spirits-damned bed."

Mikey winces, something inside of him churning. Draxum pulls Mikey closer, "I saved you from that witch! And this is the thanks I get?"

Apart of Mikey wants to be small. He wants to shrink underneath Draxum's grasp. This is too much, that part of him thinks, we're gonna get in trouble.

The other part of Mikey thinks-- The audacity of this bitch--

Mikey knees Draxum in the chin, screaming, "That is the bare fucking minimum!"

The goat lets go, and Mikey backflips away, giveing himself space to breathe. Draxum growls, and Mikey growls back, "Giving me a bed? Giving me food? That is the fucking bare minimum for raising a child. So don't color me impressed."

He unsheathes his claws, ducking underneath Draxum's swing to scrape against his armor. He looks up, and sees a small gap between the armor plating his throat and the faceplate. Mikey itches to pierce it. Itches to destroy everything if everyone is fucking like this.

Draxum kicks Mikey in the side, and something cracks. Pain flares throughout his plastron, but all Mikey feels is rage. He leaps to attack, but suddenly his arms and legs are restrained by pink vines. He's brought face to face with Draxum, who growls "I created you!"

"Doesn't make you remarkable." Mikey can't help but grin hatefully "Underneath all that armor you're just a boring, sad sack of a man. I've seen enough of this castle to know that no one has come to visit you for years. So unimportant nobody wants to come visit you."

Draxum grabs Mikey by the face "You will learn to respect your superiors."

Mikey scoffs "What superior? The only thing I see is a little bitch--" Draxum punches Mikey.

His cheek splits open underneath Draxum's gauntlets. His chest hurts. His side hurts. He's tired. He's fought too many battles today. Why is he doing this? He wants to go home. "Hitting me will not make me respect you more." Mikey says through clenched teeth "It's just a guaranteed way to distance yourself from me."

Draxum looks away. Thinking.

Mikey is losing energy fast. Draxum is taking him somewhere. He doesnt quite remember why he was angry in the first place. That's bad, isn't it. He needs his paints. But he doubts he'll be able to get them now. He can't think of any way to spin it so that Draxum believes him. Its a coping mechanism, not an indulgence.

Draxum tosses Mikey in his room and locks the door.

Mikey feels like shit. He lays down on his bed, and looks back on what happened. Why did he act like that? Like, Draxum had no right to hit him, but trying to kill Draxum in return? That's a different level of hurt. It doesn't add up, at least not with what Mikey knows. But Mikey doesn't know alot in the end of all things, does he?

Mikey really is just stupid and naive. Go with this guy who claims to be your Dad. Abandon everything you knew because Leo betrayed you. Trade one cage for another.

Mikey isn't an angry guy. He doesn't want to be. But how can he change that when he doesn't have spirits-damned paint.

Chapter Text

Leo holds a unicorn squishmallow as he and Raph watch an old wrestling show. Raph would try to talk about it, but then he starts vibrating with excitement and rambling so much that Leo can't make out a single damn thing before declaring "WRESTLING!" While shaking Leo by the shoulders as if Raph's thoughts could pass through him via osmosis.

Honestly, Leo kinda gets it.

The fighting is kinda boring to him, he knows the sight of fake blood, but the showmanship is charming. Everyone's got their own shtick, and the fake fighting has its own charm. Having similar misdirection strategies used with street magicians. Also there are a lot of mostly-naked men for Leo to passively oogle.

Donnie steps into the room, holding a tablet in his hands before sniffing the air. He frowns, and Raph pauses the wrestling show “You smellin’ something?”

“It’s not you.” Donnie says, slinking around before landing right next to Leo “It’s you. You've been wearing those clothes for three days straight, haven't you?"

"Well I don't exactly have anything else to wear." Leo snarks.

"You could've at the very least asked to borrow our clothes." Donnie says.

Leo declares "I would much rather die, thank you very much."

Raph makes a choked sound at that and Leo can't help but chuckle. Donnie huffs, slightly amused, and says "Well. You know what that means! Dramatic pause-- thrift shopping!"

"April's new job is at the one store, yeah?" Raph says, turning to face Donnie better.

Donnie pulls out his phone and begins typing away. "Yup. We'll start there. Get a discount while Apes still has the job."

Leo says "That implies you don't think she'll keep the job?"

"April can never keep a job." Donnie says bluntly.

"She's been through, like what,,” Raph stretches and says with a groan “thirty seven jobs this year?"

"I updated the tally sheet, you can check there." Donnie says.

Leo asks. "Why can't she keep a job?"

Raph looks to the right as he tries to remember "Well, she sometimes goes crimefighting-" Leo's heart skips a beat at that ", with us in the middle of the night, which leads to her being exhausted and late to work the next morning. She also doesn't take any crap from anyone and has punched her bosses a few times. Is that also on the tally sheet, Don?"

"Yup." Donnie announces.

"Though there was this one time it was entirely Donnie's fault." Raph says innocently.

Donnie looks up from his phone, shocked and horrified. Raph continues "You see, she worked at this place called Alberto's, where there's this animatronic bear that broke when a kid threw cake at it. So she called Donnie to fix it and he proceeded to make it sentient and it tried to kill all the kids."

Donnie hums "I'm afraid I can't recall such a thing."

"Donnie." Raph scolds.

"Totally out of character. Nope. Never happened." Donnie says, looking away as if that'll prevent him from getting caught.

"Donnie." Raph repeats.

"Who knew what a buncha razzle dazzle could do to a rudimentary AI." Donnie starts awkwardly whistling.

Raph shakes his head, though it has an affectionate air about him. Raph smiles at Leo "Anyways, she finally got through the happy birthday song, through sheer force of will!" Raph cheers.

"Nobody ended up dying, right?" Leo asks, concerned.

"Nah! We're too good for that." Raph says with a big grin.

Raph turns to Donnie “Are we going right now?”

“Who am I? A heathen?” Dramatically gasps Donnie, he turns around “We’ll leave when you two are finished with your show.”

“Wait!” Leo calls out.

Donnie turns his head with his neck, which is much longer then Leo thought it was. Shaking off that abrupt information Leo asks “Didn’t you come in here to say something? Like other to tell me that I stink? And also isn’t a little weird for three turtles to go up topside?”

Donnie checks his bracer and says “Ah. Yes. It is merely to alert Raph that the wrestling bot has been updated, and so should run smoother now and be able to integrate more abilities into its moveset.”

Donnie looks up from his bracer “Also, your battleshell is ready, it is a prototype so it is going to be adjusted, but it needs to be tested and going thrifting seems to be the best mini-test of mobility. Also, we have disguises. You can borrow mine, since we’re the exact same size. Lying practice is on the second tuesday of every month.”

Leo chuckles at the idea of needing to practice lying. He says “I have one more question. Where are we getting the money?”

Donnie walks out of the room, without answering the question. Leo guffaws in confusion and turns to Raph, gesturing for some kind of explanation. Raph just smiles and gently shakes his head “I don’t really get it. It’s some weird mambo jumbo thing he’s doing. Well…he does a bunch of things. Steal from billionaires, something called nfts, cryptocurrency, outsourcing his coding skills, and v-tubing.”

“What’s v-tubing?” Leo asks.

“You know youtube?” Raph asks.

Leo nods, “Yeah.”

“It’s like fake youtubers.” Raph explains as if it makes perfect sense.

It does not make perfect sense. Leo’s beak hangs open in confusion. A little line forms in between Raph’s brows, “Uh. You know. Anime?”

Leo mutely nods.

“It’s like if anime and youtube had a baby.” Raph processes what he said for a moment and puts a knuckle in his mouth “No, that doesn’t make any sense. Um. Okay. It’s like. A fake mask. No. A full body suit! Well that’s only applicable sometimes. Uuuuuuuuh.”

Raph pokes at his bracer and says “Google, what’s v-tubing?”

Raph reads off of his bracer “It says here that v-tubers Are Online Entertainers Who Use A Vir-Virtual Avatar Generated Using Computer Graphics. Sometimes motion capture software is also used. To capture movement!”

Raph puts down his arm, and asks “Does that make more sense now?”

Leo nods, folding his arms across the squishmallow “I guess so? So a person uses a digital avatar to cover their real face.”

“Yes. Lots of v-tubers don’t even show their real face.” Raph interjects.

Leo nods “Mhm. So it’s like…a persona?”

It feels weird to use one of the words Mikey used. He made lots of personas back in the day. Raph nodes “Yup! It’s this thing where sometimes they’re the content creator and sometimes they’re the character. It merges together,” Raph laces his fingers together “Like that!”

Leo thinks he gets it better now, it’s like what he did in the battle nexus. “Yeah, that makes sense. How does the motion capture stuff work?”

“I know this one!” Shouts Raph, his large tail beginning to wag “,It’s called rigging! One of my favorite twitch streamers just rigs avatars on his channel. I think it’s very cool and relaxing to see a still image come to life.”

Leo hesitantly asks “Can you…send that to me? So I can check it out.”

“Yeah totally!” Raph pulls out his phone to copy/paste the link.

Something small and interesting, is the Donnie logo on the back of the phone, and the fact that the phone is built to fit Raph’s massive hands. Leo’s own phone also bares the Donnie logo, but its much smaller. Raph got a custom phone. Can Leo get one too?

Raph unpauses the wrestling show and they finish up the episode. Leo finds himself not really watching it though, instead it feels like he's watching the back of his head. The show ends and Raph stands up. He stretches. Leo blankly stands up and follows Raph to Donnie's lab.

"Donnie! We're done." Raph calls.

Donnie pushes himself off his desk, spinning around in his office chair. "Perfect!"

A manic grin spreads over Donnie's face. He stops himself from spinning with his feet and grabs a blue battle shell from a table and rockets off towards Raph and Leo. Raph stops him and Donnie holds up the battle shell prototype with glittering eyes. Leo takes it from Donnie's grasp and holds it, not entirely sure how to…do anything with it really.

Donnie bolts up, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. "Ah. You don't know how to attach it?"

Leo hesitates. "No."

“Cool. Lemme show you.” Donnie says, standing up.

Leo gives Donnie the shell to hold and takes off his hoodie to give better access to his real shell. Donnie circles to Leo’s back and sets the battleshell on his shoulders. “How’s it feel?”

“A little weird I guess? Not used to it.” Leo reports.

Donnie turns Leo around and puts his hands on Leo’s shoulders “You see these things? These are clasps that will squeeze out the air between your shell and the battleshell. It’ll feel a little tight. Like-” Donnie switches the clasps shut and Leo stumbles from the sensation “this. You good?”

“Yeah. I’m good…just surprised.” Leo reaches blindly, and finds Donnie’s arms.

“In order to take it off just switch the clasp. You got that?” Donnie states.

Leo takes a deep breath, feeling as if he’s about to go into the arena. Why is he so nervous? “Okay. I got it. I’m good. I’m fine.”

Donnie cheers “GREAT! Let’s get going then.”

Leo startles from Donnie’s sudden shouting. “Donnie!” Scolds Raph.

Donnie shakes his hands “Sorry, sorry! Let’s get going! Here-” Donnie runs out of his lab and comes back with an armful of clothing “Wear this!”

Leo slides on the hoodie, facemask, and shoes easily. Raph grabs his human garb and Donnie emerges from his room completely covered. Leo thinks he’s beginning to get a hang of what the human disguises are. It just means covering up as much green as possible. Leo shifts his weight, restless and anxious. Filled with the incredible want to go home to a place that will only hurt him.

Raph and Donnie talk amicably as they climb the sewer ladders. Leo holds himself smally, he doesn’t feel like he should be here. Raph pushes the manhole lid off and they emerge into the city. Leo looks up at the impossibly tall buildings. For some reason he’s surprised. He thought that they buildings he saw a few days earlier would’ve somehow collapsed. But they’re still here.

The cars are endless and loud. Leo pulls the hood further down his face, to block out all the noise. Donnie falls in step with Leo and explains how to walk and the rules of walking like a new yorker. Leo isn’t hearing much of it, but he watches Donnie ramble about all the rules. Raph’s massive hand rests on Leo’s back. He’s still anxious, but it’s in a different way. He’s got Donnie on one side, rambling with his eyes crinkled in a way that tell of a smile. He’s got Raph on the other, a touch quiet, his head’s up and watching the movement of the crowd. He’s…safe? But if Big Mama--

Raph grabs Leo’s hand and they all walk across the moving traffic like lunatics. Leo collapses onto the sidewalk, hyperventilating. Holy shit! Why would they do that! Donnie and Raph crouch down next to him, checking in on him. Leo signals that he needs a minute, so they guide him outside of the moving crowd.

Leo struggles to find his breath. Raph reaches out to Leo, and Leo grabs the hand. Raph scoops Leo up and they continue walking. It’s easier in Raph’s arms, when he doesn’t need to worry about the writhing crowd. They enter a building, and things immediately become smaller. It smells old, and cozy.

He doesn't see April yet, but he sees other humans. He still feels surprised that the humans aren't…doing something. They just pass them. Like its no problem. Raph grabs a cart and they guide Leo through the thrift store. It's a bit hard finding clothes for Raph since he is massive™, but they find some things. They can't try things on since there's a gap in the changing room door and they'd see their turtle feet, also they're too small for Raph. Leo starts on a small rant about how it's bullshit that Raph doesn't fit most normal people sized things, and how they should have more Raph sized things. Donnie enthusiastically joins in, and Leo thinks he can feel a bit of Donnie's intense love for Raph. Leo gets it, it aches to think about but he remembers feeling like that with Mikey. But maybe its different. Maybe Leo has always fucked it up.

Raph's looking bashful from the intense discussion of a more Raph-accessible world. Then a child points at him "Sir, you are very large!"

Surprisingly, Raph doesn't freak out. Instead he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he crouches down "Very observant, kid. You wanna know how I got so big?"

The kid mutely nods.

Raph scoops up Leo and Donnie, both yelping in surprise "It's all the weight I pull by carrying the immense love for my family around!"

"Raphael put me down this instant!" Donnie cries.

"But Dooooon don't you wanna be tall." Raph says annoyingly.

"I am sufficiently large, I do not need to be taller!" Shrieks Donnie.

Leo laughs at Donnie's distress and sees tiny little starlets shining in the kid's eyes. Raph sets both of them down, Donnie still complaining. The kid throws their hands in the air "Thank you, sir!"

Then the kid runs off. Leo likes to think that the kid now has a good future of becoming buff. Raph checks in with Donnie "You good though?"

Donnie huffs and sets his phone down "I'm fine. Just a little surprised. I'm not angry at you."

Raph asks again, tears in his eyes "Are you sure you're not mad at me?"

"Raph, Raphalla," Donnie paps Raph's face ",I will strain your brain of its anxiety juices. I am not angry at you."

Raph smiles, and Leo joins him. They go through a few more clothes, and go to the miscellaneous items section of the thrift store. Leo finds a unicorn hat that he falls in love with and sneaks it into the cart. Donnie grabs a few alarm clocks for whatever reason and Raph debates with himself about getting a manatee beanie baby for fifteen minutes until Donnie puts it in the cart.

They find April in the woman’s clothing section, who lights up at the sound of Donnie's "Greetings and salutations, my beloved bitch."

She turns around from her conversation with her coworkers and runs into a big hug with Raph, hesitating in front of Donnie, who initiates the hug. She gives Leo a friendly shoulder lean "What is up! My guys!"

One of April's co workers asks "Your guys?"

"Yeah! Raph, Donnie, and Leo!” April says “,I've told you about them!"

"Oh? This is the one and only Raph and Donnie?" April's coworker asks, gesturing to each respective brother "And Leo, too, I presume?”

For some reason, Leo feels surprised “You told them about me?”

April shrugs “Of course I did. I told them all about the struggles it took to get you away from your abusive Mom. It was essentially kinda the only thing happening for months. It’s really sad that we couldn’t get Mikey, but at the very base line, you’re safe now. ”
And just like that Leo’s perception of April switches in that instant. From maybe kinda boring maybe-threat of a human, to a keen liar sliding in the cover story into casual conversation and offering comfort in the same breath. Leo can’t help but give a small grin, but he hides it under a more somber exterior. “Oh? Uh. Yeah. I suppose.”

“If you don’t want me talking about it I can just say that the stork brought you two in really late.” April offers.

Leo allows himself to smile with that joke “It’s fine. Just try not to blab about it to strangers too much.”

April scoffs “Oh yeah, lemme just pull a rando off the sidewalk and trauma dump about how my adoptive brothers have been held captive by their ass of a mother for fourteen years.”

“It has probably happened somewhere in New York.” Declares Donnie.

“Ass of a mother?” Leo repeats, vaguely amused by the phrase.

“An ASS of a mother.” April parrots, satisfied.

One of April’s co-workers put a hand on her shoulder, and Leo finds himself reaching for a sword that’s not there. The co-worker gestures to another human “Psst. Liam’s nearby. Look busy.”

April nods, determined “Alright. See you guys later."

She and Raph bonk their foreheads together before they part ways with her. They buy their items with no problem, which feels like a novelty in and of itself, and leave, walking back through the crowded streets of New York City. Raph and Donnie talk amiably while Leo passively watches, holding onto the edge of Raph's sleeve. Leo remembers that he's wearing a battle shell, it hasn't even changed his center of gravity. Impressive.

He tries to move past that thought, i to analysing the facial expressions of Raph and Donnie because their words blur into the noise of the rampant crowds. But he can't forget about the battle shell again. Can't ignore the rubbing against all the ridges, dips, and cracks that make up his shell. Wrapped around his shell and shoulders, it's claustrophobic.

Once they reach the lair, Leo shucks off the hoodie and fumbles with the clasps for a minute before it pops off. Donnie catches it before it hits the floor. "You okay man?" Raph asks.

"No. No. Its fine." Is all Leo manages to get out.

He rubs the back of his neck, "Don't understand how you can wear it all the time."

Donnie offloads the bags of clothes to Raph so he can better handle the battleshell. They make eye contact, and something is communicated between them as Raph takes the clothes to the kitchen. Donnie explains, "It's a pressure stim. The tightness is meant to help the shell stay attatched, so I don't immediately know an alternative but I can definitely figure one out if that's-" "no, no. Its fine." Leo interrupts "Forgot it existed. Until I didn't."

Donnie looks at Leo, clearly not understanding. "So…do you feel like you are capable of giving me data right now?"

"Uh." Data? Leo shrugs ", Yeah. Sure."

Donnie puts the battle shell underneath his arm and gestures with his hands "On a scale of one to ten, one being the worst, ten being the best, how would you rate your experience with the battle shell today?"

Today? Its been a little overwhelming but just with the battle shell? "Fine. Solid five on the scale." Leo reports.

"Nice." Donnie retorts ",Do you want to decompress in your room? Or in my room?"

"My room, please." Leo hates how it almost sounds like a whine.

Donnie makes an 'ok' sign "Cool. Raph will drop off your clothes once they're done being washed. If you need anything, feel free to call me or Raph. Kay?"

Leo nods and leaves. His turns on the lights to his room as he enters it and finds that something is on his unmade bed. Cold, numb, analytical, Leo strides across the room and stares down at it. Twin swords in their respective sheathes. And a note.

He carefully unsheathes a sword and finds it to be a katana, well made with a fine edge to it. Easy to assume that the other one is a katana as well. The handles are identical. He resheathes the katana and reads the note.

Dear Leonardo,

Welcome home, son.
You always mentioned how you wanted to dual wield.

Sincerely,
Splinter

Not to him. No. Leo's barely talked to the guy. Calling him son? Where else could he have heard about Leo wanting to dual wield?

The battle nexus interviews.

He watched.

Chapter Text

"Heeey, little guy-" the door opens, Hugin and Munin do a double take when Mikey isn't on his bed.

Mikey raises his hand "Over here."

Mikey is laying in the corner of the room, all of his limbs retreated into his shell. The carpet surrounding him has been torn up. "Oh. Uh." Hugin stammers, fluttering above Mikey "Can I…ask what happened here?"

Hugin gestures vaguely. Mikey hesitates "I…was trying very hard to do a self control. So I sat myself in this corner and absolutely ruined the carpet."

Munin lands on top of Mikey's shell "What was the other option?"

"Ripping apart literally everything in this room." Mikey says, not making eye contact.

Munin pats Mikey's shell "Well destroying the carpet doesn't seem that bad, yeah!"

Hugin lands on the carpet "Uh. Which hole is your head?"

Mikey's head pops out of his shell. Hugin says "Ah. There you are!" Hugin rubs his hands together ",So. We heard…well we didn't hear anything because Boss doesn't like talking about this kinda stuff but we kinda gathered that something happened last night."

Munin rubs Mikey's shell, "Were the gauntlets not your size? I told him we should've asked for measurements first!"

One of Mikey's arms pops out of his shell, revealing the black, clawed gauntlet "Nah. They're perfect actually."

"Well the vibes are saying something aint good." Insists Hugin.

"Was it that he didn't say his 'please' and 'thank yous'?" Munin interjects.

Mikey laughs sourly. All of his limbs emerging from his shell as he rights himself into a sitting position. Munin crawls up onto his shoulder, and Hugin climbs on top of Mikey's knee. "We. I." Mikey struggles before he gestures with his hands "Okay so the base of the issue is the lack of emotional regulation. I was having a bad day so I blew up, he blew up, we all exploded!"

Munin hisses through his teeth "That's rough, buddy."

"That sounds like it sucked." Hugin says.

Mikey goes to scratch Hugin, who winces at first, but the claws have receded into the gauntlet, giving Hugin the bestest of scritches. "It did. I now recognise I was probably acting like an asshole. But Draxy was an asshole back. Making it overall not good. Zero stars. Do not recommend." Mikey says.

Munin giggles "Hehe, Draxy."

"Wait! I have an idea!" Declares Hugin, "You see these walls!"

Mikey looks at the stone walls. "It's bullshit!" Hugin shouts.

"Well, many things are bullshit, Hugin." Munin says from on top of Mikey's shoulder.

"No,no,no. Like. Its empty!" Hugin insists, stryggling to communicate.

Munin eyes widen, finally getting it. He hops off of Mikey's shoulder "Oh! So its like an enrinchment thing."

