Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was the midday slump.

Consumerism was marked by the quintessential time when one lost their energy and motivation.

For pencil pushers, it was the time of day when their pitiable lunch break’s nutrition wore out and left them husks. It was by design. Their exhaustion made them more manipulatable by their corporate overlords. Every centimeter of the system was designed to keep workers docile. The obvious ploys of bureaucracy and hyper specification of a skyscraper’s worth of workers meant an over bloated building wasn’t under threat of collapse. Peons took pennies and were replaceable at a moment’s notice.

Kendra would have taken special pleasure in giving every one of those pencil necks a swirly.

Unfortunately such childish whims were frowned upon in adult society.

It didn’t matter that their attitudes needed adjustments now more than high school.

No, she could only savor her reality checks in the form of spit hocked into coffee cups.

At least she wasn’t a corporate wage slave, she’d tell herself.   

No, she was free from that.

She traded a scholarship at MIT so she could be trapped behind a counter that barely concealed the perpetually sticky shoes. The scent of coffee beans was baked into every strand of hair so when she turned over in her bed at night she’d catch whiffs of Java. She stood tall through the morning rush with plastic smiles for those desk jockeys and spit into their no-foam latte hypocrisy as if that got her any sort of foothold in this battered world.

She wasn’t bitter.

She was iconoclastic.

She had only become opportunistic because of society’s frown upon her nonconformity.

There was a time limit to how long one could be misunderstood.

When she was a teenager, the world was hers. She’d climbed through the scholastic honors like monkey bars in elementary school. Pre-pubescence couldn’t mar one bit of her squeaky clean grades in middle. By high school, she had built an award-winning tech club from the ground up that was both sanctioned by the school and only existed because of her. She saw further ahead as she always had. She looked onward toward the next obstacle that lay beyond the walls of learning and onto her futures.

Wasn’t that what the guidance counselors wanted?

She moved ahead of the curve. She was the epitome of advanced placement. Her reading level had always surpassed her peers’. She was taking college credit classes as early as her sophomore year with special considerations taken as a freshman. It seemed obvious she’d hit a public educational wall, but what more could she have done with her pak’s single income household? 

There were scholarships, but it would take her away and he needed her.

Until he didn’t.

Until Deborah Ricci appeared.

Until that mentality of ‘at least we have each other’ suddenly became ‘here: finally a sibling your age for you to bond with.’

Only pak conveniently left out the part where it was so he would no longer have to deal with her.

She didn’t rebel because her dad remarried. She busied her time once she had more of it to spare. She was an overachiever. She was success-driven. She was a college admission board’s wet dream. She had been tethered down by her upbringing so when she was freed from it, her creativity unleashed.

After their string of robberies and nearly infiltrating the Nakamura Corporation, the Purple Dragons didn’t get juvie, they got house arrest.

Their misconduct was seen as brilliant even in front of the eyes of the judge. They didn’t need character witnesses, they stood testament to what they had done. They asked how a mere set of teenagers were able to almost achieve such a feat. Nakamura’s CEO himself had set up a video call with both her and her bapak to commend her. An internship would be available in their security division after graduation if she wanted to find more of those same weaknesses in their system.

Escalation in the Purple Dragon’s endeavors after that was seen as natural evolution.

From their homes, eyes were on them.

On her.

They created a video game that captivated the world. The sequel was ordered the same day it was released. So it was created with an underlying purpose of ousting one irritating techno-dud and also happened to deploy a giant robot. Three teenagers with access to only their laptops and a shoddy WiFi connection built not only the 50-story machine, but the unique A.I. that analyzed and replicated player data. Their destruction was a stepping stone. They played their parts under her tutelage.

For his code, Jeremy got a full ride to Caltech the same day he was sentenced.

His records were sealed before he served a single day.

For the mech, Stanford’s recruiter made a home visit.

For Jase.

Kendra had tried to step in.

She fixed the bugs.

Not just in the robot’s design, but in Jeremy’s code.

The entire idea was hers and it showed how well she acted in a leadership position.

She took on the crunch time to give the other Dragon’s rest.

“We only have one spot to offer.”

Deborah Ricci had shooed her away.

“Shouldn’t you be happy for your brother?”

Should Kendra have been happy that Deborah Ricci played favorites with spawn that she pumped out?

She certainly wasn’t looking out for the daughter she supposedly always wanted.

MIT would come later.

After both Jason and Jeremy pulled away from Kendra in their senior year.

When their backtalk grew louder. 

When they told her that it was time to grow up from renegade thinking.

College had lured them into the system. 

They had both fallen for that bullshit West Coast dogma and betrayed their heritage. 

When they had nothing but written promises and practice showed them otherwise. 

All of Jason’s designs that weren’t proofed ended up short circuiting. 

All of Jeremy’s code that wasn’t reviewed bugged out.

Kendra didn’t have such a failing.

She had sent the schools anonymous tips that their golden ticket students weren’t so lucky in the chocolate bar pick after all.

The drivel they sent back only further perpetuated the cycle of hogwash.

“Code review and proofing positions are integral to the technological developmental process.”

“No advancement in our society was done alone.”

“When it comes to your applications, we believe that your values might not be the best fit for our institutions.”

Try elsewhere.

We don’t want you.

She didn’t want them.

The new recruits to the Purple Dragons didn’t come close to cutting it. Not that she compared them to two losers who were jumping city ships. They cowered too much. Their outputs were abysmal. Motivation wasn’t what it used to be and current technology made the newbies soft.

Why command when the tech could do the work for you?

Who did they think wrote that script?

They were posers in the name of innovation.

Cowards.

Scared to upset that status quo and softened by the system.

She’d show them.

She used her Purple Game franchise residuals to buy real help. What approached her dark web offer was those with proper scruples. This was where she shined. She was the queen moving her pawns. Finally, she had staff that listened and understood. They set their sights on what she always wanted.

Control.

To oversee it all.

To excel as she did.

Finding bugs in the step beyond.

The ones in society. 

The superior final checks.

She would weed the masses.

Word got out about the data breach days after it occurred. She held the information with a tight fist. That’s when MIT came to her dining room table. Their suspicions had been right and she showed the recruiter within reason. He had his offer ready and an embossed pen to sign. 

She was finally seen for what she was. Her accolades would be appreciated. She never considered a single fallback. She didn’t apply anywhere else. All those tech schools with their supposed up and coming programs were vultures picking carcasses. Her father wiped an actual tear from his eye as the paper was slid over to her.

Her non-compete.

Her secured fall attendance.

Deborah Ricci’s little proud puff of air.

“I knew she’d get there.”

Deborah Ricci whispered to Jase.

“Isn’t that grand?”

A grand?

$1000?

Kendra had the intelligence to make billions.

Kendra held data that would destabilize the stock market.

Kendra had documents that outed nearly every politician. 

Enough to cause a global depression.

Wasn’t that wonderful?

She set the pen down and told the recruiter she had one last thing to show him.

He said that wasn’t necessary.

She said she considered it a gift for his generosity.

His lips pursed and the room held a collective hush.

With a single button push, she released everything she had hacked to the masses.

Out of the kindness of her heart.

Her true blue beating life organ.

She could have held onto it.

She could have used what she learned for decades to come.

While MIT didn’t have honor’s distinctions, she’d always known in her heart that she would graduate Summa Cum Laude. She’d enter the workforce and sit at the top penthouse of some New York apartment. She’d grace the cover of every magazine. She would die a legend at a ripe old age with the same wits about her.

Where was the fun in fate?

She was never meant to walk the obvious path. 

She was supposed to jump ahead. 

Blackmail was pitiable.

It was beneath her.

What point was there in cleaning out a system that was wholly corrupt?

Having seen her future, she knew the truth.

She needed to burn it down.

Start fresh.

Mold it to her superior vision.

One that fit her drive.

One that awarded talent.

Merit.

The recruiter who was closest immediately knew what she had done.

He packed up without a single word.

Not while her father begged.

Not while Deborah Ricci stared on.

Not while Jase got a ping from his phone and pieced it together himself.

Kendra sat in the same kitchen chair and smiled.

She turned her laptop around.

She got to work.

The police came with their arrest warrant at 3:41pm that same day.

Two months from 18 years old, they decided to try her as an adult.

She had a record after all.

The compounded sentences for her conviction were up to 30 years.

White collar crime was a joke.

She served just under two years in a medium-security prison.

The hierarchy there was comical.   

Her family must have thought she would get taken down a peg. She was running shop through the library's antiquated computer systems in a day. She placed orders and took hold of the supply chain. There were three separate attempts on her life during that paltry amount of time.

What was a shiv when one had fought aerial battles with jetpacks?

Still, in that time she barely remembered the clothes she was released in.

It was back to society.

It was getting her GED since she had never finished her senior year.

It was the nature of her crime that kept her from being accepted to college at even a community level.

It was her criminal record that barred her from any technologically-inclined firm.

What changed?

She had directed a kaiju-sized robot to destroy blocks of New York City and for Jeremy that spelled full ride. Nakamura wouldn’t even look at her even though they’d promised her security detail after a string of robberies. All that she could reasonably tell had changed was a number.

Her age.

Twenty was no longer a teenage designation.

She lost time, but hadn’t been less productive.

It didn’t matter.

All those doxxed individuals still took their checks.

Her disruption unveiled corruption and yet the system continued to benefit them.

She was damned.

She turned to what she knew best.

With rotating online personas, she hacked.

What choice did she have?

No one outside wanted her.

No one in the system would have her.

Her own family sucked the air out of the room if they occupied it at the same time.

Her room became her only haven.

There she was free.

The world wide web.

Until a literal maroon of her past resurfaced.

Genius Built’s own Donatello Hamato ousted her when she tapped one of his suppliers’ systems.

It was an instant violation of her parole.

She knew it wasn’t actually him.

Why would it be him?

He had people for that. 

When was the last time that 30 under 30 blockhead touched an actual keyboard?

He likened himself to some pompous fashion designer these days.

Wearable tech revolution, her ass.

Some faceless nobody in his security detail took notice because they had to protect their bosses’ seismic assets instead of noticing a deficit in theirs.

She served five years in her next stint.

She didn’t blame him.

She had too much pride for that.

Blaming him took away her accolades.

She hated him for other reasons. 

He was the poster child for everything wrong with this world. He was the sewers to success story the tabloids wanted. At least that was what the rags in prison touted. She had been barred from anything that even gave off a hint of an electrical current in her second conviction.

The worst part was he had no idea.

He ate up the attention like he’d earned it. 

A wall of lawyers handled her case and he didn’t appear once. 

Why would he?

Why shouldn’t he?

He was a gullible waste of space.

He had fallen for all of the Purple Dragons’ schemes.

He was a blowhard.

He hadn’t changed. 

Self-serving.

Self-righteous. 

Just as he had always been. 

No one picked her up from prison the second time. 

She had been released on good behavior, but all favor for that sort of thing had long dried up.

This time she actually didn’t remember the clothes she was apprehended in. The only part of her that remained was some faint purple that scorched the ends of her now black locks. They were a violent reminder of her true success. She wore it as a brand. She hitched rides home to find it wasn’t one any longer.

There was no room for her.

Her father never looked her in the eye.

Deborah Ricci wasn’t home.

Kickboxing, her father lied.

She was given a starting sum to get what would have to be a closet of an apartment. 

She was offered a job by her uncle through the church.

A coffee shop.

Nothing chic.

Family owned and operated.

Small.

Hidden.

She was a shame to be tucked away. She took the cash with her head held high and spent part of it just to get her hair done again. The vibrant purple scared the cafe owners, but they’d already agreed to harbor a criminal.

Kendra wondered what they expected.

Tear drop tattoos?

They watched too much prime time television. 

They dragged out her training over a week even though she could make latte art within her first few hours.

What was a flick of the wrist to a certified 132 WPM?

She was never alone at first.

She wasn’t given the WiFi password.

She cracked it on the very same first day, but its speed was piss poor.

She worked as a barista.

They were busy in the mornings and not just with the church folk.

The high rises nearby had their advantages.

The shop offered coffee strong enough to keep a narcoleptic awake.

Kendra refused to say she had grown docile.

She was tired.

She was bored.

She was just as hungry as she ever was, but what was the point?

She would always be a certain amount of starved.

There would always be a blight on her name.

It was as patent as the cockroaches in her apartment. She would always be taking home the stale bagels for a cheap dinner. Hacking Swiss bank accounts didn’t have the same allure. Not when the risk for her was higher with each prison sentence. So she settled for mucus in matcha and purposefully misspelling simple American names.

A pittance for her purveyor.

Once again good behavior granted her the illusion of freedom. She was finally left to run things in the shop. She could close, she could be trusted with the register, and she was given real food. The ibu there made a mean nasi goreng. Kendra wouldn’t say it reminded her of her mother’s.

She cried because it had been weeks since she’d had a vegetable.

Her body missed nutrients, not home. She decided then to join the family network. She had always despised it growing up. It felt like a restriction to be beholden to her community. Now, she found refuge because she was forced to. 

Her wages got better.

The old folks asked for small things from her since their kids had run off for brighter futures. She tossed them bones in the form of grabbing groceries and hosting their game nights. She learned to call a fierce game of bingo and shooting down losers who faked their boards held some interest. It also helped that they would soon act as character witnesses. 

With each small favor she spared, her reputation increased. They all knew her past, but they needed help. She was allowed to fix their ancient tech. Some of it was older than her, but it felt like an injection of joy straight to the veins. The second her fingers touched specific combinations of plastic and wire, she was home. 

There were no newer models. 

They liked what they liked. 

It proved a certain challenge that had its advantage. 

The coffee shop was like that. 

She supposed it was for the best.

Would the allure be too great if she got hold of a stable internet connection?

It wasn’t worth her time to wonder as she succumbed to the slump. She teetered against the counter. Her arms moved, one over the other, to fold. She left a divot for her chin and put her head down. She had fallen asleep like this once  and an angry customer woke her just so she could yell about her laziness. She wouldn’t be fooled again and only let her lids lull.

It was the midday slump.

It was her mid-twenties slump.

It felt like a mid-life slump.

The bell on the door chimed a soothing contrast to what omen it bid.

“Oh…!” A male voice sang. “That smell! Complex and spicy, mmm!”

Just as Kendra was straightening her body, her expression openly soured.

It was one of those.

Some foodie jag-off who thought himself groundbreaking because he drank coffee at a place that wasn’t owned by some white hippie start-up. He would go back to his friends and say the family roasting beans here had connection to Che Guevara through his travels even though the guy was pinning the wrong continent. Kendra didn’t have a tier list of customers she hated. She considered herself a loathsome equal opportunity lender in that regard, but she had special places in her black heart for specific types of assholes.

“Welcome!” She chirped with nothing but microplastics lining her smile. “What can I get started for you today?”

What she didn’t expect was a mutant to appear from behind the espresso machine.

He was round and soft and couldn’t keep his eyes in one place as they roved with a gape that matched his mouth.

Her gut dropped like lead.

She knew this mutant.

His name was something just as froufrou as ‘Donatello.’

They were related.

Brother.

This was one of the turtle brothers.

Which one?

He was clearly orange, but which one was he?

She had never bothered to learn the coordinating name-to-color scheme.

The ones that weren’t Donnie were tech illiterate anyway as far as she could remember.

She supposed it didn’t matter.

She guessed the only thing that did was if he recognized her.

He’d surely tell his stupid brother how she was working in some lowly coffee shop.

Donnie was absolutely the type to gloat.

The memory of his voice grated her ears. 

“Uh…!” The orange masked man held the syllable before landing on her with bright eyes. “I’m sorry, I did not hear what you said.”

She blinked at him.

He returned the fluttering lashes.

There was no recognition on his face.

He must have had no brain power whatsoever.

He hadn’t heard her?

He didn’t need to.

The script was the same wherever you went.

You go in and someone asks for your order. 

“Welcome.” She responded with a flat and bitter brew. “What can I get started for you today?”

“Oh! Uh!” The mutant scrambled looking for the menu.

It was above Kendra’s head because this shop was set up like all the others. 

He continued to have trouble locating it. 

She’d mislabeled.

He wasn’t one of those.

He was a complete and total idiot.

She pointed a finger up and knew irritation was showing on her face.

He chuckled sheepishly. “Thanks! Let’s see what we got here!”

He didn’t recognize her.

It’s not like she had a uniform.

She had an apron on at best.

Everything else was well-worn clothes, but she had the same style.

That was her.

Lilac hair.

Nevermind the roots. 

Mid-length haircut.

The split ends hardly mattered. 

Teal lipstick.

Smudged from work. 

She’d ditched the beret only because she’d lost it years ago and finding another felt pretentious.

As the man mouthed what he read on the menu she could only think he was surely dumb enough to not recognize her unless she was wearing her exact ensemble from high school.

She did still have her purple satin jacket.

It was packed up.

Not that it mattered.

Nothing did. 

He was yet another moron to squeeze a few bucks out of. 

In that regard, she dodged one bullet for buckshot.

He was now a customer to get in and out.

“What’s an espresso bon-bon?”

“Espresso over sweetened condensed milk.”

“Sounds sweet!”

“Sure.”

“Affogato is espresso over ice cream, right?”

“Yup. We use Indoeskrim.”

“What’s that?” His eyes lit up.

“Ice cream.”

“Oh.”

She stared on, minutely satisfied at how his crest had fallen.

“Is that a brand or flavor?” His interest bounced right back.

“Brand.” She could barely keep a glare off of her.

“Where’s it from?”

“Indonesia.”

“Woah, seriously?!”

“No.”

“Wo-wait…”

His stupidity knew no bounds.

“Ah!” He pointed a finger like he got the joke.

She stared at the digit.

“You are… very serious.” His hand fell. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m not.”

His eyes were steady for a moment before flying around.

When he settled back on her it was with a narrowed gaze to look for tells.

She only cocked her hip while waiting.

“You’re too good!”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir.” She poured all her bile into her words.

“Sure!” He had no idea.

That meant she could freely be crueler. “Would you like anything or do you want to continue to hold up the line?”

He predictably spun around to check the empty shop.

When he returned, he didn’t look betrayed, but ecstatic that she had pulled another fast one on him.

Like this was some kind of fun game and not wasting her time.

He had the IQ of a lump of clay.

The social skills of that same orangey blob.

He would be achingly easy to manipulate.

She inhaled only through her nose as he prattled on something about choice.

That was a dangerous thought. 

That was a bad road.

She had left that behind.

What end could she use him for anyway?

It’s not like he could do any feasible work for her.

He would go to a pet shop if she asked him to right click a mouse. 

His only exploitable feature was his connection to Donatello.

Her eyes widened.

A bit of adrenaline raced through her veins.

She could use this man.

He shared a home with the asshole.

Or did.

She hadn’t kept up on the news.

They were something though.

They were close.

She had read that in prison for sure.

In every article, Donnie had blabbed about his microscopic brain and his brothers.

They were his driving creative force or some psy-op baloney.

If she could get close to even one of his servers.

She could leave no trace with that level of access. 

It would take one tiny virus and boom. 

She had loads of code to pull from. 

She would have to transcribe it, but she had a particularly nasty one ready. 

It was her therapist’s suggestion.

Well not that exactly, but the man was a court-mandated buffoon.

He told her to write out her negative feelings into letters.

Not to send, but as a means to talk to the people that had supposedly harmed her.

Her.

Of all people.

There wasn’t a being who existed that she cared enough about.

So she wrote code. 

Notebooks worth. 

Useless scratchings until now. 

But Donatello. 

Now, he wasn’t a being. 

Donatello was a symbol.

Breaking him would finally send her message.

She had grown over the years. 

She was now a big enough person that she didn’t need to stamp her return address along with her letter.

The one she wasn’t supposed to send anyway. 

No. 

She could let havoc ensue and carve out the rubble. 

Surely this orange fool had a means to get her close enough.

She just needed to persuade him. 

That entailed connection.

She would need to get close.

Close enough for him to bring her to a home.

Did he need friends?

She couldn’t stand the thought.

She’d sooner seduce him.

Oh.

She could do that.

Her looks had come in handy once in a while.

With someone as stupid as him, she could probably convince him without a single touch, she bet.

He’d be as easy as a dog to lead with a treat.

She would dangle it in front of his nose long enough until he took her home.

She would make an excuse.

The powder room. 

A classic. 

Plant the virus.

Leave.

Heartbreak would be his only association and this damned coffee shop.

She bet he didn’t even know the address.

He would get lost trying to find it again.

If not, there was always arson. 

Electrical fires were about as easy to manufacture.  

“Okay…” He spoke ready.

She was glad she had nailed her eyeliner wings today.

She lowered her body in a calculated sultry way. 

“What’ll it be?” She looked at him in a striking way. 

He jarred a little and smiled off to the side.

Bashful, a good start.

“I’ll have a latte and a side of espresso. I like to taste new beans in their purest form.”

Eating them made more sense, but it mattered little. “Discerning choice. A latte and a shot on the side. For here or to-go?”

That would set the rest of her plan into motion.

He was probably too dense to notice if she left her number on a napkin.

He would wipe his mouth with it. 

He would throw it away. 

He would ask if she had given it to him by mistake.

She needed to be overt.

She preferred that at least.

The worst he could do was reject her.

Then this spur of the moment plan would be a write-off. 

Plans done this quickly rarely panned out. 

This would all have been a pipe dream created to help her through the slump. 

It wasn’t like she cared.

“I don’t know about discerning…” He chuckled with a hand behind his head and was clearly flattered. “How about the latte to-go and shot for here?! It’s gotta be fresh and I wouldn’t want to waste a second to-go cup on something so small!”

He was too easy. “You have taste. Few do.”

“Thanks, though that’s a shame about everyone else. The smell is incredible. It called to me!”

“Thank you.” She rang him up. “I try to let my work speak for itself.” 

He paid.

“Receipt?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’ll have that right out.”

“Thanks!”

He walked away to peruse the seating area and she got to work. It was a process that took little brain power at this point. Espresso cups were warmed on top of the machine and she ground out an exact portion of beans. It was a quick tamp to get them into the portafilter. Then it was a lock into the machine for it to drip through. She pulled a double shot so one went into the cup and the other into an awaiting glass. Steaming the milk came next and she could tell by sound when it hit 155°F. One shot was ready while the other went into a to-go cup and, since the latte was made to-go, she didn’t bother with the design. She lidded the throwaway and placed the small espresso mug onto a saucer for an order up.

“Sir?” Damn, she forgot to get the name.

“Michelangelo, if you can believe it!” He headed towards her from where he’d been staring at some wall art with his hands folded behind his back.

It was like he wanted to ruin his brother. “Why wouldn’t I? It suits you.”

She slid the paper cup forward, but withheld the saucer.

Michelangelo reviewed her and seemed fine with reaching out to take the itty bitty handle. “You want to see my reaction? How scathing should I make my review?”

It looked dumb in his large hands. “I’d stake the shop’s reputation on this. Please.”

“You’re staking it on this?” He smiled and held the cup up. “I can’t let that go to waste! Here goes!”

He exhaled loudly above the small cup. It showed a gap in his teeth that she wondered why he hadn’t fixed. He tipped his head for an obvious inhale which he released in the same manner. He was putting on a show and she couldn’t have been more bored. He at least didn’t look at her as he took a delicate sip. Instead of swishing it like the sommelier he pretended to be, his lids cracked to observe the leftover liquid. He swirled it once before smiling into drinking the rest. When he looked at her again, she felt a tinge of irritation for having waited on him.

He grinned straight through it in an annoying way. “Incredible. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“We source our beans.” She scoffed. “The owners want it to be authentic.”

“From Indonesia?” He set the mug back onto the saucer she still had a hold on.

“I never said that.”

He chuffed. “Alright then, keep your secrets.”

Something about his playful tone caused her wariness to flare.

“My compliments to the masterful barista.” He bowed obnoxiously to her and got hold of his to-go cup. “I’ll come back for sure!”

“You wish!” She snapped before she could catch it.

“I do.” He spoke breezily and began to move away. “You know what they say! You hold onto a good barista with both hands!”

He was leaving. 

He was leaving and she hadn’t gotten the necessary information. 

She needed something. 

She needed a number. 

Sure, she didn’t care about this plan, but there was something to the cost-sunk analysis. 

She hadn’t invested nearly enough staking capital to count this as a risk. 

To get the reward she had to try. 

At least a little more than she had already. 

Which she guessed hadn’t been much more than playful. 

She put on her best cool exterior and caught the last of his gaze before he turned away. “That makes it sound like I’m only good for coffee.”

He stopped.

That wasn’t as alluring as she had hoped.

His head tilted. “Like what? Do you guys make sandwiches too?” 

She could feel the shine die in her eyes. “No.” 

She didn’t have to remember he was dumb, but she really needed to calibrate just how much. 

“I meant this job. If you wanted to see me so badly then you could ask me out.” 

For a second she thought even that blatant of a comment wouldn’t be enough. 

The idiot rotated to face her fully. 

His green skin flushed an even darker shade in the process. “W-wait…! Can you-!? Can you say that again!? I don’t think I heard you right!”

She turned her head to the side so he would have to deal with her profile. “Get your ears or whatever you have checked.”

That was mean. 

She raged against her own impudence.

He brought out the worst in her. 

She folded her arms because it was all she could do.

“Out how?” He quacked. “Like outside? Like to watch while you sweep the street? Like something else?! You gotta remember that I can’t tell if you’re messing with me!”

Her glare burst from her as she lolled irritation toward him. “It’s obvious, you fool! Obviously I meant a date!”

“A date…?” 

“Yes!” She snapped. “Sweeping outside!? What are you talking about?” 

“You want to go on a date?” He felt the need to point to himself. “With me?” 

“No, the other customers!” Her face felt hot as she threw her arms out to address the store.

Of course, he felt the need to look around.

Her hands fell hard onto the counter. 

She guessed if she was mean enough now then at least he would never come back. 

She wouldn’t have to suffer an ounce more of humiliation that way.  

“I’m flattered…”

Rejection hit her far swifter than she cared to admit.

“No one’s ever asked me out like that before!” He crept closer.

She blinked once at him. 

“Is this what it’s like?!” He sauntered a little. “The ‘love at first sight?’ The meet-cute? I reviewed your coffee and you reviewed me?! Ah! It’s like you asked for my number! Oh, but you didn’t… But you got me before I left! Most people have to get to know me first. I know my rugged good looks are one thing, but my personality is where I usually shine!” 

He posed and put on what he thought was a smolder. 

She could hit him.

She could say it was self defense.

She could smack that boiling hot drink right into his soft, round face.

She would relish in his screams as it melted off.

“If it’s a prank you can say so. You can laugh, but on the off chance you meant it…?” He sent her a sudden vulnerable look that undercut the positioning of his head. 

The raw emotion scraped her nerves. 

He was showing his tender side.

It had been mere seconds, she had done nothing, and she had already gotten this far. 

He really was revenge on a silver platter.

She would take that heart of his and eat it raw.

She was going to ruin him.

“I meant it. Don’t get a big head.” She scowled into something she hoped was cute in a pouty way and cast her eyes down to hide anything else in her lashes.

“I’ll ask then! Number, please! I’ll need your number.” He returned to set his drink back on the counter and addressed her with full excitement.

She flinched away and tried to pocket her revulsion. “What did I just say!?”

“I’m sorry it’s not every day you’re asked out by a beau-ti-ful barista!” There was that damned smile of his again.

It took up too much of his face.

She didn’t like it.

“Who asked whom?” She got a napkin and hid near the register as she scrawled out the digits.

“Oh yeah! The credit is all yours. I’m just helping.”

She returned to find him in a newly curated debonair pose with an arm folded on the counter and his body leaned.

She stared at him dully with the slip of paper in her hand and wished to throw it in a furnace if she had one.

He reached out and plucked it from her before she could rig something flammable up.

“I bet you need that plausible deniability while you’re on the clock. There’s gotta be rules about hitting on customers! Just know that I don’t make it a habit to ask out people anywhere near their place of business. It’s total creep territory, but you made it clear! I just wanted to also tell you that I was feeling the vibe, in a not weird way!”

“You felt nothing!” She seethed. 

He snorted one single time before he laughed. “Gosh, you’re so-! This is gonna be fun! We’ll have so much fun!”

“Hey! What do you mean? I’m ‘so’ what?!”

“I’ll text you!” He flicked his thumbs as if typing out a message and caught his drink once more.

“‘So’ what?!” She hissed after him.

“Bye!!” He ran out the door to another chime.

This one wasn’t near as soothing.

The sudden emptiness of the shop crashed around her. 

She felt danger creeping up the little hairs on her neck. 

She slapped them down. 

She had to trust her judgment. 

He was dumb and this would be an easy caper. 

She was sure of it. 

She had to be.

Chapter Text

Kendra pulled down her skirt for what had to be the hundredth time. The stupid thing was way too short, but she supposed that was the point. She’d let the sales girl talk her into whatever worked for a ‘hot date.’ They weren’t words Kendra would use to describe the affair, but the sales person seemed knowledgeable enough. In the time she’d been in the store, Kendra had watched a handful of overly chic women walk in wearing glaring ensembles. They asked this girl in particular for help, which was what had prompted Kendra to approach her even though most of these tags read ten times her monthly allowance for frivolity.

Which meant she walked out with this aggravating hemline.

Michelangelo or whatever his name was was going to pay.

In full.

For everything.

If she pulled even the insinuation of Dutch then she was going to deck him. 

She yanked again and tried to remember to temper herself.

She had to get through this date without ruining the stupid dress. As ludicrous as it sounded, her armor for the evening was a clingy rectangle with noodles for straps. It was supposed to be evocative because she needed it to be. Her goal was to seduce this wannabe renaissance man and get into his home. The quicker she could do that the better because it meant wasting less of her time. If it meant she had to parade around in some flashy getup then so be it. Men were exactly the type of idiots to fall for and drool over something so obviously lascivious.

He would need to keep that saliva in his mouth because this stupid strip of cloth was getting returned to the store first thing tomorrow.

It wasn’t like she had room for a handkerchief to wipe up either. She hadn’t been able to tote much because of her slinky garb. Her normal bag clashed clunky with this stylish fit so she’d been forced to set her entire evening on the straps of a spindly handbag. Her limited inventory meant she had to prioritize essentials. She settled for a downsized version of her wallet, her phone, a miniature can of pepper spray, and a thumb drive containing a computer virus capable of taking down a Fortune 500 company.

It was a regular girl’s Friday night delight.

Much like the headache of her outfit, she similarly hadn’t had much room for preparation and it wasn’t for lack of time. When it came to planning she had all the time in the world if she had wanted it. Michelangelo had been surprisingly courteous, if not too eager. While her phone had been stowed to charge the day of meeting him, he had apparently texted her the moment he left the coffee shop. It had irked her, but he excused himself in his excitement. He then left most of the decisions of the date up to her outside the location. At the time, that had seemed fine enough as she chalked his insistence up to some sort of machismo. He’d then pelted her with ice breaker messages that she’d ignored, because what point was there in getting to know each other when they had a date?

The when of which she had decided with the mentality of ‘the sooner, the better.’

She selected a date a week away. 

He said that worked. 

She thought the matter was done. 

She hadn’t needed to look at her phone any more than that. 

What she should have done was look up the restaurant in that ‘sooner.’

The ‘better’ was that the damn place was award winning.

She had only checked a few days before so she could plan her trip. Instead she was met with a ludicrous line of dollar signs indicating price range and the exclusivity raved about in multiple food articles.

Not that those were real publications.

It was in a cold sweat that she saw the rantings about reservations and the depth of her folly. There wasn’t a stitch of her wardrobe that was up to par for such a place. She was not going to be made a fool by some oaf who thought he could pull off orange. She had dove into research and did the best she could with her digital checkbook. She managed it all by only having to trade off a single choice: her ensemble or her hair.

They were both temporary in a sense, but one was worth more. The dress could be returned. The dress was for one night and her hair was everything. The maintenance of keeping it colored was killing her, but it made her feel whole. If she was going to get it done, then she needed to do it right. She wasn’t going to settle for some root touch-up that chanced mismatched color.

So she chose the dress.

The dress made more sense.

The dress would get her farther in seducing an idiot.

The dress was camouflage so she could blend in with Michelin stars.

The dress wasn’t what onlookers needed to glance at to confirm that it was her; this was Kendra.

She just hoped her updo hid her roots enough.

She assumed it would since the line of her skirt was basically synonymous with her crotch. She had seen herself in a mirror and she looked like she was plucked from the 90s. People would whisper about what current pop idol she was and she guessed that was a version of a vision that could be advantageous. Her hair would be purposeful then and since it was, she could accept that judgment.

Everything she’d done after purchasing the dress had been in service of it. Her make-up practice led her to a subdued look in contrast. The dress was the standout and she wanted eyes on that and her body. It was what made this transaction easiest. Sure, she could capture a man’s heart, but what was that in comparison to crushing this turtle’s soul?

She was getting ahead of herself and swallowed down excited drool. It had been a little too long since she’d gone through the thorough motions of planning destruction. She needed to keep a level head, especially after the poor showing of their first meeting. She couldn’t chance him getting under her skin, just as she couldn’t risk him knowing her home address. She needed to disappear after she planted the virus and it was bad enough he knew where she worked whether he remembered or not. The further she kept this Michelangelo person from her neighborhood the better.

It meant she had to take public transit and walk to the restaurant, but she’d dealt with worse. She felt in control as she clicked down the street in her stolen heels. She couldn’t remember what fiasco she had acquired them in, but she remembered there had been some sort of fight. Kendra had stolen this box of shoes on principle and they had ended up fitting. They were obviously knock-offs, but they gave her height and prowess to her strides.

She spied Michelangelo before he saw her.

That was good.

She had the element of surprise.

She clacked with purpose and re-shouldered the spaghetti strap of her bag. That shop girl had suggested a puffy shawl. At the time it seemed like a nuisance, something like a duster on dying starlets. Only now did Kendra wish she had splurged on that too. She could have let it roll from her shoulders for a tasteful exposure and completed her alluring image.

That was if Michelangelo would lift his dumb head. She had no idea how he was ignoring the beating of her pumps. His hair was cleanly coiffed and he didn’t look like he had headphones in. He looked like he was just staring at his damn phone. She felt her bag vibrate.

She hated him.

Only he would look for her when she was right next to him. She stomped hard on a metal grate and he jarred to attention. That was better and she set her sights on him. He looked toward her without seeing her for a moment before she watched his eyes widen. She expected to be jaw dropping, but it was the shine of his ridiculous bug eyes that threw her off guard. He acted like he’d never seen a woman before.

He probably hadn’t.

Didn’t they live in the sewers or somewhere equally repulsive?

She wished she remembered.

She wished she had her laptop data from back then.

It had all been confiscated.

It was a mark of her loss and with Michelangelo in front of her, he was the mark of what was to be gained.

“Michelangelo.” If she said his name enough times she might temporarily remember.

“Kendra!” He didn’t seem to know what to do with the phone in his hands. “Hey, I was just-”

She cocked a hip to wait for some oblivious drivel to pour from his mouth.

“I guess I was worried you might not show.” He decided.

She lost a little composure, but she held strong. “Why would you think that?”

“You haven’t responded…” He waved his darkened screen. “… to anything that I’ve sent you since we made the date!”

“We made the date, what more was there to say?” She tried to tip her head coolly.

His brow line shifted both incredulous and impressed.

“You can get it out of the way now. Say I saved it so we have something to talk about.” She gave a metered tilt of her skull to read bored. 

He didn’t catch it. “You look…”

She shifted her weight to her other hip so he could appraise her as he pleased.

He should count himself lucky, she thought.

He only gave her outfit a glance. “You look uncomfortable.”

“Excuse me?” She felt her bag strap slip off her shoulder.

“Oh, want me-?” He reached out on some sort of reflex.

She moved to dodge him. “I’ve got it! It’s fine!”

With an annoyed hoist she got the skimpy thing back in place.

The bag couldn’t even hold its own weight while stuffed.

“I wasn’t trying to be mean! It’s just…” He struggled.

She glared him down.

He percolated with some sweat which meant he had a bare level sense of how much he was blowing this interaction. “I don’t know, is that dress new?”

“Why would it be?” She scoffed without the sound to save spittle for later.

He would choose his next words carefully or she’d spit in his food.

Imagining it helped take the edge off her current rage.

“Well…” He rolled on the heels of his loafers.

While she waited, she took him in. He had well trimmed slacks, if not cut a bit short as he was showing ankle. He then paired a fine jacket of orange flowers with black lapels without its buttons done over a flowy white top. It suited him in the same way it did on someone who wanted to fake some nuisanced airs.

“It’s not weird to get new clothes for a date. I just got these shoes actually-”

“Yeah, sure.” She held out a hand to stop him. “So, this place takes reservations.”

He made a little confused noise.

She glanced at the ornate building they were outside. “Some months in advance. We met a week ago. What’s up with you getting in? You have a standing reservation for dates or something?”

He laughed and was all smiles. “I happen to know the chef.”

Everything she learned about him cemented that faux grandiose image. “Of course you do.”

“You look nice, by the way.” He swept an arm for her to go first.

“Little late for a save.” She clicked past him.

“It’s not a save if that’s the look you wanted to go for. I just said the first thing that popped into my mind!”

“No! Really?!” She shot him a sarcastic dart. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He chewed on an obvious laugh and didn’t get the door.

He didn’t know the first thing about dates.

This was going to be a long night.

She scowled and reached for a handle only to see the loom of a man inside.

She flinched backwards with a little too much surprise as the finely dressed gentlemen appeared in a bow. “Allow me.”

“Thanks…” She sneered and moved to slip in with Michelangelo trailing her.

Another in what Kendra imagined was going to be a long line of black and white starched peons addressed them at a podium. “Welcome to Streetwise Morning. Do you have a reservation?”

Kendra had to bite her cheek to keep from complaining about how this dinner place had the wrong time of day in their title.

“Hamato.” Michelangelo was right behind her.

What name was that?

She turned her confusion on him and he only smiled ahead toward the staff.

She soured further as he ignored her.

“Of course, Mr. Hamato, welcome!”

Did turtles have surnames?

“Right this way…” The host made mention of a sommelier and other ridiculous garbage as he led through the packed floor.

It was like clocking stooges as Kendra watched. She saw numbers ding with jewelry pricked in ears or dangling from wrists. Old and loaded bodies sat at tables where they stuffed themselves with portions that were too small. It was endless decadence in gag-worthy form. It only served to feed the ouroboros of privilege and attempted to take her appetite.

No, she was going to order one of everything.

She was going to eat her actual fill and take leftovers regardless of what foil swan policy this hoity toity place had.

She barely realized she had plopped down into an offered seat until she found herself sitting across from Michelangelo.

“Last names.” He started as soon as he saw her eyes. “Mighta been something we could have mentioned before. It’s not really dinner talk. You usually find that out pre-date.”

Was he making fun of her?

She was going to raze the ground with his corpse.

“Sorry.” She moved to remove her bag and noticed she had nowhere to stow it. “Should I have given you my social security number!?”

“I guess I’m confused!” He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m getting a lot of mixed signals.”

“You are?!” She hissed at the same moment a menu was shoved in her face.

She turned pure ire on a random man who offered her a selection of wines.

“How am I supposed to pick before the meal!?” She seethed at him.

“Course pairing.” Michelangelo not so helpfully offered.

“Of course, sir, ma’am.” The man bowed his head and left.

“Ridiculous! What’s even the point of that?!” Kendra waved her purse.

Michelangelo took a cloth napkin and unfurled it in a snap before offering it over. “You can put it in your lap with this over it or behind you in the seat.”

“I have my own napkin! I’m not a toddler!” She bellowed to a few other diners’ glances.

Humiliation hit her like a truck.

Michelangelo was staring.

More people were looking.

They all saw her jailed.

Trapped, she mentally corrected and shoved her dinky purse into her lap.

Instead of making a flashy gesture like waving white cloth. She instead glowered down as she unfolded her own napkin to delicately cover her belongings and the abysmal length of her dress, if she could even call it that. Her bare ass and underwear were basically on the seat and she almost wished she had another napkin to save the back of her thighs from burning through the thousand dollar chair. 

“It’s all bullshit.”

It wasn’t like she was surprised.

She only slowly looked up when she was done with her covering.

Michelangelo had a sympathetic look.

What did he know?

“What?” She ground out.

“I wanted to make a good impression, but I’m only making you more uncomfortable.”

“This isn’t-!”

He held up a hand. “Look. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not going to pretend to. You asked me out, but you don’t really seem like you want to talk to me. Sure. Maybe you wanted a story, maybe it was a bet. That’s okay too.”

She studied him.

“I just thought a nice meal fit you. You looked like you deserved it.”

She hadn’t thought of it like that.

She thought herself above all this crap.

Deserve?

Who was he to decide?

She parted her lips, but yet another new person appeared, this time with more menus. She took hers with more grace and looked over the single printed page. There were barely 10 items total and it made a mockery of the coffee shop’s chalkboard. If she wanted to order it all then she would speak for a few seconds tops. The longer she looked, she began to notice there wasn’t any other way to order. 

The whole set was served in courses and her only choice was preference of proteins. 

“Hey, last name Hamato.” She called without looking up.

“Yeah, last name unknown?” He didn’t hold an ounce of ire even though his words said differently.

“Byerly.” She always liked the way her name cut her teeth. “Do you know what’s good since your buddy cooks?”

The server who was still waiting seemed offended.

Michelangelo smiled brightly. “It’ll depend night to night, but from what I heard at the farmer’s market, cauliflower is plentiful and in season.”

“Steak set or whatever.” Kendra told the waiter. “You better be right.”

He answered by speaking to the employee. “I’ll have the same, thanks.”

The man bowed his head, took the menus, and departed.

“Ms. Byerly.”

She shot him a lazy glance.

“I’ve done silent meals. I’m immune to the awkwardness. I can talk to myself the whole time, but I’d rather give you the choice.”

“If I wanted an out I would have already left. Your manners suck.”

“Me?” He threw his weight back in his chair and chuckled. “Please! I’m begging you to tell me if you really want me or something else!”

“Why do you keep asking that?” She clicked her tongue.

“Because you haven’t denied it!” He shot right back forward, but then a flighty thought seemed to catch him. “Well you kinda did like once, but more so you keep asking rhetorical questions! I can’t get a read off that!”

“So you need a read on me?” She was going to ruin her lipstick if this kept up.

Michelangelo looked toward the ceiling and then back in what she thought was disdain, but there was excitement pouring off of him as he descended.

She made a single disgruntled sound and felt that her vision of his perversion was showing on her face.

“You drive me insane!”

Her face twisted up in revulsion.

He felt that he was grinning too wide and covered his mouth with a hand. “Okay, okay. Let me…!”

She heard a rumbling sound and moved to peek under the tablecloth.

Michelangelo was pounding his feet as if running off excess energy.

He was a mouse on a wheel in her eyes and she leveled with him for the vermin he was.

He blew out one sharp breath before taking the table. “The whole mean girl thing, it’s not really my thing. They’re my least favorite archetype in movies or shows unless they have like a reason to be and it can’t be the whole rich dad is ignoring them so they act out pampered princess style. Parental neglect is no joke. It needs to be something real and they’ve gotta get a cool redemption arc. Bonus points if they are humbled by their down to earth opposite.”

Her lids fell unenthused. “So you go through all that convoluted nonsense to lie?”

“Not a lie.” He was grinning again and there was that infuriating gap in his teeth. “Because I don’t think that’s you! You’re not the mean girl!”

Her eyes were going to roll back into her head, never to be seen again. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! You’re way off base, you-!”

“I don’t think I am.”

He was so sure of himself she wasn’t sure how else to belittle him.

“I think you have a reflex to be and maybe you were in the past. There’s always someone who’s got to play the high school bully, but can I be honest?”

“You said you weren’t lying.” She spoke bitters as a plate with a single morsel of food was placed in front of her.

“I think you’re refreshing.” Michelangelo picked up a utensil and she mirrored him as she now realized there were far more than she accounted for.

“Like cucumber salad?” She said dryly and took that bite.

“You’re way too spicy for that.”

“Spicy and refreshing? Not really a thing.” It tasted alright.

“Wrong. Jeow bong and like a million Korean pickle dishes.”

She only flicked her eyes to tell him she didn’t know what that was.

“It’s a Lao dish, never mind.” He waved it off. “The point is. You’re honest to a fault.”

She opened her mouth to hit him with a question about what he was up to, but she heard a ghost of him in her ears about rhetorical questions.

He sat nearly smarmy across from her as he read her mind.

She shot him a warning shot glare.

He took it with growing interest.

She had no idea how to handle him.

She couldn’t believe this man of all people pushed her out of her depth.

Just who was he?

“Like me.” He settled on the small phrase and the plates were switched out. “Or so I’m told.” 

She got something with bread and different colored dots that she guessed were different sauces. She hadn’t really read the menu. Michelangelo took this one with his hands so she did the same and tore off small pieces of bread in an attempt to try each of the colored blobs. As the color darkened, there was more flavor. She guessed that was interesting at the very least.

She was still hungry.

“So, what? You were a bully too?” She spoke as she chewed.

“Nah. I didn’t go to school.”

She nodded as he was about her age when mutants became apparent.

“I do have three older brothers though. So, not bullying but ribbing? Teasing? It’s a whole thing.”

“Huh.”

“Isn’t important, but you’d get it if you had siblings and I want to ask if you have any, but I’m trying to get to the point before course three.”

“Doubt you’ll make it.” She saw waiters swimming in her periphery like sharks.

“Right?! Portions at fancy places suck!” He laughed.

For once it didn’t sound grating.

“Ugh, they have these spoon dishes sometimes. It’s supposed to be a themed thing where you get everything in one bite. Those drive me nuts. Like I get it. It’s artistry, but it’s also like food should nourish the soul!”

She supposed she agreed and her plate disappeared from in front of her.

“Wait, what am I saying?!” He turned away for a testy noise.

She reviewed his admonishment with some interest.

“Distracted. Always distracted.” He berated himself and looked back at her. “We could be alike, we might not be, but that’s not what I was trying to say.”

A wine glass was poured and she sipped it before the next course arrived.

“You’re refreshing because who’s done what you did? You asked me out, but then you acted like you wanted nothing to do with me, but you show up here in your new dress and your hair looks so nice and your makeup is perfect and there’s clearly so much thought into how you present yourself and I love that and I also don’t depending on why, but all that shows is how much I don’t know and how much I want to.”

She slowed with the glass still to her lips.

“And yeah, I should have opened with a compliment and you were right to be upset about that and I want you to be upset about that. I think you should call me out. I’m not a masochist, but I wish more people would call me out. I want things to be good, but I also want to know when they aren’t. Like yeah, I’m a guy who believes in communication and the heart, but also how would that have gone if I had said you looked pretty right out the gate? Would you have even cared? We would have done all the usual date stuff and for what?! So we could hit date three and kiss, but we’re both thinking of how to get out of there because we aren’t bad, but we aren’t good. It’s all surface level, but why quit if it’s not actually bad?!”

She put her glass down at the same time a meat portion was placed in front of her.

It wasn’t a miniscule medallion.

It could have been bigger.

It was at least better.

She mumbled out a thank you to the waiter this time.

He was one of a dozen faces she would never see again, but she did it.

“You’re talking in circles.” She spoke pointedly and moved to grab what was clearly a steak knife. “You sound like that guy from ‘When Harry Met Sally.’ You talk until your point sounds like it’s made.”

She didn’t know which fork to pair it with and when she checked with him she found him staring at her with shining eyes and a partially dropped jaw. “You’ve watched When Harry Met Sally.’” 

Her nose wriggled as she was put off by the awe in his tone.

It was just a movie. 

He was being overly dramatic. 

He telegraphed which fork to grab. 