Hugin grabs Munin by the shoulders "Absolutely! You know what one of those zoo animals does when not enriched!"

"They tear shit up!" Hugin and Munin shout at the same time

Mikey scratches at a dip in his plastron "Uh? What are we talking about?"

Munin excitedly shouts "We're getting you new-" Hugin claps a hand over Munin's mouth "Shhhh! We're gonna be, uh, we're gonna be getting you-- a brand new carpet!"

Hugin does jazz hands "Yay!"

Mikey grimaces in confusion. "Yay?"

"Yes! Yay." Hugin confirms "Now excuse me while we inconspicuously leave."

Hugin drags Munin through the air and out of Mikey's room. Leaving the door unlocked behind them. There's not much thought to the following action, Mikey just leaves.

He half-wanders into the kitchen he encountered a few days before, habitually going through the cabinets to check the ingredients. Its been restocked, leaving Mikey with a lot more options. He just starts throwing ingredients together, following his muscle memory more than anything. Its soothing, almost.

As he kneads the dough he goes through the gargoyles previous conversation. If a zoo animal is not enriched, it starts destroying things. If Mikey is the zoo animal in this metaphor, he is not enriched. Oh.

Mikey pauses in his kneading of the dough to smile. They're getting him new paint. His heart wavers, he doesn't want to hope for too much. He doubts he'll be getting any kind of oil paint, or primer even. But will it be enough? Well, it'll be more than what he's got.

By the time the gargoyles are back, Mikey has made three dozen cookies, cheesecake, upside down cake, potstickers, teriyaki chicken, mac n cheese, with three loaves of bread rising on the side. The gargoyles hand him a colorful giftbox, snacking on Mikey's food as he struggles to open it. The gargoyles are really terrible at gift wrapping in the way they add way too much tape and way too much paper. But after Mikey literally tears it apart he finds--

All the paint he could ever need.

He was preparing to act surprised, but as he pulls out the tubes of oil paint, carefully setting it to the side, he thinks he might actually be stunned. A large bottle of white paint primer. A pallet of artist's gouache. A grocery bag filled with tubes of acrylic. A short gas mask. Bottles of spray paint. Simple stencils. A solid spread of brushes. A pallet of watercolor.

They really should have expected him to cry.

Mikey grabs both of them into a hug, squeezing the daylights out of them while sobbing his eyes out. When Munin starts calling out "Uncle! Uncle!" Mikey sets them back down on the table.

Munin paps Mikey cheek. Hugin grins "So…you like the gift?"

"I love it! I love it love it love it!" Mikey squeals, wiggling excitedly. "How did you know to get all this stuff?"

"Oh it was easy enough." Hugin says with a nonchalant wave.

"We just went to the vendors and asked for the best art supplies they got!" Munin declares, puffing out his chest.

Mikey wipes the tears from his eyes, trying to stop himself from crying "Thank you guys so much. This is going to make everything easier."

"Hey! Think you can paint me?" Munin asks.

Mikey cringes at that sentence but then he gets an idea. "Sure!" He says cheerfully.

He preps the acryllics and brushes, carefully lineing them up. Carefully waiting for comedic timing…Munin asks, "Hey, aren't you gonna use a canvas-" Mikey splots a blob of paint directly on Munin.

Munin recoils "That's cold!"

Mikey giggles "Well you asked me to paint you!"

"That's not what he meant!" Cries out Hugin.

"I can paint you too! You'd probably look better than me painting myself, since paint cracks on skin but you two are made out of stone! You're perfect canvases!" Mikey says excitedly, "But only if you want to of course."

A moment of silence as Hugin and Munin share eye contact. Munin bashfully asks "So what would you paint on me?"

So Mikey spends the next couple hours painting both Hugin and Munin. Careful to leave some of their dark stone skin exposed as negative space. Hugin and Munin get covered in abstracted and colorful shapes with a gold accent. Mikey has to do over an area a few times because Hugin and Munin have a hard time sitting still. But once he's done Mikey grins to himself, happy with his work.

Hugin and Munin fly off to show off their paint job, leaving Mikey by himself. It weirdly hurts his feelings somehow, but his entire life was mostly just being left to his own devices to entertain himself. He cleans up after himself, putting away all the food that he made, and cleaning up the paint. After he's done cleaning up after himself, he puts his gauntlets back on and stands in the middle of the empty kitchen feeling…something.

Something to paint about later, definitely.

Mikey grabs his box of paints and begins going back to where he thinks his room is. Though after a few turns, Mikey is beginning to get the feeling that he is lost. After a few more turns, Mikey is definitely lost.

He stumbles upon a living room area, with a wide open living space. A fire place is the centerpiece of the room, with two chairs and a dog bed in front of it. The walls are covered with floor to ceiling bookshelves, and thick rug gives respite from the cold stone floor. Mikey curls his toes into the fabric, smiling to himself at the feeling.

He wanders around the edges of the room, eyeing the bookshelves. Draxum has some particular odds and ends on his book shelves. A metal skull, a jar of pink leaves, a dagger stand, a marble orb, and an engraved bell are just a few of the things Mikey finds on the shelves.

He stops in front of the fireplace and sits down. He sets down his painting box next to him and just leans back, enjoying the warmth of the fireplace for a moment. He rolls onto his side, curling up on the thick rug and feeling vaguely drowsy.

Something touched his foot.

Lazily, Mikey sits up to see

A black cat, sniffing his foot.

"Hello there." Mikey says.

The cat stares at him with large, orange eyes. Mikey carefully reaches out his hand, letting the cat sniff him better "Where did you come from?"

The cat pulls back with squinty eyes and an open mouth. Mikey chuckles "Aw, am I stinky?"

The cat sneezes and goes back to investigating Mikey. Mikey tries to pet the cat, but she paws at him to stop. So he does. Putting his hands in his lap, the black cat walks around him, sniffing him thoroughly.

She's taking an awful long time investigating, so Mikey lays back down on his side. It startles her for a second, but she goes back to sniffing Mikey. He wonders what she's doing. He's beginning to doze off when the cat walks in front of Mikey, looks back at him with her bright orange eyes, and walks directly into the fireplace.

Mikey bolts up, panicked, and is already reaching for the cat but she's gone. Not there. Mikey looks side to side, wondering if it was a trick somehow but he doesn't see anything. The cat just appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly.

Slowly, Mikey pieces the puzzle together and realizes with a small gasp. "Magic cat!"

Chapter Text

Raph pokes his head through the door "You know you can leave right?"

Leo looks up from his phone. "Hmm? Yeah. I know."

Raph steps into Leo's room, rubbing the back of his head. "It's just…you've kinda been in here for over twelve hours."

"I'm just recharging." Leo says, turning off his phone to pay better attention to Raph.

"I recognise that going to the thrift shop was exhausting. But…twelve hours?" Raph's shoulders rise up, stressed "You're okay to continue resting… but me and Apes' are gonna be over in the arcade. Come join us if you want."

Raphael hovers for a moment, tail swishing side to side, before he leaves. Leo turns his phone back on and looks up if snapping turtles can retreat into their shells. No, because in order to retreat into their shell, a turtle needs to have appropriately sized plastron and shell. Snapping turtles have a smaller plastron than their shell, because typically they reside in muddy waters where their plastron is hidden. Can softshell turtles retreat into their shells? It depends on the subspecies from what Leo can gather, but most of the time no.

Both snapping turtles and softshells cope with not being allowed to retreat into their shells with their massive jaws. (Of course Mama got stuck with him.) (Thank the spirits Mama didn't get them. She would've thought that they were perfect.)
(How would they react to the deal?) (Donnie doesn't care for Big Mama. But he would if he lived with her all his life.) (Would Donnie keep the deal?) (Would Raph even be able to hurt people?)

Leo throws his phone across the room to stop himself from doom scrolling.

He wraps a quilt around himself and just stares at his room. Raph donated two plushies, which rest on a shelf because Leo isn't allowed to touch them. Donnie has given a bunch of knick knacks, an infinity cube, stress ball, several new knee braces, and forty bright purple hangers for the new clothes. Its still really empty. But its…cozy. They're trying so hard. (And for what.)

The swords are still underneath his bed. He shoved them underneath there as soon as he got them. This has "favor" written all over it. There are no gifts given without a favor involved. Splinter wants something from him, right? Right?

He thinks he's freaking out.

Leo walks out of the room. Quilt dragging behind him. He rubs his face on the quilt, enjoying the texture. He wanders into the kitchen, passing the entrance where he sees April's shoes discarded. He grabs an apple from the fruit bowl and gives it a big munch. He circles the island twice before wandering back out of the kitchen.

What do people do when they're outside of their room?

He walks into Donnie's lab. The doors opening for him automatically. He walks through, looking side to side at all the glowing lights. "Bro! No capes in the lab!"

Leo startles and throws the apple at the voice. Sheldon dodges, and says "Oops! Sorry! That was totally not tubular of me. Shouldn't have scared you."

"Hhhhhhh" Leo still does not know how to interact with the robot.

"All capes and unsecured sleeves can and will get dinged up in the lab! So you gotta leave your cape outside of the lab." Sheldon gestures with his…fin?

Leo picks up the quilt from off the floor, wrapping it around himself. "Um. Is Donnie here?"

"No, he's out training. Um. He said to be careful about what I say to you but like, we both agree you should know some of this shit. So um. Big Mama is behaving really erratically and is…doing things…and the gargoyles that work for Draxum have been caught buying art supplies."

Leo perks up "Art supplies. What kind?"

"Kinda everything. They asked for the good stuff from what we can gather." Sheldon explains.

It could be an apology gift. But aren't apology gifts supposed to be bought by the asshole in question? Why would they get Mikey art stuff? Would Mikey accept the art supplies? Like when Big Mama tried to make him like her again? He can be really stubborn. "Hey! Don't worry about it." Sheldon declares ",You got some wicked good brothers and everything is gonna be okay in a minute. We're gonna be okay."

Leo takes a step back. "I'm gonna…go find Donnie."

Sheldon pulls back, hovering in the air, pensive. "Okay."

Sheldon flies away and Leo leaves the lab. He walks into the dojo to find Donnie on his phone. Leo calls out "Heard you were supposed to be training."

"I am. Just talking to my chat for a minute." Donnie says.

Leo is confused. "So you're livestreaming?"

"No. I announced that I was gonna be on hiatus for a minute due to a family emergency. So I'm just talking to them on discord. Some of them are being a bit nosy, but chat knows I don't like sharing much about my personal life, so that got shut down real quick." Donnie explains, putting away his phone "You wanted to see me?"

For some reason, Leo pauses at that question. Donnie pats the bench next to him, and Leo sits next to him. They sit in silence for a minute. Donnie fidgets with his bo staff, evidently still unsure of how to deal with feelings. So Leo phrases his question in a way that he thinks Donnie will appreciate "I suppose I am trying to gather information."

Donnie perks up, visibly relaxing. "Oh? Please tell me what you wanting to gather, if it’s about any information regarding what I gathered while with Big Mama we can add it to the calendar."

"So. Um. How did you learn about me. About Mikey."

Donnie deflates, tensing right back up, struggling not to scowl. "Oh. Yeah. Long story short we stole shit from Draxum, told Splinter, he freaked out and told us that he lost you two. At first we thought Draxum had you two, so we raided his castle but then we quickly figured out that you were the reigning nexus champion once we got more acquainted with the hidden city."

"So you weren't familiar with the nexus until recently?" Leo asks.

"No. Why?" Donnie blankly says.

Leo chews on his lip, pulling the quilt tighter around him. "Is. Splinter like Big Mama?"

Donnie stands up, tense, "What? No. No. He's an ass but he's not that kind of asshole." Donnie gets face to face with Leo, slowly getting closer ", Unless he made you do something? Did he make you do something? Is he making you uncomfortable? I'll kill him."

Leo waves his hands placatingly, chuckling lightly. "No, no, no. It's fine."

Donnie pulls back, sighing in relief. "Nice. Cool. Cool."

He offers "I can still kill him though."

Leo laughs, one part concerned, one part amused. "I think you'd do that without me at this point."

Donnie sighs dramatically "Alas, no. I am not allowed to murder father. He's not worth my energy anyways."

Donnie stretches, his joints popping. "Welp! I've been stagnant for too long. Wanna join me?"

He wants to. "Nah, I'm good." Leo says "I'll just watch."

Donnie's eyebrows gain a miniscule curve: he's unsure about that. Leo corrects himself "Actually, I'll just go to bed."

"April and Raph are in the arcade." Donnie offers.

"Nah. Don't wanna bother them." Leo stands up.

"You're not a bother, though." Donnie remarks.

"More like a brother!” Leo finger guns before rolling his eyes “,I know! I'll be fine! Not that mentally unstable."

Donnie gets quiet after that. Leo leaves the dojo. He hears the tv faintly playing. He follows the noise, finding the back of a big easy chair. He hears Splinter laugh uproariously at an infomercial. Light pouring from the projector. Not like Big Mama, but still an asshole. What does that mean, exactly?

Leo could ask.

He'd ask a lot from Big Mama. Just break into her office while in a manic frenzy. Demand answers and leave.

He could just ask.

He takes a step towards the chair, questions on top of his tongue.
(He’d ask a lot from Big Mama. Demand answers, get laughed at as she squeezes his cheeks for being so childish. Break into her office, and be locked into his cell for the first time in a month. Argue with her, only for her to conveniently schedule a party during his Mikey-time.)

(Nothing comes without a price.)

Leo goes back to his room.

He collapses onto his bed, bundled up in a quilt. He curls up, staring at the orange bandana wrapped around his wrist.

How’s Mikey doing?

Chapter Text

Mikey thinks Draxum is scared of him. He hasn’t seen him in two days.

The gargoyles tried to lead him back to his bedroom last night, in which he declined. They tried to be more insistent, but thankfully they got the message that Mikey was not going to be locked into the room again.

He regrets sleeping on the chair, his shell and shoulders hurting. But he got up, said hello to the fireplace kitty, and started walking again. Started wandering again. He stopped every once in a while, so that his head wouldn’t get too foggy. He made breakfast for himself and the gargoyles, who gave frustratingly little information about Draxum. Not relevant information anyways. He thinks they’re like him--difficult to interrogate because your mind can’t sit still for five minutes.

It takes Mikey five minutes to interpret the analogue clock. It’s past noon. A part of him wants to scream. He hates being alone. He hates having nothing to do. He half wants to paint an entire wall, to get Draxum angry at him so that Mikey will have any kind of attention.

Unfortunately, he recognises this as a bad idea. So he just rolls up his pants and paints his legs. He gets bored of that too and fireplace kitty isn’t coming out of the fireplace. She’s still there, Mikey can just barely see her curled up, nearly invisible with the ash. He’s almost tempted to put his hand in the fireplace to pet the kitty, but he remembers an experiment where humans repeatedly shocked themselves so that they wouldn’t be bored. He groans, puts his paints away and walks until he finds the gargoyles watching a tv show on a crystal ball. So Mikey won’t get any hint of entertainment from him. He leans on the doorframe, “Has Draxum eaten today?”

Munin scratches his chin “Hmmm. I don’t think so. He didn’t show up for your wonderful breakfast.”

“I smelled coffee from the lab, so he’s definitely using the coffee maker in there.” Hugin responds, chewing on popcorn.

“Does he at least have a mini fridge in there?” Mikey asks nonchalantly.

“Well. Yes? No? Technically?” Munin says.

“It’s not for food.” Hugin clarifies.

“I’ll go make some food for him. To apologize for my behavior the other day.” Mikey says, not entirely lying.

Munin grins “That’s a great idea! To get to the lab just turn left at the tapestry of the family tree. The door’s gigantic, you can’t miss it!”

Mikey grins, giving a thumbs up as he walks away. Once in the kitchen he relaxes, finally receiving some information about Draxum. He washes his hands, circles the kitchen in a massive bout of indecision, before deciding on a simple omelet. The eggs sizzle on the pan and he takes a deep breath “Calm down, Michelangelo.”

Eggs cook fast, so Mikey serves the omelet on a plate and follows Munin’s instructions to the lab. He passes the tapestry, and as much as he would love to analyze the composition and color choices and potential themes, he would get distracted. So he walks past it and enters the lab. “Helloooooo!” Mikey calls.

No response.

Welp, time to get lost in a massive lab. Mikey walks through the lab, dedicating a good amount of brain energy into keeping track of where he’s waving the plate “Helloooooo! I made you food!” He calls out.

Only silence in response. Mikey furrows his brows, irritated. Just talk to him, dammit! “If you’re not gonna eat I’m gonna feed it to the fireplace cat.”

A stern groan, and Draxum emerges from a room “I’m over here.”

Mikey hops on over “Finally! You disappear for two days! What else would you think would happen!”

“You said something about a cat-” He hands Draxum the plate and slides past Draxum into the room, covered floor to ceiling with monitors. There’s a handful of papers near a bunch of test tubes and plant stuff. It’s obvious Mikey just interrupted Draxum in the middle of an experiment. Also isn’t it bad lab safety to be drinking coffee near alchemical concoctions? “Is it time sensitive?” Mikey asks.

Draxum hums, his mouth full “Hm?”

Mikey repeats himself “Is the experiment time sensitive?”

Draxum swallows his bite of omelet “No.”

“Great! Then you’re taking a break!” Mikey declares.

Draxum’s eye widens “What?”

“Break! Let’s get a get go!” Mikey says, throwing his hands up in the air.

“I haven’t even finished my coffee.” Draxum excuses.

Mikey grabs the coffee mug and chugs it all in one gulp. "Wow! That's disgusting!"

Draxum's eyes widen in slight horror at Mikey's behavior. He pushes Draxum, and it takes a minute for Draxum to actually move with the unstoppable force of the one and only Michelangelo. He drags Draxum to a dining room and flings himself into the chair across from Draxum. He puts his head in his hands, not saying anything as Draxum looks down at the omelet, and back up to Mikey. He slowly begins eating "You were saying something about a cat-" "I wanna apologize for my part in the fight the other day." Mikey interrupts "I was being mean because I struggle to regulate my emotions when I don't have access to painting. As painting is a way to help me visualize my emotions in a more practical way."

Mikey checks in with Draxum, who just appears shocked. Guess Mikey is just full of constant surprises. Mikey continues "This, however, does not mean I forgive you for hitting me." Draxum's expression falls slightly "I do not expect you to forgive me either for hitting you. I do expect you to not avoid me for a few days, as that is exactly the kind of reaction I expect from Big Mama." Something in Draxum's expression twitches "I understand if you need time to decompress but avoiding me is not going to solve the problem."

Mikey stares at Draxum, who is subtly not making eye contact. There's a lightbulb moment, as Mikey finally identifies the expression on Draxum's face. He speaks maybe too excitedly. "You're ashamed aren't you?"

Draxum's nose wrinkles in disgust "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Mikey stands up, slamming his palms into the table "No, no! This is great! This means you can change! This is a great first step! You can be better!"

Draxum's expression becomes tight, his brows furrowing together. "I do not believe I was in the wrong for disciplining you in such a manner."

"I was in the wrong for being an asshole. But I don't think hitting me is going to stop me from being an asshole." Mikey says, keying into Draxum's beliefs "I'm sorry for trying to kill you."

Draxum idly takes a bite out of the omelet. He chews for a very long time. "Your maturity astounds me."

That compliment just feels sour now. He's so mature for his age. Like he hasn't been having business meetings with his maternal figure for years now. Mikey's smile doesn't dissipate as he says "I know! I'm pretty great! Now can we go back to doing things! I am going insane from boredom."

Draxum chuckles "That can be arranged. I have a meeting with some mutants to aid me in the battle of capturing your brothers. You can come if you like."

"Do I need to battle to capture my brothers?" Mikey asks.

"Not yet." Draxum says noncommittally.

"Well then yes I'm gonna come!" Mikey declared ",The goyles are great but I'm much more used to talking to at least five guards a day. Plus you can teach me how you do things at business meetings!"

Mikey flaps his hands, excited to be getting out of the castle.

Chapter Text

Leo elected to stay home from the biodome.

Logically, because of course Donnie would be logical about this, this is good. This is progress. Leo hasn’t exactly made many decisions since he’s been here, he’s just been shrugging and going along with whatever they’re doing. The best Donnie had seen would be the active participation he gets from Leo at the beginning of the save Mikey plan. But since it’s receded into information gathering, the kind that he and April have been specifically doing since they discovered that they had brothers, he’s just been…dull. Staying in his room all day.

If he was going to be honest with himself, it reminds him a bit too much of Splinter.

It’d be even more harmful to force him to go against the near one choice he’s made since he’s been freed. So they go without him.
It still hurts though, he can tell that Raph doesn’t really like the idea of leaving Leo at home either. April first put up a fuss when she noticed him missing, but when they told her he didn’t want to come she got bummed out too- but only for a second. Not letting anything carry her down, April tasked herself with trying to pull Raph and Donnie out of their murk with a sure can-do attitude.

Until two crab men decided to ambush a middle school field trip.

April proceeded to lose her shit and got a black eye. Raph fell out of a tree. And in all of Donnie’s years he forgot to charge his bo staff. They were lucky for a magical portal to come out of nowhere and swoop the bad guys away. Which is deranged behavior for the universe, like yes, don’t save them from harm, just save them from getting too beat up and then take the mutant crab men away! Like they’re some slapstick comedy for somebody to laugh at. It doesn’t make sense!

They come home to Leo wrapped in the quilt he’s been dragging around for a week, sipping on coffee “Oh come on! You guys got to fight without me!” He mock complains.

April waves her bat at him “Watch it Leo.”

He chuckles to himself as they all collapse around the living room. Donnie just sitting against the notably rat-less chair as April takes the other side. Raph slumps into the bean bag and they all just groan in pain. “I’ll grab the peas.” Calls Leo with a smug grin.

Leo turns to the kitchen but stops as Raph lets out a harsh sigh. “We can’t keep failin only to luck out at the last second. I know noone wants to hear it, but we need training.”

April and Donnie groan in displeasure. The quilt drops to the floor, Leo sets his mug down on the side table. He’s grinning “Training? I like training! When can we train! What kind of training!”

Donnie looks at Leo with a kind of incomprehensible expression. How is he supposed to interpret that? Good? Bad? Or does it belong in the what-the-fuck category. Raph shrugs in response to Leo “We need to get better at…everything. So we’ll need to get full on training!”

Raph gives a resolute nod to Leo before eyeing Donnie and April for a moment. Suddenly he steps up onto the chair, his feet on the arms as he begins to give a speech “When I look around in this room, I see nothing but potential! Whose ready to tap into that potential, huh? Huh! Take it up a notch! You?”

He points at Leo with the word ‘you’ and somehow the childish grin gets bigger. Raph gets louder “C’mon! Let’s be the best of the best!”

Muted grumbling from everyone but Leo. Donnie groans “Tap the notch”

He’s not a big fan of the idea of training in a group, specifically the concept of martial arts training. It involves things such as doing it the right way and doing it the wrong way, and mistakes are reserved for being locked away behind his titanium-grade lab door.

“Why do you want to train anyways Leo, you’re already a super skilled fighter.” April asks.

“Well, it’s the difference between your briefing being an email, “ Leo explains “,and a twenty foot monster trying to kill you.”

Both Donnie and April process this information for a moment. April says “Wait, that implies you got sent-” “Anyways!” Leo interrupts “Who’s gonna train us, Raph? Whose gonna be our sensei?”

Donnie gives a disdainful look, for he knows who exactly Raph is gonna pick.

Splinter’s out cold watching some home renovation show. Donnie looks across Aprils’ hair to check in on Leo, his face impassive though vaguely hopeful? Maybe getting Leo on a proper schedule of some sort would be helpful. Raph loudly declares “MASTER SPLINTER!”

The rat startles awake “I swear I’ve never been to Dallas!”

Note to self: check for any rat man sightings in Dallas. “Master Splinter,” Raph begins, “we need your help. We need you train us so that we can be,” poignant pause for effect “,heros.”

Splinter gives a resolute nod, and April grins “Really, Splints!”

Donnie does not get his hopes up. He looks at Leo, his eyes are blown wide as he smiles. Donnie bumps in the shoulder and gives him a minute shake of the head. Splinter takes them to the mini armory they have next to the living room, stretching his hands above his head as he declares “Glad you all are back for some more formal training! Especially you, Leonardo! I have so much to teach you!”

Leo, unfortunately, lights up at the attention in a way Donnie isn’t sure is entirely positive. Splinter lines them all up, walking down the line with a mace resting on his shoulder. Raph, Leo, and April taking this much more seriously they need to be, standing stock straight with Donnie just frowning. Splinter starts his speech “This will not be easy. I will ground you into fine powder,” He throws the mace back in the armory pile with a loud clang “,to sift through to find the gold!”

He carelessly throws a sai that Donnie dodges. “Now! Let us begin!”

Splinter grabs a sword and for a brief, impossible, milisecond, Donnie thinks he might actually be useful for once in his damn life…
Until he presses play on the vcr.

The Lou Jitsu movie starts playing with a cheering Hot Souuup! Splinter cheerfully tents his hands together “First, we will watch Lou Jitsu in ‘One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Dead Fish’ followed by-” “Are you really serious.” Leo interrupts, stopping the movie.

Leo says “This isn’t training!”

Splinter grips the arms of his chair, declareing “This is absolutely training!” He notably turns to everyone but Leonardo “You are not ready for more than this. Lesson one! W-W-L-J-D. What would Lou Jitsu do!”

Leo’s beak pulls back in a teeth bareing grin “You have to be kidding. How could thinking like Lou Jitsu help us? That guy has been dead for years and I’ve been one-upping him everyday since I was six!” Leo gestures to the rest of them “This isn’t going to help them learn how to fight better! They deserve better than this!”

Splinter hums tensely “Lou Jitsu cares about you in many ways that you will never know.”

“WHAT!” April shouts, incredulous.

Leo bursts into a guffaw “HAH! Is that really what you’re pulling? If anything Lou Jitsu would envy me, Lord knows I looked less tacky in my nexus suit.”

Donnie lets out an exasperated sigh, pinching the bridge of his beak “This is the first time I’ll something of the kind, but Leo is right on this.”

Leo dramatically leans his head on Donnie’s shoulder “Plus I’ve beaten every record L.J. ever has.”

April interjects “And we all know these fights by heart anyways!”

Splinter rolls his eyes “Oh, well excuse me. I suppose you know the fight in ‘Little Jacob’s ladder’?” He pulls the dvd out from in between the cushions.

Raph gives a half hearted shrug, chuckling “Do people even use ladders anymore? Isn't there an app for that?”

“I’ve taken self defense classes better than this!” April declares “,We need more, Splinter. We’re not just some stupid kids!”

Leo all but snarls “We need real training,” he gestures vaguely at Splinter “,not whatever this is.”

“Yeah, what are the odds that we ever fight in a fish market or ladder factory?” Donnie says.

Splinter hikes himself up to his feet on the edge of his chair “Well look at you fancy-pants children. You think you know everything there is to ever know! Well let me tell you about, uh, kids who know everything.” He scoffs “They don’t! They should listen to their fathers, who know everything.”

Leo gives a fake whine and pout “Oh yes, little children’s fathers who never told his two kids that they had two brothers locked away in Big Mama’s cage. Who watched enough of my matches and interviews to know that I’ve been wanting to duel wield for years. Enough to give me two katanas, the kind of likes I’ve been publicly dreaming about since I was six!”

It all crescendos into a shout. Of a deadly accusation, however implied, Donnie can taste it in the air.

Leo laughs something sour and sad, grinning like there’s a knife to his throat “What do you even know about training anyways, you’re just a pathetic rat.”

Leo walks off, disappointed and angry. April eyes furrow as she shoots a look at Splinter “Do you deny it?”

“What?” Splinter squawks.

“Do you deny that you always knew where Mikey and Leo were? That you knew this entire time? That you could’ve told us, them, where they were?” She gestures to a stricken Raph and Donnie “,You could’ve made this entire rescue operation so much easier if you just told us!”

“You weren’t ready!” Says Splinter.

“Weren’t ready, my ass!” Shouts April, pointing an accusatory finger at Splinter “It’s one thing to omit missing family for years, but another to actively not tell us shit. No you just had a breakdown about Draxum- not even your kids, that was an incidental give, and you didn’t do shit. You watched? You watched him fight in the nexus for all those years and you did nothing!”

Splinter begins to sputter “You don’t understand Big Mama-” “Bitch!” April shouts “,I’ve been working my ass off trying to understand Big Mama! I’ve gotten an entire network dedicated to understanding Big Mama, Donnie worked for the spiderbitch! Don’t tell us that we don’t understand her when we pulled a recovery operation out from underneath her nose.”

Splinter fearfully glances at Donnie, who just sighs. “Can’t say I expected better from you.”

Raph states “We’re outta here, no need to continue this beating.”

“We- you deserve answers though.” April insists.

Raph puts a comforting hand on April’s shoulder “Don’t try to exclude yourself out of this. You’re a part of this, sis.”

She gives Raph a worn smile and they all start to walk away. Splinter calls out “Wait.”

“No.” Donnie says, looking back with an unimpressed gaze “We’re not waiting. You should already know that though.”

Splinter starts stammering “N-no! You will go nowhere! You are all grounded!”

Donnie takes a one two step in panic because this is going to harm Leo, Mister Got-Fourced-To-Stay-In-One-Room. His head turns to Leo who just looks so…resigned.

“You can’t do that!” Shouts April.

“Remember, April, I am facebook friends with your mother. I could tell you all about the disrespect you’re giving me.” Warns Splinters. “Now give me your weapons! You don’t deserve them.”

Leo monotones “I’ll go get them.”

Raph gives his tonfas and April hesitantly gives Splinter her bat. Donnie holds onto his bo staff, staring at Splinter determinedly setting out discipline from on top of the chair. They’ve been trying so hard to make Leo comfortable after all that he’s been through and this is what happens. Donnie can’t help but laugh “Out of all the times you think to discipline us, now is the time? Now is the one only time you decide that grounding should resolve this issue? Oh, you pathetic little man.”

He drops his bo staff in the pile of weapons and lets out a low, rattling hiss, “I hope this makes you happy. Hope it makes you feel reeeeal big.”

Then he stalks away into his lab, collapsing into his desk with his head in his hands. After a moment of silence, he wonders where Sheldon is, so he checks Sheldon’s port, and remembers. Sheldon is disconnected from his body right now, scouring the yokai internet. It’s partly to gain more information on the babysitters and whatever Big Mama is planning, and also give Sheldon a degree of flexibility in socializing. So Donnie is alone.

Raph is probably trying to fix this with Leo. April’s already overdue to go home, her mom’s definitely starting to get worried. Donnie checks the backdoor he has on April’s phone, finding the predictable texts. He likes April’s mother, with her being unwittingly punctual to her worry. It’s one of the laws of the universe, like physics, like April’s mother.

He checks through his cameras, deliberately avoiding the living room, where the rat might still be. If Donnie so much as looks at him, he is going to loose all of his temper and break something. April’s leaving, giving Raph a little smooch on the head before walking out of the door- nevermind she pauses in the walkway, why is she hesitating. She starts looking around near the ceiling, Donnie wonders what she’s looking for. He gets caught off gaurd when she gives the security camera a little wave “Goodbye Don. I know you’ll keep me updated.”

Donnie waves goodbye to April through the screen. He slumps over in his desk and turns the screen over to the front of Leo’s room. Indeed, there’s Raph, gently knocking on the door. It’s five minutes in when Raph stops talking. Eight minutes when he goes to grab a snack, pushing some underneath Leo’s door. Ten minutes is when he starts pacing. Fifteen when he goes back to just standing in front of the door. Donnie watches as thirty minutes pass by and figures that Raph is definitely not gonna leave the door by himself. So Donnie sighs, grabs his box of stim toys, and walks out of his lab.

“I could hear your hand rubbing through the walls.” Donnie states.

Raph jumps, before settling when he recognises it’s Donnie. “He locked the door.”

“I had a feeling the ajarness of it before was a stepping stone.” Donnie says, holding out his box “Pick one.”

Raph looks over it, keying through some of the mess before settling on a tangle toy. He starts playing with it immediately. He faces Leo’s door, the lines of stress clear on his face. Donnie wants to tell Raph that he told him so, but he knows that won’t do any help. So he just stands there with his brother for a moment. “I heard him crying.” Raph starts, looking towards Splinter's room “,when I passed his room earlier.”

“It’s not your job to comfort an adult man.” Donnie states firmly.

“I know!” Raph says in the way of someone whose been told this many times before, but he gets real quiet “I was wondering if he could at the very least do something different with Leo?”

“If he really felt bad, he would’ve revoked it.” Donnie says “,If he was a better parent he would’ve never done it.”

“Kids need to be disciplined, Donnie.” Raph says, looking at his hands playing with the tangle toy.

“This is literally the first time he’s ever done any sort of discipline, Raph.” Donnie reminds “I think the only reason why he did it was because he was feeling disrespected.”

Raph doesn’t respond and they sit in silence for a moment. Donnie says “I don’t blame you for trying though. I don’t understand it, but I don’t blame you.”

“It’s just,” Raph says, his voice starting to get weepy “I just want him to be good. Better- y’know? Like he used to be. I know there was a used to be. I know he’s- he’s having a really tough time right now and I thought maybe getting him to train us could help him too but…”

Donnie lays his head against Raph’s shoulder “He really acted like he was gonna train us too.”

“Yeah, he really did. It was gonna be so cool! We’d do cool ninja things like throw shurikens and hide in the shadows!” The tangle toy breaks apart in Raph’s hands. “Oh.”

Donnie clicks it back together “Don’t worry. It’s fine. You didn’t break it.”

Raph’s crying now, thick tears running down his cheeks paired with the wobbly lip. He tries to rub away the tears. Donnie pats Raph’s elbow “C’mon, let’s get you to your room with all of your plushies- I’m sure they’ll cheer you up.”

“What about- what about Leo?” Raph sobs.

Donnie sighs and just thinks for a moment “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ll figure out something eventually, as I always do. Right now, we need to regroup and replan. Leo’s as stubborn as the rest of us, so standing at his door all night is not going to help.”

Raph gives out a wet “Okay.”

Donnie guides Raph into his room, and it’s near palpable the relief of cuddling up to his bazillion plushies brings Raph. Donnie turns to leave, only to hear Raph wordlessly whine. Donnie says “Don’t worry. I’m getting my things and then we can hang out, okay?”

Raph whines into his squishmallow, which gives Donnie a pass to grab his headphones, laptops, and some of his blankets. He returns to Raph still snuggled up to all of his plushies, and dims the lights. Raph lets out a churr of relief. Donnie shucks his battle shell and sets himself up, leaning against Raph’s shell, wrapped in his own blankets with his laptop perched keenly on his knees.

Chapter Text

So apparently by "business meeting" Draxum meant "kidnapping." At least there’s a charcuterie board.

Mikey is kinda surprised that his brothers managed to accrue so many villains so quickly. It’s actually kind of impressive. Predictably, they all burst into violence the second Draxum walks in. Mikey just sat in the corner of the ceiling, quietly going unnoticed since nobody has the common sense of looking up. It’s a tactic he didn’t get much opportunity to use in his Big Mama days because everyone was used to his vertical leanings. He just remains vaguely disappointed in Draxum’s abysmal levels of Rizz. The guy presents himself as a supervillain but doesn't even have the decency to be a charismatic one.

"Excuse me?" Says a mildly squeaky voice.

Mikey looks down to see a capybara lookin guy, mildly surprised that this guy had enough initiative in him to look up. Mikey drops from his perch, "Yeah?"

The capybara is shorter than he expected, about waist height. It's not often when Mikey’s taller than somebody. The capybara asks "Are you doing okay here? There's lotsa noise right now."

Mikey shrugs "I'm doin okay. I honestly don't know what else he was expecting. He needs to be nice to people in order for them to like him."

"Oh I completely agree,” the capybara pats Mikey’s knee “Kindness is the first step to friendship!"

Mikey smiles, nodding "Right. My name's Mikey."

"I'm Todd!" The capybara offers a hand.

Mikey shakes Todd’s hand firmly like Big Mama taught him. Todd continues "I'll be bringing in some lemonade! You got any allergies?"

"Nope! I'm good." A realisation hits Mikey ,"Wait, are you actually apart of this little villany meeting?"

"Oh, yes," Todd chuckles ,"but I'm mostly here to make friends!"

Todd walks off and Mikey wonders if he should be concerned. But upoun replaying that conversation in his head he did not see a single tell. Todd was truthful for the entire conversation, just vaguely concerned for a reason Mikey couldn't say yet. Plus if he was able to get past security to serve lemonade, well then the lemonade deserves to be here.

Mikey hops back into the ceiling corner. Just when the arguing was getting a bit too much, nearly devolving into violence, Todd bursts in with a cheerful declaration of "Who wants lemonade!"

Add reliability to this man's resumé, he's great- "I got seconds!" Declares a secondary voice.

Wait.

He recognises that voice.

Mikey drops down from the ceiling, seeing the familiar winged dog yokai. "Laika?" He croaks.

One of her wings hangs crooked as its bandaged against her side. They make eye contact as she gently sets down the tray of lemonades on the meeting table. Her mouth hangs open as she’s at a loss for words. Mikey’s eyes wide as he tries to see everything at once.

"You two know each other?" Asks Todd.

"Yeah." Laika says breathlessly ,"I know him…from my old job."

"Oh goody!" Todd cheers, clasping his hands together "We love a good reunion!"

Mikey isn't sure what to feel. Emotions churning inside of his chest. Draxum, for some reason, doesn't dismiss Laika, and is mostly irritated with the excessive slurping of lemonade from everyone. Isn't he afraid someone employed by Big Mama is gonna take him away? Is Laika going to take him away?

Laika hands him some lemonade "Here. Have this, its actually really good."

Why is she with Todd though? "Are you and Todd related?" Mikey blurts the first thing that comes to mind.

Laika smiles sadly "Nah. I got a new gig." Her voice becomes hushed ,"But most importantly, are you okay?"

"What happened to you?" Mikey asserts, eyeing her damaged wing.

"Do you not know? Don't you have a phone?" Laika asks, looking over Mikey for any sign of injury.

There's anger there, inside of his teeth. No, Mikey doesn't know shit. Mikey breathes through his anger "I left my phone with Mama because she had it kidded with parental locks which in Big-Mama-ese means that she definitely bugged the hell out of it. Plus Draxum's been avoiding me for the past couple days and the goyles aren't exactly the most reliable of news reporters." He explains.

"Avoiding you? Why has he been doing that?" Laika asks.

"I don't know?" Mikey hates how his voice cracks.

He clears his throat, asserting "Look, can you tell me what happened?"

Laika purses her lips into a nervous smile, eyeing Draxum. "Um. Can we go on a walk?"

Mikey nods and shouts over to Draxum "Yo, I'm going on a walk, try not to ruin this without me!"

"Baron Draxum does not ruin villanous meetings!" Shouts Draxy.

"Yeah, talking in third person does not help you maintain your authority!" Mikey remarks.

The goyles giggle until Draxum glares at them. Laika simply tells Todd that she's gonna be catching up with an old friend and he gives her a thumbs up while he chats away with the surrounding villains. They walk out of the office and Mikey sits down in the hallway. The lighting is gross, and he's not quite far enough on Draxum's trust to go on a real walk.

Laika hesitates for a moment, clearly confused as to why Mikey sat down the second they got out the door, but she conforms and sits down next to him. Her knees curled up next to her chest and her uninjured wing raises slightly to give them both some marginal shade against the buzzing, yellowed lights. She breathes in, nervous, anxious, but still terribly concerned for Mikey. It almost aches to see her again. She looks up at the led lights, hand curled up in her fur to self soothe "You'd probably just say whatever so I'll get to the information sooner, so I'll refrain from asking if you're okay. I dunno, you might not tell me the truth either. Especially considering what you said on the day on you left."

"Can you just get on with it?" Mikey growls as he nurses his cup of lemonade.

"I know. I know.” She whines submissively “,I'm sorry you've been hurt Mikey." Her eyes begin to wet, and she smacks her cheeks ,"Just, just get it out Laika! He deserves to know the truth."

Like most confessions of this style, Laika does not make eye contact. Her eyes turning to murk as she speaks "The day you left, Big Mama cried. Just a single tear fell from her cheek before she went into a full meltdown. She killed a lot of us, she blamed all of us for not stopping you. For not keeping you from Draxum."

Laika runs her hand through her back neck fluff, "She caused a lot of damage to the hotel. But Big Mama did what Big Mama does and spread some misinformation that there were a lot more bombs then there actually were. Already adjusted some of the nda's some of her staff has to never talk about her breakdown. I even think she killed some of the other people who saw it just to get less word out."

Laika quiets in a tender sort of way "She didn't just stop at the hotel, though. Once I escaped the hotel, I went to my sister. I think it was about a day before I heard about somebody dying. She's hunting us. She's not just hunting us but she's hunting our families. I don't know if I should be thankful that it's regular bounty hunters and not just her deciding to come and kill us personally.” Laika laughs sourly, leaning her head against the wall.

They’re silent for a moment, just the faint buzzing of the led lights. Mikey staring at Laika as she croaks like there’s a sob in her throat “She got my sister. Nearly got my wing torn off. So I took my sister's pups and ran topside. Wanted to get somewhere else, I wanted to run."

Laika takes a deep breath “The pups found Todd when I passed out from blood loss. Couldn't have run into a better man. He runs a puppy rescue partyland or whatever, the human kind anyways. He took care of me, and now I no longer have a wing falling off my back." She smiles “He's got gifted hands, I legitimately think there's magic in that lemonade. Heals your soul.”

She chuckles and looks at the glass of lemonade Mikey's yet to drink from, then looks at Mikey. She unfolds a little, looking at Mikey with fond eyes. "We, the rest of the babysitters, try to keep in contact. Nami and Kana are dead. Me ‘n Dodo talk. Cathead's been a lil vague, but I think he's safe. We've all been worried about you."

Mikey's emotions are lagging right now. They're five feet behind him, like a corpse that he’s been cuffed too.

Laika looks at her phone, staring at what looks to be a chat. He can see the many emojis of what he assumes to be Dodomeki. She looks back at Mikey. "I…I'm sorry. For the part I have played in your hurt and trauma."

That…

Feels like a good apology right now.

He doesn't know if it’s the best one. But it feels good. Genuine. Laika’s eyes are misted with tears, and he can see the little places where fur has been shaved to stitch up smaller cuts that appear to have been healed. He doesn't know anything about bird wings-- but it probably means something that he automatically thought about how to fix her wing. How to make it better. Like how he thought of Leo for years and years and years. But that emotion feels bloody and raw, it feels like the only thing connecting him and Leo is a string of gore.

Mikey clears his throat and his thoughts "I'm doing okay."

Her ears perk up as she listens to him. He clears his throat before explaining "Is Draxum the best father figure out there? No, he's kinda of a dick and he's pretty hopeless. Like, I hear the gargoyles singing in the office room, which means they had to take over in song form." Mikey rubs at his eyes, groaning, "Like, spirits, this man does not know how to talk to people."

Laika chuckles "That's such an incredibly you thing to say, Mikey."

Mikey finally takes a sip of the lemonade, and sweet spirits its actually delicious. "Wow, yeah there's magic in here. By the way you can totally tell the others I'm alright. I see you eyeing your phone."

Laika grins and starts typing away at her phone, "Thank you. They'll all going to be relieved to hear that you're alright."

Munin peaks open the door and whispers "We'd like a little support from the one turtle Draxum likes, so we'd really like it if you could join in the song."

Mikey stands up "Understood! I'll be in in a minute."

Munin nods and closes the door. Laika stands up as well, dusting her pants off "Me and Todd won't be joining in on the plan according to the fact that he's retired."

"I'm planning on going back to the castle." Mikey reveals, before wrapping his arms around himself, " I'm not ready to face my brothers yet."

Laika puts a hand on Mikey's shoulder, which makes him cringe a little "Take your time. But keep in mind, if Draxum ever does something truly shitty, we'll back you up. All of us."