He had known all along.

She frowned.

“I love that movie…” He tucked his smile into his meat and sliced. “I love Gone With the Wind! They don’t even end up together! I love when the characters are from different worlds! I love romances that are real.”

“Real? What does that even mean?” She almost laughed and took a bite.

She momentarily melted.

He soaked her expression in.

She fought it.

He looked away for her sake.

She fought that too.

She shoved another bite in her mouth out of spite.

“Real like, Sally wouldn’t have even remembered Harry if he hadn’t been an asshole.”

“Sure, she remembered.”

Michelangelo nodded as he chewed.

“But he forgot.” She dotted off her point.

“But he forgot!” His eyes crinkled when he smiled.

She felt affronted by the knowledge.

She felt like there was something else there.

She didn’t know what, but she didn’t like it.

“If… that’s what the ‘asshole’ led you to believe.” He chuckled as he swallowed.

“He did not remember!”

“He says he did!”

“Yeah, after twenty questions.”

“So he can’t place her face. He knows there was something! That’s a spark.”

“So it’s love at first sight?” She gagged.

“Ew! No! That doesn’t exist anyway.”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot I was with Mr. Real Rom Coms.”

Michelangelo held his head up with pride.

“Which still isn’t a thing.”

“It totally is! Just because it’s movie magic doesn’t mean it can’t capture that magic sometimes!”

“But not love at first sight. Then what’s the spark then, huh?” She mourned as she cut her last morsel. “How do they know?” 

“The interest! The intrigue! You gotta start somewhere.”

“That’s not love.”

“It can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t know a thing about them.”

“But you want to know me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you saw some spark?”

“Maybe I did.”

“You don’t know?”

“You have to let me find out.” Michelangelo finished his meal and turned on her as if this whole conversation had been his point.

Her mouth snapped shut and she cycled through what insults she could fling without getting them thrown out.

“Mr. Hamato.”

A man manifested and both Michelangelo and Kendra turned on him.

He was mostly unfazed, but one of his brows craned upward. “The chef requests your attendance between entremets.”

Kendra lit with fury. 

Just when she could finally stand a conversation with her dinner partner, he moved to yet again undermine the affair. 

If this was his idea of a surprise then he better have gotten a gift receipt. 

“Joel?” Michelangelo asked with obvious confusion.

She bore holes into his head in an attempt to suss out why he didn’t know what he must have planned. 

“Chef Fields. That’s right. If you’ll follow me.” The man moved to get Kendra’s chair.

She never once stopped examining Michelangelo.

There had to be a tell.

This was another pomp to his circumstance.

He had to have planned this.

Meeting the chef. 

He had bragged that this Fields person was his friend. 

She had gotten caught up in his stupid conversation.

She forgot what he was.

He was some jackass trying to impress her with a nice meal.

Something he decided she deserved.

She was supposed to be running this show.

Not chasing after him.

They were sent through double doors where someone was shouting things to a busy kitchen staff.

It was ordered chaos.

A man used tweezers to place something and popped up to adjust his glasses. “Mikey!”

“J-Joel…!” Michelangelo was caught in a bear hug.

He had yet to crack.

Was the stupidity he put on another ruse?

That made him dangerous.

Now felt like the safest time to bail. 

“And this must be your lovely date!” The chef turned on her before she could flee.

“Hi, I guess.” She managed something polite enough.

“Welcome! Do you know how special you are? Mikey never pulls his favors.”

“Uh…” She searched her supposed date again.

A dish moved behind the chef and he turned his back to catch something off with it. 

The moment is back turned, Mikey pled to her with every fiber of his being.

That didn’t seem right.

Did he seriously expect her to believe this wasn’t a part of his wooing shit show?

“Well-!” The chef turned with an arm out and slapped Michelangelo on the back. “I’ll tell you that he never does, has the memory of a gnat! This guy wouldn’t remember what his favorite color was if he didn’t wear it all the time!”

“Ha! Ha! Sure, Joel!” Mikey barked with fake pops of laughter. “Now, we were enjoying that meal you promised so if we could-”

“This guy! We go way back! Not like culinary school, though Mikey snuck in to a ton of those, but there was this period where Mikey was getting into these food circles. I don’t know how he did it, but he always had a guy and that guy was like my meat guy or my supply company guy and I kept wondering who this mutant foodie everyone was talking about was. Then, poof, he gets invited to my friends and family!”

Kendra was sure she made some sort of noise.

Michelangelo was distracting her with a weepy face every chance he could.

“So if the guy who knows everybody, but forgets all his favors suddenly pulls one for a date, it has to be special! I had to see you and look at you!” The chef stepped towards her oozing intent.

Kendra was ready to dodge; her arm was coming up.

Michelangelo moved in a blink of an eye and put himself between the chef and her. “Joel! I know you’re workshopping something! You always are! What’s got that big brain of yours stumped?”

The chef stalled only for a moment before he cracked a smile. “There’s my idea guy!”

He clapped Michelangelo again and, this time, she didn’t miss how her date winced for a split second.

She followed after like a hawk as the chef stormed through the kitchen to a quieter table and dismissed someone with only a bitter glance.

The whole kitchen structure reorganized from the show of strength, but the ire for it was palpable.

This man was not respected.

He was feared.

Kendra would have appreciated that in most circumstances, but as of current she felt like they were being held hostage.

She didn’t appreciate being an arm candy afterthought.

“The sea!” The chef sounded manic as he ran to gather things.

The others were again forced to bend to his whims as he opened fridges and caught pans without much more than a microscopic, “Behind.”

Kendra slunk closer to Michelangelo and he sent her more of those sad faces.

She sent him one in return that told him to buck up.

He blinked at the expression once before turning forward to address the chef.

Said man was now poured over two garish white porcelain spoons that were filled with a menagerie of pastes that looked like spit-up hacked onto a third grader’s art project.

In a spoon. 

A single-bite.

Michelangelo had mentioned this.

Again, Kendra wondered if it was on purpose.

The chef was still plating.

Michelangelo was free to express.

What was on his face was growing dread.

This wasn’t planned.

Not the summons.

Not him mentioning hating this dish.

What was happening now was pure karma meant to bite the turtle on the ass.

Kendra fought cackling right there and then only because the chef rose with an undeniable pride that she wanted to squash even more.

“Voila. This is inspired by a trip I took to the sea when I was a kid. I was mesmerized and went out so far that I was overcome by this huge wave. I almost drowned, but I saved myself. My parents were just gone. I will never forget that briney taste in my mouth and the way the sand melted between my fingers as I crawled on shore. I got back to my beach towel and downed this bag of cold Doritos from our cooler. I like to think they saved me. Ever since I’ve been trying to recreate that memory. The one that shows you Poseidon’s might. The sea is not to be trifled with! She is fruitful, but she is merciless. This dish is meant to encapsulate that, but I’m still missing something. So, please.”

The chef bowed his head in offer.

Michelangelo flapped his hand by his side to work up courage.

“Both of you.” The chef took a hard stance that said they were both going to eat if they wanted to escape. 

She hated that.

She hated him.

She hated his dish.

She hated how Michelangelo, who had just been spouting how he wanted authenticity, was now cowering in the face of it.

She snatched the spoon.

The chef rushed to blurt out something about how to let it rest on her taste buds.

Who gave a fuck?

She chomped down hard enough that the porcelain whined under her teeth.

She’d snap the damn thing off and eat it for fiber.

Had she not immediately gagged.

Ocean was right.

All that she had eaten was salt and brine.

She pulled the spoon out so fast that some salvia from the overbearing salinity flew with it.

It sprinkled a tidy splatter across the stainless steel counter.

“You call that the sea!?” She hacked and saw a weird plastic container full of water just off to the side.

She grabbed it and saw someone’s name on it, but popped the top off regardless.

She chugged and heard some kitchen member mumbling weakly about their drink.

“Try something that isn’t the Atlantic for once! Taste of the ocean’s ass is more like!”

The chef’s head rolled back.

Michelagenlo caught his spoon and gulped it down with the same vigor only he didn’t tug the utensil out.

He outright shivered and shriveled up before giving a dry cough around a white clink. “Joel, what…?”

The chef’s mouth gaped like a fish.

“What’s missing is the point!” Michelangelo recovered and took the container that Kendra passed him to swallow the rest. “You’re showing the sea’s might alright! But why? You were hurt so you want to hurt your diners? Is there like a follow-up course? Something to make this palatable? What’s the point otherwise!? That no good came from the ocean!?”

“Follow-up…” The chef dropped his stunned exterior for what he seemed to think was deep analytical thought. “Of course! The Doritos!”

“Yeah, man. Doritos, whatever.” Mikey’s tongue was out and he seemed to be looking for something to wipe it with. 

The chef launched himself at the obviously unsuspecting turtle. 

It was Kendra’s turn to intercept.

She caught the man by the jowls. “Hands off, he’s mine.”

Michelangelo made a peep behind her and she rolled her eyes.

“At least until I decide what to do with him so knock it off with the touchy feelings and get to condensing cheese powders or whatever it is you do here.”

The chef stared at her until he laughed.

Some awkward parting conversation was had and they were allowed to resume their meal. As they were led back to their table, Michelangelo covertly passed on that he was absolutely going to forget this place on purpose going forward. Kendra gave him an appreciatory nod for his activism. He ate it up with intensity that he aimed at her for the rest of the meal.

She allowed it.

Three more courses and a dessert came that they ended up swapping because Michelangelo got more berries and she wanted them. She let him have his ice breakers. She wasn’t overly giving in the conversation, but she allowed him a small glimpse.

Small things.

How the Citipati was her favorite dinosaur.

Not because her mother led her to believe they were ancestors to turkeys when she was little.

How she disliked Strawberry Fanta.

Not how she was glad when her dad still bought it for her because it had been her favorite as a kid.

How her guilty pleasure was those blind date shows.

Not because she liked looking up how they predictably broke up right after.

She learned about him too.

She found out he didn’t blow as much hot air as she thought.

He studied culinary arts and had some degree to show for it.

He studied physical art and had a certificate of the same. 

He studied a lot of things.

He had a base level knowledge of over a dozen skills.

He wasn’t stupid.

He spread his stats too thin.

It made him incompetent in everything he did because of it. 

To what end?

There was no reason. 

Not to the date.

Not to any of this.

It was a lingering thought as they stepped out into the cool night air and she was given a grossly informal looking container compared to the restaurant that served it. It was full of specifically bread along with a more formal looking tub that held the dot sauced she had liked the most 

She didn’t remember Michelangelo acquiring it, but she knew he had since he was the one to give it to her.

“So that was a bust.” He spoke suddenly as they idled on a curb.

She sent him a dull stare.

When she was almost starting to tolerate his existence, he had written her off. She was going to go home, peel off this dress as carefully as could be, and then boil herself in a shower. Burning away the rotted outer layer of her body felt like the only way to rid herself of this night. Once refreshed, she was going to lay in bed and cover herself in breadcrumbs while laughing at two psychos who failed to kiss at the altar for the first time in their miserable lives.

She returned from her fantasy evening and was about to walk away when he continued. 

“So let me do it again. For real this time. None of this…” Michelangelo waved up and off the exterior of the restaurant.

“Bullshit.” She recalled.

“Exactly.” He snapped a finger at her and punctuated it with a wink.

She shook her head at him.

“How’d I do…?” He turned to the side as if not to sway her. “Wanna try again?”

“No fancy restaurant?”

“Nah, let’s eat pizza and I’m going to say the dress code is decidedly not a new dress you’re going to return.”

“When will you drop that-!?”

Michelangelo held up a hand.

She was going to bite through it with her teeth alone.

“I’m going to reach behind you. No weird stuff.”

“Why!?” She tried to look.

He seemed to know she would and was there with a tap between her shoulder blades.

She felt a prick of something and a little tug that went through her dress.

“Your tag has been sticking out all night. I wanted to tuck it in, but I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“The…tag…” She paled.

“Can I do it now?”

She could only nod.

“Sorry…” He seemed to mean it and was considerate in minding her skin as the piece of flimsy cardboard slid along within her lining. “There. Much better.”

“Every time I talked back…” She mouthed.

He appeared in front of her with a carefree smile playing on his lips.

“Knowing I lied to your face, you want to go out again?” She looked him right in the eye.

“I mean sure. I still want to get to know you. You’re nothing like I remember.”

She had already lost her color, but this time her stomach dipped with lethal warning. “Excuse me?”

“You went to school with April. At least I’m pretty sure!”

The innards dropping was the collapse of a black hole and a prelude before the nova went off with righteous fury. 

She was slow in setting her bread down before she flew up to catch that downy undershirt of his. 

“You knew this whole time!?”

His grin split his face. “Sounds like you did too!”

She shook him and he only giggled at the violent rocking. “Why didn’t you say anything!? You acted like you knew nothing! I don’t want to see you again!”

“Hey, wait!” Michelangelo caught her wrists to stop her in a single squeeze.

He was strong.

She didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

She perpetuated her glare.

“I didn’t remember, remember you, alright!? I recognized that beauty mark!”

“My-!” She stopped.

Not her hair.

Not her lipstick.

Not her villainy.

Her beauty mark?

“Why that…?” Her fingers loosened against his top.

“Golden ratio…” He eased his hold as well.

“What is that?”

“It’s an art thing of perfect proportions! You’re smart right? It’s a Fibbi-something.”

“Fibonacci.” She spoke possessed by the knowledge.

“Yeah! That! Sure! But your face does the perfect spiral with the beauty mark as the eye grabber.”

“And nothing else…? Seriously!? Nothing more obvious!? Like on me!? Nothing?!”

“No…?” Michelangelo searched her.

He really seemed to only remember her for that.

She let go.

She took a step back.

“The worst part was I could not for the life of me remember your name. How humiliating is that? I didn’t know how I was going to figure it out!”

He had forgotten her name.

Just like she had forgotten his.

She looked at him one time.

He was watching with gentle interest. 

Like none of this really mattered. 

She laughed.

It burst her open.

It had a vivacity she hadn’t felt in years. 

It was a cackle to her ears, but it didn’t have that malicious edge that usually spurned it on.

When was the last time she had laughed like this?

She honestly couldn’t remember.

Michelangelo, without a thought in his head, watched on as if he was being presented an award.

She wiped her eyes and shook her head at him. “Authenticity doesn’t include lying to you, does it?” 

“Well, that depends.” His eyes danced with a playful light. 

She sighed. “Your name is too long.”

“Call me Mikey.” He shined with his smile.

“Mikey.”

“Yes?”

“We will work out our next date details over text.”

“Yeah!?”

“Calm down.”

“Yeah?” He repeated with an obvious dampening.

“Sure. Why not? I’ll take another free meal. You’re paying.” She shrugged, picked up her to-go container, flicked her ponytail, and spun to click away. “Night.”

“Got it! Night! Oh! Wait! I can pay for a cab! Or something! So you can get home and-”

“Nope! You’re going to watch me leave!” She called out and didn’t stop her momentum.

He was quiet for a moment before he yelled. “That’s a gift all its own!”

If she didn’t want her bread so badly she might have thrown it at him.

Chapter Text

“I decided. I’m over your double standard thing already. Done before it started.”

Mikey perked up from where he, yet again, had beaten her to their location.

Kendra thought ‘location’ was a generous descriptor. 

Despite everything that had transpired during their first date, this man had the audacity to send her a pin that vaguely landed outside a home.

There were pizza restaurants both up and down said sidewalk, but for now they were smack dab in a strip of residential abodes. 

“Is it a double standard to be over double standards when one is, in fact, doubling up themselves?” He teased and pocketed the phone he’d been clacking away on. 

“Don’t start. What’s with the creepy invite?” She glanced around. “You said pizza. Which place? Why are we meeting here?”

From looks alone, the neighborhood was fine.

It was average enough. 

It wasn’t her first place to kill someone.

Though if one needed to hide a body, she guessed there could be sense in that.

This wasn’t really the sort of place one would expect a murder.

 “Our last date was kinda…”

“A bust.” She didn’t let him drag it out. 

“Not quite what either of us hoped.”

She folded her arms.

Mikey took it as a sign and moved forward with desperation scenting him. “And I don’t want a do-over because I like that we figured some stuff out. You look amazing, by the way. I love that you look like you can kick my ass if necessary.”

“I like to keep my options open.” She glanced away and tried not to pout because he had read her all too easily.

She’d gone for a sporty look both because it was comfortable and because she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his strength. She was going to figure out tonight why that was. He hadn’t mentioned anything particularly athletic amongst his hobbies. Since he could seemingly break her if he wanted and she would be trying to pry information out of him, it seemed like running shoes were the only sensible footwear. Chunky versions of those were in fashion, at least she thought. Maybe that was already outdated. Maybe it was timeless. She wasn’t really sure and she hadn’t cared to check.

She liked how she looked.

He wasn’t going to dare call her uncomfortable.

She could put on an act.

She was going to decimate this date.

She was going to get to his damn house.

She was going to end this charade.

Mikey had been talking the entire time she had been ruminating on her choices. 

“So I thought it’d be fun! You always have a response for everything! What better way to catch someone like that speechless!?”

She blinked once. “I don’t like surprises.”

“It’s not a surprise; it’s a date.” Mikey threw a correcting finger up.

She made it obvious she was looking over the area again.

There were trees lining this particular sidewalk.

They helped shade the Row homes.

Ones that were coveted for their approximate distance to pizza and wine.

It was exhaustingly domestic. “Ah, so not a surprise, just boredom.”

“It shouldn’t be!” He huffed and took a leading step southbound. “Look, the restaurant is just down here!”

Kendra marked off the other pizza place in her mind. “Taking me to a secondary location. Great move.”

Mikey blew a loud raspberry and laughed. “I would not kill you in Queens!”

He chuckled forward and she followed after to glare in his face.

He wiped a tear from his eye. “Anyway, this neighborhood is too nice!”

Her eye twitched.

“Well actually…” He reviewed the street and sent her a haunting side glance. “Maybe it’s just sleepy enough that I could get away with it…” 

“I would kill you before you even got the chance!” She stomped her next step.

“Sure, sure!” He waved her off.

“Don’t test me.”

“Never! What’s up with that, by the way? Testing someone you want to go out with and all that jazz is totally toxic. You shouldn’t put that kind of pressure on someone you're interested in, but I guess if you wanted to think of it like that, I guess the test is getting to know you? There’s questions and answers which is sort of like a test.”

“You know enough.”

“You can never know enough!”

“No, you just find out all the unappealing shit that makes someone as unattractive as possible and learn how numb you have to be to deal with it.”

“Okay, when I said I like real romance, that is not what I meant. That’s way too bleak!” Mikey’s whole body lolled with his head to view her.

“That’s life.”

“That is not life! That’s purgatory! Who are your role models!?”

She sent him a warning look.

He backed off in a move she found surprising.

He went quiet and they made it two blocks before she felt a pull.

Checking back in found him focused on the street.

He looked to be thinking.

She guessed he realized he had screwed up, but he was being melodramatic.

It wasn’t like she hated him.

She needed him.

She could deal with his incessant attitude.

He just needed to be taught his limits.

He was like a stupid dog in that way. 

The comparison seemed poignant to her. 

It made this walk to the pizza place seem like a way for him to run off his extra energy. 

He would be a better date that way and if that was the case, she could also appreciate it.

She threw him a bone. “Who are yours if your life is so peachy?”

“Oh, oh! The top of the charts is Lou Jitsu!” Mikey karate chopped the air.

Kendra guessed that had to be a sign that he was some sort of martial arts guy. “Huh.”

“He was an action star and, apparently, my dad, which was kinda cool and kinda weird to find out later in life.”

“Isn’t your dad a rat?”

“Yeah, I think that’s why I didn’t get the resemblance or make the connection sooner.” Mikey chuckled.

“Must be nice living in ignorance. That and being rich or whatever.” There had been enough signs of their economic status and a movie star father further conflated the picture. 

Mikey burst out laughing.

She steered away from where she’d been walking next to him.

“W-wait, don’t-!” He fought off his guffaw. “I’m sorry, that’s just because…”

She eyed him warily.

“No. Not at all. We are not rich. I didn’t mean to laugh like that, but can you imagine?!”

She shoved her hands hard into her pockets.

“We grew up in hiding. Everything we owned was whatever washed down the sewers or stuff that was thrown away. Dad kinda… I guess…” Mikey sucked air through that gap in his teeth. “It’s a long story, but enough about me! Besides, we’re…”

He slowed and she followed suit.

She looked up to find tall bushes lining a pair of double wrought iron gates. They hid nothing and she could clearly see there was a nice patio setup for a restaurant inside. Fairy lights were strung over and filled the space with a soft glow that only further illuminated that not a soul was there.

She knew this place from her research.

It was not one of the pizza places. 

It was a winery.

From what she had read, it was loosely connected to the actual restaurant next door. 

It was also supposed to be closed.

“May I present our venue for the evening!” Mikey pulled the chain on the gate and it unraveled without a lock.

Kendra was slow to slip a hand out of her pocket and into her bag where she squeezed that mini pepper spray can.

Mikey reviewed her genially and seemed to rush. “So my buddy owns the place and I just so happened to help him set up a wood-fire oven for tasting nights! They bring stuff over from next door. Synergy or some other fake word.”

“Another favor…” Kendra soured further.

Mikey pushed open both the gates in one shove. “Nope, not a favor and no bringing our last date into this! We’re not forgetting, but we’re trying again! This isn’t a do-over; this is new. What’s done is done and this is us going out a second time!”

He charged forward and Kendra was left to review the space.

She would die getting revenge.

Her body was going to be bled and bottled for posh New Yorkers to drink.

She guessed that would be a legacy.

She’d at least ruin this place’s credibility.

She marched toward her doom with her head held high and didn’t immediately find Mikey.

What she found were bricks laid in a nicely winding curve. It was a pathway that led around the many cutesy black metal patio tables. They were intricately woven and blossoming up with their chairs like petals for intimate settings. Foliage soaked the place almost as much as the glowing glass bubbles. It was darkened because of the evening, but there was a romantic and not haunting feel to the golden glow that bathed the place. On the side attached to the restaurant, some lesser seating was perched under an awning. Plebeians probably sat there on rainy days to keep reservations and she scoffed straight into the other direction.

Right into the licking flames of a fire and Mikey manipulating it.

He had rolled his sleeves up and his forearm flexed as he shoved what looked like a metal rod into the coals. Little flame fragments leaked out angrily from his prodding and shimmered a similar shade to his mask. His tongue sprouted, a bit of pink against his darker green face and she looked away.

There was one table set up much nicer than the rest. It was closest to him with the safe distance to the flames to save its fancy tablecloth and plateware. There was no silverware at all and she released the pepper spray to approach. 

Mikey was funny in that way. 

Two dates wasn’t enough data to wonder, but Kendra had a feeling Mikey was the type to do things wordlessly. She wasn’t sure yet if he sought praise, but he was obviously the type to bend over backwards for others.

It sounded exhausting.

She already had enough to deal with when tending to her own needs, taking care of someone else felt like far too much. Now closer, she could see that the supposed candles dotting their table were flameless. Maybe he had dealt with a small fire in the past and that seemed similarly poignant. He was thinking ahead, of all these contingencies, which were fine in a scheme, but unnecessary to daily life. It was as redundant as having fake candles when a roaring fire was already spewing enough light.

“Okay, now, you gotta close your eyes!”

“No.” Kendra Took the far seat from him so she could watch.

“I’m thinking pretty please and all the ice cream toppings in the world won’t convince you?”

“Not a chance.” She sat, folded one leg over the other to exhibit her comfort, and smirked.

Mikey sighed.

Kendra cocked a brow.

“Alright… Fine.” He gave off the impression that the situation was hopeless. 

“What?” She felt her attention flare. 

“Don’t be too mad, but I gotta do this…”

It lit the hairs on the back of Kendra’s neck and she cursed herself for letting go of her weapon.

He had robbed her of knives as well and she thought it was cute.

She prepared to flip the entire table when a shimmer caught her eye.

A fleck from the fire appeared to fly into the air as if it were alive. It glowed orange and warm before it burst as if yawning to life. It sputtered, making little gibberish sounds that could almost be mistaken as wood crackling, but it was nowhere near its source. It rolled on the very air itself and rose in what seemed to be a happy spiral. She followed it while grabbing her chair and was about to chuck the seat at it when it exploded like a firework. The residuals of it rained down stardust that sparkled amongst the fairy lights.

“What… the… fuck…?”

“Done!” Mikey dropped down in the seat across from her.

“What was that?!” She prepared to strangle him if need be.

She realized then she could have broken the plate and used a shard as a shiv. 

Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?

“Just a little distraction since you were being stubborn.”

Indignity hit her like nausea. “What is your problem?!”

“I know I said no surprises, but I don’t count this. This wouldn’t have had the same impact if you saw it before! It’s better you see it when it’s done so…”

“That’s stupid!”

“Maybe wait until you see what I’m talking about before you-”

“I should leave.”

Mikey let out one breath. “Okay. Go if you want.”

It was a little too even and grated her nerves. “That’s it? I just leave? What’s your angle?”

“No angle!” Mikey threw his hands up while also shaking out his napkin. “I’m only asking for you to see. It’s going to be worth it, but you gotta see. You can’t just give up before it’s even started. If you want that then you can go ahead, but I’m into a little razzle dazzle. That’s me. That’s literally what I’m made of. I think life’s more fun that way.”

“I didn’t ask!”

“Uh, you kinda did…”

“It doesn’t make sense! Why bother?!”

“I just explained-.”

“Yeah, some mumbo jumbo about nothing. Sparkles or whatever you said! There’s no point! I’ll see when I see it. It won’t be any better later!”

“Kendra-”

“Don’t Kendra me!”

“Do you want me to call you something else?”

“No! You should keep my name out of your mouth!”

Mikey took a single breath and faced her completely. “Look. I’m doing this because I want to.”

“That’s it! That’s what doesn’t make sense!”

“That I don’t want to? That I don’t want you to see the best? Why not? You deserve it!”

“Oh, do I!? You get to decide if I’m worthy!? You don’t know a damn thing! You’re just some mutant who can’t stop showing off! I was on to you and you dropped it! You know if you talked about it then you’d give it away You’ve got muscles! Magic! Money! You can’t stop flaunting all your connections!”

Mikey waited.

“And now… What?! You try to make a fool of me!? With your stupid fire magic! For some reason I’m supposed to sit all dumb for and see?! Ugh! You make me so mad I don’t know why I’m here!!”

Something beeped.

Kendra wanted to tear the source to shreds.

She searched wildly for it and Mikey stood.

She watched him with broiling blood as he walked over to the oven and showed her a timer.

He clicked it off and grabbed a paddle.

She watched on as he shoved it into the flames and there was a scraping noise.

She sank into her seat.

Her fuse was especially short tonight.

Decimate the date had been right in a sense.

She was destroying her own chances.

Yet again.

She couldn’t let well enough be.

This is why she didn’t actively pursue tech. 

She left her phone as an older model. 

She avoided access to better Wi-Fi. 

It was safer.

This was what happened when she tried to tackle her past. 

It dredged up that destructive person. 

She had to operate on what was left when that was put out of her mind. 

She heard a clink of hollow metal and dug into her bag.

She would splurge on a rideshare.

She wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

“Well… For better or worse…”

Kendra slowed where she had just woken up her phone.

She looked up to find a giant cloche had been set as the centerpiece of the table.

The air smelled like fresh garlic bread.

She closed her lips tight so as not to salivate.

Her nose betrayed her and coaxed her close. 

“Our meal for the evening.” Mikey grabbed the knob of the cloche and lifted it with a flourish.

It revealed a giant and gorgeously pockmarked pizza. The lid’s spin caused the steam to spiral up from the blotted pie. It was a classic Margherita to her eye and perfectly proportioned. The tomato sauce burned a rich red through the yellow tint of the lights and the mozzarella popped in gorgeously contrasting pools. Mikey then set the cloche aside and returned with a bushel of basil which he tore off and let rain down over the pie. Each leaf made contact and curled ever so slightly from the heat.

The steam caught her by the nostrils and pulled her further forward.

When was the last time she had been able to afford a whole pie?

She’d been settling for those damned dollar slices.

Greasy and filling as pizza was meant to be.

“This is what I wanted to show you.” Mikey offered. “For you, but it’ll be better after a small rest. It helps it set and not be burning lava hot.”

“How long?”

“5-10 minutes.”

“Great.” Her voice deadened.

“I’m not crazy about silence, but I can do it. We can just sit here. You can eat and head out. I get it.”

She frowned deeply.

She recognized that deference. 

He had said it before. 

He had thought she had asked him out as a prank. 

It was a sign like his aversion to fire. 

He knew its power because he apparently had it. 

How many things had he lit by accident?

How many times had he been fooled on dates?

Had she ever reassured him?

She said she meant it, but had she ever acted like it. 

She doubted his every action and acted like he was the one trying to pull one over on her.

He made mistakes, but he had never been disingenuous. 

She was exhausted. 

He made her exhausted. 

She made herself exhausted. 

She disliked the latter. 

She didn’t want to keep listening to herself. 

Maybe she needed to chance listening to him. 

He had only asked her to see. 

What more did she have to lose at this point?

Heat from the pizza slipped up and through the cracks in the lights above.

She replayed the evening, this evening, and stopped at the first question. 

“If it wasn’t a favor, what was it?” She chanced.

Mikey took a second to figure out what she meant before he lightly chuffed. “To use the venue? I bullied the owner.”

Her eyes went straight to his. “Yeah, right. You’re soft! Trying not to hurt people’s feelings.”

“It depends, but I did this, I swear! I came by the day after our first date and hounded Bertrand, the owner.”

She evaluated him. “I guess I can see you talking until some guy’s ears bleed.”

“Totally, I’m trained in the art of little brother. I harassed him until he let me use the place. Sure, he owed me for the pizza oven, but I didn’t use that. I asked if I could use the patio after hours and he said no! So maybe then I mentioned the oven, but I’ve done a heck of a lot more than that! We go back! I know pizza! I gave him tips! He should have done it out of the kindness of his heart!”

She had a similar question to earlier and tried not to bite her lip.

She was going to ruin her lipstick enough with the pizza.

“I… struck a nerve earlier.”

She sharpened her gaze.

“I don’t want to apologize. I don’t think I should.”

She tried not to bob her head because that was a certain amount of stunning.

“I’m standing by everything I’ve said or done. Messing up and all. Our second date had to be here. It had to be where there wasn’t anyone else. No peer pressure. I wanted to make sure it was a place where you could be you without all the preconceived bullshit. I made pizza. Everyone likes pizza. I tried to make the most universal pizza outside of cheese because, hell, you can get cheese anywhere. A good Margherita though? People can pretend you can find one outside of Italy, but…!”

“Let me guess, yours is as good?”

“As if! Absolutely not! I just did what I could! Fresh, good ingredients. Seasoning! Cooked to perfection. A good pizza is the company anyway.”

“What company?” The sound hit hollow to her ears.

She hadn’t meant to say that.

She didn’t even mean him.

She saw herself.

She saw how she stood outside all those tourist trap shops and ate a 99 cent pizza just to get by on the carbs.

Devoured while standing before she moved on.

Long gone were the days when her, Jeremy, and Jason would attack a stack.

Her eyes burned and she decided the pizza was too hot.

“I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s ready to cut.”

She waved for him too and was haunted.

Her family never ate pizza.

Deborah Ricci disliked the oil.

She would rather cook bland food she liked.

Before her, they had pizza once a week. 

A Byerly family event.

She could just remember her mom complaining about the dried red pepper flakes.

Mikey took her plate.

Her eyeshadow must have flaked into her eye.

The table cloth blurred.

Her tableware was returned to her with a slice.

She moved on autopilot to grab it.

A hundred hers from high school took the first bite.

She laughed when Jeremy got cheese stuck to his glasses.

They laughed when Jase got a cheese pull so long he couldn’t keep reaching.

They used a drone that day to measure how far it would go.

She took a bite.

The tang of the tomatoes perfectly blended into the richness of the mozzarella.

It was piping hot and the bottom felt perfectly crisp to her fingers.

She ate more.

She devoured the memories.

They were long gone.

She ate through cafeteria pizza in the mess hall.

It was plastic crust covered in plastic cheese served on a plastic tray.

They had it once a month.

Like clockwork.

Prison was a rigid schedule.

She tore through the triangle and through the perfect chew of the crust.

She grabbed another slice from its point.

Cheese lubricated her fingers.

She ate it with the same speed except she took time to fold it.

The toppings curled inward and she caught sight of that leopard spotting.

It was perfect.

She heard herself growl as she tugged a bite.

Something feral, something current.

She stuffed the whole of the crust in her mouth and struggled to chew.

She swallowed too soon and let it burn going down.

She licked her fingers.

One by one.

She then looked out.

Her partner was watching as if bewitched.

He looked as though he hadn’t taken a single bite himself.

“Not bad.” She decided for him before taking a third slice.

Mikey lifted his piece with both hands and chomped down on the pointed tip.

He was thoughtful in contrast and Kendra examined her plate.

She had just decided to savor he next when Mikey slowed. “It’s alright.”

She snorted once.

A chuckle caught in Mikey’s throat.

“I didn’t grow up poor.” She spoke suddenly and picked at the pie.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She adjusted in her seat. “Went that way when I got out of jail.”

“Oh…” His voice was surprisingly even. “I didn’t know.”

“How could you?” She went for a glass beside her and saw it was empty.

Mikey manifested a pitcher shined with condensation from somewhere and filled it for her. 

As ice chunks fell in for clunks against the side, the water level growing set her resolve. “I’ve done two stints.”

Mikey said nothing more.

She told him.

Not about her mom.

Not about how she missed Jeremy and Jason.

Not about Deborah Ricci.

She kept it clean and gave him a redacted version of her history from presumably the point he cared about:

After she became aware of his existence.

High school dropout.

Prison.

Parole.

GED.

Prison.

Parole.

It was so he would understand.

She had been trifled with too long to deal with his nonsense of worth.

Whatever one he had assigned to her was against her will.

She wasn’t some fun to be had because she didn’t fit into whatever societal mold he saw fit.

She was a quick play that he could bed while she had other plans.

He’d never get past first base, if he even got that.

She knew exactly how to prolong the event and give that freshen up excuse.

She would be gone before he knew it.

Everything would be back the way it was meant to be.

“That’s… terrible…” He mouthed a few polite minutes after she had finished.

All she could think was, ‘Here we go again.’

She was sick of the pity.

Sick of the admonishment.

Sick of the pretense.

Sick.

“You released all that illegal dirt on verifiable scumbags and you went to jail?!”

Her throat caught.

“The system isn’t just broken, it’s rigged.” He clicked his tongue loud and blew out heated irritation. “But that’s just how it is, huh!? When law enforcement was created to control and oppress, what do you expect?”

He moved to stand as if he couldn’t stand it.

“The gatekeepers did their whole rebrand with ‘serve and protect; and everyone bought in.” He groaned once and took a few steps away. “This seems like bad timing, but I’m so mad… I got these apples! You can do baked apples in campfires and I wanted to try it with the pizza oven. I just… need to move my hands. Work this out.”

She finally looked at him.

He was the picture of anger as he tore out some aluminum foil from a roll. She hadn’t noticed he had a little bin of items presumably to work with the oven. He then took a shiny apple and a smaller knife and made quick work of it. In a single swipe he popped out the area around the stem before swooping downward to clean the core. He then used the knife in a flash to the side where he picked up a pat of butter and shoved it down the cavern. He repeated the process on another apple before abandoning his blade for spices and then finally wrapped the apples up in the foil. He took his first care of the event in putting them in and only when they were perfectly placed did he return. “Wage-labor capitalist garbage! I know you don’t want to hear that. My anger doesn’t do anything for you. I’m sorry.”

Kendra was still staring.

“It wasn’t fair and I hate that.”

“We manipulated your brother into destroying half the city.”

“So!?” He chuffed and rolled his eyes. “We believed Donnie was doing that just cause. I’ve done more property damage alone than all the guys, all the villains, whatever, combined and that was while I was goofing off! Not even fighting anyone!”

She finally blinked.

“Not a contest. Not bragging.” He held his hands up. “Just saying.”

“But you’re considered like what? One of the heroes of New York?”

“Exactly!” He threw his arms up like that was the point.

She felt her lips part, but nothing came out.

Mikey reigned his limbs back in to shove his palms into his eye sockets. “Hero!? Villain!? It’s all whatever fits the narrative better!”

She broke her gaze away to think.

“It’s hypocritical to think of stuff like that. You served your ‘sentence,’ right?” Mikey used air quotes so aggressively it pulled her eye.

“I guess?”

“Or whatever! You did your ‘time.’ You took your ‘punishment’ and then ‘what?!’” He looked at his hands as if they betrayed him by quoting that last part. “You got out to what?! If you were making up for the crime you committed, why were you still damned? It left you poor! If it was meant to ‘rehabilitate’ you then why are there no programs in place to help you once you get out? You get a parole officer that exists to only make sure you ‘don’t do it again,’ and that’s it?! Your record is ruined and that’s your life!”

The air was thick and Mikey appeared to pant on it.

He then sighed loudly to dispel it all. “I did it again. Talking for you. Sorry… I just… Sorry.”

She shrugged.

“It’s been an ongoing thing with my dad. He was convicted in the Hidden City years ago and even though he had a huge hand in helping save the world, that’s both worlds, you know, like the one they condemned him for trying to destroy, but he protected it anyway, and they didn’t even take time off his sentence! He got honors for yokai-kind and a court summons!”

“The action star…?” Kendra’s expression dipped incredulously.

Mikey blinked out of his annoyance.

He looked at her.

He glanced up at the sky. “Uh… No… I, well, have two dads…?”

“Oh…” She pressed the word, unsure of how she should respond based on his reaction. “Being gay is… fine? For the record…”

A noise caught in Mikey’s throat once before he laughed.

“Is that not…?” She frowned deeply.

“No, no! It is!” He held the table to catch himself. “You’re so right. Why was I worried about how you’d take the two dads thing after everything else?! They’re not even together! At least…” He made a disgusted face. “They’re sus. I don’t know sometimes.”

“Is that why you changed the subject earlier?”

“Maybe…” Mikey looked toward the timer that was stuck on the oven.

It read just under a minute left.

He stood and went over to it. “Really it’s exhausting to tell it all. There’s all these bits to explain  like why I did what I did or why someone else did.”

He grabbed a metal rod with a small plate at the end and used it to pull the apples out.

“Maybe I didn’t want to have to explain myself or maybe I didn’t want to scare you off. This whole thing…” He gestured over his face. “... is already a lot.”

“I shouldn’t…” She scratched the back of her neck. “I didn’t mean the ‘some mutant’ thing as bad. That doesn’t matter.” 

He was quiet. 

“The prison thing is a lot.” She offered instead. 

Mikey turned as if that was something new.

Kendra pointedly looked away.

“So… what are you…?” He studied her. 

“What’s the wait time on those things?” She nodded to the foil balls.

“Oh, forever. These things are a million degrees hotter than the pizza. How badly do you want your taste buds?”

“You go then. Tell your story. You… listened to mine…” 

His brow ridge cranned upward. 

“You have until those are ready or we finish this.” She gestured quickly to the pizza and finally picked up her slice. “Whatever’s first. Not both.”

He laughed.

She ate. 

He talked.

She didn’t enforce the rule.

She let him tell it all.

By the time they got to the apples, they were the perfect temperature.

She was not, but her heat was newly directed. 

She wanted to strangle that moronic rat man.

She’d do the same to that ridiculous Baron.

Not to mention the so-called ‘Big Mama.’

Mikey had been forced to rise to some destiny because a bunch of self-absorbed adults had fumbled again and again. Somehow, Kendra held her tongue.Whether it was from the overall theme of the evening, she decided it wasn’t her place to judge. She was no stranger to adults letting her down. She couldn’t really relate to the ninja training or mystical powers, but the rest of the strain, she understood. 

Their conversation carried on long enough that Mikey showed her how to turn the oven off. It moved them outside where they left their trash for that Bertrand guy to clean up. They walked off the calories and volleyed experiences.

“And then you’re the weird one for smelling like cloves and nutmeg when that’s synonymous with Christmas, but I can’t say anything when I’m sitting next to smelly bologna byproduct kid?!” Kendra hissed.

“And people stepped away from me from coming out of a manhole before they even got a whiff!” Mikey waved a hand.

“Annoying!”

“So annoying!” Mikey breathed as if there was fresh air. “You smell good by the way. Not nutmeg which is like a bummer, but something else.”

“Don’t smell me, but thanks.” She shoved him.

He stumbled out and just kept himself from going on the street.

She liked that he took the gentlemanly position there. 

She would use him to block traffic that hit puddles if necessary. 

She fluffed her hair with purpose. 

“You’re lucky yesterday wasn’t my protein mask night. That stuff stinks!”

“Oh!” Mikey made a face and looked about ready to shield his own locks. “I know all about that.”

“Yeah? Which brand-?” A door slammed open on Kendra’s opposite side and took her question.

The sidewalk blurred around her and her arm burned in its socket.

When she got her vision back, she was tucked behind Mikey against a stoop.

A man cursed loud and drunkenly before there was a series of bangs.

Kendra blinked once at the body around her and then inward where Mikey had a hold on her hand.

He must have grabbed it when he tugged her out of the way.

“David, what the fuck are you doing?!” Another man’s voice rose up. “Give me that damn hammer!”

“I’m gonna fix it! Marie wants me to fix it! I’m gonna fix it!”

“That’s not even the back door, stupid. Come in here before someone calls the cops, stupid!”

“The back what…?”

“Come on…” There was a quiet ushering before the door closed and silence once again fell over the sleepy street.

Mikey popped his head out to look before he moved away from her. “You okay?”

“He had a hammer?” Kendra gawked.

“He came out swinging it!” Mikey’s eyes were large.

They shared a look.

She wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she felt compelled.

“Murder neighborhood.”

“Murder neighborhood.”

They both spoke at nearly the same time before turning away from one another.

Mikey laughed.

She shook her head at how ridiculous it all was.

He still had her hand.

When the levity eased off, she glanced down at it, but didn’t pull away.

He had a good grip considering.

It wasn’t strong enough that she felt trapped. 

It was supportive.

She could easily break free from him if she wanted.

“So…?” Mikey followed her eye line.

“So what…?” She looked up from under her lids.

Mikey bowed forward a little and brought her hand up.

He then delicately kissed her knuckles and spoke against them.

“Go out with me again?”

“Are you serious?” She made a face.

“No good?” He lifted his head from her hand.

“It was fine, but it’s the second date. Are you a prude or something?”

“Nah.” He let their conjoined hands drop. “I’d kiss you now.”

She eyed him. “You’re not so where’s the ‘but?’”

“No, ‘but.’ It’s not good enough yet.”

“Not good enough?” She broke free from his hand.

“Not you, us. When we do it’s gonna be the best you’ve ever had.” Mikey took a few cocky steps back and folded his hands behind his head.

“Yeah, right. What kind of talk is that? You sound scared.”

“Me?” Mikey smirked. “Never. You showed your hand though.”

A nervous tick hit the back of her neck and she slapped it. “Showed what?”

“How bad you want to kiss me!” Mikey teased and hopped several more steps away.

He knew.

He knew she would have hit him otherwise.

She gave chase with her bag as a weapon.

He ran to keep out of her target radius.

They made it halfway down the road before cop lights started flashing and they booked it the other way.

Chapter Text

“Is this better?” Mikey’s voice came through the phone line.

“Yeah.” Kendra glanced around where she was walking. “This will work.” 

While there was a certain level of touristy tidiness near the Museum Mile, there was also a ton of ongoing construction and foliage. It made for any number of places for a wacko to jump out and the hour certainly wasn’t helping. Kendra glanced up at the darkened sky as it no longer held its colored highlights.

The fading hues reminded her of her hair. 

She really needed to touch it up.

There was little time or money with Mikey’s constant appetite for these ludicrous dates.

Even when he paid for them, she inevitably had to spend funds of her own. 

“You good?” He spoke as if hearing her thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah. Just trying not to get mugged.”

Mikey audibly sucked air through his teeth. “Keep talking then. You're almost here, right?”

“You could at least apologize for making me walk alone. You’re a real piece of work.”

“Nah, we’ll see those soon.”

She rolled her eyes and checked the street before crossing.

“I needed to be here ahead of time. To… get our spot, yeah, that. Besides, we’ve been meeting at locations on purpose, haven’t we? Don’t you not want me to see where you live or something?”

“Yeah, well.” A few men were grouped up under some scaffolding and Kendra curved outward away from them. “What do you expect? Jury’s still out. You’re really pushing psycho territory with these weird plans of yours. I need to do what I need to to stay safe. ”

They didn’t look up at her.

She picked up the pace.

“No, that’s good! You should do that!”

“Then don’t complain.”

“I wasn’t. I’m accommodating.” He sounded more proud than perturbed. “I’m your safety net on the phone and we’re meeting at a real place this time! A totally normal date place! A museum date!”

“The Frick, yeah.” She glanced into the tree line of Central Park and hurried down the sidewalk. “I guess you get some non-murderer points for that if you’re counting.”

“I am not because I don’t have to worry about that.” Mikey’s voice hit a delay and she glimpsed him about a block away. 

He waved immediately and pulled his phone from his head.

She ended the call and heard him yell. “Since I’m not one!” 

By the time she reached him, her head had drifted toward the lit up exterior of the Henry Clay Frick House. “I didn’t know they started late nights.”

Mikey hummed and folded his hands on his hips to regard the building as well.

That wasn’t confirmation; Kendra’s lids lowered.

If Mikey got a chance to talk, he was going to take it and then some.

Something was wrong.

She took one breath before she scanned for the entry that led into this place.

She located the large double doors just off to the right.

They didn’t appear chained, but there was a comically small sign on a podium in front of them, presumably saying the opening hours.

Which she highly suspected it wasn't.  

She turned a slow menace toward him. 

“Michelangelo…”

Mikey was grinning plastic.

“It’s not open…?” She barely kept from hissing. “Is it?” 

“Maybe I needed to be here because I was totally watching the guard station and the spot I was saving was the one where their schedules lap!” Mikey quaked and awkwardly shuffled forward. “But think! The entire museum to ourselves! To look at in our time! How about that!?”

Kendra dug her nails into her palm beneath a fist.

There were so many things wrong. 

She started with one. “You thought it would be a good idea to take someone you just found out was a convicted felon to break into a museum full of priceless art?”

Mikey’s eyes widened and sat like two white beacons for a little too long.

When he blinked it was out of reddening pain and guilty recognition.

“When you put it like that…” He turned to her with an apology oozing off of him.

“Why do I put up with you?” She flexed her fingers.

The virus.

Ruining that which ruined her.

Perspective.

This wasn’t about Mikey’s incessant attitude.

She could stop all of this any time she liked.

She had seen enough to know he would respect at least that.

“I wonder sometimes.” He admitted with that painful amount of honesty he carried.

She sighed once.

Avoid crime.

Commit crime.

It seemed like an easy enough set of choices.

“Fuck it.” She caught his hand and pulled him further away from the entrance. “Dish. What do you know about the guards?”

He was immediately game and leaned into her for a huddle. “Who’s on duty. Guard rotations. Where security is. Blank spots in cameras. Turning off security. Turning on lights. Confusing the guards in the process.”

“You have that much of a plan?” She narrowed her gaze at him.

“I’ve been breaking into antique stores, museums, and auction houses since I was 14.” He grinned.

“Is that because of the mutant thing?”

“Kind of?” He thought for a moment before swiping over his person. “It also just depended on my sleep schedule which was reversed for a long time. The mutant thing was secret, then everybody knew, then we got weird notoriety? Everything’s kinda evened out in the last few years and we’ve gotten our rights secured.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were serious about the whole being a ninja thing? I’m serious. If I get in trouble for this…!”