Emotion churrs underneath Mikey's plastron, he really does not want to take Laika up on that offer for whatever reason. He just smiles, "Thanks, Laika. I'll keep that in mind."

“Remember, Dodo has eyes in the skies. Just call one down if you can, okay?” Laika reminds him.

Then he sneaks back into the office meeting room, and sings honestly. Draxum saved him from the big evil spider. Told him the truth, that his brother was a liar. So even though Draxum is a bit of a dick, he is the very picture of a warring warrior scientist.

Then Draxum takes a sip of Todd's lemonade and bursts into unprecedented song himself. Mikey feels Draxum's mystic take hold, ringing in time to the lyrics like a bass guitar that had the same bone-ringing vibrations of a drum. With fire wrapping itself around the walls of the meeting room, Draxum wraps an arm around Mikey in the same gesture as he tosses his seed pods into the air. The vines spread rapidly, bursting the building open. Mikey finds himself singing along excitedly, easily caught up in the intensity.

He and Draxum stand above the other mutants, supported on a mystical vine. Draxum grins "Now for some unnecessary but highly destructive violence!"

"Hell yeah!" Mikey shouts, excited.

He recoils in late regret and after thought, thinking Draxum would be irritated at him for that. Instead Draxum looks at him with a look of incredible fondness. "Yes! Let's lead our evil league of mutants!"

Chapter Text

They needed to do damage control. It was a simply elegant solution that Donnie came up with, Splinter can't ground them if they don't respect the grounding. Convincing Leonardo of that was going to be a different problem.

He still hasn't left his room.

Donnie presses a hand against the door, not yet ready to get Raph involved. He thinks of how he was able to get into Leo’s cell when he was playing as Big Mama’s employee. On impulse he tries "Uh. I claim doctorial rights to see the patient."

Somehow it works and Leo opens his room. Donnie scrambles in before Leo decides to change his mind. "Let's sneak out!" He says breathlessly, like he's running out of time because he probably is.

Leo looks at Donnie like he's positively deranged. "What?"

"Let's sneak out!" Donnie grabs Leo by the shoulders "The three of us! We don't need to listen to Splinter's grounding! Because he sucks shit!" Donnie hurriedly speaks, shaking Leo.

"Won't you get in trouble?" Leo asks, reasonably concerned.

"Splinter has terrible eyesight! I already have decoys meant specifically for this kind of stuff! He's such a neglectful father he'll never know the differences between the sandbags and the real us!" Donnie says intensely, still shaking Leo.

Leo gently pulls Donnie's hands off him. "You…are not that good at convincing people when their life isn't on the line, are you?"

"Whatever could you mean?" Donnie asks.

"You were saying everything I needed to hear at Big Mama's. Now you're acting like there’s an invisible timer somewhere in this room." Leo says, looking around the room for the timer with a wry grin. “What? Are we going to explode if you don't get your word count in?”

Donnie recoils a bit "I'm worried that you wouldn't hear me out."

"Why wouldn't I hear you out now?" Leo asks genuinely, holding out his three fingered hand "We're twinsies."

Donnie can feel himself relax, though he's embarrassed that Leo caught him trying so hard. "I dunno." He confesses "You seemed really upset earlier."

"Yeah. At Splinter." Leo boops Donnie's snoot "You weren't in that equation."

Leo folds his arms and looks at Donnie, "I am worried though. You really think you can pull this off?” His voice gets quieter, “What happens if we get caught?"

"Like I said, he's not like Big Mama. He's stupid and easy to trick." Donnie prpudly insists. "He'll never even know. But on the small chance he finds an extra brain cell in between the couch cushions and happens to look in our vague direction about it, I can put cardboard cutouts of ourselves in my room and play clips of myself and Raph so Splinter thinks I’m streaming on twitch."

Leo asks “Wouldn't that conflict with the what- sandbags? You said?”

“It’d be localized, and he’d only find the fake streaming if he actively looked for us. “ Donnie says, typing up the instructions for Sheldon.

Leo looks at him in an undefined way, maybe a little cautious, a little doubtful, before he hesitantly shrugs, "You know the rat better than me."

Donnie grins and squeals excitedly. "Yes! Now let's go grab a snack before we go out!"

Leo bursts into light chuckleing. It feels relieving but so so frustrating, like a drone that only flies for a short minute before dropping out of the air. Donnie wants it to work so much, he’s getting it to work in short bursts. But it’s not lasting. Donnie swallows his feelings and goes to fetch his other brother. Raph gives Leo a hug and signature Raph I'm-proud-of-you smile but then they're off.

They jump from rooftop to rooftop. Though the mood is still soured from Splinter's grounding that only happened hours earlier. What's worse is that they spot The Foot stuffing tv’s into a van. "Are you kidding me!" Raph shouts "That's the kinda training we need."

Donnie pops down his goggles to give Sheldon eyes. "Who are these people?" Leo asks.

"The Foot." Donnie answers, scanning the tail-end of the operation "Some run of the mill thieves. We try to stop them at least once in a while but its a little hard to do that right not because we don't have our weapons."

They drive away, with Sheldon having a license plate fragment. Donnie types up responses to Sheldon,leaving the following investigation up to Sheldon, the bot’s always looking for something to do anyways. "Run of the mill? Are footfaces the new trend?” Leo asks.

"They also make origami ninja men!" Raph interjects, as that's his favorite part about them.

"Yeeeeeah, that doesn't seem run of the mill to me." Leo says with a small grin before a piece of paper smacks him in the face.

Then paper smacks into Raph and Donnie's face. It's a colorful advert to Magic-saurus, a robot dinosaur magician? In New Jersey? With free pizza? Seems a little odd in an interesting sort of way. Raph cheers "Yes! This is the sorta mindless entertainment we need right now! We should go!"

Donnie groans "But it's in New Jersey."

"I like magic." Leo says spontaneously, intensely eyeing the flier.

Donnie looks at Leo clinging onto the advert. Donnie's not the best at reading people, but it might not just be about the magic. Leo smiles charmingly "I mean, stage magic. I think stage magic is really cool, a lot of its core tenets are actually stuff that I value a lot in my everyday life."

Raph flaps his hands, excited that Leo is finally showing interest about something. "So c'mon! Let's get going! We don't wanna miss it!"

Donnie silently nods, not missing how Leo tenderly folds up the advert and puts it in his pocket. They take the subway, more accurately the roof of the subway car, to New Jersey. In no time at all they find the place they're looking for.

Leo crosses his arms "Are we sure we're in the right place?"

Raph puts his hand on his hip "Flyer said it was in New Jersey." He gestures to the Welcome Sign and the respective graffiti below it "Welcome to New Jersey, turtles."

"That's oddly specific." Remarks Donnie.

Raph opens up the warehouse. Leo smiles nervously "Ooookay. I dunno if this is how it works in the human world, but in the yokai world creepy, empty warehouses are where you get murdered."

"Out of the way events happen in empty warehouses all the time!" Informs Raph "Look! There's the table of free pizza."

Raph walks across the threshold and Donnie follows him. Anything happening in a warehouse is automatically pretty sketchy, but the advert fulfilled its promise of free pizza, so it makes this place considerably less murder-y. Like, would the government give them free pizza? No. Raph takes the first bite of pizza "Jumpin Jack Flash! This is delicious! Guys you should try this!"

Donnie starts off with the cheese pizza, because each pizza place handles its toppings in unique ways that mean he never knows what he’s actually getting into. Even then, the cheese pizza is delicious, still miraculously piping hot, with spread-apart mozzarella that's evenly cooked with oh-my-god! Is that stuffed crust! Donnie's turtle instincts hit him square in the stomach and he swallows the rest of the slice without chewing once.

Leo finally takes a step into the warehouse. The door closes behind him, and it takes a minute for the lights to turn back on. Raph cheers "Ooo, Ambience."

While swallowing another slice, Donnie closes the pizza box to figure out which place this is, because it's delicious and he needs to figure out how to get more. He finds the logo, written in stereotypical pizza place blocky letters, MIKEY'S.

The mic screeches as it turns on "Well, well, well." Starts a dark voice "We meet again."

Leo takes a wary step back, recognition in his face as he mutters something Donnie can't hear over the sound of stuffing pizza boxes in his battle shell. The spotlights begin to dramatically wave around as the voice continues "You've all entered, but none of you will exit."

The spotlights center in on the curtains as the voiceover shifts speakers. The curtains open to reveal Baron Draxum, wreathed in shadow "Welcome to your worst nightmare."

Everyone startles back, Raph calling out a surprised "Baron Draxum?"

Donnie pulls out his phone to take a selfie to send April. Leo snarks "Don't tell me you picked up stage magic too, old man."

The gargoyles on his shoulders come to life. Rightie says "Boss you didn't tell us you do magic! We love magic!"

Leftie leans closer to Draxum "Can you turn Munin into a bunny?"

"Silence!" Shouts Draxum, enraged "The magic was a trick! This is a trap!"

With a snap of his fingers, the curtains open to reveal the entire rogues gallery. Donnie grimaces, this might be too much for them if they were armed- definitely too much now. To his surprise and shock, Leo takes a step forward, wielding the advert like a monster hunter would wield a cross "Where is my brother, Draxum! I know he drew this!"

"Oh you're the one he mentioned?" Says Hypno "Goodie! I was worried his asshole brother was one of my regulars."

"Quite the eager young sprout," Mentions Meat Sweats "Cooked up a terror in the kitchen to make all this pie in time."

"You have one last chance, children!" Declares Draxum "You join me and I can teach you to maximize your potential, be all that you can be! Just like I've been doing for Michelangelo!" He tilts his head, eyes boring into Leonardo specifically "What's your answer?"

"You threw me off a roof!" Shouts Leo.

Donnie is frantically texting everything to April. Oh, he hopes she's not too angry at him for not inviting her, she would've loved to have a stab at the man who stabbed her. "That's a no to joining me then?" Clears up Draxum.

“Yes!” Leo cries “I’ve told you this a bazillion-jillion times!”

Draxum huffs through his nose "And now, it seems like it all remains the same. If you don't choose to go with me- I will bring you by force! Tonight will be your last! Now your petulance ends! Attack!”

A flurry of villains descend on them and they get tossed around like three hot and turtley potatoes. Really, Donnie would rather not recount it, other than the single detail that when they were thrown through the warehouse windows it was actually a sort of relief.

The other thought Donnie was feeling when he was thrown through the window was OW FUCKING GOD DAMMIT FUCK SHIT. He crashes into a pile of crates. Leo jerks up from his own pile of splintered crates “How did you guys get that many villains? I thought you guys were only fighting evil for a few months?”

“I don't know.” Donnie groans “Raph’s got an impeccable sense of justice and timing. And please do not tell me I’m smelling-” “Ladders!” Raph shouts as he emerges from a crate of dead fish, dumping them on Donnie.

As Donnie reminds himself that he loves his brother, he loves his brother, Raph points at a sign “It’s the fish market and ladder factory we never knew we wanted!”

A flash of pain crosses Leo’s face, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“It appears that Splinter’s training did have a purpose.” Donnie deadpans.

Raph wields a ladder with a smug grin “Let’s make him proud boys.”

Raph is the only one seeking parental approval from Splinter, Donnie thinks. They arm themselves with the improvised weapons just in time when their horde of villains catch up to them. Meat sweats grins, spinning his meat tenderizer “Time to make some turtle soup.”

It’s surprisingly intuitive to use a ladder as a weapon. Donnie would attribute that fact to his massive brain- but he doesn't have much time in between fighting for his life and his brain ricocheting between ideas on how to get out of this fight with everyone and everything intact. The first step was to keep Draxum away from Leo. The man said he wanted to take them by force, which means obviously he’d go for the turtle he had in possession before.

After the initial disbursement of villains, Donnie climbs the skeleton of a building to gain a vantage point and time to think. Slinking around Hypno’s attacks like the duck in the game Crossy Road. He sees Draxum hanging back for a moment, calculating as his vines seem to work without his input. Maybe they're functioning like a mystical octopus? Focus, Donnie. Do something.

A well aimed fish knocks Draxum out of his thoughtful stupor. He turns to snarl at Donnie who sticks his tongue out at Draxum. Classic taunting maneuver. Donnie spins the ladder in his hand and descends past Hypno. The hippo calls out a disdainful “Hey!”

He throws rings at Donnie, who easily slinks around the rings and continues falling with the use of gravity. He almost half-wants to apologize. Almost.

Raph’s with Meat Sweats, cleverly evading the meat tenderizer. Leo’s preoccupied with Repo Mantis. Draxum appears to have forgotten Donnie’s taunt and seems to be eyeing Leo. Which is completely unacceptable. Donnie shouts “Hey goatface!”

Draxum turns to look at him. Good, keep looking at him. “Your lab sucks ass and your filing system is poorly managed! Your wire management looks like a plate of spaghetti that you threw at a wall and you’re so poorly organized you couldn't alphabetize a children’s book!” Donnie shouts.

Draxum’s expression darkens. Donnie grins, nonchalantly leaning on his ladder “Not to mention you're completely delusional. You think releasing a handful of mosquitoes in New York is going to change anything? That humanity would take your declaration of war laying down? You clearly have never experienced the strength of the human spirit.”

“Yokai kind will outlast humanity if I have anything to do with it.” Draxum shouts back, approaching Donnie.

“There are a lot more ways to help out the yokai.” One of Hypno’s rings breaks Donnie’s ladder, and Donnie runs to get another, scaling a supply crate in the process “Really the destruction of humanity as a whole is a very uncreative solution.”

A vine shoots out near him and Donnie leaps away, “Humanity must be stopped from their destruction of the planet.” Draxum snarls, keeping far too many vines crawling around his blindspot “I find the elimination of them rather elegant, actually.”

Donnie has many complex feelings regarding humanity but none of them matter right now. Right now he needs to keep Draxum pissed and pissed off at him. “Mutating,” shit, he still needs to get something between him and Hypno.

Donnie sacrifices the bottom of his ladder to avoid getting cut up. Ducking behind a supply crate. If it was just him and Draxum he would be able to banter easily but there’s too many goddamned people and the stench of rotting fish is distracting him and he wishes he was allowed to maim at least a little bit to just get less people in this motherfucking fish-ladder factory for five goddamned minutes. Fuck it- time to be reckless. He can't think over the smell so he’s just not going to.

He’s not allowed to maim but Donnie is allowed to pull every other trick he knows. He makes a beeline at Draxum, dropping down a level to get crates in between him and Hypno. He flips away from a throttling vine, partially destroying his ladder as he grabs another one. He leaps on top of a vine, one vine hooks the broken ladder away from him and he uses the momentum to swing upward into an arc that ends at Draxum.

He feints left, goes right and gets slammed into a shipping container with a vine at his throat. Thank god for the battle shell, that might’ve paralyzed him. But god, it still hurts so much tears well up in his eyes. Draxum takes a deep, pacifying breath. Donnie starts to panic from the lack of air, where are they? Where are his brothers? Are they okay? Why is Draxum looking at him like that? If Draxum’s not angry at him he’s going to be bored and he’s going to leave -- and he’s approaching Donnie. Another vine wrapping around his chest to relieve pressure off of his throat, prodding at the vacuum seal between his plastron and the battle shell. Donnie coughs at the sudden intake of air.

Draxum eyes Donnie in a way that makes him want to tear out Draxum’s other eye. Donnie thoughtlessly snarls at the expression, disgusted. Draxum mollify’s his plated face, adjusting his gauntlets “We are of the same mind.” Donnie rolls his eyes, familiar with this kind of speech from comics and movies. He made a tier list on stream about them. He doesn't understand the concept of the greater good or morality but he does understand the concept of His. His family. His brothers. And under no circumstance was anyone allowed to hurt his family. Forgiveness was not an option. Draxum would be destroyed one day. All of them would be. A simple statement of fact.

Draxum’s mouth stops moving. Donnie rolls his eyes and leans forward a little bit to be as condescending as possible “Are you done yet?”

Draxum frowns, dragging a hand acrossing his plated face “Did that seriously not do anything for you?”

“To be honest I wasn't even listening.” Donnie deadpans. “Personally, I find you incredibly boring.”

Draxum looks appalled, nay, astonished even. He takes just long enough feeling offended that Donnie gets access to a pocket on his belt “Pocket sand!”

Draxum bursts into a sputtering mess, recoiling from the assault on his eye. The vine loosening enough for Donnie to slip out of. He runs away, shouting behind him “Eat shit!”

Donnie swiftly rejoins his brothers, finding Leo wielding dual swordfish and Raph with a ladder. Donnie is filled with immense stubborn love for his brothers and he grins. He slides underneath some signature magic rings that return to a scowling Hypno. “Y’know it’s really impolite to leave a fight without saying goodbye first.”

Donnie snatches a ladder from a crate. “Needed to talk to your manager first, I’m sure you understand.”

He lunges at Hypno, ecstasy rising in his chest, and despite his reservations he joins in on a chorus of “HOT SOUP!”

Raph takes a step back, and Donnie is inclined to follow him. He grabs Leo by the shell so that they all gain distance from their enemies. Raph spins his ladder in the air, extending it as he cheers “Laddering like a boss!”

Leo chuckles when he realizes what Raph’s intending to do and Donnie just grins like a maniac because that’s his Raph. Raph swings the ladder in the air, smacking every one of their villains and swatting them away with the speed of a missile launcher. Raph contracts the ladder and rests it on his shoulder in a cocky stance “Now that your minions are done, let’s tango, you sheep-looking-” “Where did you learn to fight like that?” Draxum interrupts oddly star struck.

Raph doesn’t miss a beat “Oh. Only from the greatest action film star in history,” Donnie joins in with Raph while feeling the blind excitement of a successful fight “Lou Jitsu!”

Draxum snarls “How could you morons possibly know Lou Jitsu?”

“His movies, primarily.” Donnie informs.

“Spirits!” Leo mock gasps “Did you forget where I lived for the past decade?”

Draxum’s hackles raise “Gah! No! I knew Lou Jitsu! Personally! He was the greatest warrior in the Battle Nexus! His human DNA combined with my ooze gave you all life!”

Donnie’s brain goes into overdrive, past memories ticking by frame by frame. Really? He almost wants to ask. Like, really, really? Any fan’s greatest dream? He checks on his brothers, how are they feeling, are they okay, how are they taking the news? Raph collapses onto his knees, shocked “What?” He looks at his hands “We have Lou Jitsu DNA?”

Leo’s expression is unreadable “Cowa-boy, am I speechless.”

“Of course.” Donnie confirms to himself as he looks over his three fingered hand “It all makes sense now.”

Draxum stalks towards them, intensity in his expression “YES! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, that you’re destined for so much more.”

Red flags immediately go up in Donnie’s peripheral. Gross old man! Gross old man trying to say you’re special! Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger! The only red flag Donnie approves of- Raph’s chewed up mask tails- grunts as he gets back up onto his feet. For a second, Donnie thinks Raph is going to say something to Draxum- until he turns around with the fangirliest of expressions. “Ohmigosh! Lou Jitsu’s our Dad!”

“I am having a week’s worth of emotions right now.” Leo presses a hand against his forehead, looking dizzy.

“Our connection to Lou Jitsu isn’t just emotional!” He brings up Raph’s hand, studying it with his goggles “It’s biological!”

He could theoretically make a clone of Lou Jitsu now. It would take a lot of biological processing to finish out the genome and separate it from the turtle dna, he’ll need to figure out a way to complete all the chromosomes and the missing parts just in case he can’t stitch it all together all of their respective Lou Jitsu parts and- “ENOUGH!” Draxum shouts, growing taller with a purple vine emerging from the ground.

“If you three cannot see the true merit of your potential,” He rolls his knuckles “Then I have no further use for you.”

He starts to laugh, until a small blip of a portal opens up behind him and starts to suck him in. “Wait!” Raph starts “We have so many more questions!”

He jumps up to try and catch Draxum, but the portal sucks up all of him, including the vines, and Raph is left falling on his face. “Donnie!” He calls for an explanation.

Donnie checks the reading on his armband “It’s mystical in origin, definitely. It’s similar to the crystals that we used to hop out of Big Mama’s but it’s different enough to make me suspect it’s another thing entirely.” He’ll have to show this to April so that she can get a better read on it, "I don’t think it even leads to the Hidden city.”

“Argh! I always come up with questions when I’m out of time to ask them!” Raph groans.

“Make sure to type your questions out on your armband!” Prompts Donnie, gesturing to the screen on Raph’s forearm “You’ll be able to ask him questions the next time we see him.”

Leo shakes his hands out before walking up to Donnie “First things first,” He aggressively shakes Donnie by the shoulders “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING GOING OFF FIGHTING DRAXUM LIKE THAT HE COULD'VE KILLED YOU OR WORSE AND AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE SUPER SMART YOU PRETENDED TO BE A DOCTOR FOR LIKE A MONTH!”

Before Donnie can respond to any of that, Leo retreats into himself, limbs and head half inside of his shell “And…can we go back to your home? I…I wanna have some time to think for myself.”

Donnie now remembers what Leo said about Lou Jitsu earlier that morning. He remembers the interviews he watched before rescuing him. There’s…complicated emotions there. One's Donnie can’t hope to even begin to understand. He can hardly imagine a world in which he doesn’t love Lou Jitsu, he doesn’t understand how Leo could…hate him? Is it even hate?

Raph puts a comforting hand on Leo’s shoulder “That’s okay bud. Let’s go home.”

Leo doesn’t say anything. Raph hesitantly picks him up, and Leo fully retracts into his shell. Raph shares a look with Donnie. They’re both worried and confused. But they’ll take care of him. In whatever way they can.

Raph holds Leo until they get to a sewer grate “Leo?” Raph mumbles “Can you get out a little? I need both hands in order to climb down a ladder.”

Leo wordlessly emerges and climbs down himself. Donnie pats Raph’s arm for comfort before following the slider himself. They don’t talk in the sewers and the lair’s dark when they return. “I’m going to go to my room.” Leo announces.