“You won’t.” He squeezed where she still had his hand. “You’re my top priority. I’ll throw myself under the bus if I need to. Heck, you can do that if you need to.”

She frowned and tapped her foot for a second. “You aren’t even sure about me.”

She removed herself from him before he could respond.

She could feel his eyes and was glad when he stayed silent.

He walked back up to her side and only shared how best to enter. They would be hopping a gate near one of the lawns and they headed in that direction. It meant passing those men under the scaffolding a second time and they took quiet notice of her new companion. They didn’t share words loud enough for her to hear, but Mikey was put into higher alert.

He cautiously scanned the street and seriousness soaked into his posture. It made him stand a little taller and nearly eradicated his dopey persona. For a moment she felt like she might be able to trust his plan, but she squashed the feeling as he slowed. There was no getting comfortable around this man and he did a quick spin to check all viewable points before ducking down. Once he was sturdy and knelt, he offered her a step with threaded fingers that would give her a boost.

“How are you with landings?”

“I’ve done the jet pack deal more than once.” Kendra slipped her foot into his hold.

“On three.” He counted out and then tossed her up like she was nothing.

The upward arc pulled her innards down before descent pushed them back up and she prepared for a roll. She touched down with a spin of her center of gravity and let the momentum carry her into a single tumble.

Mikey dropped down with only a hop and a squat behind her. 

She stood and dusted herself off. 

“You do parkour?” He wondered appreciatively. 

“I prefer tech to do my physical labor.” She rolled her neck as cover to twitch away from him. “What now?”

“Entrance to the side is open for guards to walk.” Mikey pointed and led with that ever roving eye he now had. “Stay right behind me. I’ll go slow.”

She gave a tight nod.

It felt strange.

They crept through some immaculately cut greenery with Mikey leading toward a walkway.

Kendra was supposed to take point.

Mikey held up a hold and seemed to see something she couldn’t.

Kendra was never one to follow orders.

He lowered his hand and crept forward while gluing himself to a wall.

Kendra was meant to lead.

Her back pressed to concrete and she almost thought she could see the dawdling figures of Jase and Jeremy following her.

She paused.

How many years would it be until she stopped seeing their ghosts?

They weren’t even dead.

She’d just seen Jason at her pak’s birthday dinner not that long ago.

They hadn’t spoken.

Not really.

Nothing beyond what was necessary to get the cake ready.

Perspective, she reminded herself.

She’d been a Purple Dragon for roughly 16% of her entire life.

That was nothing.

A pitiful number.

Who got stuck on that sort of percentage? 

Mikey touched a finger to hers.

She’d missed a signal.

She looked up and readied herself.

His face held concern.

She glared and tried to step past him.

“Wait…!” He hissed.

Her shoe tapped down on the path and it made a noise that echoed against the building.

A man’s gruff voice sounded a, “Huh?”

Mikey had her shoulders and was pulling her through a door.

He then steered her on her screeching soles several feet before scooping her up.

They bounced off several walls, before landing behind what appeared to be more greenery, although they were definitely indoors.

Kendra blinked up at a domed ceiling that was knit with metal grates.

“Okay… We’re in the courtyard and security is…” Mikey turned his head. “That means we need to-”

He mumbled and Kendra forced herself to be present.

She could treat this like a gig.

It was a mission.

She wanted to smack herself.

There was no past.

There was only present.

There was a scheme already happening.

Infiltrating this museum was part of it.

If she had to defer to Mikey, she could.

She deferred to her boss at the coffee shop.

Putting herself into that mindset, Kendra focused on her date.

Mikey had been drawing spirals to himself for the layout and slowed at her continued eye. “Uh… I’m hurrying. Sorry. I had a plan but-”

“Don’t rush and get me caught.” She gave a single encouraging nod.

“Right…” He accepted it and turned to speak his thoughts with her.

He did have the layout, but by distracting one of the guards, there was a possibility that all their movements had been shifted if they employed their walkie talkies. With three of them roaming, Mikey wasn’t sure where exactly they were and it would be easy to get bottlenecked in any number of the museum rooms if one of the guards happened to be there.

Kendra’s first thought was distraction, but she kept her mouth shut. There was a chance they could damage the property which would then leave evidence and their goal wasn’t just to get to one room. They were supposed to be enjoying this space for whatever reason. Mikey had gone on about the art for some reason, but Kendra hadn’t understood. It was mostly paintings by or of dead rich white dudes so it mattered little. Mikey seemed insistent as he always had and she guessed that had worked out so far.

There was a churning of static and the pair ducked down.

“I swear I heard an eagle.”

“An eagle? Really, Tony?” 

“Yeah!” The man did his best impersonation of a screech.

Mikey wrapped the whole of his hand over his face.

Night guards were forms of pure stupidity and Kendra rolled her eyes.

“We looked all over. No birds, man. Hugo’s in one of the far rooms.”

“Can we check again?”

“Bro, what?!”

“Just one more time? They’re predators!”

“Yeah, for fish!”

There was a beat of silence.

“Please…?”

“One more time!” There was a jingling.

“Thank you!” Two pairs of feet trailed off.

Mikey wiped down his face, shrugged, and signaled to the left.

Kendra stooped to follow and in quick succession they ran through a few rooms, a lobby, and then into security where Mikey blocked the door off behind them. “Weird, but whatever works!”

“You’re too ‘go with the flow’, you know that?” Kendra eyed the monitors and located the two guards arguing they had seen now outside with flashlights near where they had hopped the fence.

“Flexibility is good for a plan.” Mikey walked past her.

The screens turned over and there was a far lazier guard standing almost idly in an ornate room. “Is this an art museum or a history one?”

“Both.” Mikey searched over the panel.

“What do you need?” She stepped up, ready.

“Place to plug in.” Mikey held up a USB. “I need the cameras looped.”

A purple stick drive.

A purple stick drive with an obnoxious ‘D’ logo on it.

“No.”

Mikey’s hand lowered. “Uh…?”

“I’ll do it.”

“I don’t think…”

“I can!” She seethed and shoved him out of the way.

He stumbled, but didn’t fall.

“It just depends on how old the system is. It’s easy.” She clicked through the one computer monitor that was fixed.

“But Don already-”

Kendra banged her palms against the desk one single time.

Mikey silenced.

She continued clicking through to the system. “I can reflash the firmware. No need to upload a modified one. I just need…”

She looked around the desk.

A sticky note with the network and admin passwords was clearly stuck to a wall.

She snatched it with a click of her tongue and entered the information.

“The quintessential movie line: ‘I’m in.’” She swallowed bile at the joke.

As soon as she got access to the firmware, she wrote in the modified command. After that it only took entering a few necessary prompts before all the screened flickered. The loop had begun by the look of the static, but she waited to make sure the time signature was still ticking away correctly before allowing herself to sneer. 

There was still the issue of the guards stuck in two of the feeds. She tucked into the database to pull older footage and took a moment to delete the video of them entering. There was now no evidence of them having been there and she switched to finding suitable stock footage. She swapped the frozen guards with empty rooms and when all the feeds were satisfyingly stagnant, she turned to Mikey with an outstretched palm.

“See. Easy.”

“Cool, I guess…” Mikey rubbed his neck.

“What?” Her guard flew up.

He shook his head.

She stalled. 

He was clearly upset, but she couldn’t read how. 

It also didn’t make sense as to why. 

She had done what they needed.

She did it without any infuriating help.

She had been fast.

She got results.

Why complain?

She was about to demand what his problem was when a lone walkie talkie in the room clicked to life. “Uh… There’s… a guy here with four pizzas…?”

“That’s the next step in the plan! We gotta go!” Mikey flew to remove the barricade from the door.

“Pizza? Again?”

“Yes, pizza!” Mikey cleared a table and then set it up at the ready. “Everyone loves pizza!”

He shot out and gathered up the rolling chair at the computer and then a few folding ones that were propped against the wall and set a scene.

“Looks good!” Mikey turned to the walkie. “Take the bait… Come on…”

“The pizza?”

“Yes, the pizza!” Mikey responded a little more harshly then Kendra was used too.

She stood off to the side and the tense air between them was palpable.

She wasn’t used to this.

Not like this.

When this happened it was because others hated her with reason and she despised them in return for their insolence.

She couldn’t handle a standoff without reason.

Mikey didn’t even appear mad.

If anything, he looked agitated and betrayed.

Why?

It didn’t make sense.

“Another prank?” A voice came on the walkie talkie.

“Nah, it’s for you Hugo. There’s writing on the box too. ‘Happy Birthday.’” Another answered.

Mikey held his breath.

Kendra used all her willpower not to yell at him for such a stupid ploy.

“You guys remembered?” The voice that was presumably Hugo’s came in small and timid through the static.

Mikey willed the walkie talkie with his very being.

Silence beat on seconds like a drum.

Then there was a crackle.

“Yeah, man!”

“Of course we did! Totally!”

“Guys!!”

“It’s your birthday, dude!”

“I can’t believe you guys remembered! I know I dropped a few hints, but-!”

“We work together every night, how could we forget?!”

“Let’s take 15!”

“It’s the man’s birthday, that’s at least worth 30!”

“Heading back to security now!”

“Copy.”

“See you there.”

“Let’s go.” Mikey started to reach out, but turned it into a thrown thumb.

Another spurned movement.

For whatever reason, this man’s delicate feelings were hurt.

Kendra stared at his arm for a little too long.

“Kendra.”

Did she bruise his pathetic ego?

“Kendra.”

It wasn’t even his work.

“Kendra, they’re heading here. We gotta go.”

It was his brother’s.

“Kendra!” He snapped his fingers in front of her face.

She saw a customer do the same to her.

She saw an inmate do the same to her.

She saw a teacher do the same to her.

She slapped his hand away.

Mikey should have been the picture of offense.

He looked scared.

“Let’s go.” She moved her body to take a step before something held her back. “The lights. You said something about lights.”

It took Mikey a second. “Right.”

He returned to the panel and studied a few switches before he flicked one.

Nothing exact happened, but he then breezed past her without making any contact. “Got them. Let’s go.”

He opened the door and she shadowed him.

They just barely dodged the guards mingling in the hall.

The three men were now a joyous trio and their voices disappeared behind a closed door as Kendra and Mikey walked back out into the courtyard. He veered off to one side and she took in the space now that she could. A fountain was delicately cycling water in the center of the room and the space had the faint chill of humidity from it. The plants were snoozing dark leaves in rows around columns and benches. The skylight above had murky panels to keep direct sunlight at bay without trading natural light.

It probably had a stale white glow during the day.

At night it sat a shallow husk of itself.

“You didn’t have to push me.”

Kendra was slow to turn to him.

Mikey was rubbing the arm that she had shoved. “It didn’t hurt, but it sucks. It wasn’t nice.”

“I’m not nice.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

“Isn’t it? Funny how fast it turns. You say that me being mean is fun and refreshing right up until it isn’t, huh?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Didn’t you!?”

“I guess I said something about intrigue, but I exclusively said I didn’t think you were mean!”

“Well, surprise!” She threw out her arms. “Here it is! The real Kendra! You’ve finally opened your eyes.”

“That’s mean!” Mikey tossed his arms similarly, but at her.

“Yes! We just confirmed that, you dunce!”

“No!” Mikey stormed up to her. “It’s mean to you. You’re being mean to yourself.”

“No, I’m not.” She held up an arm to dismiss him. “I’m being real. Welcome to reality.”

“Then where do you keep going?”

She turned on him.

“Because it’s a different reality than mine and each time you’re gone you come back hating yourself more.”

She swung that same arm up, ready to strike.

He stood there staring straight into her eyes.

She reared in warning. “What do you want? You want me to? You want that excuse? That out so you can leave your poor charity case?!”

“What? No! You can keep making up lines for me, but that won’t make them true! I don’t think that! I never have! I know you know that! I’m not saying I know what’s going on! I’m not trying to fix it! I don’t even know if you’re hurt, but I do know that you’re hurting. I’m… I’m…” He grew quieter.

“You what?” She didn’t bring down her arm.

Mikey itched his cheek. “I can’t do anything about before, but I’m here. Right now. We can do this again and again. The conversation, I mean. Shoving me though? That’s a line. You can hit me when I egg you on. Those are love taps. Those are fun, but what you did earlier wasn’t out of anything other than anger and you took that out on me. I’m not going to let you.”

Her fingers twitched.

“I’m not trying to break down your walls.” He took a few wandering steps away with his thoughts. “I mean, have I thought about how cool it would be to get through to you? Sure! Mostly because it would be nice for you to trust me, but I’m not trying to rush the process. I’m not trying to be a wrecking ball. If I’m rushing that’s because that’s how I am in general. I’m trying to give you space!”

He swung his leg wide to return to her and she lowered her arm.

“I am really not eating much humble pie with this explanation, huh? I sound like some nice guy jerk off.” 

“A little.”

“I’m over explaining! At least, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve been misunderstood a lot and it’s a reflex…” He heaved a big breath. “I’m sorry for talking too much, but I’m not sorry for saying what you did was mean. That’s the gist.”

“I got that.”

He attempted to talk again, but shoved a silencing fist against his lips.

She tapped her thumb to each of her nails one at a time to process in a way that felt like clicking keys.

When she reached the eighth one she felt a certain amount of settled. 

“You’re interested in me because you have some weird sense that we’re alike. Is that right?”

Mikey moved his fist only a little. “Pretty much. You’re also interesting, like in general.”

“What about the parts where we’re different?”

“I don’t have a problem with it…?.” Mikey shrugged his limb away. “I sort of chase feelings. I was never really into examining why.”

“Isn’t it enough that I want to go out with you?”

“Woah…” His hands came up. “I didn’t ask for you to-”

“But it’s there! You need to know because it’s making you self conscious and that is feeding my doubt.”

The way his head bobbed said she was right.

“I need to give you some kind of reason why!”

“Don’t… force yourself?” he grimaced.

She shook her head. “I don’t-”

But, she did.

She did every single day.

She forced herself to do everything beneath her.

To do her job.

To use her decade-old phone.

To keep from overclocking her ancient laptop because it would explode.

Even now.

Even this.

It had gotten easier.

The owner’s praises helped at work.

The bibi’s food helped her wallet.

Not cussing her landlord out helped her get her shower drain cleared.

Since when had the line become so blurry?

It was less that she forced herself these days and more that she saw the exchange.

There was point A to B.

She had to do something to get something in exchange.

Long gone were the days she could coil others around her fingers.

These dates were a perfect example of that.

Mikey wasn’t dumb enough to let her in.

She had to play the part of the date.

She had to show her actual interest.

He could tell otherwise.

He was able to tell right now.

His earnest nature wasn’t just central to him.

It was his viewpoint.

He saw everyone else through that same lens when he looked.

He was looking at her.

Even now.

Even while she did this.

“I don’t like that we’re alike.” She started.

His head tilted ever so slightly.

She guessed that was confusing.

She was supposed to be saying what she liked about him.

He also frustrated her to no end. “But… I do.”

His lips parted.

“I don’t like admitting that! It’s soft! I don’t like soft! I’m not soft! I’m a hardened criminal!”

Mikey softened with understanding.

“You’re doing it again!” She lit with embarrassed flames. “Stop that! With your face! You’re too squishy! Soft! I hate that! You were handsome when you were serious!”

She clapped a hand over her mouth.

Mikey’s smile spread like wildfire.

“When was I serious!?” He had stars in his eyes.

“Never!”

“I was! You said!” He bounced toward her. “You think I’m hot!”

“Never!!” He was a fly for her to swat at.

She hit him directly in the face and jarred for it.

He seemed unaffected and caught her wrist gently.

He removed it and looked at her with bright eyes.

“Sorry…” She mumbled out.

“I think I get it.”

“What?” Her wariness returned in droves.

“You’re like… Oh what’s that Japanese concept? They mash like cool-cute…?”

“You think I’m cool-cute?” She deadpanned.

“No, you’re like, hot and cold? Oh, wait, that’s a thing in English.”

He wasn’t wrong, but she still soured.

“In Japanese, it’s like a homomatopoeia...”

“Onomatopoeia or Homonym?” Her head shook with confusion. “Which one?!”

He saved her off.

“Micheal!”

“Tsun… Tsun…”

“Do I need to hit you again?”

“No.” He shook her hand where he still had it cuffed. “Oh! That’s it!”

“What?!”

“Tsundere!”

“Tsun-!” She yanked her hand from him. “Don’t you put your anime crap on me!!”

His eyes immediately thinned out into smarmy lines. “You know it’s an anime thing!”

“So!?” She smashed a hand into his face to cover it. “Watching anime as a kid is normal! They’re cartoons!”

“But do kids get that particular concept?”

“Are you teasing me or not!?” She smeared her palm over his beak.

It tipped him backwards and he easily bent with a surprising amount of core strength. “Bit of both!”

“You’re not getting to dere!” She chased him to find the limit.

He laughed into bending further.

“This is not a romantic comedy!!” She shoved far enough onto him that she went up on her tiptoes.

“It’s not? Could have fooled me!” He slung an arm around her waist to steady her.

“I will wipe that stupid smile-!”

“Miss my manly features!?” His brow ridge wiggled.

Kendra screamed and shoved both her hands into his face.

Mikey’s laughter exploded between bouts of suffocation.

“There! That is someone talking! I told you!”

They both froze.

“The guards!” Kendra dropped to a bitter whisper.

“Yeah, stuck footage isn’t going to cover us screaming.” Mikey returned a sheepish grin.

She didn’t miss the way he took part of the blame.

Footsteps pounded down a hall signaling the guards were getting closer.

Kendra fumbled to move only to realize she was fully off the ground and on Mikey’s chest. “Down! We gotta go!”

“Or… hold on?” He sent her a look that dared her to trust him.

He had gotten them away from the guards in an instant before.

She prepared herself for the head rush in a countdown from three.

“Do it!”

Instead of immediate movement, he bent further back.

Farther than his shell should allow.

Kendra’s eyes widened as her gaze hit the floor, but his arm was a safety bar around her.

She felt one of his legs come up behind her and it was a move she felt she had seen on some kind of stage.

Everything then sped up because in a perfect arch, Mikey’s leg swept over his head and she was turned upside down. She was then immediately righted and still pulled to his chest when his gaze shot out. His head jarred left and right as if tracking a thrown ball before he dug into his person. He came away with a shuriken and tossed it in a wayward way. The weapon clinked with several bounces that he had seemingly mapped out and some soft sounds leaked out from what had to be the lobby.

Before Kendra could process how, she was flung out from him in a way she could only recognize as a dance move which was cemented as he reeled her back. His face was all confidence as he twisted her again, but this time took on a new style. The first move had been a warning of what was to come and she was swung out of the way. Through his legs and then tossed up into the air over some plants, he was immediately there to catch her and twirled her straight down to the floor. He covered her, keeping his body weight chaste and sent his attention out at the ready.

“Run if I pop out. Same door should be open where we came in.”

He was going to do just as he said.

He was going to take full blame so she wouldn’t get caught.

She stared up at his grave features from where she was laying on the ground.

The pale light of the courtyard almost carved a chisel out of his softened cheeks.

“Over… What? What is that?”

“Is that the radio?”

“What the hell?”

“This wasn’t what I heard!”

“It’s so loud!”

“You kidding me?!”

“It was a scream! Like a phantom, bro!”

“A phantom!?”

“Phantoms and eagles, huh?”

“I’m not kidding!!”

“I bet this was your bird too!”

“We were in here! We were just here and didn’t hear anything! This radio wasn’t on!”

“Yes, we did! We went searching because you heard something! Sound bounces in the courtyard, stupid!”

“It’s not acoustically tuned!”

“You don’t even know what that means!”

“I do! I took choir!”

“Yeah, 15 years ago!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“Why don’t we-!”

Footsteps came clear through the columns to signal the guards were in the same room.

Mikey flexed his elbows where he was holding himself up at the ready.

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

“BOTH OF YOU FUCK EACH OTHER AND SHUT UP!!!” The man in this room screamed.

Kendra grabbed Mikey’s biceps.

He nodded for her to wait and his gaze hadn’t moved from where it was glued to the bushes.

There was a tense moment of silence.

Breathing felt too loud so Kendra held her breath.

The soft sounds of the radio obviously echoed from the lobby and into this room.

“It’s the fucking radio! What did I say!?” The man stormed back to where he’d come from.

The others continued to bicker through one room and far down another until their voices couldn’t be heard anymore.

Mikey blew out a breath. “Okay… Maybe the pizza thing didn’t work.”

“Did you hit the radio with your dumb ninja knife?”

“Yes.” Mikey swept down to her. “I came here the other day to case the joint and the front desk guy was listening to it then.”

“And you knew it was that idiot’s birthday?”

“That’s why it had to be tonight.”

“There were so many ways your stupid plan could have gone wrong!”

“But a quiet nighttime museum date? Just the two of us? Think of how romantic it could have been if it worked! Plus, the back-up was always my million dollar smile.” Mikey did a pushup with one arm so he could tuck his chin into his purlicue and flash her a huge grin.

She grabbed that hand and yanked.

It threw him off balance and he flailed as he tipped down into her.

She came up just enough to meet him in a kiss.

It locked all his muscles and he went perfectly rigid.

It was a breath of fresh air relief in the face of all her irritation.

A pinprick to the balloon of her anger.

A whistling release of pressure.

She pulled away with an actual smack before shoving him off.

He fell over in a heap.

“We’re leaving this dump.” She stood and went straight for the exit.

She heard Mikey scramble after her.

“No apologies. Date’s not over.” She told him when she caught the door.

She opened it for him and he slipped by with growing understanding.

“There’s a place I want to eat near here. That’s it.”

“Sure.” He passed her to the fence and got in position to help her over.

“Catch me.” She told him as she stomped her foot into his hand.

“Gladly.”

She soared much higher and this time it was exhilaration.

Mikey appeared beneath her and plucked her out of the air.

She was lowered to the ground in yet another dance move. “Where’d you learn all this?”

“Took ballet as a kid.” He made sure her feet were flat before letting go.

She grabbed his hand to pull him the direction she wanted. “That wasn’t just ballet.”

He followed after. “Good eye. It was ballet, salsa, tango, merengue, swing, and a bit of freeform jazz dance.”

“You didn’t take those as a kid.”

“Nope, most were as an adult. I got into helping at the community center and picked it up while I was stacking chairs. Always with the chairs, I swear. I hate them.”

“Explains how you set that guard’s party table up fast.” She checked the street for both of them as Mikey was blindly following her tether.

“They say a smile is its own reward, but getting to take all the classes for free was pretty great.”

She flicked a wry glance back at him. “It’s a community center. Shouldn’t the classes be free?”

“Right! They are for kids! Adults have to pay!”

“Annoying.”

“Yes!”

“I had group at one.”

“Part of your parole?”

“Bingo.” A few more people were popping up.

“How was that?”

They came to a crosswalk and she pretended to think.

Mikey stood dutifully aside and adjusted their hand hold so their fingers were entwined.

When she checked in on him for the move, he purposefully looked away like he was examining pedestrians.

She rolled her eyes. “It was a lot of chairs.”

Mikey chuffed his attention back to her.

“And whining.”

“I bet.”

“You wouldn’t call it that.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” He agreed. “What kinda food?”

“Sandwiches. It’s 24 hours or something, had a pretentious name, and looks like a flower shop.”

Mikey pondered.

“You can’t know the owners.”

“Maybe don’t say ‘can’t’ until I’m sure.”

“Ugh! How do you know so many people? Don’t you get tired of the blah blah talking all the time!”

“Really?” The light changed and it was his turn to send her sarcasm as he now led.

“Just because you talk others’ ears off, doesn’t mean you want to hear it.”

“I want to hear you.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” He shot her a heated look.

She ignored it. “It is. Now tell me how you stand randos.”

“Okay so sometimes they go on a little too much about themselves and it gets boring.” Mikey admitted like it was a weight off his chest.

Kendra let the sentence breathe because it seemed to need the air.

Mikey returned to himself after taking a breath. “I don’t think I’ve told anyone that.”

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

“We have banter. Have you noticed? Like we can go back and forth really fast?”

“I guess.” She hadn’t thought about it.

“I prefer that. It feels like you can keep up with me.”

“You’re surprisingly self-centered. It’s like you can’t talk about anything without relating it to yourself.”

He hummed. “It has more to do with craving a connection to others. It’s sympathy and compassion that leads us to wanting to commiserate. I try not to raise the bar because the point is sharing joy or grief.” 

She eyed him. 

“Sounded a little too intelligent, hm?”

A grunt popped out of her. 

“I know you don’t think I’m very smart. I’m not trying to argue; just saying I noticed.”

“You still take offense.”

“Oh, for sure. I love impressing people to shut them up!”

“That why you were going for breathless and all that other crap?”

“You took my kiss so maybe I’m salty about it.”

“Oh no! The girl you’ve been out on a few dates with kissed you!” Kendra put on fake horror.

“The girl I like kissed me, actually!” He corrected with a pointed finger.

Her lips made a noise when she closed them abruptly.

“See?” Mikey spun around her to block her path. “Impressed!”

She pulled her hand from his.

“And with honesty too!?” Mikey feigned his own surprised expression. “Your description was good.”

She didn’t let understanding blossom on her features and instead turned to predictably find the deli she picked out ready with an open door beside them. “I told you I wanted to eat here.”

She entered first and he followed after. Ordering took a few minutes at most and they were soon outside with crinkling paper. The flowers at the entrance put out a light scent and mixed with the aroma of fresh bread. Kendra inhaled deeply as she peeled back her paper for a teeth wide bite. She was saving what was left of her lipstick.

Mikey was already halfway down his sub and swallowed hard to speak again.

“What’s your favorite anime?”

She pursed her lip and almost smiled. “Dragon Ball.”

“A classic!” Mikey chirped.

“We could only pick through pre-made designs for our jackets. School budget if we wanted satin and the color.”

“Huh?”

“Purple Dragons.” Kendra stared into the ingredients piled between bread.

“What’s that?” Mikey spoke through another mouthful since he apparently couldn’t wait.

She looked at him.

He chewed and met her gaze openly.

He didn’t know.

A strange part of her liked that.

She didn’t. “A tech club I started in high school. The name of my group.”

“Oh yeah, Washington Irving High School’s mascot.”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“Wait, are you saying your dragon was Shenron?!”

“I mean the colors were wrong!” She huffed.

“You were stuck with school colors.” Mikey shrugged. “I’sh still cool!”

“I guess. I liked his red eyes. He was all powerful, but wouldn’t do shit until you went through his trial.”

“Collecting the dragon balls.” Mikey nodded.

“Yeah…” She widened her jaw to take another bite. “You had to earn it.” 

She could feel him watching.

“Knock it off. I’m eating.” She sent him a glare.

“Your lipstick.”

“What about it? It’s not on you.” She addressed him with a slight turn of her body.

“Dragon tech genius…”

She narrowed her eyes to parse out where he was going.

“The color.” He pointed to his own mouth. “It’s Bulma, isn’t it?”

Her face flooded with heat and she felt her back snap straight.

Mikey zeroed in on her embarrassment. “Oh, you really like her!”

“She’s whiny!”

“I bet you modeled your whole thing on her when you were young!”

“Mikey!”

“I was into Krillin myself. I would spend hours trying to do the Destructo Disc.”

Her irritation halted. “How old?”

“Tiny, like five.”

“You can throw fireballs now.”

“Isn’t it funny how those things work out?” Mikey gleamed a knowing grin at her.

She scoffed at him and finally ate more of her food.

“You’re way hotter than milf Bulma, by the way.”

“Boy!” She threw up her bread to toss at him.

“Don’t waste good food!” He gasped.

“I bet you’ll lose your hair and go bald just like your hero!”

“Stop!” Mikey immediately broke into distress. “Too real!”

“What!? Why!?”

“Uh…” He strung out the phrase before launching into an absurd tale about time travel and the Krang.

Kendra was just inclined enough to believe it.

Chapter Text

She wasn’t going to be made a fool again.

She was Kendra Byerly and she was a force.

No turtle twerp was going to dupe her. 

Three times was far too many.

She had fallen for far too many tricks.

A kiss.

She didn’t linger on it.

She placed it for what it was.

A spur of the moment action that spoke to higher purpose.

While her main focus was spent trying to keep up with the blight that was Michelangelo, some sane background part of her brain operated within the confines of the plan.

A kiss helped keep him interested.

It was necessary because she was losing him.

It was bait to dangle.

It would have been better utilized at the end of the date with practiced bedroom eyes that said ‘take me home so I can ruin your wretch of a brother,’ but there had been the adrenaline of it all.

She wasn’t going to get caught up in that again.

She wasn’t going to let him lead anymore.

She hadn’t picked the next date spot, but she exercised discretion.

No more surprises.

No more excuses.

A common ground that removed all unknowns.

She was playing chess now.

She took a single breath and looked up at the science museum she had been standing outside of for approximately 45 minutes.

She pressed her vow to its façade.

She’d get Mikey home at the end of this date.

She would be in control for the duration.

So that meant getting here an hour early.

That was nothing.

That was mental preparation.

That was scouting.

That was beating Michelangelo at his own game.

Seduce and conquer were the primary and only objectives.

“Kendra!” Mikey called her.

She didn’t turn and gave him three quarters of her profile for an alluring glance just as she’d practiced. “Beat you.”

He marched up and almost collided with one pedestrian. “Heh. Yeah. You excited?”

“Maybe…” She turned to him in a gentle sweep. “That depends on you.”

Mikey blinked wide. “Me?”

“Do you always arrive fifteen minutes early?” 

“Yeah, better to be early.” He was clearly looking over her calm demeanor.

Keep him on his toes. “Doesn’t really avoid the disaster.”

“Which is why we’re here!” Mikey threw his hands up. “I’m gonna pick a good date spot eventually! This place is made for interaction. It’s actually open and I’m pretty sure there’s no priceless relics!”

“A little thought goes a long way.” She purred as she passed by him into the building.

She felt Mikey stray behind and smirked to herself as she entered.

She looked over the many families without focusing too much on any one of them and lined up in a queue for tickets.

Mikey soon appeared by her side. “You getting into… beetroot juice by chance?”

Don’t let him confuse you. “No, should I?”

“No. I mean, I guess? It’s fine. It’s good for blood pressure.”

She made a non-committal noise and stepped forward after several people filed away.

“Keeps ya calm…” Mikey went on.

Kendra looked upward along with her thoughts.

Mikey was leading to something.

It seemed like a comment on her behavior.

She couldn’t have that.

“Supports the heart and brain…” 

She tipped her shoulders in his direction, but kept from brushing him. “Beetroot, hm? I think I know that. Isn’t it good for stamina too?” She pressed a finger up into her lip to enhance her cupid’s bow.

Mikey’s eyes bugged out, but an employee flagged them.

Dropping from her supposed curiosity, Kendra grazed with her middle finger’s nail through his palm before grabbing his hand to lead him over.

He went off balance and hopped on one leg a few times to keep up with her.

“Isn’t he funny?” She tittered to the teller.

The woman was amused enough. “Sure, two adults?”

“Yes.” One adult and one man child.

“I’ve got it!” Mikey patted himself down for his wallet.

“Silly.” She pressed the whole of herself into his side.

It took a leading drag of her hand across the plates of his torso to reach into the pocket she had clocked his wallet in.

She pinched it free and sent him a heavy look as she offered it between two scissored fingers. “Here it is.”

“Ha… Ha… What?!” He quacked with a sweat dotting his brow.

She released him to his pathetic sense of modesty and turned to wipe her fingers off on her pants.

“Have fun you two!” The woman jeered as she handed Mikey a receipt.

“We will.” Kendra struck her with a sharp look before sending a heated one to Mikey. “Let’s go.”

“Kendra-!”

She dove directly into a crowd and felt him rattle off apologies and her name in quick succession as he tried to catch up.

All she could think was, ‘that’s it.’

It was a small rush.

A taste of control.

It had been far too long.

“Ken-! OW!!!” 

A small child giggled manically as he wove easily through the many legs.

A half-crouched mother waddled after him. “Joey!”

The little boy ran up to the next unsuspecting victim and kicked them in the shins. 

Pain was shouted and the kid continued to run on glee. 

She appreciated the hustle and finally rotated to glimpse Mikey. 

He limped forward. 

She had built up enough suspense, she supposed.

She saddled up to his side and slipped her arm in his. “I can’t leave you alone for a second.”

“Okay, that has got to-!”

She yanked him.

He hobbled and she tugged him straight to the first exhibit. A presentation of life then and now, it was illustrated by a myriad of dinosaur bones alongside creepy stuffed birds. There was a through line via placards about what genetics had been altered to illustrate the switch. Kids cheered and obsessed over what they could and could not touch. Parents tried to keep up with the whims of their lineage and Kendra picked the first placard. It had some semblance of science on it even if it wasn’t a field that she particularly gave a shit about.

Mikey took a breath once he recovered and stared hard into the side of her head. “What are you doing?”

“Shh.” She nodded to the sign that she had long finished.

She could feel his gaze narrow.

She allowed her pupils to filter along the sentence so he couldn’t complain.

He clicked his tongue. “You know what? Fine!”

This was one of the scenarios she calculated for.

She took a slow, shrouded breath and prepared her list of contingencies.

She hadn’t done anything dorky like label them, but she laid out her options in a mental tree.

No matter what insanity Mikey tried to pull, she would be ready.

‘Not again,’ she gave herself one last steadying reminder.

“It’s gross, right?!” Mikey’s voice chuckled a little too loud.

Kendra eliminated the files that involved direct action and was left with the ones where he made a scene.

She was almost impressed that he’d chosen to go for humiliation so quickly.

She prepared a staunch expression, but when she turned her date was nowhere to be seen.  

Kids laughter erupted and she found Mikey crouched amongst them where he pointed at a display. “What’s it look like to you?”

“Alligator!” One kid yelled.

“No! Crook’dile!” Another protested.

“Do you know the difference?” Mikey tilted his head.

“Looks like you!” A snottier kid made a beak out of his hands and put it over his mouth to make chicken noises.

Mikey’s lids lowered with little amusement and he turned to a quieter child. “How about you? Do you know?”

She swiveled shyly and drew two distinct arcs with a finger in the air.

“That’s right!” Mikey lit up. “You know, I have a mutant friend, Leatherhead, who’s an alligator. That means she has a wider u-shaped snout instead of a croc’s narrow v-kind!”

The snotty kid seemed perturbed he wasn’t addressed. “This doesn’t look like any of those!”

“Might be cause of the artist.” Mikey pondered the image. “Scientists didn’t actually grow the beakless chicken because how would it have eaten its seed!”

The snotty kid’s cheek puffed and he stared hard at the display.

“Says here that the embryo resembled an alligator so the artist drew what the adult chicken would have looked like.” Mikey continued on.

The snotty kid pouted and the other children filtered off.

“Want to look at the next one?” Mikey moved to stand.

“You’re… a what…?” The snotty kid couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m part box turtle.” Mikey told him.

“I guess-!” The kid made a loud huffy noise before running away.

Mikey smiled after him before looking straight at Kendra.

She refused to let surprise take her and solidified her features.

He gave a nod to keep looking and perused the exhibit with his hands behind his back.   

She lingered on reading a few plaques before she caught up with his snail’s pace.

He didn’t address her.

She puffed out her cheeks ever so slightly when his head was turned and went for his hand.

She needed to get his attention back.

She could demand it, but that would subvert her control.

She could threaten to leave, but he might just agree.

She could ask for his angle, but that felt like a concession.

Running out of contingencies, he turned just as she reached his fingers.

She was left with an outstretched hand towards his back and tried not to frown too deeply. “You got a booger from one of those brats.”

“You’ll get it?” He offered her his backside.

She pretended to pinch and flick nothing away.

“Thanks.” He had a smarmy aura as if he knew it was all a farce.

She fought scoffing. “I’d prefer to do something hands-on.”

“I know just the thing.” He offered her his palm.

She warily dripped her fingertips into it.

He closed without pretense and was slow to lead.

She got that his intention was for her to go and she took the deference with a flurry of thoughts.

He knew something was off.

Where was he going?

What would he do next?

She moved around an infuriating amount of families until they were at an exhibit about weather.

“Start from the back.” He spoke from behind.

She trended that way and swept through the memorized layout of the museum.

That was an area for natural disasters.

It soon appeared from between bodies as several models and a huge platform that people could stand on. An employee was manned at the display and spouting an endless line of driveled facts. Kids and parents alike mounted the platform and with a push of a button it would react with a certain magnitude of earthquake. It often barely shook, but the kids would fall and laugh gratingly with each tremor.

Kendra idled with Mikey tightly fisted at her side.

“Wanna do this one? There’s also a tornado booth.” Mikey pointed with his free hand.

“This.” She stunted out.

Mikey wasn’t eyeing her.

Mikey was barely moving.

Mikey was an old man for all intents and purposes.

Was that a representation of his commitment?

Was he going through the motions?

He had said something like that once. 

Something about thinking about how to break off a date because it wasn’t bad, but wasn’t good. 

“Let’s get ready to rumble!” The employee yelled out before listing off facts about tectonic plates.

Kendra and Mikey climbed onto the platform and found a corner.

They both held the guard rail.

“Insert joke about rocking my world?” Mikey spoke to the ground.

Kendra couldn’t move her head. 

Mikey said nothing else. 

She didn’t dare look at him. 

Who knew when the crazed attendant would flip the switch?

“Magnitude 1!” The employee then went on to explain what that could move.

Kendra planted feet and clung to the rail.

“Magnitude 2!”

The employee said this shook water in glasses. 

Kendra round it rumbled in her knees. 

She locked them. 

“Magnitude three!”

Mikey let go of the railing.

She couldn’t understand how he could. 

The unspoken rule was you were supposed to hold on. 

“Magnitude 4!”

There was a rocking that felt like the slosh of the subway.

She could believe she was there. 

She was safely moved by man and not by Earth. 

“Magnitude 5!”

Toddlers began to fall and roll around in giggle fits.

They laughed. 

The display may have been comical, but it represented something real. 

“Brace yourselves for our highest demonstration! Magnitude 6!”

The machine rocked and a woman near Kendra slipped.

It caused a chain reaction where she grabbed the next person and he tipped backwards towards her.

Before she could move out of the way, Mikey simply walked forward as if the ground wasn’t bouncing below him and caught the man.

He righted him and the woman with ease and the machine rumbled back down to stillness.

Gratitude was shared and Mikey returned to her without a care. 

She watched him as her nails were buried in the rail. 

He offered his hand again so they could dismount the platform.

Kendra looked it and him over once before flexing her fingers free and jumping off the display herself. 

She felt him follow closely as she traversed through the rest of natural disasters and into the water cycle.

It made no sense.

She had seen him react to her advances.

Both in confusion and an edge of desire.

She had somehow been rebuffed or she had rebuffed him in the process.

It was hard to say.

If she lingered for a second, the thoughts that were unlike her flooded her like one of the models.

What was he doing?

Did he care?

Did he have a plan?

What was his problem?

What would he do next?

Him.

Him.

Him.

She schooled herself.

She didn’t deal in doubt.

She dealt in exacts.

She was decisive.

So what was the next step?

The next exhibits dealt with broader topics of science and innovation.

It was the room she had been waiting for.

She could return to her original plan of seduction.

She knew he had reacted positively. 

If not bewildered.

Would he get over that?

She could adjust the probability in her favor.

Shift his attention.

She stood on the precipice between exhibits and looked on to technological feats.

There was a workshop for building mini robotics models.

A wall where code could be implemented into a digital space.

Several machines that put out pre-concocted mixtures. 

She wanted to mess with them all.

She didn’t want to keep up this charade.

In a matter of what seemed like seconds, she lost the will to continue.

The USB with the virus on it sat like lead in her pocket.

The worst part was she knew exactly why.

The damned earthquake simulation.

She was scared.

They didn’t do earthquakes in New York.

The literal earth shaking?

What a hopeless event. 

There was nothing she could do if it were to happen.

She hadn’t had the technology for a flight pack in years.

She would never cobble one together in time.

Mikey hadn’t noticed.

Mikey had made a bitter joke about her flirting.

Mikey had caught some random man instead of helping her.

For as much as they were alike, there would always be the same glaring difference.

He wasn’t intuitive enough.

He needed to be told.

Kendra didn’t spout anything but orders.

Mikey was made of questions.

He was a terrible underling.

He questioned authority.

He questioned her.

Everything she did.

For some sake of understanding.

One she didn’t want to give to him.

One she refused and always would.

Because the context was what it was.

She wasn’t interested in him.

She wanted to use him.

Admitting she couldn’t felt more like opening stubborn eyes than a revelation.

Part of her had known all along.

Maybe that was why she thwarted it.

She had looked at all the stubborn red flags and shoved through them.

Now, in a clear moment, she could hear the warnings.

This would be the last date.

She turned to convey just that, but no one was beside her.

In both directions, people were parting around her person, even though she was smack dab in the center of a threshold.

She had to turn around to find the source.

Mikey was getting bumped repeatedly.

He also had his arms out and was making himself a target.

It only took a second longer for her to realize that was on purpose.

He was acting as a barrier to split the traffic.

They parted at him so they’d funnel around where she had stopped cold.

She tapped his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

“Huh? Yeah. Sure. Let me just…” He kept his arms in their t-pose and waddled to the side.

He smacked someone directly in the face and she almost laughed, but kept it in.

Within a crab walk, they soon pressed into a bare space in the wall and had enough privacy to share words. “Still shaky?”

“What?”

“You know…” Mikey did a little unstable wiggle.

“What is that?”

“From the earthquake thing.” He threw a hand out towards it.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“We… We need to stop this.”

“We need to go? Are you feeling sick??”

“Mikey…”

“It was from that earthquake thing! I knew it was something! You wouldn’t let go of the wall!”

“I– What?!”

“I mean there was totally a warning about motion sickness on it so it makes sense!’”

Her brows pinched.

“But let’s use the emergency exit! It’s basically an emergency. I’ll get you out of here, just-!”

She placed an open hand out to his chest. “Michelangelo.”

“Eugh… Full name…”

“Look, this hasn’t worked out and never will. All these dates have been disasters. We’re just not…” She shook her head. “… compatible. We need to accept it and stop. It’s a waste of time.”

“Oh.” Mikey looked down.

That was that. 

The bandage was ripped off and there was no room for confusion. 

She didn’t think he would rat her out to her parole officer, but she also didn’t want to chance it.

He didn’t need to know about the virus.

He didn’t need to know anything more than he did. “I’m gonna go.”

He didn’t say anything.

That seemed best and she retracted her hand.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Do you think people who are dating should have like the same mind kinda thing?”

She gave it honest thought. “You mean about compatibility?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t owe you a response.”ob

“Of course not.” He agreed too easily.

“If I say we aren’t compatible then we aren’t.”

“True.”

“Okay.” She moved to leave again.

“Do you mind answering? Before you go…”

“I did.”

“Not really.”

“I did.”

“No, you told me you don’t think we’re compatible again. Which I respect.”

“That’s the answer.”

“It’s… not though.”

“You aren’t respecting me. You’re wasting my time.”

“Kendra, it’s not a thing. I’m not trying to trick you. I’m genuinely asking if you think like minds should date.”

“We’re not like minds.”

“I’m not asking that!”

“I don’t see the point!”

“Does there have to be one!?”

“Yes! Otherwise, what is the point ?!”

“I don’t know! Entropy!?”

“You probably just read that.”

“Maybe I did!”

“So what then!? You want to know for the inevitable degree of randomness in the universe!? Are you the loss of heat that messes up calculations?! You think so damn highly of yourself, you know that!?”

“I do!”

“When you don’t even notice the simplest thing!?”

He blinked once.

Run.

She could run.

She doubted he would stop her.

She only needed to dodge one person in the crowd and he would be stuck with his pleasantries.

Or he’d jump.

He could leap over everyone like that fence at the last museum and cut her off.

She could scream.

One yell and the alarm from the emergency door and the onlookers would think she was getting attacked.

It would buy her time.

She didn’t flee.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t do anything.

She couldn’t.

“Kendra, what did I miss?”

“Nothing.” She spoke automatically.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tough shit.”

He grew stern. “Kendra.”

“Stop saying my name.”

“What should I say then? A nickname? Something shorter? Ken?”

“Just stop.”

“I can’t read your mind.”

“I know that.”

“I won’t ever be able to.”

“I know.”

“I’m also not great at guessing.”

“Obviously.”

“Unless I have something to go off of.”

“The tag.”

“The pepper spray.”

“Forcing myself.”

He nodded.

“Why did you leave me when we first got here?”

He stilled.

“You said, ‘Okay. Fine.’ and walked away. Why?”

“Oh…” He deflated in a genial way. “That’s because I realized you weren’t going to tell me what you were doing and I needed a second to accept that.”

“You… Were you mad?” She looked at him.

“Kind of?” He shrugged. “I mean just cause I’m in touch with my feelings, doesn’t mean I’m perfect at it. I know you need time and you’re super clear about your boundaries, but that kind of goes directly against my whole style of blabbing everything on my mind all the time.”

Something clicked. “You believe opposites attract.”

He grimaced. “Not really…”

“Then why did you ask-?”

“Again with the why!” He tipped his head back. “There’s no why! I’m just curious! All this time, all these things I learn about you, there’s so much I don’t know or won’t ever know. I hate that, but that’s how it is. This is over and that’s how it happens. I’m not even asking what I did wrong and, again, I’m not trying to gas myself up, but it would be nice to know, in parting, for closure, however you want to spin in, what you did want. Not because I think I can change into it or that it’ll change anything, but for the huge grand prize winning answer of, I want to know!”

“That’s… how it always is with you…”

“Huh?”

“Always jumping in. You don’t think about anything. You’re rash and stupid.”

“That isn’t-”

“And what? I’m supposed to worry about that? I’m supposed to wonder if you’ll make it? I’m supposed to care that much?! No! That’s not a relationship! Being together is being of one mind! Being a united force! Being able to face everything together! That’s what makes sense! Not stress! Not all this fighting! Not the learning curve! My bapak and ibu always-!” She clamped a hand over her mouth.

Her parents what?

What was she going to tell Mikey?

That things made sense when she was a kid.

That her dad’s mild manner perfectly matched her mom’s.

That even when she was dying he had a stone face.

That his expressions were worth their weight in gold.

That not once did he break down in those following years.

That he was what she strived to be.

That Deborah Ricci came along and confused him.

How he said he liked how bold she was.

How she was nothing like her mom.

How she’d never be like her mom.

How she was the antithesis of her mom.

Mikey hugged her.

Mikey had hugged her.

Mikey was hugging her.

She didn’t know when, but she tucked into him.

It was stupid.

All of it was stupid.

Everything was too loud.

There were too many people here.

Mikey rubbed her the wrong way.

He brought out the worst in her.

He was changing her.

“I’m sorry!” He shouted watery words in her ear. “I’m sorry…”

She shook her head.

Not because she disagreed, but because she didn’t want it.

Not another apology.

Not the room of people in black.

Not another death.

“I’m so sorry, Kendra.”

“Why?”

“Why…?” His cheek was against hers.

“Why do you keep doing this? How? You’re here and everything for years that I’ve… I keep saying things that I don’t want… Just… why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’ve been through. You’ve told me some and there’s obviously way more, but… that one mind thing… You don’t just get there. Something happens. I don’t know what your parents were like when they were dating. I don’t know if you know, but if they were that cohesive, they must have been an amazing team.”

Her eyes watered up.

“They raised an amazing daughter.”

“Stupid.” She pushed him. “You think I’ll cry from some dumb praise?”

He relented enough so they could see each other. “Obviously not.”

She saw his reddened and waterlogged eyes.

They were the same as hers.

She scowled. “What do you know?”

“Nothing.” He smiled.

“Exactly! You know the opposite. You know my criminal record. That’s proof that I’m a no-good daughter.”

“No, that’s proof the system failed out. Genius gone bad? Trust me, I know. Donnie was one family unit away from becoming evil the whole time.”

She glowered.

“Right…” His teeth came sharply together. “You hate when I mention Don-err, you-know-who.”

“How do you know that?!”

“I don’t know!?” He perked with too obvious innocence. “How you act I guess?!”

“Ugh! You notice that and a million other things, but not that I’m scared of earthquakes!”

“Huh!? You’re scared of earthquakes?!”

“Obviously!”

“What do you mean ‘obviously?!’ Did you know?!”

“What do you mean ‘did I know!?’ Of course, I did!”

“When!?”

“When!?” She seethed. “When I got on that stupid machine!”

“When you-!?” He squeezed her waist. “You didn’t know until you were already on it?! You didn’t realize until just then?!”

“What does that matter?!”

“Cause how could I have known?!”

“You keep saying that!”

“Do you want someone who reads your mind?”

“This again!”

“No! Not ‘this again!’ It’s a new question!”

“’Do I want someone to-?’ No! Obviously, I don’t. I want to keep my thoughts to myself.”

“Of course you do.”

“Why do you say it like that?! Like you know!?”

“I don’t! I keep telling you! I don’t know! I’ll never know! But you hate that, don’t you?”

“Yes!” It felt like relief to say it.

“One mind! That means thinking the same!”

“Don’t presume-!”

“I’m not!” He pressed forward until their foreheads butted together.

Her eyes squeezed shut from the contact.

His voice surrounded her. “It’s obvious your parents are the gold star standard. I get that. My dad turned out to be my literal hero. The reason I learned martial arts. The catchphrases that I made my own. I was living under this enormous shadow and I had no idea! All I knew was Lou Jitsu was everything I wanted to be.”

She cracked her lids and saw a peek of blurry green.

“But that was never going to be me. I was never going to be that person. I can’t be someone else. I can only be me. I can be better.”

Her eyes shot wide and her head reared so Mikey would come into focus.

“I don’t want to prove I’m like Lou Jitsu. I want to show my dad everything I can be. I’m not done. I’m nowhere near done! I’ve got so much to prove to this whole damn world!”

Her hands were on his arms and she squeezed.

“But to do that I had to change. I had to keep changing. I had to stop copying what I saw. One way only gets you so far. I had to break the cycle… and I couldn’t have done that alone…”

“So…” The sound was shaky. “What?”

“Nothing…” He deflated from his big speech like it was of no importance. “That’s me…”

“But you…?”

“Compared us? Sure. That doesn’t mean that’s how you feel. That’s just how I feel about it.”

She dug her nails into his arm.

He didn’t react in the slightest.

“What do you think? You can… what? Be that for me?”

“I don’t know. That’s really up to you.”

That was up to her.

He was full of hot air.

He spewed it like a loose balloon.

By all accounts, he believed he could be.

By all accounts, his comparison had been right.

The finessed points differed, but in the broad strokes it was alarming how similar they were.

One mind.

He acted like he would have known about her fear if she had known about it.

Like he had been reading her mind all along.

Hadn’t he?

In a way, he had.

In a way, he always had.

In a way, he drove her nuts.

In a way, he was the only one who could.

“When you’re around, you make me annoyingly aware of everything I try not to worry about.”

“I do?”

She glared at him, but sharpened a playful edge. “You bother me to no end.”

“Ah…”

“You also make all those worries disappear like it was all just as stupid as you.”

“Oh…”

“Like there was never any point to worry in the first place.”

He was silent.

“Could you…? No…” She smiled more to herself. “ Would you want to be with someone like that? What is your type? You said it wasn’t opposites.”

“I like someone who pushes me by being themselves.”

Her lips parted.

“Just as they are. Imagine how far a pair like that would go.”

She sighed right into his face.

He only blinked because of the rush of air.

He was otherwise unbothered.

She could bother him.

She had pissed him off earlier.

She had the ability.

He wasn’t one thing.

He was multitudes.

“Name something else I don’t like.”

“You don’t like being trapped.”

Her head tilted slightly. “Why name that one?”

“Why not?”

“I hate when you do that.”

“Sure, you do.”

She rolled her eyes once before landing right back on him. “Trapped by what?”

“Anything. Me, for one. It’s the whole arm’s length thing. I get it.”

“What do you do about it?”

“I hang back and let you decide what things happen and when.”

She instantly knew what he was referring to. “Your perfect kiss.”

“That’s one way to put it. Even though it’s passed.” His brow ridge waggled.

All his actions with her had been chaste. “You were… mad that I wouldn’t tell you why I was flirting, but it was more than that, wasn’t it?”

He oozed guilt.

She ate it up with her expression alone.

“I had to be in the right mindset! You hadn’t ever come on that strong! You’re a physical person, but you hadn’t been physical like that before!”

“So what!? We would never have done it!?”

“I sure wasn’t going to initiate!”

“What if I never asked? Never hinted? We’d just go on a hundred dates.”

“A thousand and one, why not?”

“How is that good enough?”

“How isn’t it?”

She twitched.

“That one was too easy. You literally set me up.”

“You know you’re putting the emotional load on me that way, right?”

He jolted.

“Yeah! How unfair is that?!”

“W-wait-!”

“Just like a man.” She hissed.

“You take that back!” Mikey gasped.

“Make me! You can’t because-”

He kissed her.

One swift bob and weave of his head and he shut her right up.

She preferred it.

She would have to tell him.

Maybe in time for their next date.

Until then, she kissed him back.

They popped apart and swiveled right back into a reconnecting press.

When they broke it was because they spied one another peeking through lashes.

“You like it when I’m assertive.”

“I like when you know your place.” She spoke against his lips.

He rumbled with a noise that was sickeningly sweet.

She might have asked him what the sound was had someone else not spoken first.

“Um, are you two… alright? The staff were-”

“We’re fine!”

“We’re fine!”

Mikey and Kendra shared a look after their simultaneous comment before releasing each other to run into the other room.

It didn’t take more discussion then, but it would come, Kendra knew.

There had been a monumental shift in an exceedingly small amount of time, but she would worry about that later.

For now she had brats to contend with.

She started at the robotics stations where she immediately conscripted a ton of toddlers into her assembly line. They passed her pieces under her tutelage and she soon had a demolition derby bot worthy of her old club’s name. She sent it after Mikey’s tank which he had seemingly armored with every sturdy piece available. She hadn’t been able to locate any metal to fashion into a saw so they were left at a stalemate.

The kids were inspired and began to flood the space with battle bots.

Kendra and Mikey left them to their devices as they moved to the interactive screen. Mikey jumped onto the projected panels and ignored the games to instead do shadow puppetry. He did kabuki theater for the impressionable young souls that were captivated by his story. It gave her cover as she hacked into the code for the lights and enhanced his performance. He spoke of flames and she made fire. He mentioned spurts of blood and she splashed dark liquid across the ground. It was apparent that Mikey was retelling some R-rated action flick and the angry mothers started to catch wind. Kendra slunk away before they could strike and flicked her head for Mikey to follow.

He trailed away after throwing the end of the story to the crowd to complete and they moved onto mixing machines. There were flat tables that each had an obvious set of chemicals that could be mixed. One only needed to solve an all-too-easy-to-complete chemical equation to make the right one, but Kendra ignored that in favor of gutting the machine's interior. As soon as she opened it up, Mikey got access to the tubes inside. He identified a soap mixture and she rewired where it would flow to. While she worked, a few pre-teens squatted around to ask what she was doing. She narrated her plot all without naming its climax until she smashed a button. Mikey crawled out of the way just in time for a massive bubble to begin to form. Kendra couldn’t contain her cackles as it grew and grew until everyone was halted at the sight of the soapy monstrosity.

It popped directly into everyone’s eyes and the room erupted.

With the staff blinded and three strikes against them, Kendra grabbed Mikey to race out and  assumed they had some lifetime ban. Both their images which would be printed on a wall so as not to be served. They ran down the street, a regular Bonnie and Clyde, until the suds subsided and they could plan their next date over a public water fountain eye rinsing.

Chapter Text

Today was a day of dirty work.

That was all Kendra thought as she threw on something raggedy. There were her pants, given to her after an unfortunate splitting incident that was not to be thought about. They were far too large and needed to be severely belted and rolled. She did the latter of which with a kick of her garish rubber boots. She couldn’t remember which distant relative had forced them upon her, but they fit and tucked easily under the baggy pant legs.

Her top was similarly studious. A sports bra made sense and she threw a ratty version of a college sweatshirt on top of it. It was one of Jase’s that she had stolen and stained beyond comprehension. She wouldn’t necessarily deny she’d done that on purpose, but the logo was hardly legible now. It would act as her guard against bugs and dirt, which was about as much as her half-brother was worth.

She shoved the sleeves up out of her way for the time being and looked at the abysmal state of her hair. Those damn streaks were taking over her head, but she hardly had time to do more than her weekly hair mask. She would need to make time regardless as the purple would eventually be gone and she marinated the when as she pinned the mop up in a messy bun. For the sake of the day, she put it directly on the top of her head. It gave her the comical appearance of a child, but it was a tired appearance she cared little about. She rolled her eyes away from a cloudy mirror and stormed out of her apartment.

No makeup.

Just sunscreen.

Who was she trying to impress?

No one.

The sun was already hot overhead and she glowered at it.

It forced her to wince and she hated it all the more.

She only had to round through a few connected back alleys to get where she was going and her boots squeaked the whole way. She pounded the pavement harder for the sake of it and saw a cockroach to crush. It was a single hop for a satisfying squish and she walked off the guts as she continued on. A fence soon shot up in her way and she ducked through an obvious cut between chain links. From there, there was a set of loose boards to move before she was surrounded by greenery.

She hated it.

She hated the bugs.

She hated the smell of shit.  

She hated that she was somehow honor-bound to help.

The entire community had guilted her into sacrificing at least one day a month to this garbage.

To twelve agonizing hours of weeding.

To mixing dirt and manure.

To picking and rinsing things.

For what?

A meal at the end of it.

A hard day’s work that supposedly paid for itself.

It was an enormous load.

She was taken advantage of.

She had ignored them for months before they got her on a technicality.

Guilt was easy to ignore.

Passive aggressive nonsense.

Aggressive aggressive made sense.

She could openly reject that sort of request.

She basically had until she had gone by an auntie’s place to trade some empty Tupperware for a full set. She had been scraping by at the time and accepted the handouts of her supposed community. It was hard to digest the hypocrisy since the lot of them had done nothing for her in any of the years prior. That should have been enough of a payment, but she still swallowed her bile and her pride. Each exchange event was to get through banter. She needed to select the right dialog or lack thereof to get in and out as fast as possible.

Except, this time she was asked about the garden.

Why hadn’t she been seen there?

Why hadn’t she helped?

And she had mistakenly responded, why would she?

In a momentary lapse, she forgot that the judgment of her company was the reason she was being fed. She’d earned a swift tap from a wooden spoon and a lecture about where the food she was always given came from. It wasn’t just through one person’s hands, but the lot of them; many of the vegetables came from the garden. 

That wasn’t what she was told. 

She had to listen to more. 

The uncle who had the well paying job.

The auntie with the seeds.

The Nenek who made the rice.

The Bang who dropped off the meat.

She had to show up to the garden the next day and do her toil or she wasn’t going to get another handout. She’d been stuck wasting time here ever since. At least she got by on the bare minimum. Once a month and she was off the hook. She used to work more, but now it was one day.

One whole day.

Getting up early.

Out all day.

In the dirt.

She wasn’t made for this. 

She was made to be in a room of whirling fans and coolant.

She halted her thoughts, but not her body.

Those days were long gone.

She was now made for her crappy apartment or shoving bean juice past white collars.

If this were any other hot day off then she could melt in her shitty mattress and scroll endlessly.

No, she was here.

She would do this and be done with it until the next time.

An inoculation.

It was a quick jab to the bicep for temporary resistance.

She was building up a tolerance to something, she thought, as she checked in with a head kakek. The lore of the space said this man had apparently planned the garden after getting tired of his wife lamenting groceries. The prices of what she could get were too high and the specificity of what she needed wasn’t good enough. He was yet another victim of those passive aggressive complaints, but he was painted as a hero.

That was after half a year of him being treated like an idiot.

Kendra was given a pair of gloves and sent out.

The kangkung was ready to harvest again.

She picked up a pair of clippers from a small table and headed toward that bed.

She wasn’t the same as that old fool.

She couldn’t be.

His importance only manifested once the garden produced crops. She, alternatively, would never churn out a useful product for these people. She would never allow them back in after what they had done. They could support her for a lifetime, and she knew for sure they wouldn’t, and it would not be enough. They were yet another sect feeding off the oxymoron of the world. They were a support group that only served the useful and pliant. If you didn’t fit into their automatically generated box, then you were ousted.

The only benefit among her community was that they told you to your face.

Words could be ignored.

They could be blocked.

You could take them and shove them back down someone’s throat when you beat their asinine complaints into submission to prove them otherwise.

As far as she knew, Kakek Elang had never done that.

She knelt before a sea of stalks.

Why?

Did he think the garden spoke for him?

Was his wife that appreciative?

Had she begun to cook in silence?

Was he eating so well that he was sated on that alone?

That had been his goal, she supposed.

He, unlike her, couldn’t stand the jabbering.

He had also had to endure more of it.

He was arguably still flush with it since no one would shut up about the community garden.

All it did.

All it brought together.

All its glory.

Kendra snipped down a line with precision.

She pruned the plants for their worth and revealed the little weeds trying to hide amongst the hallowed ground.

They would be razed next.

Once the soil was clear, they would get another harvest from this fast-growing plant.

None of that mattered.

She was going too fast.

She was just another body.

She was damned either way.

She could mechanize the entire garden if they let her. None of them would ever have to raise a finger again. Everything would be done instantly from weeding to the soil pH levels, but they’d find a way to complain. It would probably be about the taste. The plants would be healthier than ever and far more lush, but they’d make up crap about how the lack of love made them tasteless.

She could work hard. Her body was strong enough that she could do the necessary labor. A quick calculation and she would know exactly how to divvy up a day’s work. She’d harvest methodically, till soil in-between, refreshing seedlings, weed, and water in the most efficient way possible. She would finish what would take the elderly days to complete in a single one, but the voices would inevitably come. She would have done it too precisely, she must have been trying to prove something, or she wanted to get away that bad.

She could completely give up. Bang Herman was a loaf whenever he was here and no one said a word. It always scorched her skin that the men got off easier than her. They could do half the work and be lauded just because they moved 25 lb bags of manure. They were no better than the shit they toted and she could carry them just as well. Only, they never let her. They ripped it from her hands before she even tried. They wondered what they would do if she got hurt while the other Bang they had to do it wore a back brace. It was all a poor exercise because she already knew what would happen if she stopped. That was why she had been forced to work the garden in the first place. 

No matter what she did, it didn’t matter.

So she aimed for the most mediocre performance possible.

She didn’t overachieve and outshine.

She did just enough that no one could criticize.

It worked.

It had worked for months.

At some point she had finished cutting the kangkong and stared at the piles. With a dust to the dirt already muddying her jeans, she got up to get the rinsing baskets. The plants would be passed out of her hands and she loaded them up for that exact purpose. Ibus came out of their kitchens to take them and Kendra scarcely nodded at their thanks before returning to the toil.

She moved to pick all the tiny weeds and cleaned up the beds for their next crop.

She was methodical in doing so. It had taken her awhile to get the pressure to pinch right while wearing bulky gloves. Her hands were meant for the finer work of soldering processors. Now they were used for something patently beneath her. Now she wallowed down in the mud where the cool dirt barely offset the blazing sun. She wiped her brow with the back of her glove and felt a smear across her forehead.

There was something cosmic about it and she couldn’t bring herself to be mad.

Instead she kept working on the planter bed.

Mud was nature’s first sunscreen, she guessed. It was its own form of antiquity that had lost its finer properties. Especially in New York City where it was basically scarce to come by, it felt like a commodity. The parks weren’t oases. They were placating centers of an industrial complex. They gave the illusion of the outdoors so people wouldn’t be driven mad by endless greys of concrete.

They weren’t like the garden which was maximized for utility.

They were decorative.

A waste in that sense, Kendra thought as she wrangled a hose.

She could only use so much water so as not to waste.

Yet again, it was all about balancing actions.

The tight wire never stopped.

It was exhausting.

As intensive as the way the dry soil sucked up moisture.

It was soon saturated and she didn’t allow herself to get swept away.

There was more to do.

She shut the hose off and went to get her next assignment. It was a stepwise process after that. She visited Kakek Elang like he was a save point when in reality he was more like a job board. As if she would never be ready for the larger world, she was stuck doing basic level fetch quests. She supposed she was racking up experience points, but those always seemed to reset. If she had been better about tuning into the griping then she might know why. As it was now, the once-a-month deadline was actually a tedious date and more often decided by when an auntie thought it was about time she stopped by.

It would be simpler if they just stuck her on a damn work schedule like the tawdry slip of paper that was taped to a wall at work.

Even that was often done last minute and she pondered its existence.

For every nuisance there was equal and opposite pandering.

No one did their job.

No one did it well.

They couldn’t all be striving for mediocrity.

If only she could game this system.

Find a backdoor and rewrite its structure.

If it were a simple MMO, she absolutely could. She dazed off in writing the code amongst tending to a bucket of melinjo and forced herself back into her own body. Those weren’t thoughts she was supposed to entertain. Bitching was a fine use of her inner monologue because it was cathartic.

She wasn’t allowed to think of fixes. Even just wondering about the whys was dangerous enough. It led to exactly this territory. With a curling pinch, she picked off the fruit-like buds and dropped them into the bucket that was not so proverbial. It was adding up and she would need to temporarily veer off to dump its contents. It would soon be too full to carry even if the sides of the plastic were nowhere near reached. A failing of cheap containers, Kendra decided, as she readied herself to sit up.

An Ibu tittered happily from somewhere and there was a loud gushing.

Without rolling her eyes, Kendra looked up from the top half of her vision.

A male voice followed which meant someone’s son was probably home for a visit. He would be freeloading no doubt, but that was none of Kendra’s business. She wasn’t particularly interested in meeting anyone’s supposedly ‘nice boy’ and instead hunkered down. This would be one of those afforded moments of banality. She was purposefully hindering her own production for the sake of simplifying interactions.

She wished she had her phone.

She pulled one glove off and thumbed the dried dirt on her forehead.

It came off in little flecks that fell into the bucket and she scowled.

Someone might notice and give her a backhanded comment.

Kendra didn’t care about those, but it threatened her flying under the radar. She plucked up what was actually a spore and turned it over in her hand as if inspecting it. With these ready, there’d probably be a bowl of sayur asem served tonight. She hoped the Nenek making it didn’t use as much tamarind as last time. The sour had been taken to all new levels that only some toothless grandpa had thought was palatable.

“Here! Here! Here he is!”

Kendra looked up for the second time.

They had gotten closer. 

They were close enough to Kendra’s personal bubble that she chanced turning her head to look out.

There was chatter back and forth about the visitor.

It wasn’t a son, Kendra gathered.

He was someone noteworthy though, based on the reaction.

There was bubbling laughter.

“Here! This is my sister.”

“Nice to meet you.” A male voice responded.

One that Kendra knew a little too well.

One that had Kendra calculatedly falling over.

One where she headed in the direction of the voices. 

One she couldn’t quite see the owner of because corn stalks were in the way.

“He is Mikey-angel! Say hello!”

“That’s not quite…” Mikey laughed awkwardly.

“Mikey-angel!” There were loud kissing sounds. “You help so much! Thank you!”

“I didn’t really…” Mikey continued on.

Kendra reached the corn.

She parted huge leaves because her ears must have deceived her.

“Angel is modest!” An auntie tittered.

Though he was mostly obscured, the outline that was unmistakable Michelangelo was standing there.

He looked especially awkward as he tried to explain something to the gaggle of women who were quickly flanking him.

He would be eaten alive.

He had no idea what he was doing.

What he was walking into.

Unless he did.

The thought shot through her like a cold douse from the hose.

This was her block.

These were her family’s friends.

Her apartment was just around the corner.

Mikey was here.

He had never asked before.

He had pretended to be respectful.

He knew where she lived.

She took two crawling steps before she burst from the corn. The plants clawed at her insubordination and she felt the tough stalks catch her bun. Her hair was pulled free from its confines and tossed wildly in the momentum. She was covered in fallen corn silk and surely looked like something out of a horror film when she exploded out onto the walkway flanking the garden. “You!!!”

One of the Ibus screamed.

Another lurched forward and Kendra was struck right over the head.

“Ken-!?” Was all Mikey managed.

“Kendat!!!” The last auntie hissed before devolving into a series of curses.

The others chorused and, while she was nursing an obvious lump, Kendra refused to stop glaring at Mikey.

Mikey watched on with growing distress.

Kendra was soon grabbed and rocked, but she refused to break her gaze.

Mikey was seemingly immune as his hands reached out feebly. “Um, ladies… please…!”

“Ibu!” One of the aunties smacked his hand. “Use honorifics!”

“Ibus…?” Mikey tested the plural he wasn’t sure of.

“With names!” Another shouted before pointing between them. “Ibu Dewi. Ibu Eka and…” She pointed at herself. “Ibu Ade.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend…” Mikey looked between them. “Ibu Ade…”

She nodded appropriately. “Eh! Kendat! Why you’re rude to Mikey-angel?”

Ibu Dewi went next. “It’s not his fault he’s ugly!”

Then Ibu Eka. “We’ve gotten past it. He’s helped! Tell her!”

Kendra flashed red eyes amongst the women before landing on Mikey. “What did you do?”

They quieted, but shared looks.

Mikey stuttered over her appearance.

She probably looked ready to rip him to shreds.

“Well?” She pressed with a foot forward.

“What did I do!? I’m confused! I don’t understand what’s going on!” Mikey squeaked out.

The aunties all burst out laughing.

Falling over themselves, they sought fixtures. Before Kendra could move, they descended on her. They grabbed Mikey too, but he seemed far less perturbed. If it was anyone else, Kendra might have bucked them off. As it stood, these ladies were the representation panel of her meal committee. Even if she was on a better financial footing these days, she relied on the leftovers. Which meant she had to keep some semblance of peace. She hated having to be the one to do so.

“Ibu Ade.” She chose the fairest of the bunch.

“Yes, Dat.” Said woman was also the one who clung the most to her arm.

“Who is this?”

Though not without her faults, Ibu Ade looked to the other women before peering back at Kendra. “Now, Dat, we heard him call to you.”

“He’s gone to the coffee shop. You know I take names to call the orders. We’ve talked about this.” Kendra spoke as calmly as she could.

The other women watched on like vultures.

They would pick up dying weakness if she breathed a hint of exposure.

“Say his name, Dat.” Ibu Ade looked up at Kendra with all knowing eyes.

“Michelangelo.” Kendra tried not to bite the syllables.

“Mikey-angel.” Ibu Ade confirmed to the others.

They cooed.

Mikey exhaled with some acceptance to his new moniker.

“And what did he so graciously do, Ibu Ade?” Kendra prompted after an appropriate amount of time had passed.

“Oh!” The woman finally released her.

Kendra felt like she took her first breath in ages.

The woman shuffled over to Mikey and slapped his chest. “Mikey-angel got the city’s approval! Our garden is secured!”

The women all moved in various states of prayer.

Kendra appraised them and Mikey with a sharp eye.

Mikey’s lips thinned out in a long line.

“He helped with the garden?” Kendra asked.

“Oh, Dat!” Ibu Dewi made a crude gesture. “Of course, he did.”

“He did!” Ibu Eka repeated.

Kendra hummed.

Mikey looked like he wanted to speak.

Kendra waited out the women’s glances and shot him a glower when she had cover.

He kept quiet, but eyed her with a plea.

“He looks strong.” Kendra commented casually before starting to turn on cue. “I gotta get back to the melinjo.”

“He does look strong…” Ibu Ade took the bait first.

“True! I feel muscles!” Ibu Dewi squeezed Mikey’s arm.

“You came by for a reason, that’s right?” Ibu Eka crooned.

Kendra slipped right back through the corn.

Mikey would follow her soon.

She pretended to clean up the leaves behind her and meandered to her full bucket.

Within minutes Mikey was escorted over by Kakek Elang.

He had a pair of gloves in hand and she hid her smirk.

Mikey looked more confused than ever as Kakek told her to direct him in picking and watch him in case he messed up the crop.

She agreed and the older man hobbled off.

A useless chain of command that saw nothing through.

For once it was to her advantage and as soon as the elder was gone, she got right in Mikey’s face. “What the fuck are you doing here!?”

Mikey’s gloves flopped as his hands shot up.

“Those don’t fit!” She seethed at a quiet enough level. “Did they not look at your hands?!”

“I know! What was I supposed to say!?” Mikey huffed like it was a relief to finally be able to comment on something.

“Don’t think you got off from stalking me!” She sent him her broiling rage. “How did you think this was going to play out, you-!”

“Hold up!” His brow ridge drooped. “I did not stalk you!”

“Then explain why you’re here?!”

“I needed calabash!” 

Kendra’s lips tore as she pursed them and, for a moment, she worried about her lipstick. 

She then remembered she wasn’t wearing any. She had none of her usual armor and was  wearing her stupid step-brother’s sweatshirt. In her striping she felt a sense of reality. She had known Mikey long enough that she could identify actual confusion. She didn’t have to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she knew there was more.

He knew her too. She could tell by the way he had concisely answered her question. He cut the fat and told her the simplest truth first. She liked to break apart everything he said and he had opened the door for exactly that. It was now her turn to extrapolate what she wanted. He was aware of his place and she gave him a bit of space by dropping to the flats of her feet. 

“Short sentences, explain everything.”

He disengaged with some exhaustion. “Okay, let’s see…”

She folded her arms.

“I’ve been really into making curries.” He started and his hands moved to gesture wildly. “Curry is so cool. The history is wild and each country has its own version!”

She eyed him for the conjunction.

“Right.” He pointed at her genially. “You can make dudhi basundi in an Instant Pot, but-” He caught himself and thought for a moment before continuing. “Instant Pots are scams. I have a pressure cooker. Same thing, but better.”

She loosened her grip on her torso.

“Dudhi basundi needs bottle gourd. Well, it said it needed lauki, which is also dudhi, but whenever I searched for those I got calabash.”

She let it all slide along with her arms. “The point?”

“I couldn’t find it!” He sent her wild eyes that were a reflection of his memory. “I went to all the specialty markets! The hole-in-the-wall grocery stores! The more obscure the better! It wasn’t even out of season! No one had any!”

She listened.

“Then someone said they knew someone of someone and poof! I’m here!”

He took several steps back with his outstretched arms and twirled.

“A community garden! These are so cool! I love them! Rare produce grown with love! Food cooked right off the vines!” He yelled affectionately and slowed himself to look at her. “I had to get a piece of the action.”

“When?”

He almost asked another question, but thought better of it.

Her lids were heavy. “When was this?”

“Like eight months ago.”

“What!?”

In spite of her exclamation, that made sense.

Even if she was working on orders, she had seen the garden as she walked through it. She could make educated guesses. There was no calabash ready to harvest. Mikey’s details fit a larger picture which gave him credence. She couldn’t remember exactly, but Kendra had remembered that some calabash was ripe earlier this year.

They had certainly eaten enough lauki ki sabzi.

That meant Mikey knew her community since a time well before he saw her at the coffee shop.

What did that mean?

Was this a ruse?

Had it been one all along?

If Donatello wanted to have his last laugh-

She stopped herself.

A full tilt stop that came with an aggravated assault on her memories with Mikey.

She knew the truth.

She knew enough about him to know his ridiculous heart was on his sleeve.

She looked at him.

He was waiting with tepid hope.

That she would believe him.

That she would clear all this up.

She lowered her gaze and took an uncharacteristic breath. “Did you know I was going to be here?”

“No.” He stood a little straighter and looked a little happier. “Can I ask a question?”

She guessed so. “Sure.”

“Are you Indonesian?”

This time she did roll her eyes. “You’re joking.”  

“No!”

“Mikey…”

“I didn’t want to assume!”

“Indoeskrim!?” She threw an obvious hand up.

“Indo-what?!”

“The affogato!”

“The ice cream!” He snapped his finger.

They stared for a moment and both disengaged as coolly as they could.

They only glanced at each other twice to see if the timing was appropriate.

“Keep going.” She told him.

“So I know the deal, I’m in like five co-ops! You do work and get rewarded. Since the guy of a guy I knew had one of the grocery stores, they asked if I could liaison to sell some of the extra calabash crop. I bought some since I was the middle man.”

“You made the dudhi basundi.”

“Curry was on, but like there’s this garden here and I gotta get my hands on more of this stuff. I’m seeing stuff I’ve never seen before!”

“You didn’t steal…”

“Of course not!” He chuffed at the mere mention. “I wanted to work, but they wouldn’t let me! I tried to weasel my way in, but I was boxed out.”

“Really?” That was Mikey’s foul card.

Mutant or not, these people loved a strapping young man that wanted to work.

Mikey’s body language said he felt the frustration.

“Seriously! I think I wanted it too bad! Also I may have insulted someone because I wanted the ingredients more than their version of the dishes, but I wanted to make my own…”

A tiny referee version of Kendra called for play to continue. “Yeah! Insulted is right! You basically said you hated their cooking to their face and that you could do better.”

Mikey gasped loud. “I would never!!”

Kendra popped a brow.

“Okay maybe after I practice, but you tell me that after making ten thousand omurices that I’m not on par with that Kichi Kichi guy!”

“Ten thousand?” Kendra pressed her incredulity.

“Swear!” Mikey crossed an ‘x’ over his chest then almost poked himself in the eye. “It’s a thing about curds and pride.”

“Same here.” She swept a hand around the garden.

“Exactly! I knew I messed up!” Mikey walked a little closer to share his misery. “I couldn’t work here here so I did odd jobs. It was mostly delivery stuff and I noticed something.”

She gave him her ear.

Mikey came close enough to whisper. “Besides insulting them unintentionally, I noticed they were real touchy about the space, I mean look…”

Together they glanced at how the buildings enclosed the lot.

They looked toward the two high layers of fence surrounding the small parts that had a chance of being exposed.

He brought their attention back where it was his brow’s turn to pop.

“This place was off the books. Guerilla gardening, which I dig, but it’s not, as they say, ‘kosher.’”

“Yeah, duh.”

“So I went through the New York rules and regulations to make it not that. Whatever I needed to do to make it legit.”

“You did?” She eyed him.

“I did and hated every second of it!” Mikey puffed out his plastron.

Kendra pushed him with a playful edge.

He swept along with a stumble, but rotated sideways to circle her in a wide arch.

She spun to keep him in front.

When he finally approached it was almost with a purr. “You’ve got mud on your face.”

“Don’t!” She hissed. “They’re watching. It’s bad enough we’re talking.”

He nodded, but still dug into his person. “Permit took awhile. I came by today to say it was approved.”

“Then where is it?” She watched on.

He found a multi-colored scrap of fabric and offered it to her.

She found it dubious, but still used it to blot her face.

Mikey smiled and she snapped the cloth at him.

“They won’t give it to me because I’m not the owner or operator whatever. I needed an address.”

“Use the internet.”

“But…!” Mikey threw up his arms and did one quick spin toward all the buildings. “I can, but which one!? Look how many apartments there are!”

She frowned deeply.

She doubted the many families updated their online credentials. She bet several of the apartments were all under one man’s name. There was also the issue of landlording. The man in question who owned the building had been out of the country for as long as she could remember. If this was a hoax, and Kendra would never rule out the possibility, Mikey was clearly working every possible technicality.

“You got your vegetables. Five co-ops? I doubt you needed more. This all sounds like a huge hassle just to get people to like you…” She spoke in a voice that surprised her with its softness. “Why?”

“This again…” Mikey deflated with some meter of affection.

She sent him a wary gaze.

“This place is amazing.” He approached her again and finally took the fabric from her.

He turned it over in his hand to get a clean scrap and pinched it off.

She scowled at it with readied nails.

He gave her a look that told her to give him a chance.

She stewed, didn’t let up, but also didn’t move.

He took that to mean he got about as much permission he could and was clinical in reaching out to wipe her forehead with little scuffs. 

“I love community gardens. I first found out about them when I was really young. Back when we were eating tossed leftovers or whatever restaurants didn’t sell. Dad was worried about vitamins and kept mentioning vegetables. Each of us had our own idea of how to find them and mine was finding gardens with Leo.”

“So, what?” She leaned into him.

He wiped toward her hairline and picked up some sweat before dropping his arm. “So, I can’t say I’m good with paperwork or county offices or whatever. It’s the most boring thing in the world, but I can say that I have an idea of how to make the process legit. I did that for your favorite reason: just cause. You’re right. It stopped being about the vegetables.”

“You always say that, but it’s never actually that…”

Mikey’s lip pursed and he folded up his makeshift hanky.

“You’re like obsessed.”

“Why were you mad when you first saw me?”

She sort of expected him to shift attention and looked at him expectantly.

“You were extra mad.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“Your family lives here?” Mikey ventured.

“No.” She spoke solemnly and looked out at the plants.

She hoped there was some sort of answer among them, but there never had been one before.

There wasn’t one now.

She sighed.

“I do.”

Mikey twitched.

She swept her gaze back to him.

His lips had turned down so sharply that his entire face sagged around his despair.

“Stop!” She smashed her palm into his beak. “Don’t pity me! The neighborhood isn’t that bad!”

“What?!” He caught her wrist and pulled her arm straight down.

Their faces came together from the momentum.

“That is not what I’m upset about!”

“What then!? How is that not pity!?”

“You were protecting your privacy! I wasn’t supposed to know!”

“Exactly!” She could feel herself spittle.

He didn’t react at all other than his eyes growing wider. “You thought I figured it out and stalked you here!!!”

“Not so loud!” Her tongue clicked.

He released and tossed his head away and back. “Wait, no! I’m thinking about it! This looks so bad and scary!!”

She let her head similarly hang. “You take so long to put things together.”

“How was I supposed to know!?”

“I’m here!”

“So?!”

“Look at me!”

“You look like you’re doing yard work!”

“You think I would go more than 5 minutes from home like this!?”

“Don’t pull that!” Mikey puffed up. “Everyone has a down in the dumps day where they don’t care! If anyone could own that, it’s you!”

She was equally flattered and insulted. “I have pride! So, no! I don’t get down in the dumps! I have appearances to keep!”

“For who!?”

“For everyone!”

“Why?!” He reared. “Who cares?!”

“Everyone!!” She descended on him and he had to scramble so they wouldn’t collide. “Everyone all the time! You know how much shit I get about my hair!? How much I’ve always gotten!? The one thing that’s mine!?”

The fight fell off Mikey with each sentence.

“And we’re back to pity!” She scoffed away.

He chased her. “It’s not pity!”

“Then what?!” She tried to turn away.

“It’s self expression!” He curled around her side. “That’s everything to me!”

“Yeah, well…” She stopped with a turned head.

He stood close by. “I trusted your attitude.”

She said nothing.

“You’re right.”

“I haven’t said anything.” 

“No, about it… Well, me… not being so simple. It’s hard to remember everything! There’s so much that goes into a person and it’s hard to remember that’s a byproduct of everything they’ve been through. It’s not just an, ‘oh, I like this thing.’ It’s when you were shown. It’s why you found out about it. It’s how long you’ve had it. It’s the joy you felt the first time. Heck, it could be the bad! It could have been the only good thing you had on a bad day and it’s a comfort. It’s anything. It’s everything… It’s everyone. Even when we’re alone we’re all these pieces whether we know it or not.”

She was slow to glance at him.

He gave her a meaningful look.

She relented the slightest amount.

“I think I like community gardens because they represent what I don’t have.”

Her lips parted to mention all the co-ops, but she thought better.

“Community…” Mikey looked around. “You all have a hand in this. You all care about what it makes, together. The things that grow here are special. This is your heritage. Of knowing where these foods came from. Of making up for how you couldn’t normally get them. Of who knew how to get the seeds. How to grow them. How to keep them alive. How to use them. How to cook them. It’s all passed down. It’s all amazing and it’s… something I’ve never had.”

Kendra watched openly.

Mikey looked a sort of wounded that seemed nostalgic. “I’m Japanese, among other things if my cloaking brooch human self is any indication, and I’m always going to be disconnected from that.”

Her fingers twitched.

“Like dad shared some.” He glanced at her. “He taught us martial arts. He talked a lot about honor and respect even if he didn’t always use those words. When he made us apologize, there were hints, but he left his culture behind when he came here. It became comod… comodo… Ugh, what’s the word for when it becomes a thing to sell?”

“Commodified.” Her body spoke.

“Yeah, that. He had been a commodity for years. The martial arts movies are an ideal, not reality. Though dang… fish and ladders really do work.”

She allowed a skeptical look.

“Trust me. I thought the same thing.” He returned a faraway smile. “But that’s… it. No food. His special dish is green bean casserole! Like what?! He was born in Japan. I know he lost grandma when he was young, but great grandpa tried! From the little I’ve found out, he ate regional stuff when he was young and he just… dropped it. All the food and everything else. I know why. I get it. I get that he wanted to break the cycle. Give us the freedom he wanted, but I always felt… like there was this piece of me missing.”

She looked down her arm.

“And there’s all the ‘hidden underground for years’ thing. We didn’t meet April until we were like ten. Dad gave us the best childhood he could, but it’s kind of a bummer when the only person you can sell lemonade to from your lemonade stand is your dad!”

She turned her hand over to see her palm.

“There was so much world and we obviously dove into it, but I didn’t know it. I knew the commercial side of it. The abridged version and it was never enough. Even when we found out the whole Hamato lineage fate situation, I thought maybe that was what I’d always been missing, but it was more fundamental. I don’t know. Some people would wonder why it even matters, but it connects us. Food connects us. We’re all already connected, but there’s so much more… I’m rambling… I don’t know.”

She moved with creaky hesitation until her hand landed on his arm.

He blinked first at the contact in general and then to the one who offered it. “Sorry. That was a lot.”

She shook her head.

He leaned into her touch. “It’s hard to understand.”

“I’m first generation too.”

Mikey looked at her anew.

“My mom was a missionary.”

His hand moved to cover hers.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “She traveled a lot before she met my dad. They sort of knew each other, but got close when they immigrated in the 90s like most people here.”

He nodded.

She shrugged. “It’s basic stuff. They got married here. Named their kid something they hoped passed, and I took PB&Js to lunch. The classic ‘try not to stick out’ tactic.”

She could tell he wanted to ask more.

She sent him a look that there wasn’t much beyond that. “We had weekly dinners that were close enough to their version of home. I didn’t really notice. To me, that was home. How we did things was normal, but once a week, we were a little different. I figured it was a spiritual thing. I didn’t realize until it stopped that-”

Mikey squeezed her hand and she adjusted her fingers so they were woven in his.

She shook her head. “I didn’t notice until later. Until I couldn’t really go back.”

“Community.” Mikey whispered.

“I guess.” She sent him a frustrated look. “It may look like it’s all gushy support, uplifting each other and emotional crap, but it’s not. There’s alienation. I’m assuming that’s what your dad tried to get away from even without the prophecy or whatever it was you had. People here band together out of necessity. They’ll say it’s to preserve the old ways, but it’s not always that. Some of it is preservation against the world itself. Some of it is shit they need to unlearn. You know how intense the caste system is where my family’s from!? It’s illegal, but try to tell people to replace centuries of tradition! It’s a ruse. They say they’re upholding something, but they’re not! They’ll treat you like shit one second and gold the next depending on how useful you are!”

Mikey’s expression fell.

“And that’s when they’re not crapping over you for not knowing all these supposed ways when they didn’t teach you because they said they wanted to give you a better life! Double standard after double standard!” 

She sent him a crazed look and he returned it with a crestfallen one. 

“But that prejudice… or some form of it. You would know, being a mutant.”

He nodded. “Yeah… from both humans and yokai.”

“Yokai?”

“So like part of me has the American-Japanese thing going on, but there’s also the turtle-mutant thing which is like a yokai-human thing.”

“Yokai is… what you call your animal part?”

“Kind… of…? They’re mythological creatures that are actually real.”

“Like spirits or demons...”

“Yeah, that and folklore. Usually, they’re all those things in history that anyone noticed long enough to tell a tall tale. You can probably assume that’s actually a yokai.”

“Huh.”

“One of my dads is pure yokai so he tries to share that culture, which has a lot of hating humans in it, but that also might be him because I don’t know if all yokai are like that. It can be tough, but yeah… there’s another two worlds thing I’m straddling.”

“Hard.” She sympathized.

He nodded with a bobbing brow ridge. “It’s a lot and totally why I try not to think about it. What’s the point? It’s a thing and man, I hate things like that. Too many parts and too much to worry about. I just want to be me.”

“That is why I wanted to crush the system.”

Mikey’s eyes lit up.

She broke from his hold and put up walls that were albeit shorter than usual. “Not doing that again. Look where it got me. The gardening is whatever. I do the gardening because they make me. I don’t get my meal ticket otherwise.”

She walked toward her bucket.

He hopped after. “Tell me one day? Not all of dismantling oppression is illegal. Fight the power.”

“Stop.” She chuckled and got the handle.

“Wanna share it?”

“I said stop.” She rolled her eyes to him.

“Not that.” He approached her side and moved to grab a portion of the plastic handle. “This. Don’t underestimate our combined power!”

She eyed how he hadn’t offered or pushed to carry it himself.

He did have his advantages.

She slid her hand to one side so he had better room and together they picked the container of spores up. “You talk a big game, but you’re too pure. You couldn’t even correct the aunties about your name.”

“Did you see how happy they were?!” Mikey sent her a watery look.

She brushed it off. “Uh huh.”

He pouted openly as they moved in tandem. “What about your name? They said it differently. Is that how you say your name in Indonesian?”

She flinched and was silent through most of the process of dropping off the bucket and exchanging it for another.

Mikey’s curiosity obviously grew.

When they were enough out of earshot, she allowed a scowl. “Kendat is an insult.”

He jarred.

“They don’t paint it like that, but I know.”

“Kendra…”

“They always told me it meant ‘interruption.’ It comes from when I was younger. I asked too many questions. My dad let me get away with too much. Poor Kendra, she’s annoying, hopefully all those questions mean she’ll be smart. She can get into a good school with all that interest. She’s smart enough to become a doctor...”

They reached the gnetum plants and she put the bucket down.

“It means ‘fart.’”

Mikey’s jaw dropped.

“Interruption.” She seethed. “Kentat is fart. They dolled it up real nice because it sounds the same.”

“And like your name…”

“That they hate.” She put her gloves on with a snap to the weathered leather. “There’s the heritage you want so bad. You tell a little kid that doesn’t know the language one thing knowing full well they’ll never know otherwise.”

“But you learned…”

“Had to. Enough to get by at least.” She pinched off a few spores before remembering she was supposed to show him. “Get them like this and put them in the bucket.”

He followed suit with bare hands.

For a while there was the quiet of berry-like objects thumping against plastic. Eventually they built up a thin layer that morphed the sound into a soft plop of spores against one another. The bucket filled up to about a quarter of the way before Mikey broke and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“I’m so mad… I can barely think straight.”

Kendra said nothing and kept picking.

“That would drive me insane. I want to do something. I want to fix it!”

A handful of red buds trickled into the container.

“But I get that you can’t!!” He groaned. “We were reduced to our colors! I don’t know if his eyesight is bad for what!? Dad still does it! He gave us the masks, I guess, to tell us apart, but it doesn’t matter! And if we ever complained, he got mad at us for trying to correct him and had all these reasons why we shouldn’t, but those kept changing! It was always so he wouldn’t be at fault and he could keep calling us what he wanted to!”

She slowed and smirked right into the leaves.

“Exactly. Ugh.” He shook his head. “Well from orange to interruption, I’m sorry.”

She tipped her head to him.

“Yours is worse, obviously.”

“Yep.”

“It doesn’t help, but I’ll never call you anything like that.”

“Thanks.”

“I like your name.”

She paused for a moment before cracking the first bits of a smile. “I do too.”

“Who picked it?”

“Mom.”

“She has great taste.”

“Yeah… She did.” She glanced at him. “Come on, you’re gonna get an earful.”

“Good thing I don’t have ears.”

“You have ears.” She scolded him lightly.  

“La la la!” He pretended not to hear.

She flicked a melinjo at him.

He caught it and showed her that he placed it in the bucket with grace. “Waste not!”

“Yeah, I doubt that’s a problem. We’re gonna be drowning in sour soup.”

“Sour soup?!” Mikey lit up with excitement. “What’s that? How’s it sour?”

“These, dummy.” She showed him the bucket. “I don’t know if that’s what they’re gonna make. It’s just a guess, don’t get excited. You won’t get any if you don’t work.”

“The community garden cert wasn’t enough!?”

“Would your dad think it was?” Kendra shot him a look.

Mikey was affronted and yielded with a chuff. “Not even kind of.”

“Work and I’ll introduce you to an Ibu that makes really good calabash curry that I bet rivals yours.”

Instead of gawking, he went to work at twice the speed.

Kendra slowed and waited for his first flickers of excitement to die out so she could explain to him how the workload should be handled.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to your apartment!” Mikey danced through what was very much not her front door and continued to sing.  “I’m going to your apartment!”

“Not if you keep that up.” Kendra breezed by him into the store.

Mikey lowered the volume, but continued to sing the phrase.

She picked up and stuck him with a basket. 

He took it like a prop and she mistakenly made eye contact with the shop’s attendant.

The cashier at the desk looked up against her long lashes. “Been wondering when you’d be back.”

“Shut up.” Kendra strode down the familiar aisles to the one she needed.

The woman’s laughter chased her.

Mikey was first caught looking back at the employee and then at all the colorful packaging. “She seems nice.”

“Oh, yeah. So nice.” Kendra growled out. “So easy to upkeep a rainbow Mohawk when your uncle owns the store and you get shit for free!!”

Mikey looked up the fluorescent lights and waited to see if the lob would land.

There was obvious grumbling from across the store.

“Always someone.” Kendra glared at the shelves of dye.

She shouldn’t be here yet.

She needed to get everything else first. “This way.”

“You do get judged a lot.” Mikey followed.

“Thanks.” She retorted bitterly as she got to the developers.

She tossed a bottle into the basket.

“Like more than me.” He went on.

“That was code for ‘knock it off.’ I’m not in the mood.” She hissed as she passed him.

“I wonder why.” He went on regardless.

She ignored him and went over a mental tally of what she had at home. Most of her stuff had definitely expired which had prompted this impromptu trip to the beauty shop she frequented. Her mixing bowl and brushes were still usable. She had a plethora of ratty towels and all the clips necessary. She could get by on what bleaching products she had so it was just developer and hair dye that was missing.

He caught her eye and turned to her openly. “Like your vibe is not inviting it, so why does it happen?”

“Don’t know. Always has.” She stunted out as he continued to be endlessly stubborn.

“Is it the hair?” He wondered.

“Mikey.” She tried to put a finality in her tone.

“I know. I hear ya. I just…” He shook his head.

“Look, I don’t know and you sure as hell don’t. If I find out, maybe I’ll tell you.”

He softened a little. “I’ll take it.”

“You sure you can spot check this?” She let her doubts leak to cover up his gooey expression.

“Yup! Been there, done that on my own! Nearly burned all the hair off of my head.” He tossed his locks.

They were well maintained to her eye.

He came up into a salute. “You were clear: I’m here to watch and nothing else. I will point and maybe help out only if there’s a spot you can’t reach.”