Donnie sees a strange and familiar silhouette “Hey, what’s Splinter’s chair doing-”

Splinter turns on the lamp to a chorus of screams as he folds his arms across his chest “Where have you been? I was worried! Didn’t I ground you?”

Leo grumbles, rubbing his arm “And you took away our weapons.”

“We’re really sorry!” Raph bows “And-- but we learned a really big secret today, all right. We need--” “Me first.” Splinter interrupts, putting a pausing palm up.

“Ugh.” Splinter pinches the bridge of his nose “Being a single parent is,” wait ,”um.” Is he ,“Uh. what I wanted to,” actually trying to apologize? “I didn't mean to lose my temper earlier, I am sorry.” Holy shit! He actually said the words! “And I am sorry for not telling you all about Leonardo and Michelangelo earlier. It is just that sometimes, as a father-” Leo puts a finger to Splinter’s face.

“Yeah, no. I’m not going to let you finish that awkward parenting speech when apparently,” Donnie can recognise the bitterness in Leo’s tone “,Lou Jitsu has been one hell of a father figure to everyone else but me.”

Splinter gasps “What? Who told you? I mean, how did you--” Clearly, Splinter is confused, so Donnie slides in to clarify “What Leo means is, Lou Jitsu is our human DNA.”

“Well, then,” Splinter settles in his chair “, I guess you know that I am in fact--” Raph interrupts up by placing a hand on Splinter’s tiny shoulder.

“You’re still our Dad. No matter where our human dna is from.” Raph says.

“And.” Donnie adds “I am rather impressed by that apology, it must've taken a lot of effort for you to actuallt give a shit. I expect a twenty five page written essay on everything you’ve ever done wrong-” An arm emerges with a blank paper from his battle shell until Raph eyes him sourly “fifteen pages?” Raph shakes his head “Five pages?” A slight tilt of the head as if saying really? “One page!” He finally concludes, out of breath “A one page essay regarding the Leo slash Mikey situation and why you won’t do shit like that to us ever again.”

Donnie hands Splinter the blank paper with a pen. Then he also shoves a parenting book into Splinter’s lap “And also read this book about raising a traumatized child. And also this book about emotional incest. And codependent parenting and-” “Donnie!” Raph scolds.

“I’m helping!” Donnie insists.

“You just keep all this stuff on you?” Leo asks.

“Why wouldn't I?” Donnie blinks uselessly.

Splinter sighs exasperatedly, though good humouredly, and he smiles as he says with immense fondness “My sons.”

“Raph hug!” Raph declares as he grabs Splinter and hugs him tightly.

Donnie awkwardly pats Splinter’s shoulder from a safe distance and Leo stands a foot away looking…conflicted. Donnie walks up to him, and murmurs quietly with enough diction that Leo can read his lips. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…fine.” Leo hesitates “I guess…a little relieved? He’s…not mad? He’s not going to hurt us?”

Donnie sighs, and repeats “He’s not going to hurt us.”

Slowly, with one arm in front of the other, Donnie pulls Leo into a hug, and with all intents and purposes, Leo doesn’t pull away.

Chapter Text

“Yeeeeah. Leo’s not going to feel too great about the Lou Jitsu thing.” Mikey explains as he eats his egg salad sandwich.

“Why not?” Draxum asks hotly, “Most people would be ecstatic to learn of such a thing. He should be proud.”

“Not when you’ve been dealing with Big Mama’s obsession with the guy.” Mikey answers, putting down his sandwich so he can explain in more detail “For years, nothing and no one could be better than Lou Jitsu. Leo liked it when Big Mama praised him- plus now I think he got more privileges if he was a good fighter too. So he was kinda getting conditioned to seek Mama’s approval.”

“It looked like he got it, all of the journalists lauded him as the next champion.” Draxum says before taking a bite of grilled asparagus.

“That was all Leo marketing.” Mikey gestures dismissively “Nothing to do with Big Mama. Privately, I think she still regarded Lou Jitsu as the best champion she ever had and that she was settling for Leo as second best. Leo hated that. One time a reporter asked how he felt about being the next Lou Jitsu and he ate that reporter and spat her back out- he was real mean about it. As mean as you can be on camera anyways.”

“I’ve noticed the inconsistency in the Lou Jitsu records.” Draxum points out. “Leonardo did not beat as many as was televised.”

“She didn’t futz all of them I think.” Mikey starts idly tearing the crust off his sandwich “I don’t know if Leo knew- or cared- or maybe she didn’t let him know? She might’ve been jumping on the back of the whole better-then-Lou-Jitsu marketing, maybe she just wanted him to feel better?”

“Why would she do that?” Draxum inquires, expression unreadable behind his faceplate.

“She thought the audience could tell the difference between Leo’s bad and good moods. She can read Leo like a book, so if he’s in a bad mood she can always tell. But Leo’s been pretending to have a good time in the ring for years, so most people can’t tell.” Mikey takes a bite of his sandwich to punctuate his words.

Draxum sighs “Ugh! That spider’s delusion of grandeur. Using Lou Jitsu to what? Make money in some shallow business deal that would only last as long as he tolerated her presence.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you something honestly,” Mikey prefaces, “Kinda-sorta kidnapping a man to use his dna to make surprise warrior destiny children is also morally dubious in a way that makes me feel gross. You’re not better than her. And also, you didn't even offer him a pillow? A bed? Whatever slime you might sleep in? You just put him in a cage.”

Draxum notably avoids eye contact “It was a short term solution.”

Mikey rolls his eyes, “You keep telling yourself that. But you cannot say that you were planning on giving him back to Big Mama. From what the goyles told me, you were enraptured with the man.”

Draxum’s ears droop in a guilty manner. Mikey smirks at the quiet victory. “Honestly, I feel like I’m the result of some messy divorce agreement.”

Draxum snarls in a way that tells Mikey he clearly hit a nerve “Do not ever imply I was married to that woman.”

Mikey smiles disarmingly “Of course you’d never be married to her.”

Draxum’s hackles lower slightly “You're the rebound!” Mikey blurts out with mild laughter.

Draxum sputters “What?”

“Y'know! A rebound!” Mikey smiles mischievously “It’s when-”

“I know what a rebound is, child!” Draxum slams his hands on the table, the plates clattering from the vibration.

Okay, too far. Why did he do that anyways? Mikey starts picking up his plates “And you need to realize when somebody is needling you for a reaction.” it takes him a moment to realize that’s a shitty thing to say “Sorry. That was a bad deflection. I shouldn't have said that.”

There’s a moment of tense domestic silence as Mikey cleans up lunch, gauging Draxum’s expression out the corner of his eye. Looking away when Draxum makes eye contact. Draxum seems to be feeling a lot at once, intricacy lost from his faceplate and the youth of their relationship. The one emotion Mikey can recognize is that Draxum is trying to be stoic, but the curves on his face depict something troubled.

Once he hears Draxum’s utensils scrape against his plate, Mikey’s mind turns to one of the many other things that happened yesterday. It didn't bring him any peace like he thought it would. He has no doubt that if he showed up Leo would've yelled at him-- or worse, around him. As if Mikey isn't capable of taking care of himself. It bugs him that he wasn't there-- and he’s not sure why. Maybe it’s so he could have kept a reign on Draxum? So his brothers don't get hurt?

He submerges all of the dishes in soapy water and starts to scrub. But then there’s also the foot face guys… “I still think the foot clan are lying to you.” Mikey notes. “If it’s too good to be true then it is.”

Mikey can hear Draxum audibly still. He knows there’s irritation simmering within Draxum, anger at the perceived disrespect. Mikey stands there, his hands still submerged in the soapy water- his clawed gauntlets removed and set on the table next to Draxum’s own. The goat yokai clears his throat “I…still think it is too early to make a firm tell.”

Mikey smiles to himself, unseen by Draxum. That’s a pleasant surprise. He goes back to merrily washing dishes “We need to be careful about this sort of thing. Try not to get too wrapped up in it. Remember: these guys are not as important as you are. You are not defined by whatever hierarchy they have, you’re more than that.”

Draxum scoffs “As if I’d ever let myself be consumed by their egregious foot-based culture.”

Mikey chuckles “Of course, of course. You will be bringing me to your foot clan meeting though.”

Draxum huffs, irritated “As much as I am to loathe the idea of having you mingle with those freaks, you have a degree of,” Draxum pauses as he thinks of the words “more knowledge. Then me. When it comes to items such as social manipulation.”

“My plan is to watch them first. Was wondering if you can do something to let me hear them too.” Mikey turns to find that Draxum is still eating his plate of grilled veggies egregiously slow. He withholds a sigh.

Draxum nods in consideration “I could have something arranged, yes.”

Mikey sits back in the chair across from Draxum. “Great! The more power we have over these peeps the better. Now, what’s training gonna look like?”

“What a wildly in character turn of conversation there.” Draxum passive aggressively complains. “Yes. We can return to training. We will go through some basic kata, strength training and flexibility training over the next couple weeks. You will pick out a weapon of choice after you are done. And to clarify: the claws are meant to be a backup of sorts.”

“Sounds like a blast!” Mikey stretches, tipping his chair in its back legs. “Mystic comes after all that, right?”

“Correct.” Draxum affirms “Training the body will prevent your mystic from harming you, and refining your mystic will allow you to control your output so you aren't burning out every time you use it.”

“Did you mean to do that?” Mikey asks, his thoughts swirling.

Draxum blinks “I’m not following.”

“Did you mean to make my mystic so…big?” Mikey wiggles his fingers for effect.

Draxum grimances “Yes and no. Mystic is a natural phenomenon based off of many variables, and controlling all of those variables at once is very much like the metaphor herding cats. But I did influence a few of these variables in an attempt to increase your mystical prowess. And it’s hard to say how big your mystic is, it’s raw material and in the process of refining some of the material gets discarded.”

Draxum takes a deep breath “You are underdeveloped for your age, however. Normally, a mystically inclined child would learn things such as cantrips, manifesting, and emotional regulation. Due to your underdeveloped mystic, there will be less plasticity to it and make it harder to refine. Especially after whatever shape it’s convinced itself it needs to be in.”

Mikey heard something about cats, he likes cats, he needs to check in on fireplace kitty, do fire cats eat? What could he try feeding to fireplace kitty? He needs to pay attention. Cantrips? Mikey does not know what a cantrip is. Cans don't have feet to trip on anyways. Draxum stopped talking, and Mikey blinks. Draxum sighs and sets down his silverware. “You weren't paying attention to me, were you?”

“I was trying!” Mikey blurts, anxiety in his hands and wrists.

Draxum gives a noncommittal hum. His facial plate hiding the more minute muscle movements that would tell Mikey what he’s thinking. He wishes that Draxum would just take it off, but he’s beginning to suspect that the goat yokai rarely takes it off in the first place. Nothing to do with Mikey, in theory.

Mikey grabs his gauntlets and slides them on. “I’mma go paint. You okay with fending for yourself right now?”

“Yes, I am looking forward to eating in peace if that’s what you're asking.” Draxum grumbles.

“Nope!” Mikey smiles, grabbing his clawed gauntlets “But thanks for tellin’ me! Ciao!”

He grabs a chicken strip, pockets it, and as soon as Mikey leaves the kitchen he feels worse. Like the soul has been sucked out of him. He prods internally at himself, feeling a raw and bloody ache in return. He should investigate his feelings, figure out what’s wrong- paint like he said he would.

He wishes he could leave the castle.

The more appeasing part of him says it only makes sense. Draxum is only trying to keep him safe from Big Mama and her goons- she’s already having a tantrum and she definitely would try to get Mikey back if he was outside. The other part of Mikey recognised it as the controlling behavior it was. Maybe, just maybe, if he was good enough he could go outside. It’s an easy and familiar self delusion. But that’s just foolish for him to hope, right?

Mikey compromises and goes to a balcony. Adorned only by a singular weather-worn bench. He leans against the stone railing, looking out into the city with a kind of bone deep exhaustion. The lights disappear into the distance, with vague shapes moving with the wind. His mind is listless like a flurry of papers fluttering on the wind and out the window. He reaches for his thoughts, though they fly through his fingers. He almost wants to jump across the railing. He almost wants to fall. (That’s a nostalgic feeling. He can almost remember falling.)

A shrike with four eyes appears, perched next to him. It’s bizarre for such a small bird to fly up this high. He knows who it’s from.

Mikey buries his face in his arms “I'm fine by the way. I'm not a damsel in need of rescuing. I’m strong. Draxum knows I’m strong. He gave me these.”

Mikey extracts the claws from his dark gauntlets, glinting from ambient hidden city light. “Big Mama never gave me such a thing. Had to fight to get me a microwave. She viewed everything as a privilege that could be taken away. Yet…”

A bloody and raw feeling.

“I still love her.” He confesses “Isn't that kinda messed up? She’s killing you. She’s killing all of you.”

The shrike hops closer to him, silent and staring. Mikey contracts his claws. “She was killing my brother. They had a deal didn't they? Is that why she was so strict with visiting times? Because I was a…a reward? Something to be kept from?”

He swallows a hard lump down his throat. “I still don't know what the hell Othello was doing. He must've said something real special to Leo to make him even think about leaving.”

Mikey pauses to gather himself. Metallic fingertips brushing the stone railing, his scales cold. He takes a deep breath before looking at the small little bird. “I don't know alot, but I know that I still love you. I love all of you. Despite all the hurt it’s still here.” He taps his plastron “And I can't get rid of it.”

“Maybe that’s why I hate Leo.” Mikey considers “He’s my brother. We’ve been through everything together. But he’s hidden so much from me.”

He taps the marble railing “I’m not a baby. Maybe once upoun a time I was, but I haven't been a baby for a long time. Thing is, I don't think Leo ever realized that. I don't think he ever realized that I don't need protection anymore.”

The shrike flutters its wings. Mikey isn't sure how to understand that. He gives a sad smile “Yeah. Sure. Thanks for agreeing with me.” He chuckles at himself. “Can't read you without you being here.”

He sighs, the air cold in his lungs. He stares through half lidded eyes at the glowing horizon. He can see little towns and streets down below, but he can recognise none of them. They never taught him to navigate the city, never taught him names of places beyond those he learned on tv. “Y'know. I wish things were okay.” He yearns “For like five minutes. Ten maybe. I don't like drama. It’s fun when it’s on tv, but when people just don't tell you things for whatever nonsense reason. It hurts.”

He makes eye contact with the shrike and it blinks underneath his gaze, “I hope I’m not a baby to you anymore. I hope you see me as a strong and capable person. I hope you love me and how different I’ve become.”

Mikey leaves the balcony. Hearing the flutter of wings behind him.

Words still escape him as to what he’s feeling. Just impressions. Just a corpse between him, Leo, and Big Mama. Mutilated, mangled, and covered in red bandages. They’re trying to replace the bandages, but he thinks the corpse has stopped bleeding a long time ago.

Instead of painting Mama’s makeup running and every secret Leo scarred into his own flesh, he goes to the living room, taking the chicken strip out of his pocket. The gargoyles were running errands, so their dog beds were empty. Mikey sits in front of the fireplace, mind churning like white noise. He feels numb in a not-sort of way, like it’s too much for his heart to handle. He takes a deep breath in to try and calm his mind.

He rests his elbows on his knees as he leans forward, with a bit of chicken in his palm, and chirps. It takes a moment before a pair of eyes emerge from the flames. “Hello there.” He says softly.

He sets the small chicken strip down in front of him. She steps out of the fireplace with a biiiiig stretch, like she’s the ash pile climbing out of the fire. She starts nibbling on the chicken, with the smell of cooking meat wafting into the air.

Mikey thinks he made some progress with her. Last night when he had the castle all to himself, he ended up in this room, talking to himself until a small smokey head polked out of the fireplace. She still doesn't let him pet her, but that’s okay. He can give her space.

She finishes eating the chicken and looks up at Mikey. He holds out his hand, which she cautiously approaches and sniffs. Her nose is warm and her whiskers tickle his palm. She licks the remaining chicken smell off of his fingers.

Mikey slowly lays down. She flinches when he starts moving, but calms once she realizes what he’s doing. She begins to walk around him, sniffing him carefully. He wonders what she smells. He must smell a bit off, considered he finished grilling a bunch of food. She might like it though, the smokey-charcoal smell.

He thinks she’s a spirit of some sort. Mikey’s not that familiar. He’s been afraid of mystic for a large portion of his life, so he’s pushed it to the wayside for a long long time. But it’s pretty easy to say that she’s not a normal cat. He thinks the waterline underneath her eye is black. She’s short furred, reminding him a bit of Cathead. She’s mostly solid colored, ash gray with black lines on the edges of her ears and around her eyes like eyeliner. She looks healthy to him, though Mikey is not that well versed in fire cat health.

Should he give her a name?

That almost feels like an invasion of privacy. No, he thinks he’s just gonna call her Fire Cat for now.

She walks into the corner of his vision and circles around then lays down. Mikey smiles to himself and curls up. He takes a nap there. In the light of the fire and the light of a cat slowly beginning to trust him.

She thinks he’s a bit strange looking, but he’s warm on the inside- just like her. He’s odd, talking a lot in an unfamiliar manner. But he doesn't push. Doesn't prodd. He waits like a cat locked in a box. There’s no other option but to wait.

He’s lived something long. Something damp and crumbly around the edges. She can taste how it steams off of him in great wafts. See it in the slight shiver of his scaled frame. He’s cold in a way unacceptable to any hot-burning folk. She couldn't just leave him here. If on any chance he would bring her food and company again, she would not leave him. Not like this.

She saunters up to him, looking down at his expression, letting her whiskers just barely touch him. His face barely wrinkles. So she weaves in between his arms, tail curling around his metal claws. She stretches out to headbutt the underside of his chin before settling against his stone-solid chest. Purring warmth into his soggy soul.

And like any hearth-spirit, she brings him peace.

Chapter Text

Raph trusts his brothers, he does. It hurts still, in a childish way, that Donnie tells him not to come meet up with Cathead. It hurts that Donnie chose April to come join him instead of Raph. Raph already sat around during the initial break out plan, unable to contribute anything more than his fists. He’s frustrated that he’s still doing it. He hates doing nothing.

He thinks Leo doesn't like doing anything either.

Donnie told Raph to leave Leo alone, give him space. He understands where this comes from, Donnie needs space to understand his thoughts and feelings. But they don't actually know if Leo needs the same thing. Raph and Donnie have been living with each other for years, they got each other's attachment styles and coping mechanisms down pat. But Leo is so new, they’ve been making alot of assumptions about what’s best for him.

It’s been nearly 24 hours since the fight with Draxum, Raph knows because of the clock on his bracer. The bruises from being thrown around have healed enough to just be a dull ache. Leo hasn't left his room since they got home. The door is closed.

Privacy is important. But if privacy is going to turn into isolation, well then Raph is going to walk through that door. After getting apple slices, a squishmallow, and his big nintendo ds, of course.

He knocks against the door. He waits a minute. No response.

“You can do this, Raph.” He mutters to himself before opening the door.

He turns on the light, and Leo groans, pulling the blanket over his head. Raph huffs, familiar with this series of events. He sets the apple slices down on Leo’s nightstand, and sits down next to his bed, arm resting on the mattress. “Whaddya want.” Leo mutters.

“Company.” Raph reaches over to grab an apple slice “I don't like being alone.”

Leo emerges from the blanket, suspiciously squinting at Raph as he eats the apple slice. Raph shrugs “What? Am I not allowed to spend time with my brother?”

“I’m not your brother.” Leo blurts.

Raph can recognise that kind of meanness- though Donnie has long since grown out of it. He says “Pardon. Am I not allowed to spend time with Leo.”

Leo slowly blinks, sitting up on his bed. “Don't you have anything better to do?”

“Nope!” Raph cheerfully declares, booting up his DS.

He can feel Leo glaring at him. Raph ignores it, playing with his nintendog instead. “Why aren't you lying?” Leo asks.

“Why would I?” The answer comes as natural as breathing.

“Why don't you want something from me? What do you want from me? You can't just sit there!” Leo cries, gesturing to Raph.

“Why not?” Raph pauses his game.

“Because you can't just want to spend time with me! You need to want something! You need to take something from me! I can't be what you want. I can't be your champion.” Leo cries.

“You never needed to be.” Raph softly says.

Leo’s eyes are wide, red rimmed with tears. Red and blue eyes, mirrored from Donnie’s own. Leo slots into space so easily, to Raph it always felt like Leo was meant to be here. Leo has always been his brother, Leo has always meant to be here.

Raph hums “Y'wanna know a tip for helping out when I’m depressed?”

“I’m not depressed.” Leo says far too defensively.

“Be there for Raph. Bring appy slices. Something soft,” he hands the squishmallow over to Leo “,and just sit there. Because when Raph is at his worst is when he thinks he’s alone and unsafe.”

Leo holds the squishmallow close to his plastron. He looks at Raph like he’s listening, so Raph continues. “I worry about ya. I know that what Draxum told us upset you, but I don't know why. I don't need to know. I just need to be there for you. Show that I care for you, and all that.” Raph looks up at Leo’s attentive gaze, prompting him to continue “,And it must've been hard being a big brother, all by yourself, in such a hard place. I know I probably would've done the same if I was in such a situation.”

Raph takes in a deep breath “Y'know, I hurt Donnie once. Real real bad. I had anger issues as a kid and Donnie had… an evil prodigy phase back then. We’d go back and forth and we’d be very mean to each other. We loved each other though. Hate and love are very similar to each other, I think. It’s especially easy to hate once you know somebody so well as you love him, though that probably doesn't make any sense, heh.” Raph rubs the back of his neck “But one day, we were fighting. Don't even remember what about, but it was bad. I was crying, and Donnie figured that it was enough. So he turned his back to me-- and I bit him. I bit him, and I hurt my baby brother.”

Raph rests his head on the mattress, “I instantly regretted it of course. Dad came running. Donnie got fixed up. I was crying up a river the entire time. Don didn't speak to me for a week, but I was determined for it to never happen again. I couldn't let myself hurt him, or anybody, like that again. But I was real mean to myself after that. Thought I didn't deserve nothin’.”

Raph lets himself smile slightly “But one day, Don smacked me upside the head with an anger management book. Said we could work on it together. And we did. And it was good. And you can't even see the scar anymore, it’s faded so much.”