“Easy, solider.” She pushed his plastron gently.

“Sir, yes, sir!” He tossed his arm out in an act, but smacked a shelf.

He caught all the items before they hit the floor and juggled them in his arms as he failed to get them back to their places.

She stepped in to help him. “You’re a mess. I should have asked someone else.”

She had no one else.

She hadn’t had anyone else in years.

She could have done it alone, but there had been mistakes.

Spots.

This was the first time in a long while that she could do this and save money by doing it herself. It wasn’t like her family friends supported her color. She’d been shelling out way too much on doing this at a salon. It always felt like an annoying waste when she knew how. She’d been doing it since she had virgin hair.

That time she permanently stained Deborah Ricci’s tacky yellow bathtub.

The woman had been forced to redesign her whole gaudy color scheme.

Jase had spotted her back then until she had gotten Jeremy into it. They had dying parties. There was hair management. They used to mask on weekends and watch movies. They weren’t good times; they were simply times.

Of the past.

Kendra moved to her section of purples.

Her exact shade wasn’t in stock, so she evaluated for the next closest.

She didn’t care as long as it pretty much read what she wanted it to.

She was here.

She was saving money.

Mikey was useful because he could catch those annoying spots.

She had cleaned up her apartment for this.

One payment for another.

The stupid balancing act.

“You know art or whatever, right?” Kendra asked without looking.

His voice closed in. “Yup! That was my other credential.”  

“Which do you think between these? I like this brand.” She held up two similar shades of purple for him.

He hummed loudly and clearly was juggling two boxes of his own.

One orange.

One cyan.

She stared a little too obviously at one box. “What are those?”

“Huh?” He looked like he had forgotten he was holding anything.

He laughed.

He held the orange up beside his face. “What do you think? This is so my color, right?”

His lashes fluttered.

He squished closer to the box that matched his mask.

“Yeah, sure.” She stepped forward with the purple boxes out like a plea. “What’s that one?”

Her eyes hadn’t moved.

Mikey followed her gaze and lit up.

“Oh, this one’s yours!” He offered it.

“No.” Her eyes followed. “It’s not.” 

He stared. “Uh… Yeah, it is.”

“No.” She shook the boxes with purple hair dye. “This is. I’m asking you which one.”

“Oh, yeah. I was thinking about that.” He closed the gap.

The cyan box got closer.

“Of those two, the one on the left. Er, your right. I always mix that up.”

She hadn’t looked away.

“But I was thinking… Are you sure this isn’t your color?” The cyan dye shifted in his hold. 

“What are you talking about?” She spat.

He didn’t flinch. “You’re wearing it right now.”

She didn’t have to look.

There was her signature cyan lipstick.

There was a cyan splash across her otherwise drab hoodie.

She had thrown it on just for the sake of going out.

Something to cover up her bleached and stained top that she wore when she did her hair.

That didn’t mean anything.

“It’s not.” She told him with a voice that could cut glass.

Again, he was somehow immune to the barbs. “I’m gonna be straight up and you can get as mad as you want.”

Her gaze finally moved to his face.

“Do you even like purple?”

Her lips parted and it sounded like a crash to her ears.

He was impudent.

He should be scrubbed from the Earth.

How had she let this happen?

She let a man in that would say something like that to her face.

She had let him get close enough.

For what?

He knew nothing.

They were kindred spirits.

They had nothing in common.

He was a fool.

A jester.

She had kept him in her court because she found him entertaining.

She knew the real reason for fools.

Control the masses.

You allowed one wretch within your means to make fun of you. It gave the others the illusion of freedom to do the same. They could laugh along, but that was it. The royalty still ruled with an iron fist. The jokes kept them passive. It made them think they could entertain their complaints. In reality, they were offed one by one.

Heads rolling.

That was what Kendra sought.

Totalitarian rule.

She didn’t need to keep a fool.

She was in no position.

She would get another when the time came.

She had one who was assigned to her since matrimony.

Jase looked better in bells than he ever did in anything else.

“Obviously.”

He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Cause like I get your old group had the name in it, but that was because it was your school mascot and it’s not even just what you’re wearing right now. I don’t think you own much purple. I mean I haven’t seen your house yet, but, you have, what? No purple clothes that I’ve ever seen.”

She couldn’t speak for fear his stupidity would make her stutter.

“Or food! Not that… there’s a lot of turquoise or purple foods, but…” His brow creased with his mask. “That’s a bad comparison. What else have we done?”

She was still holding those purple dye boxes.

“It doesn’t matter!”

Like a buffoon.

“It just seems like-”

She was the clown.

He was still talking.

It was makeup, she thought then.

Not like her lipstick, but everything.

Everything she put on was a costume.

It was her power.

It was pretension personified.

What else could she do?

She’d never been the tallest.

She’d never been the fastest.

She’d been the smartest.

She was the first amongst anyone to realize a brand.

She then crafted her own bit by bit.

From tomboy to trendsetter, she had tried out a series of hats in a store until a random person walking by complimented her beret. It was a comment along with some song she hadn’t been particularly impressed by, but she would own it. They would love her; she would make them.

Her hair came later.

After the jacket design.

After Jase.

After Debroah Ricci.

The bathroom redesign.

The internal version of herself smirked, but it felt empty. The void of her mind was aflame, but the fire wasn’t purple. Her avatar, a digital one as that made the most sense, was purple lighting. It struck the wasteland and filled it with teal flames. 

It was wrong, she screamed without a mouth.

That was not her color.

Her color was-

Why had she chosen purple?

The Purple Dragons.

She was the leader.

She had built her brand on that stake.

A tech club that won awards where there hadn’t been anything prior to her.

She’d clawed up with her nails. The ones she couldn’t paint because any would be ruined by all the typing. Her hair was fair game. From a black flag, she rose the sails of her turning tides. She chose the most electric color that was also the cheapest. The tub had been ruined with her first round of bleach. She fried her follicles, but what arose was her.

Purple.

When people saw her they thought of that.

Purple Dragon.

She hadn’t been one in years.

A hacker.

That violated her parole.

A convict.

Patently true, but not one she filed beside her name.

Purple.

She was purple.

She was.

She had to be.

Had she ever changed her lipstick?

That predated it all.

It was a faraway memory, but it struck down her avatar.

Right into the cyan flames.

A clip started of her going through her mom’s makeup and getting scolded. If she was so interested then she should get her own products to ruin. She was taken on a transformation trip all her own and it was there that she picked the first audacious color that caught her eye.

Her mom grimaced even though she still made the purchase. That neon swatch heralded in years of evolution. It was no longer some swatch that rubbed off her lips after a few minutes of wear. It was eventually upgraded to a custom formula made at a lipstick lab. She no longer had to ask; a refill was her automatic Christmas present every year.

It grew beyond her lips. 

She chose teal sneakers for a new school year. There was once a seafoam bedspread donning her mattress that had since been tossed out. Her entire decor centered around fringed frames and binders in aquamarine.

When had she ever chosen purple?

She picked it because it said something.

It was supposed to say her name.

Had it?

Did it?

When had it not?

Cyan muddied her purple avatar.

The flames burned through the exterior.

Revealing what lay beneath. 

Something chosen for the sake of it.

No deeper meaning.

Because it had caught her eye.

She liked it.

She liked the way it sat on her skin.

She had tried other lipsticks, but they weren’t as satisfying.

She liked to be electric.

Bright.

The CYMK pressed for print.

Layered colors.

A true leader and a purest form.

When she turned back a tear was sliding down her cheek and Mikey was still talking.

He was downright babbling.

She looked at him and saw he had only a box of purple in his hands now.

“I dug through the stock and compared and this one isn’t listed! This is it though, right? This is your current color? I’m so sure it is. I was going to ask the cashier, but yeah, we all know that wasn’t about to happen. Like I need her help. I have an eye for color and this is it. I’m sure. I’m like 98% sure, but I can make up the other two. You know we can mix color? I know how to blend! I’ve watched hundreds of hours of those palette matching videos. I love the way they smear, but I hate the sound! I just watch them on mute, but that’s not important. What’s important is I was talking out of my ass and I’m sorry, but I got the color, didn’t I…!?”

She looked at the box.

Her preferred brand and, damn him, her exact color.

Or what was.

Maybe it was time to move on.

“Where is it?” She spoke thickly through her tight throat.

“Where’s what?” He blinked wide at her.

“The other one… You said teal. It’s cyan.”

“The box said teal.”

A bubble of anger rose and popped in a way that made her stomach feel fizzy. “Where is it!?”

He fumbled the purple box like a volleyball and barely caught it.

In a full rotation of his body, he expertly swapped it out for the cyan dye and presented it to her.

“You don’t have to-”

“Stop.” She took it from him and stared at the shade.

It was a little too blue based on the art, but her thumb on the box paired well enough with it.

“If this looks bad, you’re paying for the fix.”

“Done.” He spoke stunned.

She glanced at the purple.

She watched it go.

Back on the shelf where it no longer had a tag.

The last of its kind.

“Let’s go.” She turned. “You got the basket?”

“Yup!” He grabbed it because he had actually set it down and followed her to the counter.

“This.” Kendra slammed the dye down in front of the employee. “And that.”

She stepped to the side in perfect time so Mikey could make some noise putting the basket down. “Much appreciated!”

Kendra stared at the little one-off products around the register like candy.

“That’s new.” The employee spoke as she rang her up.

“Is it though?” Mikey spoke in her stead.

“Uh, yeah. Who are you, by the way? Buy-or-leave doesn’t have friends.” The employee pointed at Mikey with a bottle of developer.

“Aw cute.” Mikey chirped. “Your nicknaming skills are on par with your color knowledge.”

“Excuse me?!”

Kendra’s head whipped around.

“I mean either you or your stylist is spinning the color wheel, but it’s crazy someone shoved violet in-between red and yellow. It’s ROYGBIV and I know my orange. Don’t they teach that in like, kindergarten?”

The last item passed the scanner and the employee dove under the counter.

Mikey covertly swiped the items into the bag.

The employee popped up with a mirror in hand and was desperately rotating her head to get a glimpse of her mohawk.

Mikey seemed to wait for a particular move before he slammed a few buttons on the computer screen and the pay now option popped up. Kendra patted down for her wallet, but Mikey beat her to that too. He swiped his card for the chip and then confirmed the purchase with another stretch of his arm across the counter.

“What the fuck!?” The employee hissed at her reflection.

There was a ding of a completed transaction and her attention shifted.

“Hey!”

Kendra caught the bag and ran.

“Put orange in its place next time!” Mikey hollered as he chased her.

The employee continued to yell after them until they got several blocks away.

There Mikey puffed with laughter which interfered with his breathing.

“What was that!?” She elbowed him as they slowed to a regular walking pace.

“I noticed it the second I saw her! Why’d she do the colors like that?” He continued to chuckle. “So off.”

“What if I can’t go back!?”

“I mean maybe I can’t go back, but why wouldn’t you?” He addressed her openly.

“She’s pissed at both of us! I brought you there!”

“Find somewhere else? She sucks.”

“It’s closest to my apartment!”

“Eh…!” He strung out the syllable before a light bulb went off. “I get to go to your apartment!”

She made a move like she was going to shove him into traffic and he readied himself. She didn’t do it, as much as she wanted. Instead, she bumped into him and stayed close. With her head down, heart beat anxiously out of her ears. The teal hair dye felt heavy in the box.

Mikey adjusted ever so slightly after the wave of surprise had passed and offered his arm.She pinched his skin for the sake of it. He clearly squirmed, but didn’t retreat. For that, she slunk her arm through his. They walked in silence that she thanked him for with her prolonged contact until he slowed.

She checked out and found he had taken them as far as he could before he didn’t know where her apartment proper was. She pulled on him gently before getting her arm free and pointing. She caught his hand in the process and he allowed himself to be led with a smile. Only the bag of products crinkled as she dodged into an alley and then turned down a narrower one. It was out into a back plaza where she hooked a fire escape.

It came down with its usual rusty creak and she made the perilous journey up it as she had many times before. She could feel Mikey oozing unsaid questions behind her, but he kept his trap shut. She knew it was strange that this was the only way to access her apartment, but it was because of this and the building’s absent owner that she was able to afford this much.

They turned a corner and there was her door.

She could hear Mikey’s jaw drop at the sight of a door on a fire escape.

She dug out a key and unlocked it. “Wait til you're inside.”

He nodded furiously and she opened the door for him.

“Don’t say shit.”

He checked with her before he ducked in through her threshold. She followed and nabbed the bag from where he was stuck. The door closed behind them and she left it for now. She would come back and lock it, but first she went to drop off the items in the bathroom. When she returned Mikey was still staring at her studio apartment and the mattress on the floor that had been messily made.

“How are you always so quiet and so loud?” She complained as she did up three locks.

“I don’t have a bed frame either.” He blurted out.

She looked up from the last lock and turned to him.

“I sleep in a hammock.”

“What? Like outside?” Her face screwed up in confusion.

“What?! No!” He seemed to think better. “Well…?”

“You’re still in the sewer with the rest of them?” She tossed the question as she gestured for him to follow.

It was only a few steps to her tiny bathroom where they clearly both weren’t going to fit. “Not the sewer exactly. You can get there from the sewer, but it’s an old subway depot.”

“Huh.”

“Can I say what I’m most surprised about?” He blurted out suddenly.

She rolled her eyes.

She had heard it all before.

She had only had a few visitors, but it was always the same.

No one could believe she lived like this.

“Sure.” She stunted out. “I’m stuck with you for the rest of the afternoon so keep that in mind.”

She unearthed a color bowl and brush along with a silver shampoo she hadn’t remembered she had.

She was reading the label when Mikey finally spoke up.

“There’s no electronics. No TV. You don’t even have an alarm clock.”

She looked up in her vision without moving her head.

Had someone mentioned that?

She couldn’t recall.

Maybe about her lack of a computer.

“Call it rustic.” She decided.

Mikey snorted.

“What?” She glared at him in the mirror as she used the sink below it as a platform to mix the bleach powder she had with the developer she had just purchased.

“Rustic is for cabins.”

“Uh huh.”

“You wouldn’t be caught dead in a cabin.”

“You don’t know.”

“You like hiking?”

“No.”

“Do you like outdoors?”

“Not really.”

“Bugs?”

“Turn around.”

Mikey spun and saw a cockroach crawling up the wall that she had spied in the mirror.

He screeched, recoiled, and flung a fireball at it that expertly scorched the thing without burning her wall.

She turned her head to view him where she was stirring. “And here I pegged you as an advocate for bug lives.”

“Not cockroaches. Nah!” He shuddered.

“My roommates that don’t pay rent.” It was a joke that amused her and she finished up mixing her first bowl. “I’m gonna start with the back. There’s a computer chair propping up my clothes rack and a stool with my phone cord wrapped around it. Grab those.”

He went to search for the necessary items as she yanked her hoodie off.

She left it on her bed and Mikey returned with the chairs.

“Take your pick.” She waved him off. “Turn to the wall for a second.”

He set the chairs down and dutifully did as he was told.

She dropped her leggings in one fell swoop and snatched up a pair of athletic shorts that had fallen off the side of her bed. She threw them on as they were disposable if they got product droplets on them. When she was clothed again, she smugly summoned Mikey and sauntered over to show off that they had a strip lining of purple. He took his assessment fast and returned her gaze with an equally smug look that said he knew that they were expendable for the process. She turned her nose up at him and went to her vanity to section her hair off.  

He set the computer chair ready for her like a throne and hopped up on the stool, which teetered beneath him.

She scooped up a blob on her brush and started painting bleach on. “What are you, anyway? Eagle Scout?”

“Todd Scout.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Nature’s not really my thing either.”

She eyed him in the glass.

“Come on, admit it.”

“Fine. It’s boring.”

“It’s pretty.”

“I guess.”

“The trees. Being able to breathe. The water.”

“The booming quiet. The bugs. The lack of general humanity.”

“I thought you were going to say AC.”

“I don’t even have AC.” She met her own eye.

Mikey had to turn. “We can find you one of those window ones. I saw some good deals on a resale site.”

“’We?’”

“Yeah. I’ll show you the marketplace I use. I’ve got a good eye.”

That wasn’t her point, but she let it slide. “Purple’s a bitch to strip. This’ll take a while so bring it up.”

Mikey bobbed with laughter that shook his stool.

“What?”

He flapped a hand at her.

“Mikey.”

“Phrasing!” He quacked.

“It’s true.”

“I believe you.” He puffed with giggles.

“You’re thinking of your idiot brother.” She finally started painting bleach into her hair. 

“I am.” He admitted.

“Gross. Y’all are too close.”  

Mikey grunted as he popped upright. “Hey! Don’t be nasty!”

“Me?” She gave him an exaggerated look.

“Yes! I was thinking about how hard it is to get him to take off his battle shell sometimes!”

For a split honest second, Kendra couldn’t help but agree.

A lifetime ago when they had stolen said objects, the lot of them had waited hours for him to finally deactivate all three so they could remote in.

Before that he had endlessly used one or all of them in a rotation.

It was only for a moment and she was back.

“Sure…” She dragged out the word as a tease.

Mikey wriggled with irritation. “That bleach is boiling your brains!”

“It’s going to, with the amount I’ll need. How’s the coverage?”

“Get…” Mikey turned his head and demonstrated with a point to his own. “Here, above the bottom on the right.”

She nodded and started to paint with her eye on him.

He nodded appropriately and she coated the strands. “Good job though.”

“I’ve done this before.”

“No, talking about Donnie. I appreciate it.”

“It was like five seconds.”

“Five seconds more than before; I love my family.”

She continued to apply bleach. “Sorry your favorite brother got in my way.”

“He’s not my favorite.” He responded immediately.

That gave Kendra a quick pause.

“Gotta be second.”

“You rank them.”

“Yup.”

She chuffed. “Now that doesn’t sound like you. I can hear your whiny voice. ‘I love all my brothers equally.’”

“I do!”

She didn’t bother giving him a look; he surely felt it.

“It’s just that… sometimes they get on my nerves and I put them in an order that changes based on my mood which is a nice little dose of revenge because they totally lose it when they drop a spot!”

“Spoken like a true youngest.”

“Coming from what? An only child!? That’s the vibe you give off!”

“Step.” The word felt punctuated as she began to move around toward the front of her head.

“How many?”

“One.”

“Huh.”

“Jason.” She felt the need to name him. “Jase.”

“Who’s older?”

“Me, barely.”

“So it wasn’t really-?”

“I was stuck with him.”

“Oh, like that.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big oldest child complaint, pretty sure. Raph hated me when I was younger.”

Kendra paused to think.

“My favorite.” He clarified.

She turned her head a little to glimpse him.

He shared the look.

Her eyes darted away.

“Kendra.” He openly scolded.

“What?”

“You don’t know which one he is, do you?”

“It’s not my fault!” She bristled.

“We’ve been dating for months!”

That felt like a cold shock. “You barely talk about them!”

“I-!” His complaint died in his throat.

For a moment, there was only the sound of thick bristles painting strands of hair.

“That’s weird. I guess I haven’t… Huh.”

She didn’t want to, but she felt the same chilling confusion.

She had lost her way.

Here, Michelangelo was, in her apartment, willingly sharing information she could use and she hadn’t thought twice about. She now knew for sure that they all still lived together underground. He openly approached the topic of Donatello and she didn’t immediately bite his head off. He openly confirmed that Donatello didn’t rank highly which meant it would be easier for her to scam said man without upsetting this one.

The bleach fumes must have been getting to her because she paused.

Why did she care how Mikey felt?

She was supposed to ditch him when this was over.

Plant the virus and be rid of him.

Months.

They had been dating for months.

She had been the one to invite him here.

She hadn’t even plotted out any talking points to get her closer to her supposed goal.

Was that still the point?

She was meant to ruin the symbol of Genius Built.

The grandiose golden boy was going to become a new type of poster child.

So why didn’t she feel like she particularly cared anymore?

She went back to bleaching her hair because that’s what she was doing. She could now see the locks turning blond as the blueish color of the bleach sank into the layers. It stripped the fading hues because that was the chemical process taking place. Her old brand was being dissolved in real time to make room for her new one. Whether it would become teal or cyan depended on whatever convention best fit the marketing.

She felt empty and liminal in a way that one felt amidst great change. It was a sensation that she usually only took on as a precipice. For her, it was one to fling herself over and never look back. She had already done the climb and sailing off the cliff was the goal. The achievement beyond what was tangible and it had never been one she had to think about. There was always a clear goal post to head towards in the sky.

Except there hadn’t been in years. She worked the bleach deep into her stubborn roots. It was just like those garden beds where the top crop had to be cut free before she could access the weeds. She had been shorn for a while now but had cowered instead of growing once again. Her roots were suffering in a visible way because she was suffocating. Doing this, right now, was a step, but she had no direction or plan.

Nothing had changed.

She was still the deadbeat felon who could barely afford to cover her rent, let alone eat. She carted around a loudmouth who, no matter how hard she tried, would never fit her usual lackey mold. He stubbornly walked beside her. She added the last bit of slop to her hair and glanced at him.

He was quietly pondering to himself, but felt her eyes and looked up. “You pretty much got it!”

“Yeah…” She looked at the sink before reviewing her application. “Which one is Raph?”

“Red.”

“So Lee… Leo? Is that the last one?”

“Blue, yeah.”

“Confusing…” She told the strangely calm version of herself.

The one that put up with this.

“You guys match with another thing besides colors.”

“Bandana styles?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, Leo and I show head and the other two don’t.”

“You have hair.” She emphasized as she set a timer for the bleach to do its work. 

“Didn’t always.” 

“You match, so where’s Leo rank?”

Mikey clammed up.

“Last.” Kendra smirked.

“I love him! We match mask styles!”

“Did you do it to make up for not getting along with him?”

He gave a horrified gasp. “We get along!”

“Always, right? Just like how Raph hated dragging your baby butt along.”

His mouth audibly snapped shut.

“I get you guys do the hero thing, but it doesn’t have to be all the time. It’s a job, right?”

“I guess.” He sulked.

She felt like she had both misstepped and not.

She chased the latter feeling because it was a strange one.

She didn’t usually have this sort of foresight outside her person.

Another odd sensation for the book of today. “You’re orange. You like orange, but you don’t like when that’s all you are.”

She could feel him watching her closely.

“You grew up as part of this set and it’s… I don’t know. You don’t need my permission, but it’s okay or whatever for your life to not be about them!” She sped up as she went on because her chest twisted up around the statement.

The foreign feelings stuck in what should have been the black hole in her heart and made it all too tender.

Mikey was especially quiet.

She checked the timer as if she could rush the process. This all unnerved her for a reason that she couldn’t quite place and she was getting sick of the stacking unknowns. Her hair was a smoothed image in the mirror and she decided then to similarly unruffle herself. There was no point in sulking in what she didn’t know and her time was better spent working on what she did. “Gonna get ready to rinse.”

She still had twenty odd minutes, but decided to widdle it away. He stayed behind as she ducked into her bathroom with the bottle of shampoo. She left the door open behind her as a point. She sat on the toilet as it was buddied up to the tub. It was the perfect place to hang her head over when it was time to turn on the tap. 

She spent several minutes finally reading that bottle. She spent a few more doing a quick check of her email. The last went down to resolving her will and she got the water going to her preferred tepid by the time the alarm sang. She pulled down the handheld shower head. It was the one modification she had really done to the place and she was absolutely taking it with her when she left whether she had to rip it out of the wall or not.

After a thorough rinse, suds, and rinse again, she cleaned her hair until the tingles subsided before she realized she had forgotten her ratty towel. “Mikey!”

“H-here!” He spoke on a bit of a delay.

“Can you get me…? Ugh! It’s like my ugliest towel! Tie dye when it shouldn’t be!”

“One used for dyeing, I’m going to look around!”

“Yeah! It shouldn’t be far.”

“Found it!” He chirped near immediately. “Can I…?”

“Door’s open! Geez! Give it, hurry up!” Blond tips dangled in front of her vision.

He appeared behind her and the cotton brushed her hands.

“Thanks.” She stunted out before scrubbing her head right there.

“We’ve… always… only had each other…”

“What?” She twisted the towel up on her head before sitting back to view him.

“My family.” He looked at her meaningfully from where he leaned in the door jamb.

She felt similarly stripped and small sitting on her toilet lid. “Oh...”

He rubbed his arm. “Sorry… I’ll just…”

“No…” Her hand raised and she flicked her fingers at its audaciousness. “No, I mean… I…”

He leaned against the old wood for the pressure.

“Don’t… expect any gooeyness!”

His expression grew fond.

“I don’t know! I guess it makes sense! You were all cooped up underground for years or whatever! Then you went straight to saving the world or whatever it is that you told me! I guess that makes it hard! When all you have is each other. When the city… seems really big and maybe not to you because to you it’s new, but to your parents it’s a totally different city than they knew, so they’re homebodies and they’re doing their best, but it feels like you gotta escape that oppressive feeling…”

Her voice felt too loud.

“But you’re you! You wanted to show your hero-dad up or whatever! You’re part of some set, but you’re your own piece and getting older, that’s all leaving the nest and not even the most understanding parent is going to agree with everything you do because that’s life. You’re living it. Not them. You gotta stick it to them and stick to your guns… even if… if you fail…”

She had to move and stood.

He expertly swung against the jamb like a second door and she exited.

She approached the mirror and took a deep breath. “I usually bleach twice, but I am so over this.”

He watched as she unraveled the towel. The blond didn’t look right against her skin, but it was lighter than she expected. She turned side to side and the wet follicles slapped against her cheeks.

“This might work though…”

“I want to color it.”

She snapped her head at him and had to wince when some of her hair smacked into her eye.

“Let me.”

When she could see again, it was like viewing fire from a man who could create it in thin air.

For the first time in the last few hours she felt a surge of sureness.

A comfort that she could depend on and she breathed out her lung capacity. “Okay.”

No threat.

No comment.

That was it. 

“We need to dry it first.” 

She sat in the computer chair and he wheeled her into place. She watched as he moved around her vanity like it was his house. He found her ancient hair dryer before she could tell him where it was. He got the plug going and took a second to depress the breaker. With a firm air, he only had to make one adjustment for the length of the cord before he turned the dryer on his palm. He waited for it to warm up before he readied himself for her. 

She bowed for him to go ahead and he got to drying her hair. With light sweeps of his hands, he worked down through her roots to eradicate all moisture. Her dirty blond locks puffed up as they were free of their downy liquid and grew to a lighter dry shade. It strengthened her resolve that this would work and her faith grew in time. 

Mikey squashed the last of the anxieties that she would never entertain. She paid attention to him out of curiosity and nothing more. If he was secretly a hairdresser on the side, she would believe it. She would need to look up his cosmetology license and finally get him on having lied to her about something at least partially nefarious.

The way he cleaned the bowl of residual bleach said he had no finesse of the sort.

He only had his own experience, which he showed in asking for foil.  

She had only the cooking type to spare in an oversized roll. She did some light internet research to see if it was applicable and it seemed like it was. Mikey prepared a pile of sheets before he checked the bowl and brush a second time. He found them satisfactory and snapped her damp dye towel to lay it over her shoulders like a cape before he got to work.

“You know, your hair being a little yellow’ll work. I’m pretty sure this cyan is too blue.”

She tried not to move too much as that fluttering in her chest cavity returned. “You forgot gloves.”

“Nah, I like to feel my paint.”

“And dye your hands.”

“I’m pretty dark already.” He showed her his palm in demonstration before bringing it right back to start painting her strands.

“And your clothes?”

He paused for that one.

She looked at him from around the first swipe of cyan in his hand.

He shot over to the sink for a wash before he yanked his top off.

“Hey!”

“Problem?” He flexed for her.

“Stop! Don’t strip in my place!”

He laughed. “It was your idea.”

“I didn’t say ‘take your clothes off,’ I said ‘ruin them, loser.’”

“You did not.” He chastised and went back to her hair.

“Well, I should have.” She pulled up her legs to get comfortable.

He went on coloring her hair until he seemed to relax amongst the paint.

“You good?” She asked before she could think better of it.

“This is helping.”

“I was too harsh, huh?”

He shook his head.

“I have a hard time believing you.”

“You have a hard time believing anyone.”

“I wonder why!?”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“This is why Red got tired of you. I bet you were like this when you were younger, but worse.”

“I absolutely was. Terrible twos who? I was terrible til like twenty.”

He wasn’t usually self-depreciating and she frowned.

He caught it as he folded some foil. “Obnoxious, not terrible.”

“Not much different.”

“It is.”  

“You believe everything your family tells you?”

“Do you?”

They had a stare off.

“Okay, let’s be each other’s judge. I’m hearing a whole lot of us needing perspective here. We swap back and forth sibling stories.” He suddenly spun her chair around.

Her vision rotated until she landed on his scorching gaze.

Her stomach flipped and her scowl turned down to squash it back into place.

He cock a knowing grin.

“No competition allowed. Got it?”

He broiled the statement into her skin until her cheeks burned and she had to look away. “Fine! Calm down… Geez…”

He was more gentle in replacing her chair so she could see herself. “And when you have new hair we’ll put out our verdicts on whether we were bad or not.”

“I never said I was.”

“You tried to convince me that you were beneath me on our second date.”

That was an oversimplification, but he would get her on semantics.

“I’ll start?”

She stared at him through the mirror before giving a curt nod.

“During one of our first official sleepovers ever, I made Leo so mad that he went to dad, but he couldn’t, ya know, go home because we were home…”

She shared a tidbit about how her household stopped buying jello because Jase had one allergic reaction. It then went back to Mikey who used the allergy angle and how he ate peanut butter with his fingers. He apparently put Raph into epileptic shock by scratching an itch he couldn’t reach with the substance under his nails. It pinged back to Kendra, who had to take a dive off a trampoline to save Jase at one of the Ricci family gatherings and the escalation continued.

They bounced off each other in the usual ping-ponging of verbiage until they were soon just complaining about family instead of talking about how they wronged them. It was exaggerated groans of commiseration and champing at the bit to get the next tale in. Judgment was passed early and flippantly. Mikey clutched his pearls a few times, but with Kendra’s relentless press, he snuck in small comments on how he agreed. The color was applied along with a timer and they continued to talk straight through to when it went off.

“Look now or later?” Mikey asked her firmly.

“It needs to be washed first.” She told him with the same gravity.

He nodded and turned her away to get the foil out. She tried peeking, but he took great care in tucking her hair back and out of her periphery. She put on a growing scowl until she wriggled in place and he had to badger her to stop. She hated how much she appreciated when he was poignantly stern and with it when he finally pulled away.

He whipped the towel from her shoulders and a shriek died in her throat about how it would stain her shirt.

He had pinned her length up at some point to keep from doing that exact thing.

She looked to see him holding the towel up like a cover to block the mirror.

She couldn’t see his face, but felt his toothy grin from behind it.

She rushed to the bath and called to him for forgetting the other shampoo.

With a quick scrub and a lengthy loss of color that always seemed to be too much, the water eventually ran clear.

“There’s another towel.” She called with urgency.

“Which?!” He sounded like he was already looking.

“A white one! Clean! I bleach it!” She tried not to look at the swatch of hair right between her eyes.

“White. White…” Mikey’s voice moved until it headed her way. “White! Got it!”

It appeared to her left and she scrubbed it over her head.

There was cyan transfer.

Her heart skipped and she allowed it.

It felt like monumental fate as she took the three steps from the toilet to the vanity.

Her image appeared in the dirty mirror with uncharacteristically wide eyes.

Joy, if she had to label it.

Perfectly wet and dark cyan locks spoke to her eye that they would dry the exact shade she wanted.

For one second, her vision welled up.

She then looked right past it as she grabbed the counter and leaned forward.

Her reflection looked back at her as a cyan avatar.

She could easily command the flames with this.

Chapter Text

“And left!” Mikey chirped as he immediately leaned that direction.

April scrambled after him. “Hey! Woah!”

He realized then he forgot that they were mirrored.

That sort of thing always mixed him up.

“I mean right!” He corrected, still in motion to lift the bulky air conditioning unit away from where the street was sectioned off.

“Break! Break!” April groaned.

He did need to send a follow up text. “Alright. Just past here?”

“Yeah! Hurry!” She shuffled forward with obvious strain.

Her grip slipped a few times, but they made it behind the barriers before they set the AC down. April collapsed with her torso against it and caught her breath. Mikey pulled out his phone and opened up his messaging window.

Special K: ETA?

Mikey: Just picked it up!

Mikey: En Route!

Special K: That’s not an ETA

Mikey: Expert Turtle Acrobatics is my specialty 🥷

Special K: 👊🏽

Mikey: 😵

Special K: 💪🏽

Mikey: 🏆

Special K: ❌

Mikey: ❓

Special K: 👑

Mikey: 👑👑👑🔥🔥🔥

“There it is again.”

“Hm?” Mikey was still staring fondly at the many tiny pictograms.

“That look.”

“What look?” He absently wondered if Kendra had forgotten about the arrival time thing.

He could calculate it.

He didn’t really want to.

“That look!” April was right in front of him and slapped his phone down.

He knew the maneuver well and, while he lost temporary grip, he immediately switched his hold. When she moved to steal his device, she had nowhere near the leverage and he slipped free. He immediately spun around and locked his phone while she tried her best to climb over his shoulders to get it. A few people huffed at their sidewalk wrestling, but Mikey broke free by dropping his center of gravity and popped up a few feet away. “Oh!”

April was already rolling her eyes.

“The look reserved for my girlfriend?!” Mikey squeezed the last word dry.

April gagged. “Yeah, that one.”

“I can’t help it.” He bobbed and opened his phone again. “I got the cutest one in the world.”

“Uh huh and that’s exactly where we’re going…” April walked back over to the AC unit and inspected it.

There it was again.

The dismissal.

This general attitude towards his partnership had been happening since about his fourth date. It was odd how it coincided with his relationship. While he still wasn’t sure exactly how, there had been a shift at the science museum. Where his families’ doubts grew, he had become more assured of his place with Kendra. Dating her was an upward trend where each outing continued to build. It was stoked flames as he himself felt the transition. Those first flickers of infatuation were igniting into something more.

He rarely questioned his own actions, but he had some awareness. He knew his history. He knew that when someone piqued his interest, his instinct was to glue himself to them. High off the excitement of a new person, he was often enamored to a fault and burnt out just as fast. Either he or they realized there wasn’t much past that initial contact high and any interaction after fizzled out. It wasn’t exclusive to relationships and Mikey had long grown used to that. From people to hobbies to even snack foods, he would sing praises to whoever would listen until inevitably he would fall off and move on to the next object.

He knew this.

Kendra had not fallen into that category.

As far as history taught him, he had long passed that point of fatigue and yet there was an endless list of things he still wanted to know about her.

It wasn’t limited to things so simple as the troubled family life she only alluded to.

He wanted to know more about her tech days.

He wanted to see her coding in action.

He wanted to see that fire that was still smoldering burn once again.

He wanted to see that unhinged laugh of hers.

He wanted to see the way she looked at him, raw and unencumbered.

From there things got more trivial, but the list rolled on for so long that there was no rolling it up. In his mind, it was too big to be a scroll and was now more of a room where a printer had gone rogue. The machine beeped with those old dot matrix sound effects that he sometimes fell asleep to. Page after page exceeded the stack and he had no hope of locating any one scenario. They would come to him in blips, much like a sliding printer head. As soon as they were etched, they were facts that then disappeared into the ever growing pile. 

Much like his estimated time of arrival, the task of looking further was something he didn’t want to bother with. It wasn’t out of laziness, but instead assurance. He inherently knew that everything he wanted to watch her do would come in time. That was the feeling their fourth date had brought; he was along for the ride and couldn’t wait to see where she would go.

She was nothing but alluring in his eyes.

It was everything about her. 

She acted with the dazzle of untamed fire. She was brilliantly savage and her consumption burned in directions he could rarely guess. While, in some ways, she was still painfully predictable, he felt like that was some old script. A part of her had long decided how she needed to be and that was what she tried to recreate. He craved the moments she broke free to be her true self. There would be a moment, he was sure of it, when she realized her lines had long changed. 

He would be there to watch. 

She was his favorite program and the recent development of her hair was a pivotal plot point. 

Her heart, her very being, was opening up. 

Her progress was a triumph.

Mikey guessed this was how stock brokers or whoever felt. Getting in on the ground floor and watching your investment grow must have been the only appeal as he loathed the rest of the money hungry system. Wall Street was otherwise unnatural as there was no shortchanging or manipulation that could rival Kendra’s natural evolution. There was no lowest point for her to be bought at. Instead, she metamorphosed. Just like a butterfly, she needed time to grow. Any inbetween stages were marked by cocoons of stasis necessary to make the change. 

As much as he hated staying still, he related to that. He thought of his own growth as something without a cap. The way his interest usually fluctuated was his body's personal way of making him pause. Whenever his focus in one thing would wane, he would switch to something else. The world was an experience and the only things that captured his mind fully were the raw fields that similarly had no end. 

Cooking. 

Art

Kendra. 

You let dough rest. 

You let paint dry. 

You let people come into their own. 

That was the point of rest.

That was Kendra.

His girlfriend.

The one his family didn’t think was real.

He had gotten lost in mooning over his teal terror and returned to find April looking for better handholds on the used AC unit. The saying ‘get a grip’ was manifesting right in front of his eyes and he watched on. Self-control had never been much of a Hamato tradition. He was just as much a party to that, but it always felt like they considered his lack thereof a step further than their own. 

He was rarely taken seriously.

Instead of starting small, it started when he was small. Though he and his brothers were all mutated at the same time, they still had a cascade of ages. Mikey brought up the generational rear and earned the title of little brother by simply existing. No matter what he did, the decree was made and shaped the rest of their viewpoints.

He might not have helped the matter. 

When it benefited him, he used it. When it was a detriment, he fought against it. He was both allowed to get away with all he wanted while also being some kind of forced liability. He was considered childish and put in his brother’s charge. They saw him as smaller both in stature and mind long past the point where it was necessary. His achievements were undermined because others reached them first and even when he superseded them in something, it was treated as peanuts in comparison. 

He prided himself on his self-awareness. He knew flighty attitude well, but they considered him a flight risk. He saw diminishing interest as a time for transition, but they viewed him as a revolving door. People, activities, and objects entered one way and were spun round back out. Yet another age old vestige, grudges had kicked up from the holidays. Presents had been purchased for things Mikey liked earlier in the year, but by the time they were passed out, he had often moved on. The bitterness continued to crop up until it was ultimately unsustainable. 

From then on, no matter how much he threw himself into anything, he was written off preemptively. It was assumed that nothing would stick when it came to Michelangelo. In a way, he was reduced to small talk. He was always up to something so there would always be a new topic of conversation. His forthcoming attitude meant you could get the latest from the source and the littlest brother was considered a thing of little mystery. 

Just like with his place in the family, the designation came with positives and negatives. On one hand, he was even more free than his baby of the family status had ever afforded him. It was nearly expected so there was no judgement whatsoever when he gave something up. Alternatively, his growing expertise was considered vague at best so even when he clearly knew how to do something, he wasn’t even asked for his help. 

He was written off. 

As was his current partner. 

The worst part was he understood why. He had long let his supposed flippant attitude fester. He let the others believe that of him because it was easy. It served him more than it damaged so he let it go. It meant that when he went on his first date, as he had many others, there was little fanfare. Mikey said he was going on a date, so he was in their eyes. Then after said date when Mikey challenged himself to perform better on the next, his distraction meant he hadn’t filled the others than. The third date came around after that and consumed even more of his attention. Popped questions of what he was up to ranged over those few weeks and thus the family moved on. 

It wasn’t out of the norm to pool his chef friend contacts, get his suit pressed, perfect his pizza Margherita recipe, scout a museum security rotation, and plan a birthday party for someone he had never met back to back. 

That might have been a typical month in Mikey’s date book. 

Kendra was not. 

He also might have forgotten to mention her. 

He blamed his and Kendra’s learning curve instead of any one person. 

While he casually mentioned his first date, he had failed to mention the others. Instead, conversation had been around stealing slices of pizza or what sort of theme he wanted the party to be. He had been so engrossed in the acts that lead him to his date, that the fact that they were dates slipped his mind. When he rushed an explanation after realizing he needed Donnie’s help with the security system, he was met with upbraiding. 

“Tell me if I understand this correctly: you wish to break into this specific museum after hours, which is somehow related to a surprise party, but the guest of honor is not this date that you are suddenly going on while all of this occurs at the same time?” 

The dissidence had left Mikey stunned. 

“Sure, he spoke as a completely trusting brother. You’ve done this all for a totally real date and not so you can go out and break into this Frick collection for whatever it is you are up to this time.”

It stung.

Mikey’s first reaction was to protest.

To rant.

To yell.

He didn’t.

He did none of those things.

He asked if Donnie would still make the bug.

Donnie agreed while asking what exactly it was at the Frick that was catching his attention this time.

Mikey didn’t bother with a response.

Donnie didn’t press it and, in fact, appeared smug.

Why?

The youngest asked.

Was it that unbelievable?

He guessed, in a way, it was.

He sort of still didn’t.

How was this abnormal for him?

Donnie had said as much. 

Why was the unbelievable part the apparently tacked on date? 

He went leagues for other people. 

He did so all the time. 

The surprise party for some nobody wasn’t scoffed at. 

Romance was. 

It made him feel small. 

Juvenile. 

He thought of Kendra and all the times she had threatened to walk away. 

He had almost assumed she would.

He wouldn’t have blamed her. 

She didn’t take him seriously. 

No one else did. 

Except she might have. 

With official dates four and six out of the way and the informal fifth thrown in, she had begun to show interest. 

She texted him first.

It was something small and seemingly innocuous. 

It showed care.

She made sure he got home.

She demanded to know how he was.

His phone lit up with the message saying she hadn’t forgotten.

The ETA.

He looked it up.

That was his meaningful act.

Ripping the band aid off those activities he would rather avoid.

She probably didn’t know they existed.

He sent over the walking distance and a remark that there was construction.

She sent back a thumbs up.

She was waiting.

“We going?” April stretched her neck in preparation to carry that AC unit again.

It was after Donnie had passed off the USB drive with the security system hack on it that Mikey decided not naming Kendra was purposeful. His girlfriend was for him and him alone. He had never thought much of her past association with the family and nothing about that had changed. He may have originally forgotten by accident, but for now he was petty enough to keep her to himself for the sake of it. 

His silence was his stasis. 

His relationship was blooming in the process. 

When the time was right, he would approach them all with hard evidence of his ongoing affection. 

He didn’t account for the fact that dating kept him busy. 

He was out of the lair more. 

Their dates were less elaborate. 

His updates grew vague as he kept the source a secret. 

It was Leo who noticed first.

“Hey, Mike! You know, I think you said you were dating someone, a lady friend, but I don’t think I caught the name of that girlfriend of yours.”

Leo literally chewed on the sentence as he had a bowl of cereal.

The others, even dad, were around as this moment was staged for some grand reveal.

As if they could catch the most stubborn among them off guard. 

“Oh my girlfriend? My wonderful, amazing girlfriend? The one who enjoys my time and opinions?” Mikey fluttered his lashes.

“Yeah.” Leo leveled with him.

The doubt was all too evident.

“That one.”

“Oh, you know…” Mikey stood, left, and never finished his sentence.

He left them all in suspense.

Attention ramped up after that.

His phone was stolen in an attempt to see exactly who he was messaging.

He fought conversational hijinks that rivaled Looney Tunes sketches.

His whereabouts were almost scanned which revealed he had mistakenly rubbed his tracker obsolete at an unknown point.

Dodging blow darts to get a new one embedded had been a fun change.

Regular family stuff.

He never budged. 

They were forced to give up. 

They unanimously relegated his interest to something dropped as a cover for their failure. 

They decided he had nothing to hide. 

The trickster youngest was pulling a prank. 

Either Mikey wasn’t interested in this person enough to name them or they didn’t exist. 

Either way, they weren’t memorable. 

They were wrong.

They were so wrong that Mikey relished it.

He would shove his awesome long term relationship in all their faces. 

A baby that couldn’t handle romance no more; he would flaunt his mature partner prowess.

The unserious little brother would be the most committed.

No.

Mikey soothed his thoughts.

It wasn’t like that.

He liked Kendra.

He really did.

He wouldn’t gamify his feelings for her.

They would take their natural course and proving his family wrong on all accounts was a funny cherry on top.

Except, April was here.

She was the odd outlier.

Like the rest, she had joined the same hive mind mentality that there was no girlfriend. She, however, had not given up when he hadn’t given a name. She hadn’t been there the morning of Leo’s prompting, but she was in the family pipeline. The moment she knew, she had a sense that the omission was a sign. Mikey must have had a track record he had forgotten about because she accused him of being better at coming up with faux personas. That he neglected to make one spoke of something larger.

Her oldest sister powers were terrifying.

She had seen him asking about ACs on the message boards because she had been the one to teach him about them.

She was always finding these incredible deals for her apartment.

It was something they did special. 

They went antiquing in the modern sense.

She knew instantly that he had no need for an air conditioner and threw herself into the mix. There was no asking, April O’Neil was getting him an air conditioner. She brokered the deal, got him a good unit for bottom dollar, and then made sure she was the present liaison for getting the machine. Right when she should have left it to him, she offered to help him carry it, which was comically unnecessary, but there was no telling April “no” at that point.

She was going to see where this AC was going.

Mikey couldn’t tell Kendra.

She would hate him for it, but this felt like the end of some kind of line.

If he did tell Kendra, she would surely flee the premises. If that happened then Mikey would lead April to a seemingly empty unit. He could see everything going a few ways after that, but April’s sleuth skills would suss out the culprit eventually. Either way, Kendra’s identity was going to be revealed.

He knew, if given the options, his girl would want to go down swinging if that was the case.

She would be found on her terms.

He would take the hit.

In time, she’d understand.

Besides, he only really knew that she was aware of Donnie and that the rest of his family didn’t seem to register to her. She had never told him not to mention her to them so it should have been fair game. At the same time, she recently pointed out that he hadn’t talked much about his family. Then, as far back as he could recall, no one in his family had mentioned Kendra in literal years.

She had been in prison for most of that time, but that was far from the point.

The confusing branching pathways of who knew or felt about who was too tedious for Mikey. 

He stuck with facts. 

Kendra hated Donnie.

Kendra had gone to school with April. 

Ergo, April had known Kendra the longest. 

Even if they were just classmates, they might have a reunion.

That was wishful thinking, he thought, as he picked up the AC.

“Hey! Let me get my side!” April chased him.

He leveled with her. “April.”

She looked him in the eye through her glasses.

“We both know I can carry this. Without help. Like carrying a loaf of bread.”

She opened her mouth.

“Hup!” His brow ridge shot high as he wasn’t done.

She waited.

“I get what you’re doing. We’re going. You’re going to meet her soon.”

Her head tilted.

“12 minutes actually. I just looked up the ETA.”

“Uh huh…”

He gave her a look that said he was done with the charade and turned to walk.

She fell in line beside him. “I can’t tell if she’s good to you from what you described.”

“From what you actually listened to.” He corrected.

“It’s crazy, right?!” She threw him a frazzled glance that begged him to understand.

He didn’t and relayed that.

“C’mon!” She threw her hands up. “Okay, maybe you haven’t done something this elaborate before, but your acting skills are totally dependent!”

“It’s the classes.”

“No, it’s whenever you want! Either the guilt consumes you or you can look a man dead in the eye and ruin his entire business just because you weren’t a big fan.”

“How many times-?!” 

“How about all the times you snuck out?” 

“I wonder why!?” Mikey’s eyes rolled to insinuate her current reaction as the norm. 

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying!”

“April!”