Raph lets it be quiet, closing his eyes to rest his head on Leo’s mattress. He hears Leo’s breathing hitch, so he opens his eyes to see a watery, mismatched, gaze. Raph reaches forward “Hey. Hey you're good. You're okay.”

Leo waves Raph’s hand away “I'm fine! I don't. I don't--,” the sob nearly escapes his throat “,why did you tell me that story?”

Leo and Donnie are so similar to each other. Why, why, why, constantly and all the time. Raph doesn't need to know why. He shrugs “I dunno? Thought you’d like it.”

“It’s horrible.” Leo gapes.

“It’s what happened.” Raph says “Ain't no changing it. As horrible as it was, it happened.”

“And Donnie forgave you?” Leo asks.

“Forgave me?” He snorts “,He credits that incident as the creation of the battle shell. He says he wouldn't have had it any other way.” Raph smiles “Y'know, the first prototypes had spikes on it. Like me.”

Leo stares at Raph, eyes squinted as if he’s trying to read something off of Raph’s cheek. Raph figures that he doesn't like it when Leo does that. “I can check in on Donnie and Apes if you wanna? It’s on my mega-cool bracer3000.”

Raph inches closer to show off his bracer, pulling up the maps “It’s got less stuff on it than Donnie’s, but I wouldn't touch all that coding stuff with a nine foot pole, so it’s fine.”

“What’s the gray dot?” Leo asks.

“That’s pops! And the red dot is me! And I gotta fuss around a lil bit to change the map to the hidden city!” Raph presses a few buttons “There we go! Purple’s Donnie-”

“Of course.” Leo mutters with a smirk.

“-and yellow’s April!” Raph cheerily explains.

“Why wasn't I on the map?” Leo asks.

“Oh, that’s cause of the trackers.” Raph says.

Leo visibly blanches “What?”

“Yeah, Donnie put a tracker on all of us a long while back. Hasn't gotten around to putting one on you, considering everything he is definitely gonna wanna have an actual talk with you.” Raph says, zooming out on the map to figure out where in the hidden city they are.

“What do you mean actual talk?” Leo asks.

Raph senses he misstepped somewhere so he closes the map. They don’t have the entire city mapped anyways. “Ok. Soooo. Uuuuuh. I dunno how much Donnie’s told ya.”

“Nothing about trackers!” Leo screeches.

“No, no. About me.” Raph puts a hand over his plastron for emphasis “Uh. It’s fine if he didn't consider it’s like- um. A Lot. Ugh. Talking about yourself is hard!”

“What did you do to cause Donnie to put trackers on all of you?” Leo gestures.

“I got lost in the sewers for a month.” Raph blurts out the simplest part of it.

Silence hangs between them. Leo struggles to untense “One more time, with feeling, what the fuck.”

Raph chuckles. “Well, it’s a lil more complicated than that. I get weird when I’m alone. Like…alone alone. Like can't contact my people, in strange places, don't know if I’m gonna see a friend ever again, kinda alone. So when I got lost…I got weird.”

Raph holds up the arm wearing the bracer “This started as a simple communicator. Harder to freak out if I can contact my bro at literally any time. Grew into more than that. Donnie’s…I dunno if I’d call it afraid, but he’s very aware of all threats. Constantly. All the time. He got it into his brain that the government was gonna dissect us. So he gave us all a tracker. Then April got a secret bonus tracker after she got stabbed by sheep-face and Don couldn't get in contact with her for three days.”

“Doesn't that seem like an invasion of privacy?” Leo asks, squeezing the squishmallow.

“It was! Originally. We all got very upset and yelled at Don about it. But Pops couldn't find the tracker and I kinda get it. If I can go find Donnie and he can find me. Well, we’re fine then.” Raph shrugs.

“But there’s not one on me.” Leo emphasizes.

“Not yet. We had an entire pre-break out conversation about this. So I know he'll talk to you about it. Nothing’s going to happen without you knowing, got that?” Raph reassures

Leo looks at Raph like he doubts him. Raph asks, genuinely “Do you think Donnie would hurt you like that?”

Leo’s face flushes green and he looks away. Raph doesn’t need an answer, anyways. Raph turns his arm to show Leo the screen, “Hey, press this button here.”

Leo frowns, and presses the button. He flinches back when Sheldon’s face pops up “Hey dudes! Whatsup?”

Leo’s face glows with recognition “This is Donnie’s weird robot thing right?”

“Ex-scuuuuse me, weird robot thing is right here!” Sheldon bites out a response.

Leo recoils, hiding his face with the squishmallow. Raph smiles “Hey Shelly, just wanted an ETA on when Don an’ Apes are comin home.”

“Of course, my dearest Raphael! You actually know how to show a dude some respect.” Sheldon clears his throat, a soundbite he stole from Donnie “,According to current calculations, the worst possible thing did not happen!”

“What would be the worst thing?” Leo cautiously asks.

“Big Mama showin up.” Sheldon turns to face Raph “,The doc did show his face though, and he’s actin real aggro towards Donnie. I thought we should bail, because that is not what we were gettin up into but nooooo, Donnie says he can handle this.”

“Bibo?” Leo whispers.

“The toxic doc himself! Yup. He’s definitely sidelined Cathead a bit cause of it, but April’s taking care of it. Donnie bro and Bibo are yelling at each other in the way that they're all soft spoken and quiet and mean. Ope, never mind, Donnie’s yelling at him for real now.” Sheldon chuckles nervously “Gotta get goin’ before Apes gets involved. Don’s gonna be upset when we get back, so maybe start preparing the Raphael special in like a half hour? I’ll set up a timer for you.”

The timer pops up and Sheldon closes out. Raphael’s worried, of course, he’s listened to Donnie’s rants about Bibo and only actually heard about a third of it. It’s one of those complicated things, where maybe Donnie is right and maybe Bibo is right, but it’s hard to say which one is more right because Raph has never talked to Bibo. But what Raph does know is that Bibo wanted to delay breaking Leo out for a reason Raph doesn’t get, and Donnie is extremely hurt by that.

Raph looks up at Leo, who looks so anxious he’s nearly about to explode. So Raph stands up “Wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Leo says far too quickly.

“Bibo. He was your doctor after all.” Raph offers the conversation start “,According to what I heard from Dee, he was one of the good ones.”

“He was the best.” Leo says hushedly “He didn’t poke or prod, he waited for me. He never touched or drugged me when I didn’t want it, and he was one of the few docs I actually trusted to help dress me when I got really banged up.”

Leo curls up, holding the squishmallow tight against his chest “I know he gave Donnie a in, he had to. And then my knowledge gets a lil spotty. It’s one of the things Donnie considers to be a big one, like the video tape of the night Mikey got attacked in his sleep.”

Raph remembers that night. He woke up to Donnie shaking him, rambling about how Mikey got hurt and how Big Mama was hurting him and hyperventilating to the point that he passed out. They were asleep when it happened- they all were. Raph hasn’t ever seen the video tape, and he’s never intending to. It was before Donnie and Bibo had their falling out. “Bibo was a big help to us gettin you out, y’know?”

“Yeah. But they had a disagreement about me, didn’t they? Otherwise Bibo would’ve been there on the day of the breakout.” Leo asks, piecing things together.

“I think so. I don’t entirely get what happened much. I was mostly waiting when Donnie was playing Othello Von Ryan and April was doin her journalism stuff. Usually they explained things to me very well but one day Donnie came home, told me every variation of ‘fuck Bibo’ and then we broke you out the next day.” Raph says.

“So it might be correlated with the breakout?” Leo says, mostly to himself.

Raph shrugs “I dunno. Probably? Maybe? I dunno. I do think you should get out of your room though.”

“How do you know that this isn’t me taking care of myself?” Leo asks, gesturing vaguely “,Hm, coping? Ever heard of it?”

Raph ignores Leo, standing up with an air of finality “Y’know what helps Raph when he’s depressed? The arcade! Come on, we can take turns on the DDR machine.”

“I’m not depressed-” Leo doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence cause Raph picks him up outta bed, hands Leo a single apple slice before Raph downs the rest of the plate by himself (don’t wanna let it go to waste, afterall) and runs to the arcade.

Raph plants Leo down by the DDR machine. Leo reaches into his pocket “I forgot Mikey’s bandana.”

Raph runs to get it, it’s in Leo’s bed amongst the blankets, and returns to the arcade, tying it around Leo’s wrist. “I don’t know what a DDR machine is.” Leo says.

“It’s a dancing game! C’mon! I’ll show you how it works.” Raph cheers.

Raph takes his first turn on the DDR machine, with most of the high scores being taken by Donnie. He turns up the music so Leo can hear, and goes through one of the easier songs. Then it’s Leo’s turn. He’s cautious, but once he understands the controls he starts dancing so hard he overtakes Donnie’s highscore. Leo bursts into laughter once his numbers climb over Donnie’s, and Raph quietly files it away. It might be a good distraction for Donnie once he gets home.

They trade turns, bickering over songs and shittalking eachother like brothers do. Then Sheldon’s timer rings. “I’mma start the Raph special. I’ll get you some water, but you can keep playin’.”

Leo leans against the rail “What even is the Raph special?”

“Well, it’s when I meet Donnie’s determination to feel bad head on in a wrestling match and win.” Raph explains with a grin.

Leo narrows his eyes at Raph “That didn’t tell me anything.”

That makes Raph hesitate “Well, I do a buncha stuff for him. But mostly I keep an eye on him. When Donnie gets depressed he can-” how the fuck does one say self harm without saying self harm “-get real smad and try to make himself more smad cause he thinks that’s all he deserves.”

Leo just looks more confused “Smad?”

“Sad and mad. Smad.” Raph explains.

Leo smiles slightly “Smad!” He chuckles “Good word!”

Raph huffs in amusement, “Feel free to use it. Have fun in here. If you need anything just shout.”

Leo nods, waving as Raph walks off “Will do!”

Raph’s first stop is the kitchen. He grabs some of Donnie’s protein powder from the cabinets and mixes it into several shakes. He puts purple grapes in a bowl and puts them in the freezer, snagging one for himself for a lil snack. He transfers some tuna from the freezer to the fridge to dethaw a lil bit.

He idly checks his phone, leaning against the counter to see that Seven Knives has sent him some new messages.

IHAVE7KNIVES: [link for best of Ghost Bear compilation on youtube]

IHAVE7KNIVES: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW GHOSTBEAR VIDEO

IHAVE7KNIVES: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW GHOSTBEAR VIDEO

IHAVE7KNIVES: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW GHOSTBEAR VIDEO

IHAVE7KNIVES: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW GHOSTBEAR VIDEO

Raph clicks on the link and it’s one he’s already seen.

RedAngle: I have seen the new Ghostbear video it’s really cool how he drops down on Gravetender from the cage and was like HWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and the interview part is hilarious

IHAVE7KNIVES: HAHA I BAITED YOU INTO MY TRAP INTO HAVING A CONVERSATION FOR ME

IHAVE7KNIVES: hows the family everything okay iamstilldownformurderingyourfather

RedAngle: ups and downs. My bros rn are having a depression moment so i gotta take care of em

And from the restocked alcohol stash that Pops doesn’t think Raph knows about, Pops is also having a depression moment. Raph clenches his jaw and just reaches back for his phone.

IHAVE7KNIVES: im not hearin any ups it just sounds like youre stressed

Redangle: im not stressed i just gotta take care of my family

IHAVE7KNIVES: you always take care of your family what about you

RedAngle: because im the biggest brother, i have to take care of these dum dums or else theyd start a nuclear war or somethin

IHAVE7KNIVES: I SUPPORT PURPLE IN ALL OF HIS WAR ENDEAVORS THANK YOU VERY MUCH

RedAngle: oh i think i can tell you about specifics rn that things have calmed down a lil

RedAngle: so our father apparently sent two of our brothers into foster care, and decided to not tell any of us until he had a breakdown about it. So me, Purple, and Yellow all decided to get together to try and get in contact with our brothers.

RedAngle: and they were in a pretty bad situation where they were being abused and neglected and by the time we got the paperwork finished for Blue, Orange already got sent to another, even worse foster home and now we’re trying to work around that paperwork and it's all very exhaustin

IHAVE7KNIVES: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh i fuckin HATED foster care i only wish it on my worst enemies

IHAVE7KNIVES: as shitty as your father is, good job on gettin them outta there

RedAngle: it’s been very hard cause pops hasnt been very involved in the process, and its kinda hard to get social workers to listen to you when youre just a buncha teenagers

RedAngle: Purple’s gonna be comin home soon, accordin’ to Lilac he’s having a big row with the social workers.

IHAVE7KNIVES: is it wise to bring lilac to such a thing? Wouldn’t they take him away?

Oh yeah, Raph remembers that he told Seven Knives that Sheldon’s a kid they took off the street and have kinda been keepin him for all intents and purposes. A much more plausible story than a robot son that Donnie made.

RedAngle: Lilac looks like us well enough so they havent asked for papers yet cause itd be one big leap to assume that Lilac aint one of ours

IHAVE7KNIVES: I WILL wreck the system if they do take him away

IHAVE7KNIVES: i will FUCKING DESTROY IT if they think they can provide him a better home than YOU

RedAngle: :) i know

“RAPH!” Leo screams.

Red shoots out a quick message.

RedAngle: gotta go Blues yellin

Raph runs to the arcade to find Leo screaming “MIKEY DOESN'T KNOW WE’RE RELATED!”

Raph starts “Really? He’s lived with you all his life-” Leo grabs Raph’s face “No! He doesn’t know that you’re his brother! He doesn’t even know that Othello’s a turtle!”

“You didn’t tell him?” Raph innocently asks.

Leo’s face falls dangerously low and Raph feels like he made a mistake. “I didn’t.” His face struggles to catch up with the sudden uptick in his voice “But it’s fine, it’s fine. I didn’t exactly have a lot of time with him and-” Raph can hear multiple feet enter the lair.

Panicked, Raph grabs Leo and walks over to the lair entrance. “HELLO HOW IS EVERYONE!” He shouts.

Donnie has a black eye. April’s covered in scrapes and bruises. Sheldon waves a floaty wing at Raph, his hull seeming intact.

April fixes her buns “We’re as fine as we could’ve been. Now, we’re going to go to the lab, get the whiteboard out and we’re going to put everything on it that we learned today. Capiche?”

Silence. April pats Raph on the chest “You can put Leo down, Raph.”

Raph puts Leo down. April praises “Good. Now let’s start going to the lab.”

Raph takes a detour to grab the protein shakes for Donnie. Donnie’s face is blank in a way that tells Raph he is exhausted, but his eyes widen at the sight of his comfort food. He starts drinking it as April rounds up all the chairs and markers. They all sit down, with Sheldon hovering over Donnie’s shoulder. April takes a deep breath, twirling her marker in her hand “Okay, everyone got their markers?”

“Yep.” “Got it.” Leo and Raph say, while Donnie nonverbally holds his marker in the air.

“Okay. I’ll start.” April turns to the whiteboard and writes down as she speaks “The Babysitters are in contact with each other.”

Leo stands up “Uh. I never told Mikey about any of this. I’m pretty sure he never learned Donnie’s real name.”

April nods “That is important information! You can write it down.”

Leo writes it down as Donnie raises his hand. April selects him “Yes! Donatello!”
“Laika is now living with Todd.” Donnie states blandly.

“Good information!” April declares “,Do you want me to write it down for you?”

Donnie hands her his marker. April writes it down on the whiteboard, before switching to her own dark yellow marker “Aaaand, connected to that, Laika made contact with Mikey.”

“Is he ok?” Leo jerks into April’s personal space.

“We believe so.” April pushes Leo away “,Laika mentioned that it appears Mikey is getting armored by Draxum, as he had some black gauntlets and kneepads that seemed to be in a similar style to what Draxum wears.” April says.

She draws a line connecting another thought to Laika “And, since she’s living with Todd, who is the retired spine breaking bandit, we could have an in to get in contact with Mike.”

“And Dodomeki.” Donnie points out.

April switches markers, erasing one of their brainstorming ideas for more concrete information. Leo’s nearly vibrating with energy. “So we’re not in contact yet?”

“Not yet, we’d need to recruit Laika and Todd to do so.” April explains “They still don’t know the role we and Cathead played in breaking you out.”

“The party.” Donnie says sourly.

April nods, “Yes, the party Bibo mentioned.” she drafts a new line of thought in purple “Big Mama will be throwing a party in several days.”

“Todd will be catering. Laika will also be there, since she is his assistant.” A new line of thought.

“Will we be going to the party?” Raph asks.

“Yes. Though we’ll need to do some sneaking around. I can try and find us cloaking brooches, though on such a short notice it’s going to be difficult.” April taps her marker against her lips. “Baseline, we’ll need to rely on you guys' ninja skills to get around.”

“She might not attack if we meet with her in public.” Leo writes that thought down “She’s been covering up the break out, right?” He connects it to that statement “Bad publicity if she starts attacking us out of nowhere.”

“Bounty hunters though. They know our faces and Othello.” Donnie points out.

“Your masked faces.” Leo corrects “You don’t need cloaking brooches if she doesn’t know your real faces.”

“A human is gonna stick out like a sore thumb though.” April folds her arms.

“Bare minimum, two cloaking brooches. For me and you.” Leo writes that thought down in blue.

“Still gonna be rough to get in a week.” April chews on the cap of her marker.

“Why can’t we organize a separate meeting with Laika and Todd like you did with Cathead?” Raph asks “,I mean, we know where Todd lives.”

The conversation stops like it’s run into a brick wall. Raph looks at everyone, puzzled by the silence. Was it something he said? April’s lips are set in a firm and vaguely disappointed line, Leo seems as confused as Raph and Donnie leans over to bonk his head against Raph’s arm. “Love you, Raph.”

“Love you too, buddy.” Raph replies automatically.

April sighs, frustratedly “Y’all know where Todd lives?”

“Job.” Donnie says shortly.

“Donnie built Todd a buncha stuff when he was gettin the moon buggy for the tank.” Raph elaborates.

“And you didn’t tell me?” April asks, too tired to be angry.

“It’s in the middle of the woods, April.” Donnie groans “,If it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be an internet hotspot for miles.” He gestures dramatically.

“You have a tank?” Leo asks.

“We should still keep the party on the calendar though.” Sheldon chimes in from on top of the whiteboard “Worst case scenario, BM throws a bitchin’ party and I might be able to send in a couple spyders while she’s distracted.”

“Maybe.” Donnie considers “Don’t want to give her hardware if I can help it.”

“Analogue backdoor only, the spyders won’t do nothing but lurk.” Sheldon assures, flying over to hover near Donnie.

“Sorry to interrupt, but spiders? Sheldon has spiders?” Leo asks, slightly alarmed.

“S-P-Y-D-E-R.” April spells “It’s one of Donnie’s inventions.”

“Oh man, I gotta show you!” Sheldon excitedly declares, zipping off to return with the tiny robot on his head.

It’s smaller than the tip of Raph’s fingernails, with three abdomen looking parts covered in matte purple varnish and the genius tech logo in the middle. Eight long legs skitter around Sheldon’s head, with twelve camera lenses for eyes. “Woah.” Leo says, looking it over “That’s so cool.”

“Simple to prevent failure, if they’re not allowed to leech they’ll need to bring along a battery bug.” Donnie says.

“Easy enough.” Sheldon notes, the spyder crawling onto his back. “April could get one of her contacts to drop off a package nearby.”

April smiles, energy going back into her expression “That way we can still get information from Big Mama and get in contact with Laika!”

She turns to write all of this down on the board. Leo looks like he’s floundering a little bit, unsure of himself and what to do. So Raph throws him something to hold onto “Hey, Leo, what do you think we need to do from here?”

“Um.” Leo hesitates for a moment “,Probably should plan transportation to Todd’s, maybe tell him we’re coming?”

“He doesn’t have a phone.” Donnie monotones.

Raph briefly worried that it would stop Leo from brainstorming but Leo just shoots him a quick “Fuck off, Dee. Okay, so we just show up at his place unannounced, which doesn’t feel that wise, but hey people did that a bunch back in the day. So surely it’s fine.” Leo waves dismissively.

He takes a deep breath “How long does it take to get to Todd’s?”

“In the tank?” Donnie looks at Raph, visibly thinking about Raph’s claustrophobia, "About two hours both ways.”

“And, as a meeting it can be hard to time these things out.” Leo notes.

“We could probably bring cookies, that’d put Todd in a good mood.” April interjects, writing it down on the board.

“Yes! Put the client in a good mood! That’ll make him more pliant to our suggestions.” Leo praises.

April smacks him with her marker, and Leo cries out “Hey! What was that for!”

“Habit. I smack Donnie too when he starts to sound too evil.” April confesses.

Leo looks at Donnie for confirmation, who only scoffs “Me? Evil? Preposterous! For I am the most upstanding American citizen who does all of his taxes.”

“Every single one?” April smirks, this an old routine they’ve done plenty before.

“Every single one, April O’neil!” Donnie spins around in his office chair “You certainly cannot say that I have even a single tax fraud in my possession!”

“Not one?” April asks.

“Nope!” Donnie haughtily replies.

“Not even a little one?” April asks, looking over her nails.

“Zilch! Naught! Nothing!” Donnie decrees “,Other synonyms for zero!”

“Nada?” Leo offers.

“Yes! My beloved Leonardo, you shall find that the amount of tax fraud on my person is precisely zero! Now you best leave your way, journalist O’neil, and what do the kids these days say? Hmm?” Donnie taps his chin in mock thought before a dastardly grin crosses his face “,Come back with a warrant.”

They all burst out into laughter and Raph is filled with immense love for his family. He remembers something, “I’ll be back real quick.”

He goes to the kitchen and texts Seven Knives real quick.

RedAngle: am alive

IHAVE7KNIVES: THANKFUCK i thought somebody died

RedAngle: nah bros just scream like that sometimes nobody got hurt just makin noise about a meme

RedAngle: were having a tag team momence right here in the house rn, we’re makin a big game play to get orange back

IHAVE7KNIVES: so purps got back from the social worker

RedAngle: yea he’s a lil roughed up, after having such a big emotion hes gonna have problems about it eventually but rn he and everyone else are talking about taxes

IHAVE7KNIVES: TAXES?

RedAngle: yea and how purple pays all of them

IHAVE7KNIVES: ALL OF THE TAXES?

RedAngle: every single one

RedAngle: gotta go back to the fam, but i’ll try not to ghost you so hard again

IHAVE7KNIVES: GHOSTING?????????????

IHAVE7KNIVES: BITCH-- and that’s all Raph read of Seven Knives’ rant before putting his phone back in his pocket and getting the grapes.

They all went back into planning mode since he was gone, though Donnie brightens up at the sight of his favorite snack. April sneaks a grape for herself and Leo tries to follow soon after, only to get nipped by Donnie. Leo gets offended and they get into a playful argument about April privilege. Raph can’t help but smile. He doesn’t do the entire affectionate arguing thing the rest of his family does, but he occasionally pipes up with a thought or two. He likes it like this, where they can bicker over useless things that don’t matter that much, but fill the room with pleasant company.

Chapter Text

The idea that if Mikey is good enough then maybe Draxum will set him free is some degree of logical fallacy. He doesn’t remember what kind, there’s a billion, but it definitely contains several leaps of logic that are not going to serve Mikey. He needs it to be more specific, and also maybe shift a little blame off himself. He IS good enough for freedom, he is good enough to get an unmonitored phone, he is good enough to go outside, he is good enough for a break.

Then why isn’t he stopping?

He feels sweat pooling in the back of his shell, his muscles burning as he goes through the kata several times more. From the way Mikey’s fingers flex into his fist, he can feel something move wrong in his knuckles that sends micro-panic throughout his chest. He shifts his weight, sending another weighty kick at the punching bag in front of him.

Draxum is watching in full armor, like always, with an impassive frown on his face. Unreadable beyond a vague sense of discontentment. Mikey doesn’t know why, but there’s this aching need to make it better. He needs to make it better, he needs to make it all better, he needs to make Draxum proud. (Was Big Mama ever proud? Was Leo?)

He tries to shift the way he does a kata slightly, so that his hands aren’t getting as much pressure. “Again!” Draxum shouts.

Shit. Mikey fixes his posture, going through the same kata a few more times to show Draxum he does know how to do it correctly. But that isn’t enough. “Stop!” Draxum starts walking over “Stop, stop, stop. You are doing it wrong.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing right!” Mikey insists, looking up at Draxum.

“If you were smart enough, you’d be able to figure it out yourself.” Draxum bites back.

“I’ve never done this before!” Mikey cries.

“You should know how to do this!” Draxum barks “,It’s in your blood!”

“Well then I guess you fucked it up somehow because I still don’t know what I’m doing!” He can feel tears starting to prick his eyes and he gets angrier “You’re supposed to be different! You were supposed to be good! I’m supposed to be good enough for you!”

“Well you're not.” Draxum stands over Mikey and he can’t help but wilt.

He can feel a sob crawling up his throat but he chokes it down. He hates how close sadness and anger are for him, they’re brothers in the way that they are almost the same. He tries to stand tall against Draxum’s imposing height but he wavers underneath the steely gaze.

“I,” Draxum starts, “Do not make mistakes.”

He stares down at Mikey with disgust “That…embarrassment is all you.”

Draxum turns his back to Mikey, “Training dismissed.”

Mikey flounders, panicking about the idea of losing his once chance to be strong “Wait! Wait, I can do better!”

Mikey can’t see his face, can’t read a damn thing off the man. He holds his breath, “I’ll try harder! I promise! I won’t talk back this time, I promise I’ll do it right this time.”

He isn’t doing this right, this isn’t convincing, this is begging. Mama said you should never beg and he’s doing it all wrong, he wishes he had note cards to read off of, he wishes he knew what to say. He wished he wasn’t like this. He wished he knew better.

Draxum makes a small, considering noise in the back of his throat. “Fine.”

“Let’s take it from the top.”

The skin split red across his knuckles, the damaged skin peeling off. Mikey picks at it, hates the texture difference between his scales and the doughy texture of where he beat his hands soft. It’s darkened from inflammation, though already starting to scab up. He remembers things such as healing factors, and he remembers other things as not setting a bone right.

It hurt to hold a pencil as the way he naturally held it put it right on a micro-cut he got from using his gauntlets during training. He almost laughed when he discovered the small red line, because surely Draxum wouldn’t give him the gauntlets if it hurt him.

But then he remembered.
.
.
.
.
Right now, Mikey thinks he feels sad. Or maybe nostalgic is the better term. He’s sad in a familiar way. He remembers patching up Leo, thinking similar thoughts. Surely, Big Mama wouldn’t give something so cheaply made to her champion, right? Surely she cared about him…

Though Mikey still doesn’t know if she does.

He’s tired. Tired in some awful bone-deep way that makes him feel sick. Tired in the way that he’s laying down on his bed, not doing anything. Not even falling asleep, just wading through his muddy thoughts.

People need support networks. That’s how people work. People need people. People need help. When you’re a kid, you want to be strong and ideal and good and that’s what superheroes are supposed to be but then spiderman came along and changed everything. Because when you’re a teenager everything is different. You need to exist, but you can’t prove that you exist through your own will as your own will is by itself. You exist through others instead. If other people like you exist, so do you. But, spirits, Mikey can feel how many things he’s mucking up from that video he watched on YouTube.

Point is, even if he should feel good enough, he’s not going to without other people believing it as well. He’s not going to feel real without other people like him.

Mikey groans and gets up. He goes into the kitchen, sees an abandoned mug of coffee on the table along with some random lab work. Mikey drinks the cold coffee just as Draxum walks in. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not here to fuck spiders.” Mikey says without thinking.

“What.”

“What.”

Draxum stares at him, maybe with a modicum of concern and a whole heap of bafflement. Mikey sets the mug in the sink “Your coffee got cold.”

Mikey walks past Draxum “I’m gonna go take a nap.”

Draxum puts a hand on Mikey’s shoulder and Mikey resists the urge to cut his own arm off. “Michelangelo, you just drank eleven ounces of coffee.”

“And I’m going to go to bed about it.” Mikey says pointedly, “What’s coffee gotta do with it?”

“You drank it all in one go.” Draxum states.

Mikey nods “Skill I learned for the sake of comedy. I’ll clean up your stuff after I wake up, okay?”

Mikey leaves before he can hear Draxum’s response. He might be hungry. He should be hungry. He isn’t. He might be dissociating. His emotions are so big right now, like big, screaming kaijus walking all over cities, destroying everything in their path. He’s just in the crater, a wasteland of what used to be. He lays there in the bed, vaguely dozing until he feels a weight on the end.

He turns his head to see a silhouette in the darkness, glowing like a burning coal. “Heya, fire kitty.” He mutters.

The tips of her whiskers burn with quiet embers, like little wisps of fire. They tickle when she noses his face. “I didn’t know you could leave the drawing room.”

She sniffs his hands. She sits down, puts a paw on his wrist to stop him from moving, and quietly begins to lick his knuckles. It hurts a little bit, the scratchy tongue against the soft wounds. He hears his knuckles pop like he cracked them, and he wiggles his fingers experimentally. It feels better.

He scratches her chest fluff and she leans right into it until his hand starts to cramp from the awkward position. Then she climbs on top of his shell and starts to purr like a crackling flame. Like somebody walked into his own personal wasteland and set up a campfire with s’mores.

Chapter Text

Sorry- finals are kicking my ass
When an actual update comes this chapter will be replaced
Just wanted to let y'all know I'm thinkin of ya

Mikey paints.

There is not much else he can do. The castle is built for an obsessive old man, not a hyperactive teenager. The gray stone is foreign to Mikey, who once covered up the white plaster of his old room with reckless abandon. But the idea of painting up a random wall fills him with dread. It’s best to avoid Draxum’s ire. He can't just paint the castle.

So he paints his room.

Symbolism is heavy and weighted. It still feels like there’s a corpse underneath his bed. The gargoyles bring him canvases but they're too small for his feelings. So he opts for patterns and colors that soothe him. Intricate mandalas that grow with reaching fingers. Botanical imagery blossoms around his room, blue vines coiling around his bed posts, flowers bloom in the corner of the bathroom mirror, and little fish swim in the part where he ripped up the carpet. Slowly, cautiously, it starts to feel more like his space.

When he’s tired, like he so often is these days, he paints himself. Smooth paint over his skin, swirling, organic patterns in a variety of colors. The feeling of the brush against his scales sending tingles up his shell, like ASMR. He sits in front of the bathroom mirror, watching the paint apply to his plastron. The organic shapes warp into graphic lines halfway across his chest and it makes something inside of him itch.

“Michelangelo!”

It’s not done drying. “Gimme a minute!” he calls out from the bathroom.

“You’ve been in there for twenty minutes!” Cries Draxum.

“Can a man not have IBS in peace?” Mikey complains.

“You have no such thing!” Draxum shouts

“Well how else am I supposed to make you leave me alone!” Mikey cries.

Chapter Text

The smell of the forest is thick and acrid, Leo can almost taste it on his tongue. Excitement leaves him restless, his leg hammering into the floor as it shakes. He’s disappointed April can’t come with. He’s got a growing respect for her that has blossomed into something that might be a friendship, if Leo felt like he had the right to be her friend. She’s great, a rock for everyone to bask on when the time comes. But, unfortunately, she still needs to go to school. (Which is also a strange concept.)

So the turtle tank contains only Leo, Donnie, and Raph. Leo can read them all like there’s big flashing neon signs above their heads. Raph’s claustrophobic and Donnie is going over a script that Leo and April helped make. They all want this to work out so much. Leo wants it too. He thinks he can make it work, these are just two people, random yokai essentially. He can make them do what he wants.

They go over a bump in the road and Raph yelps. Leo can't believe he ever thought, however briefly, that Raph could work in the battle nexus. He’s such a softie, Raph would just instantly die if he had to become a champion.
.
.
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Okay bad train of thought, time to change it.

The tank stops and they arrive at the clearing before Todd’s house. Raph hops out first, desperately looking for air. Leo steps out and steps back in because they have got to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Donnie said Todd operated a puppy sanctuary not an amusement park.

It isn’t until Donnie pops his freakish neck around and waves at a (fuck, what did Donnie say he was?) a mutant with an impressive mustache coming outside of the gates. “Donnie!” The mutant says with too much glee in his voice, “So glad to see that you made it here safely! I hope you don’t mind but my roommate is having one of her friends over, I hope that’s okay.”

Leo stares at the mutant because is this Todd? This can’t be Todd. “No, I don’t mind, actually Todd,” Donnie looks at his script again, “I was actually hoping to talk to you and your employee.”

“My what?” Todd asks with a polite grin.

“He’s talking about Laika.” Says a terrier yokai, a puppy still, kicking their legs as they sit on top of the fence, wings pressed closely against their side.

“Well why didn’t you just say so?” Todd exclaims, “Come in, come in, I’m sure she’d love to see you. Is the eye okay, do you need an ice pack?”

“Oh yeah,” Donnie brushes a hand against his still healing black eye, “That. Don’t worry about it.”

They follow Todd into the amusement park, with numerous puppies running around. The terrier kid hops off the fence and walks next to Todd, “Why’s Leo here? You said that a Donnie and his brothers were going to be coming over.”

“I am his brother.” Leo interjects.

The terrier kid looks at him oddly, “No he’s not. Mikey’s with the extremist asshole.”

“The what.” Raph blurts.

“Tito!” Todd admonishes, “You shouldn’t swear!”

Tito shrinks underneath Todd’s disappointment, “Sorry.”

Todd crosses his arms, frowning, “And you should apologize to Mr. Leo here for saying that Donnie and Raph are not his brothers. If he says that they are brothers, then they are.”

Tito doesn’t make eye contact, muttering to himself. Todd sighs, “Tito, you need to say it to Mr. Leo.”

Tito grumbles wordlessly but walks over to Leo, not making eye contact, and apologizes so quietly that Leo can barely hear it, “Sorry, Mr. Leo.”

“Ooookay?” Leo has no idea how to react to any of this.

Tito flees back to Todd’s side, and the (something?) mutant praises the hound. Tito’s wings are still pressed firmly over their back, but if any of them got too close a protective wing would stretch out around Todd. Tito doesn’t trust them, that’s fair enough, Leo can work with that. He’s used to that, not…everything else.

They enter a mild mannered cottage that looks out of place in the amusement park. Varying dog/avian yokai populate the kitchen on the left, a taller lanky one manning the stove top with three smaller ones chatting around the table, all of their heads turning to look at Leo, “Hello Sergey, Anatoly, Pavel, Kondratyev! Meet Donnie and his brothers, Raphael and Leonardo. I understand that you’ve probably heard of Leonardo back when he was still working with Big Mama, but he doesn’t do that anymore and I will not tolerate any mention of it. Understood?”

Vague noises of half hearted agreement. The one manning the stovetop, a great dane with avian claws and feet, puts his pan on a different burner, “Todd, can we talk…” a brief glance at Leo, “for a moment?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not.” Todd shrugs with a lax smile, “Let me just go get our guests some lemonade and we can have a quick chat. Titov can you go fetch Laika, please?”

Titov grumbles though walks out to do just that. Todd sits them all down in the living room with a plate of lemonade. Leo can feel the remaining pup’s stares through the kitchen. He grits out to Donnie, “I thought it was only going to be Laika and Todd.”

Donnie bites back, “Well evidently, I missed something in the haste to get us here.”

“You said that Laika was a dog with wings, right?” Raph points his thumb over his shoulder at the pups. “They look sorta similar to that.”

Leo hisses “Shit. Are they her kids?”

“She’s our aunt.”

Leo almost punts the child on reflex but Raph picks him up before that can happen. A yokai, more bird than dog, stares up at them. “Big Mama killed our mom.”

Leo has no idea how to process that. Also how many fucking kids are there, there’s one-two, at least five and that’s way to fucking many. The door moves and Leo crawls out of Raph’s grip. In steps Laika, followed closely by what a first glance could've been a human woman, if one ignored the many thousands of bird eyes that quickly zero in onto the turtles, “Dodomeki.” He recognises.

She reaches out to grab Laika’s hand. Her wings flutter, a nervous tick. “Leo.” She breathes.

“And Donnie!” Donnie interjects, standing bolt straight, he walks over to Laika with a strained grin as he offers his hand, “Though you may know me more officially as Othello.”

Laika shakes his hand, “Dodo said she recognised you.”

“Hard to mistake me for anything else, now we’re here on a-” he pauses as Laika raises a hand, “What, why are you raising a hand? Do you need a turn?”

Laika bristles uncomfortably. She turns her head, visibly doing a headcount of the children. “Where’s Sergey?”

Dodomeki points at the door just before the great dane and Todd walks in from the back. Laika fusses over the dane briefly, and it’s so so obvious how much she adores these kids. Sergey waves her away after a brief moment, looking between her and Dodo. Dodo smiles at him, something surprisingly warm with the numerous eyes dotting her face like freckles. “We’ll be needing some privacy.” Laika states.

Tito is the first to complain, “But Laika-” “I’ll tell you things after. But right now, me and Dodo need to be alone with the turtles.” Laika reasserts.

Tito growls his displeasure, though one by one all the pups file out of the house. Laika asks Sergey, “Can you try to make sure they don't eavesdrop?”

“I’ll try.” Sergey solemnly states before leaving.

Laika sits on the chair across from the turtles, and Dodomeki reaches behind the 60 inch flatscreen tv to pull out the bird child from earlier. They squawk and Dodomeki makes a disappointed face in response. She throws them into Sergey’s arms just outside. Todd fidgets with his hands, “Oh my, this is shaping up to be a serious discussion. Do you need me here?”

Laika smiles, “As much as I love you Todd, I think Sergey is going to need some help wrangling the rest of the kids. Can you go help him?”

“On it.” Todd dutifully calls before exiting.

Leo can't help but feel a little cornered as they’re left alone with the two ex babysitters. He kinda fucked them over, didn't he? Not only by organizing the entire babysitting corps in the first place, but by escaping and leaving them all to face Big Mama’s wrath. He pulls closer to Raph.

Donnie plows forward, determined to follow the script, “From my contacts, you two have met with the one and only Michelangelo. Is this correct?”

“It is.” Laika nods, Dodo sliding onto the arm of the chair to link arms with her.

Donnie makes an affirmative noise in the back of his throat, “So we are both of the understanding that Mikey is currently captured by Baron Draxum. We are hoping to use your contact to communicate with Mikey and eventually free him from Draxum’s grips.”

“I'm not helping you.” She decided this long before she saw Leo in her living room.

“Wh-what.” Donnie’s eye twitches, this was not in the script, “Why not.”

Laika doesn't speak for a long moment, brows pinched in a troubled expression. Dodo squeezes her hand in comfort. “You can't…you can’t force this. Mikey is an extremely stubborn guy, if he doesn't want to be helped, he’s not going to ask for help.”

Donnie’s eyes are hard, calculating, “You misunderstand, I’m not trying to force Mikey to do anything. We both know that him staying with Draxum is bad, yes?”

“I’m no fan of Draxum, don't get me wrong.” Laika clarifies, “But Mikey…” a deep, long suffering sigh, “Mikey has been hurt, you know.” She looks at Leo, “You really hurt his trust, and that’s not-- that’s not easily fixed.”

She holds onto Dodo like a lifeline, looking away and avoiding eye contact in a fit of anxiety, “He knows, to some degree that Draxum isn't the best person for him. But at least Draxum is telling him the truth, or at least what Draxum thinks is the truth. Mikey knows the difference.”

Leo is violently ejected from his body, self loathing straining against his skin like a fine layer of gore. He struggles to pay attention, struggles to absorb anything that’s being said. “We can't exactly work on mending that relationship if there’s no contact.” Donnie struggles to not bare his teeth, carefully enunciating his words.

“I don't think it’s up to you to decide if it needs mending or not.” Laika resolves with a careful shake of the head.

Donnie leans forward, “And you do?”

“I’m not making any decision for Mikey. I’m just choosing to stay out of it.” Laika says.

“Like you stayed out of it when Draxum kidnapped Mikey?” Donnie’s throat clicks.

“Mikey chose to go with Draxum.” Laika’s lip slips to expose her teeth.

“As if that wasn't coercive!” There’s shouting now.

“You coerced Leo into escaping.” Laika points out, “It’s for the best but you got into the hotel just to convince Leo to escape. He’s stubborn too, but at the end of it all, you got him to trust you. You can’t do that without trust.”

“Leo’s right here.” Raph mumbles, petting Leo’s head oh so soothingly.

“How am I supposed to get Mikey to trust me if I can't get near him without getting stabbed by a magical octopus tentacle!” Donnie grits his teeth, pinching his temples in a brief respite of anger, “I’m trying to make his life better. I’ve made your life better! I built this entire sanctuary from scratch!”

“You have done nothing for me.”

Leo is gone.

The smell of the forest is thick and acrid, he can almost taste it on his tongue. This hasn't happened in a while. Did he ever think this would work? He never exactly endeared himself to the babysitters. They were never meant to take care of him. They were always meant for Mikey, Mikey’s rules, Mikey’s games, Mikey’s food. Mikey in the hands of Draxum. Draxum’s soft voice, crooning about how Leo (not Leo) and Mikey (Not Mikey) would destroy humanity and save yokai kind. How Leo (Not Leo) used to believe him. Loved him. Craving the concept of being special. Adored Draxum in his strength and cruelty and cleverness. Then Mikey--then Mikey (Not Mikey) got old enough. It all started out with a rabbit. Something easy. Something that wouldn't fight back.

Draxum was so proud, cooing at the toddler on the table that he did such a good job.

Leo was sick.

He can taste the smell of the forest on his tongue. A rocking chair creeks with the wind. The sound of dogs. “Hey buddy.” Raph smiles at him, worry lines dashed underneath his eyes. “Are you with me?”

“I thought it would work.” Leo’s head slouches onto Raph’s shoulder.

Raph rubs a hand across Leo’s shell, across all the mangled nicks and cracks, “We don't know if didn't yet.”

“I thought,” Leo croaks, swallowing what might’ve been a scream, a sob, “I thought it would work.”

“Hey, we don't know yet. Donnie’s inside and well,” Raph pauses, struggling to find the right words, “let’s just say I trust him enough to not mess this up too badly.”

Leo doesn't know how to say, I did everything for him, I did my best, I’m sorry, I can’t do this, this is embarassing, I hate this, how did I fuck up so badly. It’s all so much, throbbing inside of his head. “I’m a terrible big brother.”

“We all are at some point in our lives.” Raph advises, “Doesn't mean he’ll hate you forever.”

“It feels like forever.” Leo groans.

“It does.” Raph nods, pressing his forehead against Leo’s own. “Do you wanna go back to the turtle tank?”

Leo thinks on this for a long minute. “Yeah.”

“C’mon then.” Raph picks Leo up, “Let’s go then.”

They walk outside of the amusement park to the turtle tank. Leo wonders if Laika’s nieces and nephews are watching. They didn't seem to like him very much. He wonders if they have a right too.

Raph sets Leo down in the frame of the door to the turtle tank and sits down on the ground outside. It’s a curious action, sending something in Leo’s brain ticking, analyzing and thinking. But Raph just rests his head on the floor of the turtle tank and Leo almost instinctively reaches out to scritch Raph’s head. A low, ambling, churr emits from the snapper and he cracks a smile. “That’s nice.”

“Mikey likes it too.” Leo croaks, eyes watery, “Didn't get to do it often. Whenever I was there he was always so hyperactive, running this and way that. It wasn't often he would just…sit still.”

“He’ll have plenty of space to run around in once we bring him back home.” Raph smiles, and Leo almost believes it.

“Do you think we could get some aerial silks for him?” Leo asks, claws lightly scritching down the sides of Raph’s jaw.

Raph leans into the touch, “Oh, Donnie’s been shopping for them since he found out about Mikey's hobby. But he figured it’d be best to do it once he knows the lil guy’s preferences.”