“What?!”

“Because of this! Because of exactly this! Because when I said I wanted to try skydiving, Raph was suddenly my partner, threw off the balance of the plane, and he couldn’t even jump because he was so scared, but that’s because he was terrified that me, me, the guy who can also make his own portals, sans metal by the way, was going to, I don’t know, hit the ground somehow?!”

“One in every a thousand-”

“-Parachutes don’t open and how do you know that?! Who said that a million times beforehand?!”

April looked away.

“That’s Raph! Leo tried to keep me from one of those Battle Nexus competitions because it was rigged! I knew it was! That’s why I joined! The prize was some of Draxum’s old lab equipment! I was getting it back! I was cheating too!”

She was caught on a whine.

“Donnie gets a pass because he was right about the ammonia bleach situation, but don’t think you’re not there too!”

“Mikey-” She tried to bargain.

“’You need a spotter BASE jumping.’ ‘There’s two seats in the go-kart, why don’t I come with you?’ ‘Who else is going to see if you fall out of the canoe?!’”

She grimaced.

“Look, I get it. You all love me and I love you, but I get tired of being dismissed. It feels like you don’t see how much I carry. I shouldn’t have to prove that I’m more than a baby. I am. I grew up just like the rest of you and you’d think at some point you would let me do the thing I’ve already done.”

She was quiet.

He wanted to say more, but he left it there.

They were getting close and he needed to maneuver to that back alley.

He refused to look it up and his eyes darted to recollect where they had gone a week or so ago.

“You know…”

He glanced at his sister.

“Out of everyone, I’m the one who lied about the person they were dating.”

“H-huh!?” He was already looking, but his head whipped further and pieces of the AC clattered in his jostle.

“Yeah. That guy at the station wasn’t… really a reporter.”

“Huh?! Who!?”

“He was an editor. He had asked me out a dozen times and I always said no and then he was there for me after the studio told me to quit my latest story, you know the one about the musician, and I don’t know…”

Mikey wasn’t sure how many more sounds he had to convey before she realized he actually had no idea what she was talking about.

“He was so gross and we went out like five times! He was textbook creepy., but man is it a boost to the ego. I used him and it ended badly, but, yeah… I talked up someone that wasn’t real.”

Mikey gaped before he thinned out the line of his lips.

April finally looked at him and similarly went slack as she placed his look. “No idea what I’m talking about?”

“Nuh uh!”

“It was a few months ago!”

“Before or after I met my girlfriend?”

“Boy!” She released the unit to noogie him.

His legs bowed like a frog to keep from dropping the machine. “Ack!”

“She better be something because otherwise you got no excuse for not paying attention to anything else!”

“Maybe I could sense you were lying so I tuned it out!”

“You-!” She threatened once before disengaging to mess up his hair.

Mikey bemoaned the action, but got upright. “We gotta turn around here.”

“Where?” April recovered just as fast.

“Like…” The streets looked a little too similar, but he knew he was close to the community garden because the smell of manure was in the air. “Here!”

He ducked in the first turn and April was forced behind him.

Mikey ended up winding them around two apartment buildings before he finally found the fire escape that was burned into his mind. “This is it!”

“Uh, Mikey.”

“Mhm.” He looked up and then down before putting the AC on the ground.

“We passed the front door.”

“Yeah.” He jumped to pull down the ladder.

“It was back there.” 

“Yup.” He gestured for her to go first. 

“You know I think she’s real, but this isn’t helping…”

“Gonna be honest. I don’t know what’s up with the apartment thing. You can’t get inside from… inside.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” He gestured for her to climb again.

She took the first rung. “What are you saying? There’s gonna be a door up here?”

He nodded to the ladder again.

She shook her head as she climbed.

He tucked the unit under his arm, made sure he had a good grip, leapt up to a dumpster first for the momentum, and jumped to the landing.

He landed right next to April and saw her staring at the entry to Kendra’s apartment.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” April’s head cocked. “Why though…?”

She caught the knob.

Mikey waffled as his hands were full.

“Wait! Don’t just walk in-!”

“22 minutes!” Kendra threw the door open and April was knocked clean out of the way.

Mikey stood with his jaw dropped far enough down that it was practically sitting on top of the AC.

“Woah…” Kendra stood a little straighter at the sight of the machine. “That doesn’t look half bad…”

Mikey’s lips flapped wordlessly.

“Did you test it?” Kendra walked over and got her hands on the unit to examine it.

April’s fingers appeared like an omen around the door frame.

Mikey squeaked.

“That’s a no.” Kendra sighed. “We’ll test it inside. I have some tools for when my power goes out.”

Kendra rotated slowly and Mikey shifted the weight of the unit in horror.

April flung the door forward and, as if on instinct, Kendra caught it.

The two stared at each other for a long moment.

Mikey felt the AC slipping in his grip.

“KENDRA!!!” April screamed.

“O’Neil!?” Kendra reared. “You’re just as loud as I remember… Ugh.”

“What are you doing here?!” April smashed her palm into the door so it flew out of Kendra’s grip and slammed shut.

“I live here.” Kendra dropped her weight to one unamused side. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“Me?! Me?!” 

“Yes, you.” Kendra yanked her door open a crack. “What are you? Trespassing? Why are you up here?” 

April sent the question toward Mikey who only shook his head. “Miss broke into Nakamura Corp!?”

“Oh! Great catching up with you! Find someone else’s stoop to haunt!” Kendra grabbed one of Mikey’s arms. “Come on.”

“No way! Nuh uh!” April caught his other elbow.

“What are you doing?” Kendra looked ready to strike.

“Not letting my dumb-dumb little brother make a huge mistake!”

“Little…?” Kendra mouthed before looking at Mikey. “One of these days you’re going to draw me a family tree! Your lineage makes no sense!!”

Mikey shook his head.

Kendra was about to speak again when April yanked him with all her strength.

He almost lost the unit, but hoisted it up at the last second.

The weight of it sent him in April’s direction where she clawed to pull his mask so she could hiss into where his ear should be. “Kendra?! Kendra Byerly!? You are not telling me that Kendra, the evil Kendra, the Kendra that went to prison and was never seen from again, is your girlfriend?!”

Only Mikey had a view of said woman.

She didn’t look surprised.

She didn’t look wounded.

She looked numb.

She had that same dull gaze that he had seen at the coffee shop. 

He hadn’t seen that in a while.

Not since she started openly talking to him and her fiery side came out.

Whatever this was.

Whatever she thought now.

He didn’t want to know.

He never wanted her to look like this again.

Mikey shifted his pupils to April.

She hummed loudly as if she was waiting for a response.

He let his own icy exterior fall in place.

Except his was honed by meditation.

A way to access the wily nature of his power to its best extent.

The moment he was calm, he accessed the molten flame in his core. It beat back against him before it agreed to work alongside. His eyes opened and he phased out of April’s grip.Kendra watched with a gawk and stepped aside when he looked toward her door. He entered long enough to set the AC down inside by the window it would soon inhabit before he turned to leave.

He gave Kendra a sharp nod that he had this.

She blinked a few times before she returned a single bob that deferred to him. 

“April.” Mikey addressed once he could see her again.

Said woman was clearly furious he had pulled mystic rank on her.

“Let’s talk.”

“Oh, we’re gonna talk!” She puffed up. 

Kendra went inside and Mikey ushered April a few steps away.

“What were you thinking!? Do you realize-!?”

“I think you should leave.”

April’s mouth snapped shut.

Mikey waited and hoped she would agree.

“Me?” April pointed at herself. “You think I should leave?”

“You’re way out of line.”

Her pupil scorched with a flash of green energy. “I know you’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

Her brows pinched and the mystic flame was snuffed out as she was clearly unsettled.

This wasn’t how he usually put his foot down.

If anything, when he decided against something, he mentally checked out.

He rarely faced it.

He would ditch whatever didn’t serve him, but this was far unlike dealing with mutant prejudice.

This was his girlfriend.

This was his family.

“I’ll be honest. You’re being rude.”

April popped a few unfinished vowels.

“She’s not a villain. She hasn’t done anything bad in years. You said so yourself.”

“Mikey-!”

“Draxum.”

“H-he was on the run! You basically forced him-!”

“Big Mama.”

“She d-didn’t really go good as much as she kinda laid off the overlord-”

“Casey.” He got in her face.

A single bead of sweat rolled down April’s temple.

“Want me to go on?”

“She’s not like them…!”

“No, she’s not.” Mikey backed off.

They were at a stalemate.

Mikey didn’t like timing things.

If anything, clocks were set so he could forget.

If he could avoid counting he would.

He set a mental timer.

If April didn’t give up in two minutes, then he knew this was a lost cause.

She was the one amongst them that had believed in him the most.

How were the others going to react?

Mikey wasn’t ready to think about that and checked his hands.

He hadn’t picked up any grease from the AC and rubbed the side of his face.

How did so little activity make him so tired?

He cleaned around his eye and heard April sigh.

“Is she… good?”

She couldn’t look at him, but the fact that she asked was a good sign. “No.”

April’s gaze shot up.

“She’s not bad. I don’t like labels.”

“Right…” April faltered and continued to obviously think.

Mikey scratched his arm.

“Is she good to you?” She tried again.

Mikey cracked tentative smile. “She’s feisty.”

She waited.

“She’s protective. Good…? Who knows, but I like her.”

“You’re not making a great case.”

“I shouldn’t have to.” He flashed her a sharp look.

April wilted a little.

He was getting close to 100.

April shuffled in place.

Mikey glanced at where Kendra hadn’t closed the door.

She was listening.

He didn’t blame her.

“The Kendra I knew… was uppity.” April spoke softly. “She was a huge jerk who thought she was better than everyone else and treated everyone else like dirt.”

That sounded right, but Mikey stayed silent.

“If she treats you like that…” April’s chest rose with vitriol.

There were instances, but Mikey never saw it as that simple.

He put his foot down when Kendra crossed the line.

She respected the boundaries that he set.

“I don’t know!” April’s arms fell to her sides. “She wasn’t… She wasn’t always like that! We were friends once. When we were young. Then when all the popularity stuff came in… I don’t know. She changed. We didn’t talk much after that. She acted like she never knew me.”

Mikey examined her.

“I don’t want her to do that to you. I don’t want anyone to do that to you. I… Man, we just talked about this whole not letting you figure things out for yourself, didn’t we?”

“Yep!”

“Or… Not like that. Not trusting you to… I don’t know! You never failed at any of those things. You never fell when you rock climbed. You did jump out of that plane. You didn’t use mysticism to get out of it when your canoe got stuck. You… You…!”

Mikey softened.

April’s eyes shined behind her lenses. “You did a really good job growing up.”

“I had good role models…” Mikey smiled.

“Come here, you!” She slung an arm around him.

“April…”

“No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m letting my past get in the way. Who knows what’s changed!? I’m different. I was insecure back then. I thought I had no place.”

“Now look at you.”

“Now look at me! Youngest Pulitzer prize winner!” She gleamed.

“Yeah!”

“Okay! Apology tour!” April steered him around and didn’t let go.

He hobbled in his headlock as she went over to the door and kicked it further open.

“Kendra!”

Kendra looked up from where she had opened up the AC unit and was surrounded by parts. “O’Neil. Again.”

“I was a jerk.”

Kendra shrugged.

“No, seriously.”

Kendra sent April a dry look.

“Yeah… I deserve that.” April let Mikey go.

He rubbed his throat.

He caught Kendra checking him over before her gaze flew back to the other woman.

April leveled with her. “Look. We don’t have the best history. Heck, neither of us had it easy. When my pops left and your mom died, I don’t know… I thought maybe you of all people would understand-”

Kendra stood with a clatter of parts.

April and Mikey both blinked.

“Don’t…!” Kendra’s hand quaked around a screwdriver. “Just… don’t.”

“Oh…” The sound leaked out of April.

“This doesn’t have to be a thing.” Kendra wrangled her wrist to point between them. “I’m dating your brother or whatever. We don’t have to be friends. It’s fine.”

April twitched.

Mikey squeezed around her. “Family by clan status, by the way! Not blood.”

Kendra was clearly wary of taking her eye off April. “Which one was that again? The Nick-po?”

“Ninpo!” Mikey clucked.

“You got powers too?” Kendra studied April.

“You know!” April tried to wave it off. “Just like a bat I can summon. Some spell stuff. Increased agility from being possessed. That… whole… thing…”

Kendra absently nodded.

The awkward silence seeped into Mikey’s very bones. “April tested the AC unit!”

“So it does work?” Kendra’s attention finally parted. “But I plugged it in and-”

She clicked her tongue once before moving to kick the wall beside an outlet as hard as she could.

“Damn breaker flipped!”

“Want me to flip it?” Mikey wondered.

“None of us can get to it. I have a bypass…” She reached for a flyer about some long gone blowout sale flyer that was taped to the wall and lifted it to reveal a cleanly carved hole. “Line pliers.”

Mikey knew what those were from assisting Donnie and ducked to get them.

He passed them off and she reached into the hole to pull out a cord. “Cheap ass-!”

The moment the pliers dove into the wire they sparked.

April bumped into the door frame.

“There.” Kendra let her tool fall straight to the ground and stopped just shy of plugging the AC in. “Oh wait…”

She rounded the unit on her knees and put pieces of it back together.

Mikey watched on with rapt attention as she worked and eventually tightened a final screw before she finally connected cord to oulet.

It hummed to life.

“There we go! Sounds like it did at the old lady’s house.” Mikey beamed.

“She kick the bucket?” Kendra asked.

“Oh yeah, left everything behind.”

“Estate sales.” Kendra shook her head.

“Right? Best place for a deal!”

“You’re going to leave it like that?!” April squawked suddenly.

“Uh… no?” Kendra’s head lolled where she was still squatting. “We’ll install it in the wall.”

“The wall that just shot out sparks?!”

Kendra’s brow lifted.

“If the breaker tripped then you got a short! You can’t plug an AC into that!”

“I have a fix.” Kendra gestured to the hole.

“Yeah, live wires are exposed in your-!” April looked out.

Kendra clearly bristled.

Mikey realized then that, of course, she hadn’t been expecting company outside of him.

It wasn’t like her place was dirty, but her bed was unmade.

She had some clothes that had missed their hamper and a few messy products were spilled out around her vanity.

“In your…? Is this a bedroom…?” April looked out of place. “What is this?”

“My home.” Kendra shot upright. “Not up to your standards?!”

“It’s just…”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

“Say it!”

“I don’t know!”

“Come on, April! We both know what you wanna say! Just like we both know why you ended up alone!”

April immediately puffed up with indignity.

“Oh, poor widdle April. Barf!” Kendra gagged and rounded Mikey to get to her. “You know why kids thought you were weird?! It’s not some random act like you like to think!”

“Kendra, you got a lot of nerve-!”

“It’s because you did this! You ran your big mouth and hurt everyone’s feelings! You had no idea how not to speak your mind or when to stop sticking your nose in other people's business! That’s probably why you became a journalist! So you could televise all the crap you thought and dress it up like pretty little think pieces.”

April inhaled in a way that was charged with green smoke. 

“Talon Perisinsky!” Kendra swiveled her torso toward Mikey. “Second grade! He was in gymnastics and moving to the next grade with us! The incoming class was too large and someone told the next teacher on graduation night that Talon could probably go to the Olympics if he stopped getting into so much trouble!”

“That-!” April hissed.

“He went to the other class and eventually dropped out!”

“Was that…? April…?” Mikey mouthed.

“That’s not-!” April pleaded.

“Drew Weatherford!” Kendra spun back around. “Third grade! He was coming to class super early and you walked in one day, with your friends, with only him in the room, and yelled about how bad it smelled!”

“Ken-!”

“Crazy how his dad lost his pier job and their water was off, he was coming to school early to wash up in the sinks, and because of you he earned the nickname Trash Boat!”

“How could I-!?”

“Heather Alvares!” Kendra stomped forward.

April was trapped both in and out of the apartment.

“You wanna talk about parents who left, huh April!? Let’s talk!! When her mom dipped and she was with her grandparents who couldn’t brush that hair of hers, who was it!? Who!? Who told Taylor Martin, certified grade A bitch from birth! She had it hard enough! She transferred in mid-semester and there you were! She told you in confidence! So why, why, was it that Taylor found out?!”

April could only shake her head.

“And you didn’t get the same treatment! No! No one dared call you the fucking tattletale, loud mouth you were because the moment they did, they would be on your immediate shit list! They were terrified of your ‘weird’ sense. That way you always sniffed out people who were trying to lay low! You always brought attention to them when no one wanted that! So yeah, April, go ahead. Tell me my apartment sucks shit because I already know! You think I don’t?! You think I want to live here?! You think I wanna smell burning electrical wires when I charge my phone?! Maybe think for once in your life about where those reporter skills got you!!!”

April was deathly still.

Only her pupil moved to Mikey.

Mikey’s expression wore weakly because he knew what she was thinking.

Everything Kendra said was true. 

He knew exactly why. 

April has met him and his brothers in a similar way. 

The boys had snuck up to a roof to play basketball and she had burst out of nowhere with accusations about how she finally caught the people sneaking on the court. They had tried to run, but she had seen them. A human saw them for what they were. She yelled her head off about how they weren’t people, they were criminal turtles, and they had been forced to tackle her to make her stop.

“And that’s…” Kendra clearly lost steam. “… just what I remember. There were a ton more. So, sorry, if I wanted to get away from you. I was trying to build my own reputation. I was dealing with my own crap-!”

Her voice hitched on tears and she audibly swallowed it down.

“I-I-! I just… couldn’t be humiliated at school too. Not so late in middle school. Not after what happened. Not when it was happening at home-!”

Kendra threw a hand out to stop herself.

She took a single breath.

Mikey chanced getting closer.

She shot him a wounded look before wrapping an arm around herself.

Mikey leaned against her back in case she wanted to move away.

She didn’t.

Her weight slightly shifted into him.

The smallest amount.

Fragile and he held it with care.

“But I did… leave you without explanation, so… sorry… about that…” Kendra cleared her throat.

April creaked against the door frame.

“That… sucks… especially with what happened with your dad… I’m sorry.” Kendra glanced at Mikey again.

He bowed his head ever so slightly.

She sucked in a deeper breath and let it out. “Didn’t mean to scream at your sister. Not a great reintroduction.”

“Nah, not really, but you two got history and that wasn’t even in the top ten worst impressions I’ve had.” He pecked her cheek.

“That’s gotta be some kind of list.”

“Oh sure…”

April took her glasses off.

The two stopped to watch her.

Mikey gave Kendra a squeeze as he prepared to release.

She stood straighter to give him leave.

April spoke before he could move. “Is that… true?”

Even Kendra knew better than to respond.

April’s eyes darted as she looked up for a response.

“We…” Mikey started and was a little too loud so he tempered himself. “We grew to love it. You could always count on April to tell it to you straight!”

Her expression somehow fell further.

Kendra turned to send him a bitter glance.

He broke free from her and shot toward his sister.

“Okay! Maybe I didn’t phrase it right, but that’s the thing! We’re all honest to a fault in different ways. Didn’t you-er-Raph! Yeah, Raph! Always tells me that I don’t have tact! I don’t! Look, everyone in this room has made mistakes. We’ve paid for them in different ways. What matters is if you choose to learn from them and how you move forward with that knowledge.”

“I can’t really deal with your LPC thing right now.” April flinched from him.

Mikey whimpered.

“LPC…” Kendra spoke, haunted by the new knowledge.

Mikey didn’t have time for that and continued on. “It’s true though! It just depends on who sees it! The one who really never pulls punches is dad!”

The corner of April’s lip twitched. 

“If he doesn’t like something…!”

“You’ll be the first to know…” She responded as more fissures formed in her growing smile.

“Being honest can be good. Having a strong sense of justice is good! Jumping into something without worrying is good! They can also all be bad. It will always depend. The outcome, the people…”

“How many people have I hurt…?” April wondered.

Mikey felt secure enough to touch her arm.

She didn’t startle away and looked up at him.

“How many people did you save?”

Her eyes watered and her lip quivered.

Mikey barely lifted his limbs and she shot forward to hug him.

He gave her a tight squeeze.

She sniffled and lost a few tears.

“Kendra…!”

“Uh… Y-yeah…?” Kendra responded warily.

“I didn’t mean to bring up-“ April squeezed her eyes shut and pulled from Mikey. “I didn’t mean to insult your apartment. I’m… mad they let you rent this. They force you to pay for this. You rent it, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We can sue. We just need-”

“No! No, no, no!” Kendra walked over to meet them. “Think! You wanna show growth, then think for a second!”

April stared at her for a second. 

“There was no where else I could go.” Kendra offered. 

April’s gaze sharpened. “Because you have a record.”

“Yeah!”

“That has to be illegal. They can’t deny you for that!”

“No, the shitty language in New York law books say that a landlord can’t turn down all applicants due to criminal records! It has to be on a case-by-case basis.”

“What…?” April reared away from Mikey.

“Yeah!” Kendra repeated.

“That’s bull.”

“Just don’t turn it into a story. Not only can I live here, but it’s all I can afford so…”

“There is no way this is up to code though!”

“It’s not.”

“What is this? This isn’t even a whole apartment!”

“My neighbor, if you can call them that, tore out walls to make their apartment bigger. They had the money to back it up. This was the leftover space. It didn’t have a shower or toilet. Those were patched into the pipes. The whole thing’s a shit show.”

“And the roaches!” Mikey felt safe enough to add.

April glanced around quickly.

“Don’t worry I scared them off for now. They’ll get me back when I sleep.” Kendra’s soul partially left her body.

Mikey leapt to get it back.

“You don’t even have access to the building.” April pinched the bridge of her nose and noticed her glasses still weren’t there.

She put them back on and, with them, her confidence returned.

“You quoted the New York law.”

“Sure. I had to look it up for when I got out. Plus law books were pretty much all we had to read in prison.”

“And I know the building codes.” April pointed at herself.

“O’Neil, what did I just say about butting in?!”

“I didn’t!” April clapped Kendra on the shoulder.

Kendra looked ready to bite her.

Mikey prepared to intercept.

“But maybe that’s a good thing? I mean, who said anything about you doing anything? That would be bad. We don’t want to mess with what you got going on here, but it sounds like your moneybags neighbor would be real interested to hear about what they’re missing through their barely there wall.”

Kendra blinked.

“How their water pressure sucks. The shorts in the walls…” 

Mikey could hear Kendra inhale. 

“Roaches.”

Kendra’s eyes lit up.

“Love the new hair color, by the way.” April grinned wide.

Kendra’s hand clamped over April’s and she used it to pull the other woman sideways. “Talk and work! You’re installing the AC!”

“Fine, but I have zero experience!” April sang as she moved to pick up the AC.

Mikey watched on through the bickering and fast paced conversation.

They almost lost the AC out the window twice before it really threatened to escape and he had to teleport outside to save it.

Eventually, they were all lined up and enjoying the cool air the newly operational air conditioner provided.

“Hey, Mikey.” April prompted.

“Hm?” Mikey hummed because talking was too much effort. 

“I wanna keep this between us for now.”

“Hmm?” He shifted his inflection.

“Don’t talk like I’m not here.” Kendra complained.

“I’m not. I’m trying not to say how he didn’t tell me about you.” April retorted before awareness hit her and she fell backwards. “Okay, I’m seeing it. Big mouth.”

“And people think I’m the mess.” Kendra chuffed.

“Figured you’d be mad.” April tried.

“Figured you would be too.” Kendra responded.

“True that.” April breathed out.

The AC continued to purr contentedness.

Chapter Text

April was in her life now. 

Kendra wasn’t sure how to feel about that as she let her phone fall. The device now lay on her chest from where she had just checked. April had sent some sappy message about having gotten home safe and that she was glad to have had their talk. She had a lot to think about and would be getting back with Kendra in a few days to start working out how best to deal with her apartment situation. 

April O’Neil. 

April, who had her phone number, O’Neil.

April, who she had gone to school with from kindergarten to whenever she dropped out, O’Neil.

That April O’Neil. 

It was weird. 

There was no other way Kendra could think about it. 

She tried to put it into perspective. Long ago, it had been less of a decision to leave April behind. It had been a choice of growing necessity. Instead of one day deciding she wouldn’t speak to the other girl, it was more like the distance between them grew and grew. They were never really close enough to have gone to each other’s houses, but they had talked as kids. They had played, but it was on school grounds. 

Kendra supposed there was a rare occasion they did something after class, but it was never to really hang out. It was a quick trip to a bodega or to join the other kids in some game that escaped campus. It wasn’t on purpose and that should have been by design. When Kendra climbed the rungs of her personal ladder, it wasn’t like she gave thought to whether April would be in it.

The thought had never crossed her mind. Her journey was one that was achieved in placement. The constant up and up was jumps in academic record. She hadn’t really considered April stupid necessarily, but April wasn’t making the same marks she was. She didn’t overly excel in computer science, Kendra’s prime pursuit, and so moving into those territories naturally moved Kendra away from April. 

Except she was here now. 

She had squeezed into some space in Kendra’s life like some long lost buddy. 

Was that what she was?

She guessed by definition April fit the childhood friend mold, but Kendra didn’t believe it matched up with the trope. April had been relegated to a category that was almost a background character. Avoiding the all too demeaning connotations that had, April had just enough screen time that she avoided the label completely. Instead she was something of a supporting character. One that existed early on for social development and was always meant to fall off after a certain point was reached. 

That’s how growing up was. 

It was a simple fact. 

It was only because of Mikey that April returned. 

Said man had been particularly ostentatious, Kendra thought as she laid against him. After the AC unit was safely installed and had gone through rigorous testing, April had headed out. Kendra thought she would take Mikey with her, but instead the two shared yet another strange conversation on her fire escape. She hadn’t meant to listen, but it wasn’t her fault the walls were thin. They mostly spoke of an exhausting level of familial support before Mikey decided he wasn’t done with invading her apartment. 

He returned all smiles, washed up from the mechanical grease, tossed his shirt off as it was unsalvageable from just that, and fell onto her bed like it was his. 

She almost kicked him out. 

She was tired. 

Instead of laying next to him, she laid on him. She scolded him for his presumptuousness by using him as a pillow. He had just the space across the flat of where his stomach should have been so she laid perpendicular to make use of it. He squirmed to get situated beneath her and they were still laying like that. 

It had been awhile, Kendra guessed from the faint orange hue that cracked through her unsealed door frame. They were a stain of Mikey leading into her bedroom where his reach had expanded. Lines were drawn up of space he now literally took in her life. 

He was bringing luggage. 

In the form of people, she knew she would deal with his family eventually. 

They were a unit and had been for years. 

Their years of seclusion had made them codependent. 

The harsh world kept them that way. 

Kendra understood enough that Mikey was a sort of package deal. 

He was also currently keeping her separate. 

For what reason, she idly wondered?

The seal had been broken by April. Before her, he had pretty much exclusively toted her here so there must have been a reason. It might have been a signal that he was ready to let her in, but she hadn’t felt like he excluded her. He was open enough with himself outside of his odd tendency to put others' well-being before his own. He really needed to be a little more selfish. 

She had almost closed her eyes when they shot back open. 

Was he tricking her into meeting his family?

He had a hell of a way of doing things, so it was always possible. He of all people would spring a meeting like this on both parties without thinking of the ramifications. To him, he probably assumed April was the safest bet to start with amongst introductions since they had history. He probably didn’t even know if it was positive or negative, but had gone solely based on an acquaintance at best. 

April was in her life now. 

She had plans with April. 

That was strange. 

Kendra thought repeating the idea would make it less odd, but it never did. 

It wasn’t April, but what she represented. 

She was Kendra’s past. 

The one she had put to rest. 

With each major life event, pieces of her history flaked off. It was a carving knife taken to her person until a shiv was formed. She was the sharp point that warned others away and that had kept her safe. Then some knucklehead who thought that laying down on someone else’s bed was fine showed up. 

No, a heavy hand in her brain was trying to rewrite the past few months. 

She stared up at some water stain on her ceiling. 

There was a point she needed to acknowledge. 

Michelangelo could have passed through her life as a wisp. 

He should have been a floating piece of pollen that she blew away. 

She had instigated what was happening now. 

That damned virus. 

That moronic plan. 

She felt stupid for ever bothering.

Risking everything on some guy both by framing Mikey and his infuriating brother. 

Her little raft of peace. 

She had almost blown her life up yet again. 

What an exhausting process she was doomed to repeat. 

No tech. 

No code. 

This was better. 

This was safe. 

She was thankful that Mikey being here now was fine. 

She had been lucky in that regard. 

April. 

April might be a threat. 

She was something else. 

She was persistent. 

Tenacious. 

She was famed for her news. 

Kendra had to be careful around her. 

April wouldn’t give the same grace Mikey did. 

Mikey had the leisure of only being told of her worst and not when she was at it. 

April knew it all. 

April had seen her act out. 

April knew her before turmoil. 

April could align those devastating life events with her personality traits like pairing up a dossier for an interview. 

There was no fumbling around O’Neil. 

April was representative. 

She was an embodiment of the system. 

Media hand in hand with someone’s idea of justice. 

As futile as it was, part of her wished she could keep her world small. 

Keep it to only Mikey. 

It would be so much easier that way. She hadn’t made much headway in truly understanding his actions, but she was starting to get a feel. As random as his patterns seemed to be, he was staunch in his core beliefs and she found that reliable. If he mentioned something, it was on his mind. If he wanted to do something, he did. There was no guesswork in whether he wanted to be here. 

He laid on her bed because he did. 

She was laying on top of him because he let her. 

He had just as much choice as he always offered in return.

It was basically all he asked for besides her time. 

A friend. 

The word made Kendra cringe. 

It wasn’t like she had never had those, but it had been a long while. The last genuine friends she could trace back to had to be one from elementary school and she had left all of those behind. They had still been there, in school, sometimes glaring at her for having ditched them, but to her, they were gone. They were bygone entities that no longer fit her goals and after that, that’s all anyone was. 

She interacted with beings that were useful. 

Friendship was a dirty word. 

Mutual affection that was agreed upon. 

By whose standard?

Mutual beneficence was decided by symbiosis. 

What you could get from the other person. 

Not random attraction and quality time. 

Again, that disgusted chill tickled her spine. 

Is that what Mikey was?

He was an entertaining creature on some level and the bane of her existence on another. 

He pushed her, she knew that much. 

For better or for worse, she had to admit she was curious to see. 

She wanted to know the same from him. 

There was something there. 

Something about him. 

Something she couldn’t name. 

She almost groaned. 

His mentality was wearing off on her. 

She refused to agree with his random desires. 

There was a reason; she just hadn’t figured it out yet. 

For now he was here. 

They would keep going on. 

Maybe they’d kiss again. 

She liked this. 

She liked laying on him. 

Closeness. 

Affection on her terms. 

The space to turn her brain off and churn all these thoughts. 

This was far better than when she rotted in bed. When that happened it was out of necessity to move time. She would lay down with her phone and scroll to literally roll the hours away. It was either that or sleep and she could only do the latter so much. She needed fast travel to her next event, usually work, and doing nothing was the best, safest, and cheapest way to get there. 

Mikey was there now. 

Mikey was warm. 

He would be a great heater without having to spare electricity in winter. 

That was a timeline and chilled Kendra further. 

Would April be around that long?

Would Mikey?

She hadn’t thought about the future in any sense in years. 

It was always scraping by month to month. 

She barely covered her rent and fed herself. 

Having to keep another person was–

Mikey took care of himself. 

Mikey didn’t try to take care of her. 

She liked it that way.

There was still so much to account for even if that was the case. 

Would he want to stay?

Would he still be interested?

That meant taking relationship steps. 

Did she want that?

She wasn’t sure. 

What they had done so far was nice. 

What they could do didn’t make her want to hurl. 

Thinking about it now only filled her with fear. 

Commitment. 

That wasn’t her. 

That wasn’t. 

What was?

She had long rebooted in safe mode.

She was an image to uphold without all the errant programs. 

That had changed. 

She felt stupid for not truly registering what that meant. Her hair was different ergo it made sense that she was different. She had been fired up in the bathroom mirror earlier this same day. It was the allure of something new introduced to her person, but that change meant she couldn’t keep going on the same. 

What else could she change?

The overwhelming sea of possibilities stretched out so far that it looked endlessly on the horizon. 

She needed to focus. 

Mikey. 

April. 

If she made room, who else could think they deserved her time? 

Flashes of Jeremy and Jase shot through her and tore flesh in her brain. 

Not them. 

It couldn’t be them. 

They wanted nothing to do with her. 

They weren’t like April. 

She had moved on from April. 

She had surgically removed the Purple Dragons from her person. She soaked those bridges with a can of gasoline and lit the match to toss in front of their faces. Her person was not excused from those flames. She had never meant it as self-immolation, but instead had done so with some grand and stupid goal in mind. 

No. 

They wouldn’t come. 

They were parts of her that had been carved off by the blade. 

Lost to time. 

Lost to her point. 

Mikey was the choice. 

Mikey was her current course. 

Mikey was her friend. 

That was weird. 

So, she dated Mikey.

She wished that conjured nausea. 

Her imagination painted a picture well outside her era. 

She saw herself back to black basics and without her trademark cyan locks. What was left of her natural hair was pinned into curls and form cinched in a purple a-line dress. It swished annoyingly around her calves and her ankles wobbled in petite white heels. She greeted Mikey at the door with a Martini and told him all about the pot roast she made. It was her only event of the day. 

The trad-wife dream was her nightmare and landed somewhere beyond revulsion. 

The only way that existence ended was her burying an axe into Mikey’s skull within the first month or so. 

She would be back in prison after that, but free from those shackles. 

That wasn’t her. 

She would never. 

Could never. 

Mikey wouldn’t. 

The bubble of faith upset her more than the vision. 

Mostly because it was undeniable. 

Mikey would never put her in that position. 

So what was left?

Kendra felt the liminal space. 

It surrounded her. 

She knew exactly where to look. 

For the first time in what felt like a decade, she peered into the dense white matter in the back of her mind. It was a negative space where she shoved everything she couldn’t deal with. For most, she guessed they would choose somewhere dark, but Kendra despised stark white fluorescents. They spoke of hospitals or parole rooms. The hum signified clerical space where time was judged and everything was supposedly illuminated. That was where decisions were made of others and Kendra hated them the most. 

Darkness was easy. 

A shroud to move in. 

It was the light that antagonized. 

It was the bright that showed too much. 

She barely reached the space before she mentally winced. 

The assault would come and she prepared. 

Time ticked without a clock and she cracked an eye open to the physical plane. 

The same water stain stood above her. 

Mikey was breathing evenly below her. 

He might have been asleep, but she didn’t dare check. 

She was okay. 

She needed to keep going. 

She closed her mind and was right back in the white space. 

A tentative touch conjured a memory. 

A fact from the past. 

Her mother was a missionary before she met her dad. 

It was because of her job that they met. 

That wasn’t enough. 

Mikey had rightly inferred there had to be more. Her parents didn’t just meet and become a cohesive unit. That was the stuff of movies. Perfect fairy worlds that didn’t exist and Mikey was right to reject them. Reality differed and, as much as Kendra hated to admit it, her parents had been rooted in reality. 

They were sensible. They left everything behind when necessary. They moved to America with a plan. They stuck to it and were never sloppy as they built their lives. They waited to have a child until they were financially stable. She had been their pride and joy. They continued their discernment in not rushing to have another. 

Each step was taken methodically. 

Always with great care to the larger world. 

Purpose. 

When?

When had they figured out they were romantically compatible?

When had they gotten past awkwardness?

When had the growing pains of their relationship ceased?

When had they learned to read each other’s minds?

Kendra had never heard the phrase, ‘go talk to your blank.’ 

It didn’t exist. 

Both her parents had known and always knew. 

Everything. 

Until half the equation ceased. 

Kendra reared from the thought to focus. 

She must have asked them the innocent questions all kids’ ask. There were the ones about babies and the ones about where they came from. For her age, she was given the typical speech about when a mommy and daddy loved each other. None of it revealed anything she didn’t know now. There was no mention of dating and their marriage was done at a courthouse. The witnesses had been one of her uncles and a man who happened to be present in the lobby. It was a simple affair. 

As it always had been with them. 

No, there had to be more. 

The startling lack of details meant something. 

Kendra dug deep into her knowledge banks. 

There had been great civil unrest in Indonesia in the 90s. 

That’s what her parents had fled from. 

She felt chilled by something unsaid. 

Iced by what she had been told. 

Her mother was a missionary before she met her dad. 

It was because of her job that they met. 

They moved to America because they had to. 

They got married for the same reason. 

The last sentence was new. 

The last sentence fit like a weird puzzle piece. 

The quiet of her parents' life took a new shape. 

A life of necessity. 

A life of what needed to be done. 

A life out of what little choice was given. 

Did they love each other or did they know each other?

Had they been friends?

Had they gone on dates?

Had they had a kid because that was what they were viewed as needing to do?

Those nagging community members might have nagged them too. 

Her father’s words about Deborah Ricci rolled in. 

How she was his type. 

Different from her mom. 

Kendra opened her eyes again and felt the sorrow. 

She didn’t cry.

Not because she fought against it, but because there were no tears. 

She felt some crazed form of relief. The freedom from a denial she had refused to see her entire life washed over her. She decided she would thank Mikey someday. Whether he knew it or not, his LPC title sure was something. By simply existing and saying words in that way of his, he had helped her put together something she had never been able to see. 

Wouldn’t have seen. 

Not without him. 

She would date him. 

She would have her full choice. 

There was no necessity with him. 

In fact, there was the opposite. 

He was random chance incarnate. 

She could have let him go, but got mixed up with him. 

Instead of dealing with that consequence, she had freely chosen at some point to keep him around. 

She liked the choice. 

She allowed herself that. 

What was another revelation when her last was one she would be reeling on for years to come?

Mikey being hers felt like a pittance in comparison. 

He was easy. 

He wanted to be with her. 

She wanted. 

Her body bobbed with a faint chuff. 

She wanted to be with him. 

She wanted to be his friend. 

She wanted him to be hers. 

Was that a thing?

Did people learn to be friends and date at the same time?

Were those things mutually exclusive?

She didn’t care. 

As soon as the thoughts popped up, she found she couldn’t care less about them. 

They were asinine blips in some world that told her how relationships should go. 

How movies and society told you things needed to be gone about. 

No, she would do this how she wanted. 

Whatever she felt was right. 

Whatever Mikey felt comfortable with. 

She would do the same for him. 

That was the mutual part of affection. 

It was going to be hard. 

She felt exhausted just acknowledging it. 

She guessed the trauma thoughts had some play in her fatigue. 

Some failed counselor had tried to equate all her wrongdoing to her dad’s remarriage. 

Yawn. 

She felt the same eye rolling at the thought now as she had back then. 

What a boring box. 

He could have at least been creative about it. 

Blame public school or something. 

Mikey shifted. 

It moved her head, but not her thoughts. 

She ruminated on the many morons that weren’t half as good about encouraging her mental state as Mikey was when said man twitched a second time. 

Kendra turned to look at him. 

“I can’t do this anymore!” He looked like he was in pain. 

She didn’t bother moving. 

She completely halted her thoughts. 

She had to talk to Mikey about phrasing. 

He had the worst timing. 

What an odd thing it was to have to rely on someone so ridiculous. 

“I’m not good at sitting still! We’ve been still for too long! I know you were thinking, but ahh! If I don’t move I’m going to puke!” He literally vibrated. 

She sat up. 

He sprung to his feet and did a few bouncy laps around her room. 

“Seriously?” 

“Yes! No joke!” He jogged in place. “I could maybe chill if we had a really good album or something, but I prefer talking! I need stimulation! I gotta have something! Do something! Peace is great and necessary, but holy shit!” 

She laughed. 

He returned to plop down beside her. “Ugh! Let’s go! Do you skateboard?” 

“Skateboard?” She shot him a sharp look. 

“Yeah!” 

“No. I don’t skateboard. What am I? Twelve?” 

Mikey gave an offended gasp. 

“You are, so I’m not surprised.” 

“No!” He pointed right into her face to boop her nose. 

She almost bit a chunk out of his finger. 

He cackled as he pulled away in time. “Skateboarding is not just for kids! It’s for pros! Adrenaline junkies who don’t waste time at theme parks! The feeling of a board and the land and laughing at gravity!” 

“You do that… by design or whatever.” 

“But I also do it on a skateboard.” He said, matter-of-factly. 

“It’s like…” She had to check her forgotten phone. “Nine PM something.” 

“Damn.” His brow ridge creased. 

She watched him. 

He stewed and knocked his feet together to keep moving. 

“Wanna… go?” She tried and heard how awkward it sounded. 

She should take it all back.

Give up.

Move on. 

His forehead smoothed and he was slow to look at her. 

She shot her gaze away. 

He clearly waited. 

“I don’t know!” She huffed with warm cheeks. “We can go… as a date or… whatever… I’m not gonna beg so just decide-!” 

He kissed her cheek. 

She jolted with offense and slapped a hand to the spot. 

“I’d love that.” He was still leaning in.

He looked like he was partaking in something precious. 

She didn’t know what and pursed her lip. 

“Yeah, well…!” 

“When’s your next day off?” 

She flicked her eyes towards and away from him a few times before she shared her schedule.

Chapter Text

“Illegal or not illegal?” Mikey asked as soon as Kendra walked up to him.

She reviewed where he was sitting on a curb wearing a backpack that had two skateboards strapped into it. “Which part?”

“Where I teach you to ride.” He smiled up at her.

She was getting far too used to the warm feeling that inspired. “What else goes into that choice?”

He was prepared for the secondary question. “Do you want people to see you wipe out or not?”

“It’s like that, huh?”

“Yeah. One of those sports.”

She debated quietly. She supposed there was no mood of hers that was good enough to want to partake in humiliation. Falling was sure to conjure that, but if it was a given when it came to skateboarding then it was also unavoidable. The little study she had done online hadn’t amounted to much. Tutorial videos were painfully belittling and often had literal children as their dummies to learn. The entirety of the sport itself, if it could be called that, did not hold her interest and she had moved on with the mind that this would be a one-off thing. “If it wasn’t me you were teaching, where would you bring some rando?”

“Hamilton Bridge.” He spoke instantly. “Good flat areas off to the side. Nice vibe. Brooklyn Banks, maybe, depending on where we were.”

She hummed lightly and debated sitting down.

“Thanks for doing this.”

“We’re kind of past the point of running off your energy.” 

“Eh, I always got some of that to spare.” He finally hopped up to his feet.

“One of those for me?” She gestured to the boards.

“Yup!” He turned to show her. “Guess which one!”

She spun the cyan wheels of one and could sort of see scales on the board itself. “Hm, I wonder.”

“Dragon warrior, heads up!” He turned back around before she could glimpse his.

“How are you moving your exalted one?” She asked with a turned out finger.

“Public transport or if you wanted… something really wild…?” He had a playful air.

She should have thought twice.

She had the forethought.

‘Something wild’ and that of the ‘really’ variety by Mikey’s definition was bound to be something she didn’t care for.

She was also trying.

Trying to take her next step.

Trying to embody her new self.

Trying to find renewed interest.

He was part of that vision.

She was inclined to trust that much.

“Break it down for me.” She demanded and unfurled her fingers.

In a blur, he twirled the backpack to his front, flipped the flap, and dove down into it to reveal a helmet, which he slapped into her palm. “I’m gonna go all in on my razzmatazz. We’ll get from point here to point there while doing a freestyle street skate routine. That’s aerial stunts, showing off, the feel of flying, falling, and almost crashing, except I would never let you actually fall. At least not yet. Not from like a building height.”

She turned the helmet over since it landed upside-down and it appeared utilitarian for what she expected of Mikey.

She gave a hopeless grin at it.

She looked up to find him admiring the headgear. “Kill me and I will figure out whatever mystic bullshit I need to haunt you forever.”

“I’ll draw up the spell!” He closed the backpack.

She put her helmet on and he got his board free. “Show me that.”

He flipped it to show her the deck. “New board! I painted an updated version of the design I had from when I was a kid. Sentimental junk. It’s an awesome turtle skull that’s on fire!”

“What happened to your old board?” She pulled her chin strap tight.

“Oh, I broke it.” He tucked his board under his arm and helped her adjust the straps on the side.

She stared at him dully.

“I broke a lot of boards. I’ve been skateboarding since I was like 10.”

“Same time you met April?”

“Probably!” He shrugged a little too nonchalant.

“You’ll kill me. I’m going to die. I’ll be dead.” She cursed herself in a haunt.

“No, no!” He feigned a fuss and put his board down. “So…?” 

“Fine! Yes. Hurry up!” 

He chuckled. “We feeling loose? Wanna stretch?”

“I want to live.” She rolled her shoulders regardless.

“You will. You’ll never feel more alive. Better than jetpacking. I’ll top it all.”

“Brag much.”

“You’ll see, just watch.” He positively gleamed and bowed to offer her his skateboard.

She moved toward the board, but didn’t step up.

He put an authoritative foot on it and took her waist while urging her on.

She pretended to be put out when their hips met.

“Come on, you gotta get up here to be ready.” He downright purred.

“Yeah, yeah.” She pushed him lightly.

“Hold on for me?”

“For you. Not to you?”

“You’d do that anyway.”

She turned her head away as she pressed closer to him.

She blindly felt into his form and delicately skirted his shoulders until she found a grip around his shell.

In a light hop, he lifted her up onto the board.

“Knees bent helps with balance.” He instructed.

She flexed slightly.

He adjusted both their footings on the board before he kicked off.

They picked up speed quickly and he led the movements. From weaving around pedestrians, he used both his hold and their pressed bodies to indicate to her which way to lean. It was only when she was almost doing it on muscle memory did he kick off the curb. They landed in the street and she felt a flare of wariness as they dove into traffic. They maneuvered lights at a rapid pace and she keenly felt the moment his core clenched.

She went from holding his shoulders to nearly wringing his neck.

He kicked back up a curb, a mailbox, an awning, and finally a fire escape before his body revved with energy. In a tug with his free hand, he grabbed the very air before it turned into glowing chains. They had a hollow look in the daylight, but they still sparkled as he used them as a whip. Metal hit metal and with a roll of his wrist, he caught the length and they shot into the sky.

It was just as he described.

The feel of flying.

The threat of falling.

Only the force of the wind kept his board to their feet and his angles to keep it there showed how many times he had done this. Instead of doing actual calculations, he felt out physics in its natural state. Each twist and curve was painted in exact paraboles and he knew just when to throw out another length of chain. It connected to whatever distant object would keep them moving without ever dropping their momentum. 

She could tell he was holding back. While they flew from building to building like some neighborhood arachnid poster boy, Mikey was obviously telegraphing his moves. She knew it was for her sake. With his history of duping her under the guise of surprise, it was a sort of welcome action. At the same time, Kendra knew her aerial limits and he wasn’t even close to the adrenaline she had conjured on her own time.

“No-!” She fought the wind as they skated down a rooftop. “No tricks!?”

“Tricks?” He chirped into a grind.

“Yeah.” She squeezed him and leaned to kick off to the next building. “Afraid to up the ante?”

“Me?” He had them leave the board for a moment.

Her stomach flew into her throat with the thrill.

They landed and Mikey wove side to side. “Watch this!”

With a slight bump, he physically asked if she would move.

They were still in motion and Kendra was a little creaky in stepping back. It was the only direction she could go since she had been perched on the nose of the board. There was limited time with the current roof running out, but she managed to slip behind him before the edge came up. She readied for one more, but flailed into another as Mikey kickflipped to change direction. She secured her arms around his waist as they headed straight for a roof access door. This time, he bent his knees to show her when and she was ready with a tight squeeze when he jumped the board onto it. There he engaged all his muscles in a fit of control and kicked off the door so hard that they both shot out horizontally.