Leo’s hand falls to the side. Raph looks up at him and it’s weird that such a big guy is looking up at him. “I hate doing nothing.”

Raph shifts in place, folding his arms underneath his chin, “Raph does too.”

“You didn't do nothing.” Leo feels oddly defensive.

Raph shrugs, “Maybe. I just kinda mostly stood there while April and Donnie did all of this big, funky stuff. They’re just so…so cool y'know? April’s so clever and quick on her feet, she comes up with plans on the fly and they work. She finds a little bit of information and she tracks it like a bloodhound, she’s a force of nature. And Donnie…well you know Donnie.”

Leo nods and Raph looks distant, “He’s so compassionate. Stubborn. Y'know, I asked him what would happen if he didn't get hired and he said ‘well then I guess I’ll break in.’ Crazy, isn't it?”

“It certainly sounds like him.” Leo comments, vaguely amused.

Raph smiles “It does.”

He shifts, folding his arms up on the tank to rest his chin. He’s slower than Mikey, more purposeful with his movements. His long tail spread out behind him, contentedly wagging and making patterns in the dirt. Leo is…he doesn't want Raph to go. Doesn't want him hurt by Draxum or Big Mama or anyone at all.

Raph turns around to look at Donnie walking towards them. “Donnie! How’d it go!”

Donnie claps his hands together, “Good news: they’re more reasonable then Bibo.”

“You got an in!” Leo blurts, urgent.

Donnie lets out a low hiss from between his teeth, “Noooot exactly. They were very stubborn about allowing Mikey the space to make first contact. Fine, whatever, not a complete deal breaker. So I spent time on other things. Dodomeki has an eye on Mikey, or several, I don't really know what she is or does. So if they get evidence that Mikey is in immediate danger then they’ll call us.”

Donnie pulls up the calender on his bracer, “Plus, Laika is going to try and convince Todd to get in contact with Draxum. Maybe see if she could get a biweekly schedule going on, maybe give Mikey some stability in Todd. She’ll keep us informed.”

He tents his fingers together and addresses Leo, “Now, do you know when exactly you started dissociating and what was it caused by?”

“What.”

Donnie types something out on his bracer, “Is that a yes? No? Don't know?”

Leo shakes his head, confused, “I don't know what you’re doing.”

“Gathering data.” Donnie carefully makes eye contact with Leo’s forehead, “Clearly, something she said set you off and I want to come up with a protocol so we can cover this in the future. I don't want you feeling bad, Nardo, you’re important to me. Not to mention that you have better people skills then me and I would love to have somebody to double check with on whether or not it’s appropriate to punch somebody.”

Leo snorts, doubling over to laugh. “Donnie.” Raph chides.

“What!” Donnie squawks, “You never think it’s appropriate to punch somebody!”

“The only time you should be punching somebody is when you’re in battle!” Raph shouts, standing up.

Donnie’s undeterred, “But what if they're really stupid! And an asshole!”

“Donnie, did you punch Laika?” Raph demmands.

“No, like I said, she’s much more reasonable then Bibo.” Donnie explains.

Leo chuckles, “Is it really a good idea to be punching the guy who’s like 80% poison?”

Donnie crosses his arms, “He started it.”

“I'm sure he did.” Leo grins, “Mind telling me about it on the way home?”

Donnie pauses for a moment, not out of fear but because of thought. “Can I schedule that for another day? With April present, she’ll help me get the words right.”

Leo raises a brow, “An actual schedule? Not just delaying it till kingdom come.”

“It can happen this week.” Donnie nods, pulling the calender back up on his bracer, “I’ll have it sent to the calendar in your room.”

Leo feels a cautious little kindling of hope, “Sounds good.”

Chapter Text

The foot clan are hiding out in the basement of a shoe store on the surface. Draxum does not think this is as funny as it is, so Mikey just chuckles to himself and resolves to joke about it with Hugin and Munin when they’re not on shift.

Breaking in is pretty easy, all things considered. Draxum teleports Mikey in thirty minutes and he crawls in through a window and starts investigating. The foot clan has to have something against modern lighting because everything is lit by torches and candles, making it pretty hard to see what’s happening in any kind of clarity. Mikey can see what’s happening, just to be clear, he was made for dimly lit places, it just takes a little bit more squinting then normal.

The foot clan seems…small. Maybe fourty, fifty people, milling about. But keeping an entire army in the basement of a shoe store seemed a little far fetched, so maybe the others are elsewhere. The head honchos, Lieutenant and Brute, were easy to spot due to the mystical flames that floated just above their heads. Mikey’s own mystical training was still in its early stages, but he almost recognised the energy there. It’s definitely not his own, but they seem to have similar foundations, whatever he does and whatever they do.

Just as Mikey was starting to get bored, Draxum uses the official portal chip and steps into the hideout. Mikey quietly flaps his hands, excited now that he will finally be able to hear what’s being said. It was a small, alchemical device, that apparently was related to a hearing aid, and that was all Mikey was able to understand from Draxum’s infodump about it. But whatever, it meant that Mikey could hear whatever Draxum heard and that excited him.

Lieutenant approaches Draxum with a friendly smile, “Baron Draxum, such an honor to have you here.”

They greet each other, a mutual handshake where each hand is clasped at the forearm. A traditional yokai greeting. Brute sidles up next to Lieutenant “Welcome to our home. Care for a drink?”

They both sound unbelievably dehydrated, Mikey wonders if it’s a side effect of their magic. He hopes he doesn’t sound like that once he starts working on his magic more, he thinks he likes his voice. Oh shit, Draxum is talking, “-you for your hospitality. It is an honor to be allowed into your…” he looks around and Mikey can tell from here the Draxum is not impressed, “...wonderful abode.”

The Lieutenant smiles, chapped lips cracking, “Thank you, we have much to discuss. You have quite the ambition, and we believe that our goals could align-” Draxum holds out a hand and The Lieutenant grumbles, “What? I was just getting started?”

Draxum eyes the surrounding foot soldiers with thinly hidden disdain, “Don’t you have a more private area we could discuss this?”

The Lieutenant lets out a huff, like of course this aashole would ask about that, though he quickly schools his features, “Don’t worry, we have the most loyal of soldiers here. Something I am sure that you would appreciate.”

A directed jab at Mikey and Leo nope, no. We are not repressing Leo. Just let it hurt like an open wound and try to focus. Which is kinda asking a lot from Mikey, he thinks he might have ADHD. Wait, he’s not focusing, shit. What’s happening?

“-fools for not listening to your warnings. Humanity is a threat to the yokai kind, one we believe that we can help alleviate.” The Lieutenant smiles, all slimy and manipulative, he starts walking, guiding Draxum and Brute to some place farther into the foot clan’s lair.

Mikey skitters along the rafters with ease. Following along as Lieutenant continues buttering up Draxum. The two heads of the foot absolutely drip with sliminess and conniving energy. Draxum seems to vaguely approove. He keeps himself in a very controlled manner, making him hard to read. Mikey hopes he’s not falling too hard in this flagrant attempt to appeal to his ego.

They’re trying to put together something called The Dark Armor, a powerful weapon that will destroy humanity. It sounded weird to Mikey, but everything about Draxum is melodramatic super villainy so maybe the Foot clan are similar? Maybe Draxum will actually make friends here. It’d be healthy for him. Spirits, know that Draxum is in desperate need of an actual social life that doesn’t involve Mikey trying to manage his moods.

They go into a different room and Mikey hisses underneath his breath. That makes things harder, there’s no guarantee that there will be rafters for him to hide in this next room. But he can do it.

The Foot soldiers are talking amongst themselves, giving Mikey all the room to smoothly slide down from the ceiling and into the next room over. Thankfully, Draxum left behind a precariously placed vine to keep the door ajar for him. Mikey ducks into the room, alert to the conversation that is already happening.

He snakes up into the ceiling, hanging off rafters to get a closer look at the body language of the two Foot leaders. They’re taking turns with the history lesson, something about a Hamato Clan and one Oruku Saki. Draxum seems interested in it, occasionally interjecting with comments that age him by alot. Age is a hard thing to guess in Yokai society, where lifespans depend heavily on the species and the person, even. Anyone could tell that Draxum is Old old from how he conducts himself, but Mikey did not think that Draxum would be that old. If he was in edo period japan, then he’s almost as old as the council of heads.

Not even Mama is that old.

There’s something watching him. Something that sees him and starts gnashing its teeth. It hates him, it has hated him longer than he’s been alive. It can barely pull itself out of the thick tar of its mind, just the tip of the iceberg, it can barely see him and already it hungers to eviscerate him. To eat him. To take him apart piece by piece and strip Mikey of everything that makes him him.

Something launches at him and they both fall from the rafters. Blunt teeth are digging into his arm so he retracts it into his shell and kicks the person in the stomach. They hiss, grappling him, though he doesn’t get a chance to respond when they both hit the floor hissing. They hit him in the plastron hard enough to hurt, and elbows them in the jaw in such a way that he hears an audible clack.

“Michelangelo!”

“Foot Recruit!”

They both stop and stand next to their respective teachers, feet together and arms behind their back. The Foot Recruit is a woman, with a black buzzcut and a severe expression, she looks mean. Each of them are a little bruised. Mikey can feel a trickle of blood running down his beak. Foot Recruit has a swelling black eye. She bares her teeth at him and Mikey holds back a chuckle. What is this human doing?

“My apologies.” Draxum drawls, a hand resting solidly on Mikey’s shoulder, “It appears my Michelangelo had decided to do some reconnaissance without my input.”

A lie, one they both decided on beforehand. Recruit sniffs. Lieutenant folds his arms “If only we could say the same.” He turns to Recruit, “Mind telling us what you were doing in Master Shredder’s chamber.”

She shouts, “Only keeping an eye on the new comer, sir! To make sure he doesn’t do anything nefarious!”

Draxum grunts at that, though Mikey is pretty sure he is the only one to hear it. Lieutenant sighs deeply, like this is something that has happened before. Brute steps up, “Honestly, it is on us for not detecting her sooner.”

“Or the turtle for that manner.” Lieutenant adds, “Honestly, Draxum you have taught him well in such a short period of time.”

Appeal to ego. Maybe ignoring Mikey’s own skills and his part in becoming a menace. Honestly, Mikey would love to make a smart remark here, but there is one thing that they talked about in the debrief and it was to not make a fool out of Draxum. So Mikey stands still with a vaguely friendly expression. Recruit snarls at him, taking his friendly expression for weakness. Mikey lowers his head and flashes a genuine smile at her. She flinches.

“Michelangelo has most certainly been a skilled student. He was wasted underneath Big Mama, only under I has he been able to unleash his full potential.” Draxum drawls.

Mikey fights the urge to fidget. It is not good that the Foot leaders’ manipulations seem to be working. Or maybe they aren’t and Draxum is only playing into it. Really, Mikey just wishes he could read Draxum beneath that obnoxious faceplate. The Lieutenant smiles up at Draxum, “And it is such a tragedy that the other turtles were taken away from you.”

“Truely.” Brute adds in uselessly.

“And we can only hope that through you joining the Foot Clan that it will make up for the lost soldiers.” Lieutenant continues.

Draxum takes a moment to think on it, rolling the idea over in his mind, “The Foot Clan certainly seems like an impressive organization.”

They both wait, giving Draxum the time to think, though by the way that Recruit tenses, it seems like she’s just barely stopping herself from blurting something out. Maybe she was told not to embarrass the Foot Clan as well.

Draxum looks down on the two, face softening ever so slightly, “I do think it would be beneficial if we where to join resources. Especially with what you’ve said about your Master Shredder. Yes, I do think I would be interested in joining.”

The presence is still there, diminished as it is. Like it strained itself from pushing itself out of the tar pit, and now it just keeps a loose tie around Mikey. Keeping an eye on him. Almost as if it had future plans for him.

Draxum nudges him with his foot. Mikey was fidgeting and he steels himself, eagerly trying to control his body to stop moving for one minute. The Lieutenant waves dismissively, “You two go play or something while the adults figure out stuff.”

Mikey winces. He grinds his teeth as anger flares deep inside of him. He doesn’t like the idea of being excluded from important conversations, he doesn’t know why this keeps on happening. But as Draxum gestures for Mikey to follow Recruit, he has no other choice but to obey Draxum’s orders. It makes him sick to his stomach, even though when they leave the presence of dark eyes pressed against his shell leaves.

It toils inside of him. He tries to name the emotions he’s experiencing, anger, fear, self loathing. Regret, because it keeps on happening again. Despair because will it ever stop happening.

“DO YOU WANT TO SPAR?”

Holy shit she’s loud. That one must’ve been cooking for a while. Mikey shakes his head, getting the noise out of his ears, “Jeez, you do not to be speaking that loud.”

“I SHALL SPEAK AS LOUD AS I PLEASE.”

“I hear you, just…” Mikey flaps his hands, “Just what’s your name? First? I’m Mikey. Draxum over there is my Dad.”

She blinks at him, making an expression of uncertainty. Her arms are pinned to her sides like she doesn't trust them anywhere else, “I am the Foot Recruit.”

“Oh, is that like, a thing here?” Mikey scans her, getting a read on her.

She’s got simple makeup on, red eyeliner, black lipstick, and she might have filled in her eyebrows. She’s got a muscle to her form, with some light scarring that tells of years of accidents and trainings. She wasn't sheltered, not like like Mikey. “IT IS AN HONOUR TO RECIEVE AN OFFICUAL TITLE IN THE NAME OF THE FOOT CLAN!”

It doesn't startle him as much now that he’s expecting it. He holds out his hand, “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, Foot Recruit.”

She takes it without flinching, telling him that she’s experienced with yokai. Her grip is firm, almost choking, and Mikey squeezes back. Her hands are hard and calloused, Mikey turns over her hand, and sees the nail polish, slightly chipped bit pretty, “Oh sweet, I love your nail polish!”

Emotions flash across her face, too quick for Mikey to parse individually but enough to tell him that she’s confused. “Um, thanks. My- The Lieutenant and Brute got it for me.” A small slip up, who are the Lieutenant and Brute to her? “I have much more impressive nail polish however! It just gets scuffed up due to all the work we do.”

Mikey smiles, brushing his thumb across the back of Recruit’s hand. The motion seems to remind her that he’s holding it and she jerks away, almost frightened. She wouldn't feel better paying attention to it so Mikey moves on, “Oh, I get that. My paints always wear off in such a short period of time, which is kinda the point, I know. But c’mon! I’ve painted some pretty neat stuff only for it all to wash away in a week.”

“You paint your nails?” Recruit asks.

“Well no.” Mikey thinks on that for a moment and doubles back, “But yes? But no, not really.”

He gestures to her hands, “Not with nail polish at the very least. I use actual paint. I was using acrylics until Hugin and Munin got me some body paint last week. But mostly I paint my plastron,” Mikey pulls open the front of his yukata, “See? Though I did do this paint this morning. Wanted to make a good impression on you guys.”

“Wow, that is really cool.” Recruit’s eyes widen slightly at the graphic designs on his plastron, she knocks against a scute and smirks, “I guess this id why it hurt when I punched you earlier.”

Mikey grins, proud to have finally made her smile, “Yeah! Draxum designed us to have the ultimate defense! Well, he made a softshell turtle to be more recon based, but that’s kinda besides the point.” he waves dismissively, “You actually did a really good job earlier! Usually when people punch me it doesn't hurt half as much as what you did! You’re really strong!”

“OF COURSE I AM!” She shouts, “I HAVE BEEN IN TRAINING SINCE I WAS EIGHT!”

She punches Mikey in the shoulder, “But you’re pretty good yourself, Mikey. Especially since you were locked up with Big Mama for most of your life.”

Mikey is reminded of the guard he killed when he was eight. “Well it wasn't all fun and games. But you said something about a spar?”

She fist pumps, “FUCK YEAH!”

One of the other foot soldiers holds out a jar labeled, ‘Recruit’s swear jar.’ Without looking Recruit shoves a dollar into the jar and picks Mikey up over her head and starts running. Mikey laughs, because this lady is filled with so much spunk it’s like a refreshing breath of air.

Recruit practically throws him onto the training matt and explains the rules to him. She mentions something about getting knocked on over to your ass and the swear jar miraculously gets shoved underneath her nose and as she swore in disappointment and then she swore again when she realized more money was going to be needed to put in the swear jar then she swore again. It repeated long enough for 18 dollars to be added to the swear jar and Mikey only chuckled a little.

After the rules were settled, the two of them sparred. Though it wasn't just sparring, this was a competition of life and death. Or at least that’s what it so clearly was for Recruit. If it wasn't for the occasionally Foot Soldier cheering Recruit’s name and the growing crowd, Mikey would’ve thought this was a test Lieutenant and Brute put on her. But no, this was all one hundred percent Recruit. She didn't doubt her abilities, nor did she doubt Mikey’s. She wanted a challenge, and she wanted to win it by the skin of her teeth.

It all made something ache in Mikey, the wound still healing. It was all so familiar. The fight happening between the gaping maw of a cheering crowd. He let himself loose in the fantasy, not pulling any punches. He launches her across the ring and she grins like a feral cat as she twirls into the air and back on her feet. Her competitive spirit flared, hungry. It lit something inside of Mikey too.

She lunges, feinting left, right, Mikey thinks she’s going to attack from the right until she goes down and grabs him around the middle. She hawls him over her shoulder and down onto a screaming suplex that has him retreating his head into his shell. He wraps his legs around her head and snakes up on top of her, covering her eyes. She’s stumbling from his weight. Mikey laughs, as small as he is, he most certainly isn't light.

He grabs his legs and slams him back down on the ground, escaping his grasp as he takes a moment to wince. She spins around on the floor, kicking him in the gut. Mikey springs up onto his legs, stomach toiling with pain, and dodging as she lashes out with another kick. In the same breath she gets back up on her feet and tries to uppercut his jaw which he blocks with his arm.

He makes a jab into her ribs. She knees him in the side, right in the weak spot of his plastron and shell. Which, by the way, in case you didn't know- fucking ow. Mikey takes a step back, and to his surprise Recruit lets him. Her eyes scan him, trying to interpret if she’s gone too far. As competitive as she is, this is still a friendly spar between equals.

To reassure her, Mikey gives her a roundhouse kick to the head. She narrowly blocks it with her arm, though the force still takes her down. She laughs as she spins back up to her feet. She rubs the heel of her palm across her bloody nose, a wild gleam in her eye, “You’re pretty good at this, Angel.”

She’s slowing down. Each bruise and jab weighing down on her form. As skilled as she is, she wasn't made for this, like Mikey was. Recruit would never forgive him if he ever went easy on her though. So Mikey just smiles through the slight split in his beak and says “You’re pretty good too, sister.”

Recruit lunges, and instead of doing anything reasonable she just completely grabs onto Mikey like some kind of monkey. He can’t help but laugh at the absurdity, as she knocks off his balance and sends him to the ground. His shell hurts, his face hurts, his arms hurt, but this. Mikey loves this. Loves the crazed look in Recruit’s eye as she holds down one of his arms with a firm hand as she winds up to “Recruit!” “Michael!”

They both stand up in a hurry, bowing towards their respective masters. The crowd groans in the anti climax of it all and the Brute just shooes them away, “Go on! Get!”

One of the foot soldiers sadly holds up two bowls. “But what about the betting pool.”

“Why where you betting on two children beating eachother up?” Brute asks with thin disdain.

Lieutenant approaches them, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head, “Why. Why are you two fighting?”

“WE WERE SPARRING, SIR!” Quick, hasty polite bow.

Lieutenant sighs deeply, crossing his arms, “You know when I said for you to go play I was expecting for you two to go paint eachother’s nails or make friendship bracelets or something. Not…not this.” He gestures to both of their ruined states.

“I do have to say.” Draxum sidles up next to Lieutenant, an entire head taller, “It is quite impressive the amount of damage your student was able to commit to my creation.” He eyes Mikey uncertainly, “Unless…”

“No, I wasn't going easy on her, sir.” Mikey replies easy, side eyeing the Recruit, “In fact, she gave me a run for my money. She’s very skilled, sir.”

Brute flashes a smile at Recruit and she shifts, struggling to remain serious though Mikey doesn't miss how the corners of her lips twitch. Lieutenant eyed widen and he claps his hands together, gasping as much as his dehydrated throat can gasp, “We can have play dates!”

Recruit just frowns at that, looking at Lieutenant like really? A playdate? Draxum hums in thought, stroking his chin. He looks over at Mikey, “Would you like that?”

“Yes, I would, sir.” He doesn't even need to think about it.

“Well then it’s settled.” Draxum crosses his arms, “Send us the suspected areas of where pieces of the dark armor shall be and we will scope it out. In the meanwhile we can also set up a play date for our prodigies to partake in the sport of mutual violence. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

Lieutenant eagerly nods his head, “Very much so!”

Mikey makes eye contact with Recruit and he can feel her vibrating excitement on the other end. Once the exact time gets figured out, she punches him in the shoulder and he kicks her in the shin. What they called eachother hums underneath Mikey’s skin. “Angel.” She called him.

He called her “Sister.”

When Draxum teleports them home Mikey spends a solid minute dancing around, flapping his hands, and squealing. Draxum lets him finish, “Were you truly going easy on her?”

“Nope!” Mikey answers truthfully. “She’s very strong! Though she doesn't have endurance like I do. She was getting tired near the end.”

Draxum sagely nods, “She is only human, despite her master’s training.”

“They have a swear jar for her.” Mikey shares conspiratorially.

Draxum chuckles and Mikey flaps his hands at the noise, “Yes, as I’ve heard. They asked me if you had such a penchant for uncouth language as well.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you where incapable.” Draxum smiles.

Mikey stomps his foot, “I can say ass!”

Draxum huffs, “Not in front of polite company you don't. I know you most certainly don't use that tone with Todd.”

Mikey flounders for a moment, “Well that’s cause- that’s cause he’s Todd! He has a natural swear filter aura.”

“He has no such thing.” Draxum drawls.

“He does!” Mikey playfully insists, “You can check him when he comes over. When is that again? It’s in like, a week, right?”

“It’s in two days.” Draxum corrects.

Mikey growls, “Dammit!”

“Language.”