Kendra thought the board was a goner, but Mikey twisted. It subverted her world and it turned further upside-down when Mikey caught the ledge they almost flew over with a single arm. For one solid moment, he held them there and she noticed how his other arm had brought the board with them. With clear intent, he made sure the board was adjusted just so before he kicked it like a hacky sack. Building up momentum, he bounced his foot one last time and sent the skateboard straight up into the air. She didn’t have time to watch it as they began to lower. With all his strength in a single arm, he bent at the elbow and she felt the small slack in her helmet give along with all the blood to her brain. 

In a single flex, he flung both of them up in the direction he had sent the board. 

A delighted cackle erupted from her throat as they made contact and spun. Mikey’s mystic energy burst with sparks and they rotated an amount of degrees that she lost count of. Gravity then caught hold and pulled them down with Mikey crouching as he got the board underfoot again. She followed along, glued to him, and he caught the nose of his board to aim. They hurtled downward where a few pedestrians glimpsed them and screamed.

“EAT YOUR HEART OUT!!!” She yelled as they soared past the onlookers. 

They hit a sloped skylight with a force that shattered the windows. Her laughter tinkled along with the glass and they rode down the metal casing before clacking onto another roof. From there it was a few more jumps and flips before they neared the river roads. It was a stepwise dropping process to get them safely to the ground and they skated in a cool down among the sidewalks.

The concrete soon ran out and Mikey turned the board to grind to a halt. The moment she perceived they were safe, she jumped to bowl him over. “Mikey!”

He stumbled off the board and tried to wrangle her.

She crawled over him to keep out of his grasp. “That was great and I do not compliment people!”

“Is that so!? Let me enjoy it! Stop moving!” He couldn’t get his hands on her.

“We have got to do that again! Take me swinging through the city! No wait! Better yet, let me make a jetpack and together-!”

She stopped and he instinctively did the same.

“Or… you can take me. Yeah…”

“Kendra…” He finally got her around to his front.

“I forgot for a second. It’s fine.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“There’s nothing to do about it.” She pulled away.

He let her and only took one sidestep to get the board.

“Can’t do tech. It’s a slippery slope. I fix things sometimes, but that’s it. It’s not illegal, but you get it.”

“Sure, but-”

“Trust me.” She gave him a serious glance from her profile.

He was momentarily stunned and nodded.

She hopped a few steps. “That was good! Ugh! I missed that feeling!! The rush!!”

She gave a yell to the hill they were about to descend.

Mikey continued to watch her.

She breathed out like she hadn’t in a long time.

“Feels good. I feel alive!”

“Gonna feel real good when you nail one of those tricks yourself.”

“That won’t be the same.” She spoke breezily.

“No?”

“How could it?!”

Mikey hummed as if he knew something.

“You spike my wheels or something?”

“No!” He leapt ahead so he could walk backwards in front of her. “It’s that satisfaction of doing it yourself! I have a feeling…!”

“What?”

He continued his silence with a bobbing of his brow ridge.

“What?!” She picked up the pace.

He made it obvious that he would run.

She felt good enough to chase after him.

He let her catch him at the gates of the skate park and she added on the treat of a giggle as they hugged. He clucked happily and his expression was warm enough to toast s’mores on. She held out, but couldn’t keep looking as she surveyed the people here. There were several groups of lanky twenty-somethings. A few parents with kids and some rogue teens that put on the most egregious aura. Kendra knew their type as she had been one and planned to steer clear.

Mikey squeezed her to attention.

“Ready?” She told him as if she hadn’t been canvassing and broke free to enter. “Hurry up!”

“Mhm.” He teased as he followed after.

She jogged over to an open space that was a good distance from other patrons. “What will I accomplish in one day? An Ollie? I read about the mechanics of the typical tricks.”

“First things first…!” Mikey set the backpack down and unlatched her board. He then dug into the bag itself and produced a set of black and teal objects. “We gotta get you into the top priority… Safety!”

She placed that they were pads. “No.”

“You’ll want them when you fall the first time.” He walked them over to her.

“I’m not five!”

“Kendra…”

“You never put on a helmet!”

“I have this whole situation.” He swept a hand over his body. “And kneepads! I’ve been wearing kneepads the whole time! I made kneepads a fashion statement back when you were working that little French hat!” 

She gasped full offense. 

He smirked. 

She outright snorted her dismissal and returned to the subject at hand. “Whatever! They look dumb!”

“Think of your joints!”

“Think of how stupid I’ll look!”

“Dumber when you get hurt…!”

“Ugh!” She snatched them from him. “If I get called a dork one time!”

A quick inventory separated the pad sets and she correctly shoved one arm through the necessary padding. Mikey came around to harmlessly help, but she rebuffed him. Since she was doing what he asked, he let it slide and switched to pulling out her board from his bag instead. He lined it up with his and waited out as she got both knees strapped in.

When she stood, she felt like she hobbled.

She must have because he suddenly chewed his lip.

She seethed.

“I’m taking them off.”

“No! You’re so cute!!” He withered toward her.

She didn’t dodge and let him fall against her. “Idiot.”

“Your idiot.”

“Unfortunately.”

He smiled wide. “Let’s get on those boards.”

Without holding her hand, he led them over and talked her through the process. He wasn’t demeaning, which she never outwardly thanked. She instead gave him her attention, something she found to be a far more precious commodity, and followed his guidance. She was soon walking the board around, which gradually gave way to her being able to glide on it. The ride then took her to turns and that morphed into the side to side weaves that she had seen him do during his roof stunts.

Her pads didn’t allow her the right range of motion.

They capped her knees where she needed to bend to get the right level of stability.

They hindered her arms where she needed those to act as her true ballast.

“I think you’re ready to go down a bank!” Mikey kicked up his board into his hands.

“Sure, but first…” She got a steady foot on the ground before she ripped the Velcro off one of her pads.

“Uh…!” Mikey wandered towards her.

“I’ve plateaued. I won’t progress like this! They’re in the way!” She went for the other elbow pad.

“That’s not how that works!” He complained.

“I’m fine. I haven’t fallen yet.”

“Again, that’s not-!”

“Which bank?” She eyed the parts of the park available.

“Uh, that one…” Mikey feebly pointed.

She knew the mechanics of kicking the board up as he had, but didn’t have near the same amount of effortless skill. Instead of leaving a mistake up to chance, she simply stepped off her board and ducked down to yank it off the ground in a fluid motion. She grabbed the trucks and hoisted the board up.

He was immediately on her and blocked her with his body. “Oh, hell no!”

“W-what?” She squawked against him.

“That’s called a mall grab. Don’t do that. Only posers do that.” He pulled her board from her.

“What? Why?”

“It means you probably got your stuff from the mall and you’re showing off. I made your board custom.”

“Custom?” She pushed on the wood in his grip to glimpse it.

She had long noticed the colored wheels, but the graphic on the deck hadn’t caught her eye. For the dragon warrior he described her as, the bottom of her board was a series of scales that represented said creature’s body. Now flipped up to the light, she could see an iridescent sheen to the paint and the faint shape of brush strokes.

“How… custom…?” She appreciated the detail.

“I didn’t carve it out if that’s what you’re thinking. I could if I wanted, but there’s all this layering and pressure sensitivity things so keep them safe. We didn’t have that much time, so I did some mental math, eyeballed your measurements, and got a board your size and did all the detailing.” He rubbed down the design. “You know, striping whatever was there before, a devil head I think, and sanding and painting.” 

“It’s pretty tame…”

“I didn’t want to assume. The designs are personal. Not to show off, but for you. You can build it up. Put stickers on it or I can paint something else. It’s totally yours.”

“Mine?” 

“Mhm.” 

“I didn’t plan on making skateboarding a recurring thing.” She revealed lamely. 

“So?” 

“So what else am I gonna do with this?” 

“It’ll make pretty cool wall art!” He gripped the edge of the board. “You hold it like this by the way. Grip tape out.”

 She nodded and did as he instructed.

He was quiet for a second. “That… none of this makes you a poser though.”

“I know. I’m a noob.”

“You’re doing great.”

“Save it for when I really am.” She headed toward the closest bank.

He trailed after.

She felt echoes of other times.

It wasn’t like she had been to a skate park before, but she had once been taken to an empty parking lot. Under the guise of getting donuts, her dad had gone around to the trunk instead of the shop. Even at age six, she had tried to correct his folly, but found him pulling out a bike. He set it down and gave it a pat to the seat and hadn’t needed to say more. It had been a sweet gesture and a nice day when he taught her to ride. The glazed rings tasted all the sweeter knowing she had hit some milestone.

She was on the platform of the bank and Mikey had been rattling off instructions beside her. The slope was barely 15 degrees. Looking down it was a joke for how much he was talking. This was patently a ramp for beginners and she had acknowledged she was such. She would do this as many times as necessary to make the movements stick and move onto something else.

There were easy to visualize steps.

“Want me to hold your hand going down the first time?” Her partner asked genially.

“This is shorter than a curb and you didn’t hold my hand when we were hurtling through the sky.” She glimpsed him.

“No, but I was leading then and this is you; it’s new.”

“I’ve got it. Assume the stance.” She demonstrated how she knew to stand with her feet perpendicular to the board. “Knees bent.” She squatted lower. “Ride down.”

“Sure.” He stepped back. “Of course.”

She readied herself and prepared to kick off.

It was a quick change for her feet.

She would need to rotate and get into that stance.

She played how to do so several times before chancing it.

She celebrated when her feet hit the board perfectly.

She cheered at the speed she achieved.

She readied her body with her knees bent to take the drift.

The skateboard tipped with a click and went down the slope.

She rode it until her center of gravity leaned too far back and in a quick slide of the wheels, they soared out from under her. Mikey yelled and her elbows made contact with the bank before he could reach her. The slick surface was worn smooth and she slid the few feet down to where a metal band lined the edge of the bank. Her ass bounced on the metal as it brought her to a halt.

“Kendra!” Mikey slid down to her on his kneepads. “You okay?”

“Don’t!” She flinched away from him.

“I’m not…” His protest was gentle.

“You are! I saw! I know what I…” She winced as she tried to glimpse her elbows.

They weren’t torn, but there was a heat rash from the slide.

Instead of weeping, they just shined up with blood that would never drip.

She clicked her tongue away from it.

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not going to.”

“’I told you so.’” She said it for him.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why not!?” She turned to him. “It’s so easy! Low hanging fruit.”

“Then it’s boring.” He said simply.

She frowned deeply.

He stared back.

She disengaged because she had no choice.

He sat with her as she folded her legs up.

“This isn’t like riding a bike.”

“There is BMX.”

“Not what I meant!”

He quieted.

“You don’t fall.”

He was ready with a retort that she could tell was saying he could.

She hadn’t.

She never had.

Her dad was there.

The utility of her bike had run out when her mom had gotten sick.

It wasn’t the same, she reasoned. Nothing that reminded her of those times ever was. Falling off a skateboard was nothing like losing her mom and she knew the recurrence was just part of some grieving process. Mikey and all the research she had done were all clear. You fell when skateboarding. You fell; that was learning how to ride. This sport had a prerequisite of ground time to develop one’s skills.

Was it disheartening because that self-fulfilling prophecy came true?

Was it frustrating because Mikey hadn’t been the fall back she thought?

Was it her damned insistence that she didn’t need a safety net?

Like she never had.

Because she always stupidly acted before thinking of the consequences.

She was goal-oriented in the positive sense of the word.

A buzz worthy note to be picked up by resume software.

She adjusted her helmet.

She would sting and she would get back up. She would be sore and she would try again. She would survive this and reach success, but not on this bank. This slope was a joke and she needed higher. Kendra spied one that was at least twice this height and made that a goal. There was also dropping in, but that felt a little lofty for her first day.

“Is it too late to put the pads back on?” She asked quietly.

“Nope. I got alcohol wipes in my bag.”

“Get them?” She asked without looking.

“Course.” He tapped her to signal he was going.

She used the time alone to talk herself up to her feet. Mikey helped wipe her elbows off and she powered through the nettles of the disinfectant. She then got the pads back on and he complimented her battle armor. She liked the change in perspective on the objects and felt the horn sound to signal a charge.

In time, she was skating down the slope with ease. Her issue had been her body. While she accounted for the weight distribution, she had neglected to keep her body level with the shifting angle of the board. It was all about following through and she needed to lean forward where forces pushed her back. She knew that all too well and how to face them head on. 

They moved embankments and skated together. Mikey wove expertly around her and encouraged her. She chased after him for speed and was cut off by those teens. It caused her second fall, but this time, she saw nothing but red as she stopped herself with her palms. She used the rashed digits to lash out, but Mikey was already berating them before her claws could land. He took their fight to the battle ground they were in and skated circles around them. They were soon praising him and asking for lessons, but he turned them down in favor of his star pupil that, he warned, they would soon have to watch out for.

They visibly gagged at the display, but Kendra clung to him for the sake of making them sicker. It ran them off and then she stayed close because she was already there. Mikey reminisced about when he used to challenge his brother to skateboard offs to settle disputes. He never used to win due to their larger size so he was forced to get creative. Where they had power, he trained his balance. His ‘one with the board’ mantra was something he spent hours perfecting. In a quick flip, he demonstrated how he could balance on the board on one finger while it was only on two wheels and said his family hadn’t dared to pick a fight with him in years. 

She appreciated crushing one's foes and offered him her sense of pride. 

It made him smile and she spied a faint teeter.

As if the ground itself betrayed him, the board shot out from his person and he flopped into a heap that only made him laugh. “See!”

She knelt down to help him up.

“We all do it. It always happens” He took her hand with great care. “Even to me.”

Instead of up, she pulled him to her lips.

He languished against her for a moment and broke apart with the spark of an idea. “Let’s do a kickflip!”

“Sure.” She shook her head at him.

Again, all the physics made sense on paper, but hitting those necessary points with the precision she wanted came with muscles she hadn’t used. Over and over the board whacked into her knees pads and she rued the wood for trying to get through them. Mikey was amused by her gloating and helped her in the hop. He would lift her up like a dancer and she kicked the board. It took another dozen tries until it landed how they both wanted and he dropped her right down onto it the moment it did.

She skated away with her arms up and pumping.

It threw off her gravity and she flayed, but stayed upright.

This took learning.

There was no immediate greatness.

One practiced.

One refined code.

A perfect program wasn’t born without trial or error.

With time wearing on, dropping into the bowl was chosen as her last task for the date. They discussed options for what to do after and decided to start with tea. There was a place with fruit ones nearby that seemed alright and helped offset the daunting nature of hooking her board at the edge of the precipice. She was familiar with this sort of drop as she longed to hurl herself over them, but without her usual bravado, it seemed especially deep.

Mikey stood stoic beside her and made it clear that he wasn’t going to attempt his until she did hers.

He would chase her.

She wasn’t going to crash this time.

He would be there and ready.

Her weight was on the back of the board to keep it level, but she got that preparatory foot ready to push forward.  

Mikey did the same.

She bent her knees.

He mirrored her.

She readied herself with a small wiggle.

Mikey chuckled softly to himself.

There was no call to action as she let her weight drop.

She only kept herself parallel to the board.

She had to steel herself to stay in line.

In a rush and bottoming out of her stomach from the speed, she skated straight into the bowl with Mikey right beside her.

She went partially up the next ramp, but didn’t bother giving it a kick of momentum. She slid right back into the bottom and ran straight off the board in her excitement. She saw glimpses of her little self cheering for riding without her dad’s hand and she turned to Mikey who similarly scooped her up to celebrate. He propped her on his shoulder to show her off and one of the teens from earlier who had stuck around joined in the congratulations.

Kendra blamed adrenaline for her warm cheeks as she was sat down.

“Now that!” Mikey shouted. “Was amazing! You can’t take that from me! First try! That’s my girl!!”

She swatted him lightly, but leaned into him. “That deserves a treat.”

“Oh! Treat time! Tea? You ready?” He kicked up both their boards.

Kendra caught hers and Mikey rounded her with excited screams to hype her up more.

She laughed.

He ate up the sound as he came back around to her front.

“Martabak would be good.”

“What’s that?!” His attention popped.

“Kinda… like a pancake? It’s sweet and special… I guess. I learned it from-I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s like the only thing I can cook. That and basics: ramen, scrambled eggs, fried rice, sandwiches.”

“You can make that!?” He leaned too far into her. “Not the other stuff, but that martabak thing?” 

She pushed his excitement down. “I guess!”

He dropped to his knees to beg. “Make it for me.”

He hadn’t even said please and she was sort of impressed. “They aren’t that good.”

“I don’t care! Cook for me!”

“Mikey!”

“I will do this all the way to the tea place.”

“Mikey!!”

“For weeks if I have to!”

“No!”

He inhaled a single time, not enough for what he prepared to do, and immediately began to say ‘please’ over and over and over.

“Stop! No! Fine! Whatever! I’ll make them! You’re not allowed to complain when it’s mid!”

“Yes!” He twirled up into the air to make a video game-esque power pose. “Wait! No! It won’t be mid and oh!”

“What now!?” She tipped her board to grab his bag.

“Cooking show date!”

“What?!” She reared incredulously.

“Yes! Let’s do it! It’s perfect! I need pictures of you anyway and videos are like pictures that move! I feel like I’m missing out! We’ve been on so many dates now and I will start forgetting and I don’t have evidence of all the tricks you did today! Your first time skateboarding!? What am I even doing!?”

“You are not going camera dad on me.”

“I’ll get all your good angles?” He rounded her while making a rectangle with his hands.

“Pain in the ass.”

“Does it still hurt?” He lowered his pseudo-lens.

“Kiss it and make it better.” She sneered and got hold of his backpack.

He had a blush to him that was knocked clean off as she chucked the object at his midsection with all her force.

Chapter Text

Kendra stood by as Mikey worked all hands on set. He swirled around her just a step below inhuman pace and she barely tracked his movements. With darts and jumps, he adjusted lights. With a lavish twirl, he rounded her to lay out props. In a targeted squat, he checked framing and, in one final approach, he came up with a large cosmetic puff.

“No.” She told him as he dusted some powder up onto it.

He edged closer with a growing grin.

“No!” She backed away.

She got one swift dab of powder to her face and coughing distracted her as he disappeared.

“For the shiny!” He cackled as he disappeared into the empty audience.

“I’m not shiny!” She badgered.

He hopped up a few railings and directed a light on the ceiling right into her eyes.

“Hey!”

“Is that your t-zone or a reflector?” Mikey teased.

“Get down here!” She shook a fist at him.

He leapt straight from the light and landed just opposite of her from across a giant island countertop.

“If I could reach you…!” She leaned forward with menace.

“You’d be so sweet, I bet!” Mikey grinned. “Have a big kiss for your boyfriend who got you an actual TV studio to do your show!”

She folded her arms on the table and batted her lashes.

He obviously awaited praise.

She relished smacking it down like flies. “The one that I didn’t ask for, didn’t want to do, and was threatened with by an annoying turd whining in my ear for a week straight if I didn’t comply?”

Mikey appeared stuck.

“That one, Mickey?”

His eyes flashed at the mispronunciation and he moved to change the subject. “Anyway…! Shooting!”

“Sure thing, Mitch.” She lifted a finger to swirl by her head. “This place has April’s name all over it, I’m guessing?”

He thinned out his lips to subdue his anger. “Yeah… Same station.”

“Doesn’t she do written news?”

“The stories sometimes get written and read on Channel 6, but people don’t tend to care what you do when you have a media pass.” As if making a card appear, Mikey manifested a press badge.

“Let me see her dorky photo.” Kendra made a feigning grab.

Mikey slid the badge across the table. 

Kendra snorted as April’s picture was mostly teeth. “Yup.”

“How’s that been?” He wondered.

“Fine. She’s been interviewing people in my apartment building for some fake story about rent control. With you two, I have to keep my phone on silent because you text me at all hours.”

“Stories don’t sleep!”

“And neither do you.” Her head cocked to one side.

“Crime never sleeps!” He pivoted.

“And fighting it will never be a real job.” She slid the badge back over.

“Yeah, it does not pay the bills.” He paused to think. “Yeah... The smiles help a little, but I get hungry.”

“You can just pool all your chef buddies. Get a nightly rotation going.”

Mikey swapped the badge for his phone. “But think of all the spoon dishes I have to gulp down!”

“The horror.” She joked and looked over the space. “These burners work?”

“Yup!” He fiddled with his device. “Got everything you requested. Fridge and top drawer on your…” He checked his hands. “Left.”

There was no drawer there.

“Right.” He immediately corrected.

She opened it and found dry ingredients. “Where’s the bowl I brought?”

“Editing magic!” Mikey suddenly ducked and came up with her worn tote bag.

“How’s that work?” She gave him a suspicious sneer as she took the passed item.

She felt him watch as she placed it on top of the fridge.

She came down from the tips of her toes and turned around. “Whatever, tell me later. Let’s get rolling if we have to. I don’t want that batter to keep sitting around.”

“I thought you said it was supposed to chill for 1 to 2 hours?”

“Who’s the chef this time around?” She cocked a brow and her hip in tandem.

“Yes, chef!” Mikey saluted her and finally brought his phone up.

There was no flash.

There wasn’t even a light.

The phone pointed at her conjured a few memories.

Recording robotics tests where she badgered Jase for never telling her when he started filming.

Jeremy brought them in for a celebratory selfie.

The mug shot photos that shot off a flash back so bright that she could feel her pupils retract.

Faster than before, sooner than in a while, she was back in her body.

She had lost maybe a few seconds at most.

That was an improvement.

She had no idea how to feel about it.

Was she coming to terms or forgetting?

“What’re you doing with the video again?” She busied herself with laying the ingredients out.

“Keeping it.” Mikey stepped closer and seemed to bird’s eye the camera over each item. “Maybe fall asleep to it.”

“That’s weird.”

“Nah, I do that. Not ASMR. Those kinda give me goosebumps in a bad way, but I like soft talking. Cooking tutorials. Techy sounds. It’s hard to explain, but I know it’s good when I find it. Something that isn’t too whispery, but has that soothing sound.”

“It’s weird to listen to me.” She clarified.

“Why?” He looked up at her.

She ducked away and a less focused memory slid past her.

She paused as if to look for it, but she was still standing on the studio set.

Mikey’s curiosity was palpable.

“What’cha need?”

“Those little bowls. Cooking shows always have those bowls with the ingredients already measured.” She lied.

“Oh… Uh…” Mikey pointed and was clearly doing so in frame. “That cabinet.”

She judged the distance from his hand and followed it.

“Pretty sure!” He rushed before she caught the handle.

She sent him a sarcastic glimpse before she tugged it open. An entire army's worth of glassware stocked the shelves. A few could go missing, she thought, but then wondered what the point would be.She had no kitchen. She got a few nested sets of bowls down and did some mental math for how many she needed. “Falling asleep to my voice.”

“I like your voice.”

With clinks that she tried to meter, she got out what was necessary and put them on her workspace. “I’ve had enough yapping when I’m trying to sleep. White noise, city noise, I’ll take that. Quick sleep and easy dreams… ”

“Easy dreams…” Mikey had a faraway quality to his voice. “Sounds nice. My dreams are kinda… I wish I dreamed more about the people I care about.”

She looked at him.

“I don’t. I wish I could. It’d be nice. My dreams are more… abstract? Sometimes I can tell my family is there. I’ll think in a dream about how I just saw them, we just had a meal together, we just finished up a patrol, but I never see them.”

“Don’t you get enough of them when you’re awake?” She reviewed all her pieces and made a mental map of their construction. “I need measuring things.”

“Drawer under the one where you got the ingredients.” He spoke quickly then slowly. “I mean, I see them every day, but we got our own stuff going on. I want to do cool dream stuff with them. I had this dream recently where I spent some time in Japan. I want to go with them!”

“Can’t you go whenever?” She headed to the fridge and dug into it before she chanced, “Leo has portals or whatever you said.”

“Oh yeah! We’ve been a few times! We took dad last time. That was a trip.”

She didn’t bother passing judgment on the redundancy of his dreams and gathered a single egg. “You still filming?”

“Yup! Every second!”

“You won’t post it?” She eyed him and placed the egg on the counter after making sure it wouldn’t roll.

“No!” He slowed for a second before peeking out from behind his phone. “Has someone done that to you before?”

“Not that I know of.” She shrugged. “Filming me is weird. I don’t want it getting out.”

“It won’t.” His lips pursed. “It’s not weird!”

“It’s a little weird.” Her nose wrinkled. “A cooking show date is not a thing that people do.”

“People are boring then.” Mikey returned to his cameraman position. “Ready?”

“You’re already filming.” She looked straight into the tiny black lens.

“But you gotta start it all official like!” 

She rolled her eyes. “Weird.”

“Not weird!” He almost yelled.

“Messed up your audio.” She teased.

“Kendra!!”

She almost smiled, but schooled herself with a single thought.

For you .

For all his help.

For all his effort.

For being here then and now.

She would do this one dumb thing.

“Martabak manis.” She spoke with an authoritative tenor she hadn’t taken in years. “There’s a million versions, but this was the one…”

That memory that had ghosted by her before now moved to attack.

Her dad chased her with a camera on her first day of school. She hated the itchy dress her mom had forced her into and she didn’t want it immortalized in some tacky frame. Her dad ran her straight into the kitchen where he cornered her.

They took the picture together, much to her mother’s chagrin.

“… my dad taught me.” She turned long enough to get a big mixing bowl.

It clicked cleanly on the fake marble countertop when she returned to frame.

“It’s a snack. A sweet one. Never been a fan of French toast or whatever for breakfast. That should be a snack and you should have them in the middle of the day or after work or school.”

Mikey brought the shot in close.

She cracked an egg into the bowl. “You beat this and the sugar.”

She threw in the amount that she had already measured.

“It makes the pancakes fluffy or something.” She groped the counter for a whisk.

As if one would be there.

Her brow came down.

“Oh! Oh! This time I know what you’re looking for is in the drawers behind you.”

She was still staring at where her fingers hovered over nothing.

“When I scoped the set out before you got here, I noticed two drawers had utensils. Seemed dumb so I put all the whiskers, movers, rollers, and shakers into one and freed up space for what is now the ingredient drawer!”

She shook free of her confusion and turned around to get a whisk.

There were a few choices, but she selected a sturdy handle and a metal attachment.

“Now you beat it.” She set the whisk into the bowl and broke the yolk.

Mikey hovered across the counter from her to capture the streaks she made.

“You can use a mixer…” A gentle voice that once lulled her to sleep whispered in her ear. “But what’s the point in that? You want to be strong or you want to be weak?”

Mikey didn’t move the phone, but he looked at her with wide eyes.

“No whisk, no reward.” She spoke an old joke fondly.

She could hear him inhale his excitement.

“I forgot the vanilla.” She dropped the whisk and looked over the many tiny bowls for the one with brown liquid.

She tossed it in unceremoniously to dispel the moment.

“Do that and boom.” She sped up and the churning rolled in her ears.

It sloshed like a washing machine run early after it was forgotten for too many days.

Her now lone parent tried to pick up the pieces.

Deborah Ricci ran it at 6am on purpose.

Rolling, sloshing dirty water.

Bubbles foamed up in the eggs and Kendra felt the linoleum below her feet.

She was still there.

Nothing was out of place, but she was still missing tools.

“Sifter.” She spoke solidly.

Mikey hummed aloud. “Might… need to look for that…”

She went to search.

He took several failed tries to prop the phone against the bowl before he got it standing and joined her.

She had found and held up a splatter screen.

“Maybe if we can’t find the real thing.” He hopped on the counter to check in the cabinet behind the fridge.

She saw him eye the bowl sitting there in the process. “Leave it.”

“Why’d you put it up here?” He opened the small door.

“Resting stuff goes on the fridge.”

“Does it?” He wondered to himself before he lit up. “Hey!”

He swung outward with a sieve in hand.

She snatched it and approached the camera.

She tipped sideways to look into the lens and stuck her tongue out. “You joining me? Wanna co-star? I’m lead bill.”

“Nope! I’m the cameraman!” He appeared behind her long enough to wave before he picked his phone back up.

While he rounded the counter again, she got the sieve set and dumped in the flour.

Mikey was quiet as she tapped the heel of her palm against the side of the mill so powder rained down upon the eggs. “Did you want me to join?”

“This is fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.”

“You cracked a dad joke.”

“This is a dad dish.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re with me.”

She looked up at him.

He seemed embarrassed that the sentence escaped him.

She dumped in a comically small waste of space thimble of salt into the bowl. “I am here.”

“I know.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I know.”

“Are you…?” She didn’t know how to ask if it was a problem.

She knew how to string the question together, but asking it was a direct blow to her pride.

She had been secure.

She knew how Mikey felt.

He was here.

He was right.

She wasn’t always there in the same way.

Waves took her away whether she wanted to or not.

That was the side effect of interacting with Michelangelo.

“More whisking.” She decided with a thick throat.

Mikey seemed on edge.

He hadn’t asked about her aborted question.

She forced air into her lungs.

“You add water until you get the right consistency. This is where I hate whisking.” She swept through the dough and it gummed up in the loops.

He got a close up.

“I pour the water from a measuring cup.” She demonstrated how the liquid followed the spout and poured into where the batter was stuck. “I try to rinse out the whisk between mixes.”

She twirled the whisk through the batter.

It bunched and resisted coming together.

She splashed in more water.

It released before it gathered again.

The process repeated.

Her dad forgot her school lunch.

She shook the utensil free of globules.

Her dad overslept again.

A splash washed clumps away.

Her dad hadn’t gotten groceries.

It was loosening.

At a rapid rate, there was less and less to water down.

A liquidy batter arose.

“And this is what you let rest. It’s for gluten development. You have to do this or it won’t be right. It’s gotta be dense. You have to wait.” She left the whisk in the bowl.

Mikey was oppressively silent.

“Editing magic?” She shouldn’t have been the one allowed to inject levity.

It helped.

It showed on her partner’s face.

“Editing magic.” He agreed.

She got the bowl she had brought with her down and she felt him chase her with the film.

With a stretch of cling film over the new bowl, she swapped the two. The new mix went to rest on the fridge and she uncovered the rested batter. It looked remarkably the same, but she knew it was different. She didn’t voice it and only said it was time to heat up a pan. She was less delicate in unearthing one. Pans clattered until she found one with decently raised sides and showed it to the frame before putting it on the burner.

“While that heats up, you add the baking soda to the rested mix.”

“Now?” Mikey wondered.

“Yeah. I’ve seen aunties add it to the dry ingredients, but who knows? I never knew if dad did this now on purpose or because he always forgot.” She located the measured baking soda in and dribbled in the last clinging bits of water into its bowl to stir it into a slurry. “Do this here and not in the big bowl. You don’t want clumps. The water helps that.”

She dumped it into the batter and paused.

There was no whisk again. 

She had sealed it in the old bowl which was now on top of the fridge. She could go get it, but she didn’t want to retread past steps. The lack of preparation wasn’t like her. She had gotten the ingredients ready and put them in cooking show style bowls without Mikey having to ask. Her tools should have served her. A trade could not be completed alone.

There was another distant flicker that begged for her attention.

She went straight for the utensil drawer because she knew where it was. 

A smaller her appeared in the rotation and reached into the one at her old house.

If her dad wasn’t going to get up, she would need to make her own breakfast.

She had seen him do it enough times.

She could heat up a pan.

You put it down and turn it on.

Burners were hot.

They cooked the eggs.

Butter made them not stick.

She didn’t like cereal for breakfast.

It was a glorified dessert served at the wrong hour.

When she returned to the counter it was as her current self with a rubber spatula.

She turned the batter over a few times to mix in the baking soda slurry.

“Running water?” She asked outside herself.

She was phasing in and out of now and then.

“Yeah, the set’s all hooked up…” Mikey sounded like he noticed.

She flicked on the tap that was a step out of frame. 

Something rattled up the pipes.

She swiped her fingers through the liquid and flicked it at the pan.

Her dad ghosted around her to do the same.

The bits of liquid popped and steamed.

“That’s how you know it’s ready.”

That’s how you know it’s ready, Anak.

She got hold of the bowl.

Anak! If I hurry I can make you-

She poured the batter into the pan in a slow rotation.

I made this for you, Bapak! For work!

It filled up the base of the pan.

You did, Anak. Great job.

“I made enough for one big one.”

It’s so good!

“Pick up the pan and make sure the dough covers everything. Go up the sides. You want to make a lip for the fillings.”

Think you should be in charge of breakfast from now on, Anak?

She lifted the pan and rotated it so the batter ran up the sides.

I could use the help.

Once everything was symmetrical enough, she set it down.

Yes! Thank you, Pak!

“If you rested the dough enough and the pan’s as hot as it should be, you’ll already see bubbles.”

I won’t let you down!

“And… you leave it. Five minutes depending on how hot your burner gets.”

“Do you flip it?” Mikey asked both from across from her and beside a little her.

“No. You leave it alone.” Both sets of eyes felt hot.

A Mikey set a phone down.

A Mikey looked down.

A Mikey rounded the counter.

A Mikey knelt down.

A Mikey put a hand on her shoulder.

A Mikey put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked at him.

She looked at him.

He held her.

Her dad held her.

Anak, you always forget the whisk.

She hugged him.

The moment Mikey’s arms slung around, he squeezed both her forms together.

She breathed with one set of lungs.

“Food memory takes on a ton of forms.” He murmured against her head.

She scrubbed into his chest.

“It’s not just keeping the memory alive. It’s everything that goes into it.” He told her. 

He rocked her in a gentle sway.

“How you cooked, the smells, what you were reading, what played in the background.”

She nodded slightly.

He thought carefully about what he wanted to say next.

She turned her head to breathe.

“I set a timer, by the way.”

Her lids shut.

“Just so we didn’t forget.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“My dad’s all I have left.” She found herself speaking.

She could feel Mikey look down at the bundle of her.

“And he left me like everyone else.”

She was squeezed tight.

Kept together.

Kept here.

Kept present.

By the same man orchestrating her unraveling.

She hugged him back.

“I’m sorry only for saying I would beg you to do this.”

She puffed with that being his exception.

“I’m glad you said you would though. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

She pulled away.

He was reluctant to let go.

She didn’t drift far and reached up to his cheek.

He set the plump there before she fully had him.

“You’re weird.” She coaxed him down with a curl of her fingers.

He followed to kiss her.

They melded there and then until the timer went off.

He was the better one for pulling away. “Don’t want it to burn. All your hard work.”

“Eh.” Her lips caught on downplaying the sound and she left the syllable in its place.

“What’s next?” He made room for her beside the pan. “Dang, look at all those bubbles!”

“Goosebumps.” She told him and approached while plucking up a second bowl of sugar that she had prepared.

“Sprinkle this overtop.” She gave him the well.

He pinched some and played with his methodology of raining it down.

She joined him in tossing a few flecks in spots he missed.

“It makes it sweet and pops more of those bubbles.”

“We want bubbles.”

“Makes it airy.”

“Fluffy and it should be chewy from the rest.”

“Exactly.”

“We need a lid.”

Mikey hesitated.

“Let’s look.” She moved in tandem with him.

It took another cycling of that dumb façade of a kitchen until they located one and dropped it overtop.

“We wait until it’s dry.”

Mikey clearly looked at where condensation was already building under the dome of the glass lid.

“Cooked dry.” She told him with a bump.

He moved as if to set his hands on either side of the stove to overlook the process.

He did that and caged her in with an arm on either side of her.

She eyed him obviously.

“Keeping you here.”

She blinked slowly and with purpose.

“I gotta. I need you.” He was still looking in the pan.

“No.” She knew this well. “You don’t.”

“I do. You have no idea.”

Before she could protest, he looked at her.

“I do.” He was firm.

Her heart jumped a beat.

“I need to see what happens next. I need to see you smile. I need to know how this thing tastes.” He pointed at the martabak.

She shoved into him with her whole body.

He grunted from the sudden attack.

She squeezed him and threatened to lift him off his feet, but he was a wall of densely packed muscle.

He also returned the favor.

She swatted at him as her back complained.

They released in time and she swept the lid off in a flourish. “Like this!”

Mikey scrambled for the camera and showed it the inside of the pan.

“Go around the edges to loosen it.” She swept the spatula around that thin crust she had built up.

The martabak satisfactorily turned with her, indicating it was perfectly cooked.

“This counter clean enough to put this on?” She got a grip on the pan’s handle.

“Yup. Disinfected it myself. They were cooking duck here this morning.”

“How do you know that? Was it still here?” She waited as he cleared the bowls for space.

The martabak slid right out of the pan and onto the fake marble.

“Slather it in butter, which’ll melt into those pockets.” She unfurled a stick that had been with the dry ingredients.

“I watch the shows.”

“The daytime cooking ones?” She gawked.

“Yep!”

“The public cable ones?” She pressed him as she used the spatula to carve out some butter and slap it onto the martabak.

“Yes’m.”

“Why?”

“They’re the ones that first taught me how to cook.”

She thought for a second as the liquid gold spread. “Food memories.”

“Exactly…” He was practically salivating at the process.

“We need to split it in half.”

He got a knife for her. “What about the toppings?”

“After.”

He passed off the blade and she bisected the dough.

“Byerly house makes this with shredded cheddar and Nutella, which is not traditional, but who cares.”

Mikey was free and located the Nutella jar to wag it. “Totally didn’t get a jumbo one of these one year and ate all of it the same night.”

“Sounds like you did!” She went to the fridge.

“Me? I would never! That’s for yummy baguettes!”

She returned with pre-shredded cheese.

“Ew, that’s got that anti-caking stuff on it.”

“You shred a block then.” She tore the package open and realized something. “You got this stuff! If you wanted real cheese you could have gotten it!”

“I got exactly your list.” He had a finger in the Nutella jar.

She got the spatula and whacked his hand with it.

He flinched, but still got a scoop and popped his finger in his mouth.

“Keep Mikey away from Nutella.” She made a mental note and sprinkled cheese on one half of the martabak.

It began to weep from the still hot dough.

“Give it.” She held out her hand.

He resisted.

“Mikey…”

He thought hard.

“It’ll taste better this way.

He relinquished the jar immediately. “Impossible.”

“I’m telling you.” She used the spatula and spread the Nutella on the other half.

“What’s traditional toppings?”

“Nuts and sprinkles and probably ghee.”

“Sounds good too.”

“Sure, never had it.”

“No?”

“Nah.” She breezily shrugged. “Now we sandwich the two halves.”

“Together?!” He perked up.

“No. Why?” She looked at him.

“Why not?” He teased.

She gave him a harsh look.

He smiled through it.

“I was hoping you’d still fall for it”

His eyes sparkled.

“C’mon. Let’s do it together.” She got the Nutella half. “Don’t spill too much cheese.”

“It’s pretty melted.”

“Wait, the condensed milk!” She sought the one bowl that still had something in it.

She found it and drizzled it over top.

Mikey made a face.

“On the cheese?”

“Yes!” She got her half again and readied it in one hand.

Mikey did the same and with a countdown they slapped the two pieces together.

Some cheese broke free, but most of it stayed as they awkwardly set the combined dish down.

“Cut it up…” Kendra spoke as she did so. “And eat!”

She got a piece.

He got another.

They cheered in smacking them together.

She immediately took a bite of hers. “Not bad.”

“The honeycomb structure is wild.”

She had her mouth full. “Mhm.”

“It’s like a crumpet.”

“Huh. Never thought about that.” She looked at her half-eaten piece.

Mikey seemed proud of his comparison.

“Well?”

“Right!” He took a bite so big he got half of it.

It puffed his chipmunk cheeks.

She waited.

The flavor exploded on his features and she saw the new core memory formed.

There and then.

Chapter Text

This was allowed, right?

Kendra knew it was, but there was also a quality of doubt. She usually wasn’t allowed to be this happy. Joy was something meant to be tempered. It existed to be criticized. Only dopes went around showing the weakness that was a smile. Grins were manipulative turns of the cheeks. The pathetic saying of smiles taking less muscles was not only patently wrong, but had clearly not been spoken by someone who had to rip and tear through life with shackles pulling down the corners of their lips at every turn.

Yet here she was.

Heading to her favorite store with a person.

She hesitated to say ‘favorite’ in cahoots with said being even though sentence structure begged her too.

It would make sense for him to be.

Michelangelo was one of the few people she willingly gave her time too.

Just as his stupid mantra second guessed the point of anything, he was her exception. She didn’t do what she was doing for him. She didn’t go out with people without a goal. She was no maiden looking for marriage or a simpleton looking for a sugar daddy. She might have used a few dates to get a better dinner, but she wasn’t going to let herself be used. She was the seductress, or so she once thought, that could bat her lashes and squeeze a few pennies out of someone before the ruse passed her limits and she bailed.

That only covered the topic of dating. Her entire realm of relationships had been transactional. Since awareness of status sunk in, she moved between people via convenience or force. Jeremy landed in the first and Jase landed in the second. When she was in prison she made alliances. All of her supposed community were members looking to get something. The very world itself was forms of exchanges and exactly what Kendra opposed.

In that sense, she supposed she should have trended toward Mikey’s idealism.

She disliked that so she ignored it.

She returned to form.

Happiness.

Not only was she trending toward Mikey without real reason, but he elicited an odd form of joy.

It was just as liminal as he was himself. Instead of having an exact root, it simply existed. She found herself reaching for him for the sake of it. Little touches happened before she could give them thought. In every other facet of her life, that entailed warning. She had to avoid the mind-consuming plight of tech because the elation it conjured was taken to toxic length. It gave rise to power which inevitably led to a sort of megalomania. The root of all that had damned her, any time she was too interested in something, she had to either fully remove it or limit her consumption like the average junkie.

Mikey wasn’t like that.

It might have been because he pushed back, but she didn’t feel that engrossing quality.

If she thought about it, he was, in truth, exhausting.

She had to be on her metaphorical toes at all times. Unlike a hacking that required a constant change of tactics in a way that made it challenging, Mikey was not something that required a necessary fix. If she gave a disingenuous apology, he would know in an instant and reject it. He was the definition of a fickle creature and, in some ways, she thought she might fear that he would move on and abandon her.

She didn’t.

The more time she spent with him, the more secure she felt. Reaching out to him was never a chore and something she thought little about. Being aware of him was less avoiding mines and more having to contend with her own negative qualities. He made her face everything she hated about herself head on and stood staunchly beside her so she had the space to do so.

She should have despised the process.

That should have been labeled as a compromise.

The very thing she wished to tear down on a societal level.

She wanted to raze hypocrisy and here she was at its very whim.

She liked it.

She enjoyed it.

It felt like a treat.

It felt too indulgent.

Against her core being.

What was that?

That person she concocted wasn’t her.

Mikey had shown her that much.

She was still figuring it out.

She felt allowed to for the first time in her life.

Where Mikey was next to her, Kendra shyly looked up.

His head was on its usual rove as he took in as much as he could. His darting eye caught people, places, and objects in a never ending filter of information. He would commit something as ridiculous as a woman’s sweater color to memory, but wouldn’t recall any of the shop names. His labeling of importance made absolutely no sense.

He had marked her existence with that same flagging star after all.

Kendra checked his limb before she slipped her hand in the crook of his elbow.

It was like pulling the string on a doll and dialog rolled out of him. “I’ve been in this city my whole life. I’ve spent years seeing it from above and below and I don’t think I’ll ever see it all!”

She slid her arm further until she hooked him.

He adjusted his gait to better walk with her on his arm. “Like here! I know I’ve been here. I can’t remember anything about the area, so it’s totally new!”

“Do you at least remember where we’re going?” She pulled him closer.

He leaned in and squeezed her. “Yes! A parts shop that doesn’t officially have a name! C’mon, I’m not that bad.”

She pointedly looked away.

Mikey made a startled noise and chased her with his head. “Hey! I’m not! You don’t think that do you!?”

She leaned far enough away as their joined arms would allow.

“Kendra!” He whined.

She whipped her head around at the max distance and gave him a devilish grin.

She watched the sparkles form in his eyes. “You’re terrible.”

“The worst!” She gloated.

“Tell me more about the store.” He similarly turned his beak up.

She felt like they were an invincible pair. “It’s amazing. It’s one of those places that looks like a front.”

“Is it?” Mikey asked genuinely.

She liked that he did. “Nope. Pretty sure the guy who owns it swindled some dude out of the property, or who knows. It’s all urban legend after a while because the real answer is too boring.”

“Bet he got it in a poker game.”

“You don’t even know what he’s like.” Her cheeks pinched.

“He got it because the deed fell out of a window during a high stakes poker game.”

“They were betting on a pair of dueling pistols.” She found herself adding to the tall tale.

“Yes! But he didn’t know they were one of a kind!”

“You think some rich con man would know more about antiques?”

“He was a fraud all along!” Mikey blinked up his excitement. “The shop!”

“It’s a mess.” Kendra tugged him so he fumbled a step. “Full of these cramped aisles, if you can call them that, of glorified bookshelves with every technological part known to man.”

“A treasure trove!”

She nodded. “I’ve seen a box of broken lens caps, cases of unopened 9-pin tube sockets, and light bulbs that are so tiny that you have to use tweezers to attach them.”

“I want to see how many I can fit in my hand!”

“No one will stop you.” Kendra took a deep breath.

“And that’s why you like it.” He jeered.

She thought over the why.

“Do they have new stuff too?” He caught himself. “Well you said ‘known to man’ so probably, right?”

“It’s not a place I’d go for a new hard drive. He’ll order the parts, but why bother?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He deals in stuff you can’t get anymore. People wonder why he’s still in business, but it’s obvious. Some people can’t let go of the past. There’s whole sections of the military that haven’t upgraded their gear since before our parents were born. They buy wholesale from him because he has the last of the warehouses.”

“Another poker deal?” Mikey held less of the same levity.

He wasn’t playing the same game and instead prompting her to keep going. “Maybe. He’s a guy that’s cornered a niche market. He’s the reason we can get that VHS player of yours fixed.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

She waited for him.

He held up his free hand to count off. “That we get to watch Lou Jitsu: Be the Broth. Dad didn’t even know it made it to print! He didn’t think they finished filming and there was no record of it until we randomly found a copy being auctioned online. That you want to watch it with me! Oh, and that fixing the VCR wasn’t ‘beneath you.’”

He made a face.

“I don’t have any more fingers, but Donnie’s on that list! I can’t believe he wanted to rip it straight to digital! You gotta watch it as it was intended to be watched!” Mikey waved his still open hand around angrily.

“Isn’t it more like this is all they had back then?”

“There was other media!” He scoffed. “It’s not the same! You don’t get that fuzz! How can he think that works with video games, but not movies?!”

“Because video games were usually made to compensate for CRT.”

“No!” He tugged her close, but instead of falling, she felt like she skipped a few steps. “You will not fall to the dark side. You already agreed. We’re going to the cool tech junk shop and we’re watching Be the Broth.”

“But I’m so terrible.” She teased. “Terrible people bait and switch.”

“You would never! You are terrible in the way that someone is super powerful. It’s a word to convey the extent of your power! There’s no power level for you!”

“Don’t-!” She warned.

“Cause it’s over 9000!” He opened his mouth wide when he stuck his tongue out.

“That joke’s older than you!” She shook her head.

“The episode is, but not the meme!” He went on promptly.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Ripping may be easier for him, but I don’t have that gear. This though, I fix old people crap all the time. What would Ibu Dewi do without her blurry Rock Hudson collection…?”

“Compare you to unrealistic beauty standards.” He took on a haunted look.

Kendra sent him confusion.

“Nothing.” He chuffed. “What was wrong with my player again? The time is blinking but I’m pretty sure that’s a feature, not a bug.”

“A usual break. We couldn’t put a tape in because there was one already in there. The eject motor is burnt out; it happens all the time. We’ll get the tiny pieces to fix it or, if we’re lucky, we’ll find a whole motor that works.”

“I’m imagining a stack of VCRs in there too.”

“Yeah, but ninety percent of them are broken and we don’t want to waste time trying to figure out which.”

“Aren’t you off today?”

“Don’t you want to watch Be the Broth today?”

“Touche!”

She steered them off the main street and Mikey shared all that he knew about Be the Broth. While his dad had once been relatively flippant about his filming schedule, he used to devour red carpets. Press tours and attention were his favorite perks of stardom so when a film didn’t make it to that stage, he got predictably upset. Donnie had multiple scanners set up online so he was alerted to any Lou Jitsu merchandise that was posted across the web. Kendra shared how to set up that sort of scan and Mikey seemed to be listening intently.

When they arrived at the shop, she pulled him from walking right past it.

He gawked at the plain exterior. “It does look like a front.”

“Wait until you get inside…” She released him to get the door.

He followed after her and she watched his sclera eat up real estate on his face.

The musty smell of age reeked, but it denoted exactly where they were. The familiar walls were stuffed with an overflow of odds and ends and Mikey practically vibrated. She clapped him on the shoulder with a firm grip and squeezed him back to her. He pleaded to be released with his gaze alone and she cocked an affectionate smile. “Alright kid, this is the candy store. Don’t break anything. There’s no samples.”

“Understood!”

She released. “Go!”

He ran off and she caught a glimpse of the man behind the counter.

He knew her and her judgment well enough that this excitable man she had let run around would be under her care.

She gave a nod that she understood as well and went to look for a motor.

“Kendra!” Mikey’s voice took on a desperate bass. “Look at how tiny these LEDs are!!”

“With tweezers.” She reminded him.

“You said light bulbs!” He had to be about two shelves away. “These are like actual fairy lights!”

“Are those real?”

“Fairy lights?” He spoke ruefully and his voice roved.

“Fairies.” She clarified and pulled a few boxes out to see what was inside.

“Oh sure.” She could hear him twirl. “Any legend has its truth.”

He quieted and she examined various plugs.

She felt him sneak up to her side. “Which…? The one about this shop…? I was joking about the whole front and poker game thing. I didn’t accidentally guess… anything I shouldn’t know…? I mean, that’s him, right? The guy at the front? He’s not gonna send me to visit the bottom of the Hudson because I-”

She cut him off with a gentle loll of her head and an expression that told him to calm down. “That happen to you often?”

“More than it should.” He checked a shelf before leaning on it.

“Like I said: he’s got the niche market cornered and that’s all we know. I’ve never been offed, so you’ll be fine if you stick with me.” She saw some tape beside his head and moved it to find some spools.

It put her in his space and he watched her easily.

“What?” She murmured, focusing on her task.

“You like it here.”

She only flicked him a glance. “It stinks, but it has its use.”

“No, like you really like it.”

She pressed her palm against a shelf behind his head and stalked closer to him. “Say what you mean.”

“Tech. I thought you only liked new stuff or code stuff, but I think you like this stuff too.” His lids lowered in affection.

She took a moment to think.

She knew the answer.

Giving it would be easy.

Too easy and the threat returned.

Was this allowed?

She was still looking at him and sent him a tepid question.

One that there was no way he could have understood.

His lazy smile spread a little and he looked nothing, but ready for whatever she decided.

Maybe it was.

She would have to see.

“Building or fixing stuff is part of it.” Her hand slid slowly along the dust.

“Of what?” Mikey asked quietly.

“Power.” She sent him a smoldering look that dictated how she liked the feeling.

He seemed to already know that based on how calm he was.

“I can come up with my own designs, but it takes time. It’s easier to steal them and even easier than that to retrofit something that already exists. This old junk…” She glanced around. “It’s simple. Older things were easier to fix because the parts were as specialized. They were made to open. They were made to have space. You can easily get inside and figure out what was broken because it was easy to identify. There were more pieces, but less of those highly integrated circuits that are great for hacking into, but a bitch to fix.”

He made a little noise that said he understood.

“I prefer the end result. I can do it myself. I can build what I need to. I can write whatever program I want, but it feels beneath me. I’d rather fine tune. Catch what’s wrong and fix what’s already there. I’m good at that. Those are the fixes I like.”

He nodded slowly.

“I like it here… because I’ve been going for years…” Her hand finally moved enough that her forearm brushed his cheek.

He leaned a slight weight there.

His silence spoke volumes and she continued with a heave of her chest. “My dad took me here when I was little little.”

His lashes brushed her skin as he blinked.

“Back when my parents, both of them, were still figuring out money and a kid. He would fix stuff. Simple handyman stuff.”

Mikey’s lips parted.

“They had this robot kit.” She conjured a smile at the memory. “Dirt cheap and broken, but he got it for me and I had a blast taking it apart.”

He exhaled endearment.

“I asked to come back so we did over the years. Sometimes I’d get stuff. Sometimes I would just look. Getting scrap here was easier than the scrap yard.”

“Repo.” Mikey shook his head.

Kendra’s brow scrunched, but she let his mention pass. “I think all the memories here are good.”

“You deserve places like that.”

“I told you I hate that.” She bumped him.

“That one you are though. It’s an American thing: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!”

He had her and she pursed her lips to show her dissatisfaction.

“Thank you.” He said genially without naming why.

She liked that he saved her the embarrassment and pulled her limb back.

“Point out stuff and tell me what it is?”

A thrill shot through her and it must have shown.

He leaned forward with a smarmy look.

She dodged him. “This over here is grid tape and it conducts electricity!”

She was surprised to learn that he had a base level knowledge. He didn’t name why, but she had a sense it was related to Donatello. He had been awfully knowledgeable when she had put the air conditioner back together, so she guessed it made sense. Despite his rankings, he was candid in how much he loved his family. With him listening to her interest now, paired with the haughty blabbermouth she knew Donnie was, she bet the little brother had been subjected to all manner of ranting.

Donnie was clearly an idiot, but to squander an assistant like Mikey seemed especially uninspired.

She was glad he hadn’t helped fix the VCR and equally annoyed he wouldn’t.

It was a slight, not that Mikey seemed aware.

She decided she would be even more helpful.

Mikey would never ask anything of his brother again.

She would be his first thought when it came to fixing things. 

She snickered at the thought as she wound around to where electronic systems were kept.

“Told ya there would be a wall of players.” Mikey mislabeled her laugh.

“Huh? Yeah.” She switched to blasé.

Mikey grunted offense.

“We need motors.” She searched to see if some had been dropped off near here.

He squatted to check a box. “Is this the kind of place where the guy doesn’t know what’s in here?”

“Sort of.” Kendra picked at some yellow newspaper shoved into a corner.

“Or he knows everything and refuses to give away his sweet deals?”

“Like that.” Her head bobbed in agreement.

“It’s like a crane game.” Mikey decided with fierce attention.

“Or still like a scrap yard.” The wads of paper ripped free and fell to the floor.

She watched them bounce and roll to where there was an open and damaged box on the ground that advertised a Blu-ray player.

She doubted the guy here would leave something like that open.

She knelt down to examine it.

It felt telling when she pulled and felt a handful of objects roll inside.

She was confident before she pulled back the flaps.

Fate gave Kendra grace for once because inside was a total of four VCR eject motors.

Was this confirmation?

She was allowed.

She could have a nice date.

She could be nice to her boyfriend.

She could watch some movie that was sure to be a shit show.

She could probably make fun of it.

In return, she received one small kindness.

For another that was done without reason.

She still had a vendetta against the world, but for now, it got a pass for the day.

“Mikey.”

He appeared over her shoulder. “What’dya find?”

“Exactly what we’re looking for.”

He cheered. “Awesome!”

“We’ll get all of them, just in case.”

“Yeah, we will!” He danced away to give her some space.

She closed the box and hoisted it up.

“Oh, good sir!” Mikey called in an accent as he rounded a corner.

Kendra followed behind him and saw a clip of a person already in line at the desk.

A shape she knew all too well.

Barely taller than her.

Same shade of skin.

That swept line of his hair that was baked in even though the color had grown pale.

Her dad’s head began to rotate as he felt someone staring at him.

In four swift actions, Kendra:

Set the box down as silently as she could.

Caught Mikey with both hands.

Yanked him around the shelf.

Slammed a hand over his mouth so he couldn’t complain.

He blinked rapidly.

She sent him her best stern look, but could feel how unnerved she was leaking across her being.

She didn’t run into her dad.

Why was he here?

He didn’t come here without her.

He didn’t fix stuff anymore.

He hadn’t in years. 

He had enough money.

Unless that nag-

There was a laugh.

Bright.

Airy.

Unlike her dad, but in his voice.

Had the guy at the counter sold her out?

He could have.

He had it in him.

Maybe that was why her dad laughed.

Pitiable Kendra foraging for parts.

Not an ounce of improvement or change in years.

While he did so clandestinely.

“Let’s go.” Her voice told Mikey with odd clarity.

He nodded against her hand.

She was thankful as she let go.

He swept an arm behind her and initiated leaving.

He would be her cover.

Even if he didn’t know why. 

She might have paused to give that attention, but she fled.

He stuck to her and was ready when she stopped for cover by the door.

She checked to make sure her dad was still talking before she ran.

Outside.

Down the street.

Far enough away that when he emerged, he wouldn’t see them.

Only then did she slow her pace.

She didn’t stop.

Neither did the questions circling the drain of her mind.

Why now?

She had never once run into him.

Was it the kindness?

A warning from the universe?

You can only be so happy.

Know your place.

She knew that lesson well.

One too many beatings for talking back in prison.

Say too much and you would inevitably speak stupidly. 

Quiet came with control.

Control came with intelligence. 

“Are you sure… we should have left like that…?” Mikey eventually ventured.

“Yes.” She answered immediately. “It’s better this way. I saw him. He didn’t see me. That’s easier.”

Mikey was quiet for a few steps before he wondered, “Who… was that?” 

She knew he would ask more and so she started before he could. “My dad, but it’s fine. It’s like that sometimes. It’s not like we’ve ever fought, but we don’t talk. You grow up, you move out and on. I see him on the holidays when you’re supposed to. That’s it.”

He fell a few steps behind.

She continued her march. “He looks… good. He’s alright. That’s all that matters.”

She felt him get close.

He could hold her hand.

Show him he was there for her.

She would allow that.

It might help.

Then his aura disappeared.

She paused as soon as it did.

She turned and glimpsed him.

He stood a few steps back and looked the picture of juvenile distress.

He clearly had a lot of emotions he didn’t know how to process.

They formed in clenched fists that he squeezed tight.

His posture was rigid to keep himself in place.

The line drawn on his lips waned around his teeth.

His cheeks darkened with frustration.

“Are you alright?” She felt herself ask.

“Are you really sure?” He asked firmly.

She opened her mouth.

He continued. “I’m younger than you, you know!?”

She startled slightly.

“We… we, me and you, don’t talk about the future and I’m glad. It’s what works for us. We’re in the moment and at the same time I can see being with you forever…”

She slowly turned to face him.

“And I’m happy. I’m so happy when I’m with you, but at the same time, when things like this happen…”

She stood his full opposite.

“I’m sad! I’m lonely! I get upset when I think about all the things I can’t do for you!”

She moved.

His expression wore with tears unshed.

She met him.

Straight into his front where she smoothed out a crease in his shirt.

“When did you become a worrywart?” She told him.

He squeezed his eyes shut to keep from crying.

“Hey. I know you aren’t used to it and your family’s obsessed with each other, but… this is how it is sometimes. It works out. I keep going. I’ve… been… doing better. I have been.”

“Kendra…” His voice wobbled.

She patted him. “I have my memories. The good times. You know I keep those close.”

He almost spoke again.

“I have those with you too. We can make more, ya dummy. Like you said, we’re like that. Living for the now, the moment. Let’s… keep doing that.”

He was silent.

“I want… to keep doing that…” She admitted through the burn of her cheeks.

He said nothing.

She waited well past the point he should have.

She despised the flood of self-conscious feelings.

“Could you… I don’t know, say something?” She squawked and glowered into his chest.

“Kendra.”

He moved before she could look up.

She watched his form and he jogged back a few feet toward the direction they had come from.

He then spun around with full confidence written on his features.

“I’ll see you at home!”

She stared openly as that had to mean her apartment.

“I’m getting those motors! I know what I’m looking for! I’m gonna get that Blu-ray box! You’ll fix the VCR! We’re watching Be the Broth!”

He ran.

“What?! Mikey!”

He picked up speed and disappeared.

She stared down the street where he had gone.

Her dad was there.

She felt her entire being puff up.

He knew that.

She told him.

She had been honest.

He still left.

She had told him they were leaving.

Why would he go back?

The memories, her mind offered.

He complied with her wish.

The one she offered after he told her plainly he wanted to help.

He was helping.

He was doing what he could to preserve their happiness.

When was the last time someone tried that hard for her?

Tears warmed her ducts.

Soothing ones.

Emotional ones.

She hated them.

She would rather bitter hatred flow from her and not some gushy romance-induced slime.

She flapped her limbs free of the disgusting feeling.

She didn’t deal in wooing.

She preferred torturous teasing.

Obvious.

Closing the gap without obnoxious grand gestures.

What would he do next?

Bring her flowers?

She would burn them.

Chocolates?

She would eat them all and share none.

No.

He wouldn’t.

Her dad didn’t know him.

He would keep it that way.

He would get the motors.

She would fix the VCR.

He had been clear.

Obvious as ever.

Annoying.

She was annoying and had gotten flustered.

That was new and bad.

Definitely bad, without question.

She spiraled.

She flittered between liking and hating the man she had chosen as a partner.

Resentment was her easy fall back and he appeared to her a few minutes after she had reduced her rage to a glower.

He smiled with a dash of sweat knowing he had done something wrong.

He lifted up his triumphant package where the box she once held was now clearly purchased and in a bag. “Got ‘em!”

She didn’t push off the brick she was leaning against.

He walked over to meet her. “Let’s… go home and watch a movie?”

She didn’t budge.

He took a few leading steps. “I think I can help. I’ve got steady hands you know! I’ve worked with fine tip brushes!”

She punched him in the bulb of his shoulder.

A soft, “Ow,” emerged harmlessly from him.

She took two hops so she could glimpse his face.

As she got there, he looked her over once, exhaled his folly, and bent his elbow up in offer. “Hm?”

She couldn’t help but give a hopeless smile.

He turned his arm into a flex. “Please! Hold on tight! Our journey is a long one!”

His muscles had their effect and she jumped to wrap both arms around his appendage to hide them away. “It is not.”

“How about a scary one?”

“No worse than New York usually is.”

“So scary.” He chuckled.

He didn’t hobble as they made their way forward and she didn’t ease up her grip.

Chapter Text

These types of moments were usually ones that brought perspective. Having to pack on the fly was a summation of one’s life. Narrowing your existence down to what you could carry was supposed to illustrate what had value. What you chose between was some long standing allegory about whether what you had accumulated was worth it in the long run. At the end, whatever you held was meant to depict you at your barest material state.

Kendra had gone through this too many times for it to be poignant.

Whether it was fleeing a scene with whatever gadgets she could get her hands on or simply the stripping of possessions that came with prison time, she had lost stock in things meant to be kept. There was little point in sentimentality when her life had been uprooted again and again. It made for sleek living; her apartment was bare and that made things easy. There was little to clean and no wasted space in the already tiny hovel.

While she sat on the curb of the closest bus stop she could find, Kendra looked down at her gym bag. In there was the pathetic culmination of whatever she owned that was mobile. It amounted to a few toiletries and mostly clothes. The latter were rags she shoved in amongst her rush. The only thing worth any emotional value was that damned purple satin jacket, but she hadn’t looked at it. It was taped shut in its garment box and it would continue to be locked away in there if she had any say in the matter.

She could call April.

O’Neil was the cause of all this.

April had decided Kendra’s apartment was some unjust setting and not a fact of this screwed up world like Kendra likened it to.

April had been candid about her proceedings.

The woman texted Kendra on a near daily basis.

No move was supposed to be made without Kendra’s knowledge.

April had drummed up that rule herself to offset her nosey attitude.

Neither of them could account for how nuclear the absent landlord would go. Whether it was complaints from his star tenant that occupied the legal space around Kendra’s apartment or little birds whispering about April’s poking, Kendra had gotten a notice, bright and early, at 7am stating she needed to leave the premises for construction.

It wasn’t an eviction, the random hired hand had been clear.

Kendra could sue on those grounds.

Such language was to be avoided.

This was for her safety, the man and the document said.

The scapegoat legal term.

It wasn’t for long, Kendra gave the paper that.

The current projection for repairs would take up to two weeks.

Two weeks without compensation to go elsewhere.

Two weeks where they assumed she could gallivant off to some hotel.

Two weeks which was a stipend not included in her rental contract because there was no way she could have known that April would land in her life and think she deserved better.

The Hamato sure were greedy.

With an hour to pack up before construction started at 8, Kendra had washed up to the best of her ability as there were already men setting up safety zones. She had been woken from a dead sleep and not even the ice cold water splashed on her face brought enough coherency. She could only shove what little she had in some secondhand acquired duffle bag and stumble out her door, where the fire escape was already being primed for removal. She had barely gotten off the bars before the rusty thing was torn away.

She didn’t dwell.

She left.

She heaved the bag’s strap on her shoulder and walked to the nearest place she was allowed to sit.

She had nowhere to go.

There was April, she guessed, as she hung her head in her hands.

It was a choice she had been rounding for the last hour or so.

She would need to eat soon and that meant money.

If she didn’t go the April route then she had to shell out for the shittiest hotel known to man.

That meant chancing bed bugs or lice and Kendra did not have the additional funds to deal with that kind of quarantine.

So there was April.

She was honor bound to help.

Kendra didn’t want to stay with her.

She might have been texting April, but they were still in a stage of rekindling, if it could be called that. They mostly talked about the apartment and beyond that there was a rare mention of what they were doing. It was more interesting than the grossly typical, ‘how are you?’ April’s job kept her busy and Kendra had her antics with Mikey. That made for decent fodder between messages that felt like work about housing codes.

Kendra didn’t know if April even had a roommate.

Kendra didn’t know where April lived. 

That wasn’t the sort of thing they discussed.

There wasn’t Friday night chatter.

They didn’t meet up.

They weren’t those kinds of friends.

If that could even be an applied label.

The only reason April was a contender was because this was her fault.

The woman would probably get word of the development soon and offer anyway.

Kendra wasn’t sure if she should accept.

At least two weeks with April O’Neil.

Kendra tossed her form back in the seat and hooked her duffle’s strap with her leg in case anyone got any ideas about pinching it.

She could already feel April’s judgment. It wouldn’t be limited just to the scant food she ate or how often she slept. April seemed like the type to not understand space. It was another Hamato trait and, while the time’s purpose was shifting, Kendra still liked to rot on occasion. Mikey filled her life with more, but Kendra knew limits. Life had forced restrictions upon her and made her cautious. She thought of the time less as her brain melting and more time to recharge for whatever excitement she was due for next.

She liked it.

She liked Mikey.

Her quality of life was improving.

If whatever they did to the apartment was something April had a hand in, then that was sure to be some betterment for her wellbeing.

It was still annoying.

She could always avoid April like she had with her bunkmates.

One eye open and ready to disengage when necessary.

Those weren’t habits Kendra cared to fall back on, but what choice did she have?

April had her life changing revelation in even less time than Kendra had. Kendra was a step above in the execution stage while April was presumably still processing. Taking care of another person’s happiness had never ranked particularly high in Kendra’s interest. She preferred to limit contact to necessities to keep the peace she despised. It was one of the many things she would remold in this corrupt world of razor thin balance.

She chuckled at the thought.

It had been awhile since her omnipresent beliefs reared their head.

She must have been more upset than she let herself realize.

What to do?

Where to go?

Kendra cracked a lid to the morning street.

She guessed it was lucky this had happened on her day off.

Would she have gotten her stuff otherwise?

She wasn’t sure what they were going to do with her mattress.

She would have had to call Mikey and ask him to swipe what he could. He would be more preoccupied with saving those dumb chairs than the shower head she ripped out last minute. She hoped it wasn’t leaking too much in the repurposed bread bag she shoved it in.

Mikey’s smile taunted her.

He was pestering her like a buzzing fly.

She swatted at the air to help encourage the mental vision of him to leave.

His imaginary head tilted and she realized then that was the point.

Mikey.

How long had they been dating?

She checked her calendar.

She didn’t really log dates, but she had logged that first one.

When it was necessary.

When she had a plan.

She scrolled back six months to find it.

Six months.

She gawked before she turned her head to chew her thumb nail.

Half a year.

That was…

Something.

A milestone?

She guessed.

Weird.

It was weird.

Mikey was right.

They didn’t think in stuff like time.

They didn’t do monthly anniversaries.

The milestones still happened even if they weren’t celebrated.

What did that mean?

She wasn’t going to look it up, but she wondered.

How long until sleeping over was the norm?

How long until you could crash at someone’s place?

How long until…?

Was she behind?

She had never waited this long before.

She had never waited.

She used.

She got what she needed and left.

Dating.

She wanted to stomp her feet and scream.

Of course, she knew they were dating, but that aggravating, overlapping friendship thing was making a mess of things.

She moved to bite her thumb proper.

It could work.

The worst part was she could see it.

She could totally crash with him. He was the type of guy who would clear out both a drawer and closet space for her. He would probably color coordinate hangers or whatever. She could tell him to do her laundry and he absolutely would. He would probably also forget some hand dyed garment in the mix and stain everything she owned, but he would still do it.

He could make her breakfast.

When was the last time she had a homemade one?

One she wanted?

One offered.

One that wasn’t made for others that she happened to partake in.

He didn’t have a bed.

The thought hit her so hard she scraped her thumb on her incisors and hissed.

 She flapped her hand to rid herself of the burn.

Idiot.

What did he say he had?

A hammock?

She was not sleeping in a hammock.

It was ridiculous enough he did.

He would have to buy her a bed.

She wasn’t picky.

She would take a blow up one.

It would still be better than-

Her face boiled.

She was thinking about it.

Seriously, thinking about it.

Staying with Mikey.

In his stupid lair.

With his idiot brothers.

Demanding he take care of her.

After six months.

She would take the sleazy hotel.

The bugs would make her feel like home.

She stood and nearly tripped herself yanking the bag up.

Humiliation burned her retinas and nothing else.

She turned to go down the street.

Find the closest place.

Hole up.

Eat nothing but ramen.

One pack a day had enough sodium.

She could steal old pastries from the trash at work.

She might be able to skim some milk.

That was enough.

She’d had worse.

She made it two steps.

She didn’t want to.

She didn’t want to survive.

She wanted to…

Maybe not thrive, but live?

She wasn’t sure yet.

She wanted what she had at the very least.

She was tired of getting by on scraps.

Literal.

Emotional.

She guessed that Hamato greed was contagious.

She squeezed the strap of her bag until it cut off her circulation.

The call would be humiliating.

Maybe she could get away with doing it in person.

She had to get him here.

He would ask questions.

A small price to pay, a little imaginary Mikey whispered to her.

She snapped at the air he floated in and he scampered away.

Her phone was soon out and she hit dial where she usually only texted.

“Ken-Kendra?” Mikey sounded like answering had been a struggle.

She grit her teeth until she heard a wane in her jaw.

“You okay? Blink twice if-”

She smiled in spite of herself.

“I can’t see you! What am I saying!?”

“Got time to come sit with me? Don’t ask why. Just…” She let her bag weigh her down. “Tell me if you can.”

“Su-re…?” He sounded strange.

“Do you or not?”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“What?!” She spun around.

“I don’t know! You called me! People don’t call! It’s either that or something crazy like your building is getting demolished and you have nowhere to go, but April was working on that, so it’s totally…!”

She hated him to an extent that went beyond loathing and spun the emotion around into whatever was its opposite.

Mikey was silent.

She could see his eyes widening.

“That’s… not what’s happening… is it?”

She checked to see if she could see her building.

It wasn’t quite visible from there, but she could hear the leaking construction.

“We’re breaking up.” She decided in her driest tone.

“I’m calling April!” Mikey shouted.

“Don’t! This is her fault!!”

“Exactly! She’ll know-!”

“Will you get here and comfort me or not!?”

He shut right up.

She wished she could summon vomit, but her insides were stupidly warm instead.

“Where are you?” He spoke with a sudden sternness.

“Some bus stop.” She huffed and then her features twisted. “That’s never come, what the fuck? I’ve been here for hours.”

“You’ve been there for-!” Mikey cut himself off and grumbled before she heard rustling. “Send me the streets. I’ll be there soon. Have you eaten?”

Her stomach flittered at the thought of that and nothing else. “No…”

“You don’t like sweet breakfast, how about burritos? I know a guy.”

“Sure.” She shook her head.

“Send me the location!” He reminded her.

“Yeah, yeah.” She pulled her phone away as he said parting words and she ended the call without saying them back.

She took a moment to be dramatic.

She squared her stance.

Bent her knees.

Silent screamed and clawed at the air for one furious second.

It helped stabilize her mood and she came down with a long exhale until her lungs were empty and burned. Then she breathed in fumes and sat right back down to wait for her boyfriend. He arrived by the time she had fully calmed down. He reviewed her in a quick study to decide what reaction she would prefer.

She negated it all by standing and walking up close enough that she could pinch his shirt. “I’m hungry.”

He sighed with some relief as she decided for him. “Let’s get you some food. It’s not far. A truck.”

He waved her along and she caught him up as they chatted. Somewhere along the blocks, he snuck around her form and got her bag from her. He slung it across his person and she narrowed her eyes at how it seemed to fit his outfit like a fashionable statement. She complained about his effortless attitude and he admitted to rolling out of bed. She mistakenly said she had done the same and he chewed his lips as he fixed an unbrushed tuft of her hair. She batted him away until she could smell grease and saw the small line of people waiting amongst what had to be a late breakfast crowd.

“Still no questions?” He asked as they entered the queue.

“You’ll get bitchy answers until I eat.” She refused to look at him and stared at the menu.

“You work too long at the coffee shop and pick up that ‘don’t talk to me until I’ve had my cup of joe’ mentality?”

“Do I look like middle management?” She swept her displeasure to him.

“The benefits though.” Mikey played up his features as he agreed with her opinion on white collar work.

“Pretty sure they used my stocks to pay my legal fees and fines.” Kendra spoke a little truth into the ruse.

Mikey caught it. “That… sucks!!”

“Yeah… Well…!” She stepped forward.

“I hate all that stuff.” He rubbed his eyes.

“I wake you?”

“Long night.”

“Hero shit?”

“Yup…!” Mikey strung out the word.

“Who needs coffee?”

“It makes me sleepy.”

She eyed him.

He shrugged.

“Sure.” She didn’t believe him.

“It does!”

She waved him off.

He caught her hand. “It’s my nightcap.”

“Uh huh.” She let the weight of her limb fall on his.

He slung their conjoined hands between them. “I’m getting sausage, but not the gravy one, makes the tortilla soggy from the inside.”

“Gross. I’ll get the classic.”

“The beans are good.” He nodded.

“That’s a thing. Beans for breakfast?”

“We talking like UK beans on toast, places like Belize, Egypt's ful medames…?” He caught himself rambling.

She bobbed her shoulders for him to go on.

He compared Mexico’s refried beans to Japan’s obsession with rice.

It got them through ordering and they gathered steaming foil. They tucked against some closed storefront the truck was parked outside of and they tore into their burritos. Kendra blissed out after her first bite and lost if Mikey was still talking. He tried to get her to try some salsa, but she found none of them were as spicy as she would have liked. He suited himself to a green one and she hit a midpoint in her meal where she was starting to feel better.

She should have eaten before she thought of any of this.

Damned morning brain.

Starved of nutrients and full of dumb thoughts.

“You staying with April?” Mikey asked around a full mouth.

He must have been the same. “She’s gonna go through my stuff.”

“Yeah…” He grimaced with puffed cheeks. “She does kinda storm in and dig through my drawers sometimes.”

“You let her?”

“None of us can stop her!”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“I mean even if you stayed with me, it would be the same! She’s over whenever she feels like it. Like it’s pretty much her place too, but she doesn’t live live there…”

She hid her mouth behind her burrito and stared.

He felt it and looked.

They blinked at each other a few times.

“What?” He broke the silence with genuine confusion.

She shook her head.

“What?” He pressed.

“You asked if I’d stay with April.” She took the roundabout way.

“And…?”

She took a bite.

“Oh.” He had a realization. “Are you worried about-?”

Her phone rang.

She recognized the ring tone.

She had set it for exactly this reason.

It didn’t make sense.

It was a random Wednesday.

Nowhere near the holidays.

Mikey took her burrito without her making a move.

She got her phone out on autopilot.

Sure enough, her screen read ‘Bapak.’

Her dad.

Calling.

At sometime before 10am on a Wednesday.

He should be at work.

That meant-

“Dad?” She answered just before the ringer cut off.

“Ah!” He spoke with a tone that said he had all the time in the world. “Anak, how are you?”

“How am-?” She turned to press the full of her spine against the brick to brace herself. “Are you hurt? Who died? Tell me it’s Jase.”

He puffed one time.

He always did.

One scoff as if it was a switch before the laughter came.

A soft chuckle came right after. “No one is hurt, Anak. Don’t be silly.”

“Then what…?” She looked at Mikey.

He stared at her while holding two half-eaten burritos.

“What do you want?” She murmured.

This time he hummed.

He was like that when he knew the answer.

A sort of sound of pride in himself for being prepared.

“Ibu Ade gave me a call.”

She inhaled sharply.

“As did Bang Arthur and Nenek Davin.”

She felt her teeth clatter behind her lips.

“I am told my daughter lost her mind and caused her apartment building to be demolished.”

“I didn’t do that! April-!” She bit her tongue.

“Ya? April?” He wondered.

“Nothing!” She snapped. “Lost my mind!? They never-!!”

They saw.

That fools of her community members. 

The ones that called her dad. 

They watched her on the street.

At that bus stop. 

A horde of them probably peered through their stupid curtains.

Poor Kendat.

Homeless again.

Must be her fault.

Her fingers twitched with rage.

She might have snapped her phone in half if she didn’t despise the thought of replacing it again.

Her father was silent.

Loud in his judgment.

He knew.

He already knew.

Of course, he knew.

“Deborah is setting up the guest bedroom. Your old one. You will stay with us.”

Not a question.

“She’s excited to see you.”

Not a chance.

“It will be nice. The whole family. Jase is home too. His apartment is being fumigated.”

Not possible.

“I left work to prepare. I’ll see you soon?”

She hadn’t blinked in too long.

When her lids touched, they burned because of the hot sauce.

“Sure, dad.”

“Mm.” He made the appropriate sound before he terminated the call without waiting for a response.

She stared at her phone long past when it went to sleep.

When it fell out of her vision it was because she went limp and the wall was the only thing keeping her upright.

Her head lolled against the brick and she saw Mikey.

He looked like a pale worried sheet version of himself.

With his two half-eaten burritos.

Deborah Ricci had a rule.

No food in bed.

Mikey didn’t have a mattress.

She was about to use him, Kendra realized with a chill through her bloodstream.

Not in the way she meant and not in the way she had given up on.

It felt bad.

Now she was sick to her stomach.

She had the burrito as culpability, but it was rocky at best.

What choice did she have?

She didn’t have one.

“Maybe…” She spoke and it sounded as rattled as she was. “Maybe I ask for too much. I don’t think I ask for much, but even if I do, I’m going to ask you this one thing.”

“Yes?” He croaked.

“Come with me.” She sent him her soaked cheeks. “I’m staying at my dad’s and… I need… you to come with me.”

“Okay.”

“It’s three square meals and a big fucking nag, but the bed’s soft-”

“Kendra.”

“You can go through all my old shit. See my baby pictures. I’m sure someone will love to bring those out-!”

He couldn’t grab her and slung and arm loosely around her back where he still had a burrito. “I said I will.”

“Why?” Her throat shook.

“You asked.” He leaned his forehead against her.

She soaked up strength from him before nodding away to prepare.

Chapter Text

“I need you to listen, really listen! This is the lion’s den. We are walking directly into bloodlust. There’s going to be screaming. You will be intimidated, but you have to be strong. If they smell even an ounce of fear then you will be torn apart!” Kendra dug her nails into Mikey’s arms.

He was clearly looking at her and made a move to head in.

She warned him by enlarging her already blown wide gaze. 

He reviewed her.

He looked at the house in Queens they were standing in front of.

He looked back to her. “I told you about my family.”

“This is nothing like you goody-goodies!” She hissed.

“You’ve never been to a carefully orchestrated trick dinner to patch up seriously bad blood.” Mikey grinned.

“No smiling! Showing teeth means you want to fight.”

“Isn’t that gorillas?!” Mikey finally showed a hint of concern.

“It’s everything you know about predators…” She forced his attention.

“Play dead, punch it in the nose, and climb a tree…?” He blinked wide.

“Good enough. Be ready to deploy any of those.” She turned and looked up the exterior of the house.

Deborah Ricci’s house.

The one her dad had moved them into.

Enemy territory.

She almost wished she still had her duffle because she could shoulder it for additional courage. She decided she had more than enough of that in her chest alone and puffed it out. Walking with that first, she strode right up to the stoop with Mikey in step behind her.

The door swung open before her foot could land on that first step.

“Kendra!” Deborah appeared in her towering form with her ever-present scowl. “Finally! Get in here! Your dad has been waiting all day! What took you so long?”

Kendra stomped up the steps. “I can’t just drop everything-!”

“You say that, but-who’s this?” Deborah Ricci lifted her arm to let Kendra through, but Kendra sensed that barricade would come down after her entry and stopped short.

“Oh, didn’t I mention…?” Kendra’s head ticked with menace.

Her dad roved in the background of the house.

“This is my boyfriend. He’s going to be staying with us.”

Deborah Ricci’s arm drooped.

Kendra used the opportunity to shove straight through it.

Deborah Ricci was caught by pleasantries and couldn’t outright complain. “W-welcome! Kendra didn’t-what’s your name?”

Her dad stared right through her.

The neutral gaze of disappointment.

It cut through Kendra like a knife and she shirked to the side.

“Michelangelo. Nice to meet you.” Mikey’s voice crept up from behind. 

“Mikey!” Kendra lunged at him as a distraction. 

Deborah Ricci confusedly stepped aside to let the guest into her home.

“Y-yes?” He tightened his grip on her bag so as not to drop it.

“This is my dad!” Kendra shoved him in that direction while also hiding behind him.

“Hello…! Mr… Uh Byerly… Nice to meet you… too?” Mikey glanced back toward Deborah Ricci before extending his hand.

Kendra sensed she had interrupted one introduction for another.

She mentally cursed as Deborah Ricci closed the door.

Her dad shook Mikey’s hand genially. “Are you… Mikey-angel, by chance?”

Mikey pulled his hand back to nervously tussle his hair. “Oh! About that…!”

“He’s got a reputation!” Kendra gloated. “All the Ibus are obsessed with him.”

“You’ve made quite the impression. Thank you for your work with the garden.” Her dad offered his soft smile.

Mikey had no idea what a great compliment that was and continued his not-so-humble tittering. “It was nothing! I can’t say it was for a great reason.”

“You support my daughter, yes?” Her dad held his head high.

Deborah Ricci was creeping up behind Kendra.

Kendra launched between her dad and Mikey. “Yup!”

She slapped Mikey’s shell so hard he nearly toppled.

“That’s my b-boyfriend! He did it all for me!” Kendra squawked.

“I wouldn’t say-!” Mikey clearly wasn’t getting it and tried to sneak in his correction.

“Where are we staying?! My old room!?” Kendra got behind and steered Mikey to a staircase. “Or is it still covered in folded quilts that need to be put away!?”

Deborah Ricci twitched with irritation, but wrung it through clasped palms. “Your room is ready with fresh sheets! Isn’t it wonderful how fast you can prep a bed when you have extra linens?!”

“Is that what those were!?” Kendra shot back. “I thought it was just that you wouldn’t throw away your tacky extras!”

Deborah Ricci switched stances to push up a sleeve and her dad said a single word, “Anak.”

Foul.

Illegal battling.

Kendra was the team at fault and she clicked her tongue. “We’re tired, gonna show Mikey where everything is.”

“Good.” Her dad dismissed her by turning.

Deborah Ricci was glaring.

Kendra pulled from Mikey and tried to levy her steps as she went up the stairs.

This sucked.

This wasn’t what she meant to do.

If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

That’s what being in this house was like.

“Master bedroom’s there.” Kendra threw a hand down the hall. “My room’s here. Jase there and bathroom.”

She walked straight into her room.

What little was left of it, she reviewed as she paused in front of the door.

The walls had been stripped bare of her notes, something about government seizures. What was left were a few things that were deemed unnecessary to court cases. She considered them objects that barely bore her mark. Old gifts from relatives when they thought she wanted things indicative of little girls. A doll sat still in its creepy box, a porcelain horse with gold accents, and a music box that Kendra had never liked the tune of. Her aqua bedspread was about the only thing she cared about and she went to go sit on it.

All of Deborah Ricci’s junk was nowhere to be seen.

There was usually a mountain of it stacked up in here.

Things that the woman couldn’t let go of.

Things that only needed a quick mend.

Things she would get to on some weekend and never did.

Ever.

Mikey stood awkwardly in her doorway.

“What, never been in a girl’s room before?” She rolled a dead stare towards him.

“No, I have…” He walked forward. “Why’d you lie about the garden?”

“It’s not lying; it’s called simplifying. Do that too. I forgot to mention it.”

“How’s that?” He turned his hip to show off her duffle.

She gestured for him to set it down wherever. “Your ‘because you want to’ explanations aren’t going to get anywhere here. Them, both of them, are going to demand a real answer. They’ll want the motive. You won’t make sense.”

She could see it on his face.

He was trying to piece together how she was with what he was finding out.

She hated it.

“Don’t.” She seethed.

“What?” He had the duffle’s strap off his shoulder and was in the process of setting it down. “I thought you wanted this here.”

“Not that!” She jumped to her feet. “Don’t think you understand me!”

Instead of talking back.

Instead of raising his complaint.

Mikey set the bag down all too slowly.

It sent Kendra’s hackles straight up where she readied herself for him.

He was expertly slow and lax as he swung his body in her direction.

She flinched with readied fists.

Everything about his posture read dismissive.

He only looked at her once before walking over at a snail’s pace.

Her eyes screwed shut before she could control it.

She felt him approach her person.

She swallowed any noise nervously weaseling up her throat.

She felt him collapse beside her on the mattress.

There was a soft puff of stale air and the bounce from it being old. 

Kendra counted seconds.

Nothing happened.

She cracked a lid open.

Mikey had fallen onto her bed and was staring up at her ceiling.

She was ignored again and she didn’t like it.

She sent her displeasure over his form.

“You done?” He asked her in an all too caustic voice versus his being.

“I’ll murder you!” She hissed and went to grab a pillow with the intention of smothering him.

He caught her wrist and lifted straight up into her face.

She was not proud of the blush that exploded across her cheeks.

“You know I wouldn’t use any of this against you. Don’t act like I would.” He seared his gaze into her. “You asked; I’m here. I wouldn’t know about any of this if you had a choice. I get that and I know you know I get that so don’t mess around. It’s not fair.”

She bounced with fight in her heel before she tapped it all out like dying embers.

She loosened, but he didn’t let go.

He held firm in this position before she fully caved. “It’s this house…”

“A lot of memories.” He finally let go and made space for her.

She waited out a few breaths before she laid down beside him.

He turned right over onto his side and brushed her arm.

It was a small touch, but she tucked her limb between them so she could feel more of him.

She found the lines of his plastron through his shirt and traced them.

“Two weeks and it’s already like this…” She ducked her head down.

“I didn’t even get my stuff…” Mikey commiserated.

“You don’t have anything…” She groaned out the truth.

“I’ve been stranded with less.”

She lifted her head only to give him appropriate scorn. “That doesn’t make it okay.”

“I’ll grab it when you’re at work. I mean I’ve still got patrols and stuff to do. We’ll be what? Sleeping here? I doubt you’ll wanna be here longer than that.” He shrugged.

“Don’t you care? What you saw was a preview. That was what it’s going to be like.. We’ll stay away as long as we can, but they’re going to expect something. We won’t be able to sneak in and crash. My dad has supersonic hearing. We’ll have to do dinners. We have to do one tonight!”

Mikey thought.

“What?” Her head brushed her bed spread.

“What if I talk through it all? I’m good at that. I’m immune to awkwardness.”

“You were awkward five seconds ago.” Her eyes narrowed.

“I didn’t know I was famous by that nickname. I don’t know how I feel about being some angel. I really want to tell your dad the truth. I don’t want to lie to him.”

“You don’t get how much of a thing that’s going to be!”

“But lying about one thing spirals into something else until suddenly you’re all on the end of a fish hook!”

“What.”

“Nevermind. Let me tell him. I’ll take the heat and the fallout. I’ll jump in front of every barb they fire at you.”

“You’ll be shot to shreds.”

Mikey was slow to lift his gaze.

She read it as him, again, having fared worse.

“One day we’re really going to have to talk about your canon fodder thing.”

“My what-?”

“What are you two doing…?” Deborah Ricci’s voice floated in.

Kendra snapped to such hard attention that she fell off the bed.

She popped right back to her feet as Mikey sat up.

“Us?! What are you doing!? You walked right in!? What happened to your knocking rule!? You were the one who started it!!” Kendra snarled.

“For your information…” Deborah Ricci swung in to use her height. “The door was open, but that’s not the issue here.”

“Oh, no!? Not your violation of-!”

“Decency!?” Deborah Ricci exclaimed.

Kendra’s face fell. “Huh?”

“You two are not sleeping in the same bed.”

“What?!” Kendra exclaimed.

“Your father and I discussed it. I know you’re old enough. You can do whatever you want on your own time, but the thought of you and Michelangelo sleeping together in that little twin bed doesn’t seem right.”

“Do… you hear yourself?! You damned well know I caught you sneaking out of our house long before dad popped the question to you!” Kendra felt the information on her side of the argument powering up.

Deborah Ricci coiled a formidable figure. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That right?!”

“It is. We both know how selective your memory can be!”

“My-!?” Kendra hiccupped on her words.

“You only listen when you want to. Well I’m telling you both.” Deborah Ricci turned to address Mikey. “Honey, we’re making up the couch bed for you. That okay?”

Mikey got to his feet and scrambled to put himself between them. “That’s fine! Thanks for having me! Did you know I only have a hammock at home!?”

Deborah Ricci took the bait. “A hammock!? That cannot be good for your back. What are you thinking?”

She led Mikey out of the room and Kendra heard clips of them talking back and forth.

Traitor.

The word passed through her mind as she stood in the solitude of what was once her room.

That wasn’t right.

She let it roll in one ear and out the other.

Mikey told her what he was doing.

Deborah Ricci ambushed them, but he took the fire.

Kendra could work with that.

Even if Deborah Ricci was lying about the supposed talk, her dad was compelled to follow her decision. There was no way she was getting Mikey up here with her dad’s hearing. He might have been a ninja, but he didn’t know the house like she did. In the reverse, it could work. She could get down the stairs with socks and by keeping to the wall. She had snuck out many times before using that method and Jase was weighing her down back then. 

Having a plan in place, Kendra finally followed after and found Deborah Ricci explaining to Mikey how many people had slept on the pull out couch. Mikey appeared to be at rapt attention to the untrained eye, but Kendra had put in time. She could see the small crow’s feet kicking up in his corners that weren’t made by laughter as most would think. They were carved out of twitching squints for all he had to bear. He was as flippant as he was self-sacrificing when it came to whatever he set his mind to.

She only wondered how long this could keep his attention.

As Deborah Ricci yapped about all her relatives, her dad stood nearby. In his usual fashion, he was staring at the muted TV. Instead of reclining as he should, he watched at the ready. Kendra had never been sure if it was because English was his second language, but her dad had never cared about volume or subtitles. He gleaned whatever he wanted from shows that he quietly stared at. Even the most mundane program could catch his attention and he had once been a menace while taking too long to read display plaques in museums.

She would grab his hand when she was small and try to pull him away because other people wanted their chance.

He was cold steel as he looked at her with a passing gaze that said he would do this on his time.

You’re stubborn, just like your father.

Who had actually said that?

To Kendra’s mental ears, it was always Deborah Ricci, but that wasn’t actually the root.

Deborah Ricci was the phantom voice that spoke most of Kendra’s toxicity.

She was an easy fallback villain when Kendra needed a spiteful pick-me-up.

The front door opened and Jase walked in while typing on his phone.

His stupid tie was lopsided.

He tossed his bag with the same laziness he used to throw his backpack.

“Mom, what was dinner again!? Leftovers or-?” He looked up.

His eyes went straight to her.

He didn’t survey the rest of the scene in the slightest.

It was typical of Jase to never accurately case a joint. 

“Not happening.” He said simply before he turned to grab his bag and walk back out.

“Jason Pierce Ricci!” Deborah Ricci thundered.

Jase flinched.

“Chicken cacciatore and where do you think you’re going?” Deborah Ricci towered malevolence.

Jase sneered.

Wrong move, Kendra thought.

Poor idiot always talked back.

Deborah Ricci stomped forward and scorched the carpet. “We have guests! You’re going to leave?! You just got here?! Do you want to be rude?!”

“Guests?!” Jase reared. “It’s just-!”

He finally looked past Kendra.

“Michelangelo!?” Jase pointed.

Mikey bobbed to attention.

“Oh, come on!!!” Kendra screamed.

There was no way Jase of all people knew the Hamato’s names.

“You come on!” Jase flipped a limp hand at her. “What’s he doing here?!”

“What do you mean!? How do you know his name?!” It was Kendra’s turn to stalk forward.

Jase held his ground. “What-!?”

He smacked his forehead with his phone.

“You’re kidding, right?” He lowered the device and sent her all his judgment. 

“What?!” She would strike that sort of arrogance down if she wasn’t in the presence of his mom.

“You didn’t remember, did you? It was always Bootyshaker9000 Othello Von Ryan Donnie Donatello Hamato with you. Always!” Jase gagged.

Kendra puffed up so much it sucked all her blood straight into her head.

Mikey was suddenly around her. “Yeah, I’m gonna be honest. I have no idea who you are, but context clues, I’m going to assume you’re the step-brother?”

Mikey’s hand shot out in an offer for a shake.

Jase looked at it like it would sicken him.

Deborah Ricci cracked her knuckles.

Jase almost jumped out of his skin as he rushed to take Mikey’s hand with both of his. “Michelangelo! Don’t you remember? Jason? From the Purple Dragons? We manipulated either your brother or his tech into almost destroying you and the city a few times...”

Mikey nodded slowly.

Jase lost his kissing-up steam. “I… used to go by Jase…?”

Mikey’s lip twitched with what was almost a smile. 

“I was short?!” Jase exclaimed.

“Short…” Mikey chewed the word before he lit up. “Shorts!”

“Sorry!?”

“You were the one with shorts!”

“I’m sorry?!” Jase’s synthetic smile looked like it could cut glass.

Kendra had both been humiliated beyond her existence and was eating from the highest of life’s in one consecutive conversation.

“You wore those shorts!” Mikey gestured down his body. “You had the knobbiest knees! You wore them up to your chest! We used to joke that you were like that shorts kid from Pokémon! You gotta remember your trademark shorts!”  

“I… can’t say… that I do…” Each of Jase’s words dripped enough poison that it melted the floor.

True to form, Mikey was completely immune and shook his hand free of Jase’s.

“You know he asked for high waisted shorts, but we could only get them from the girl’s clothing department!?” Deborah Ricci suddenly appeared and was dripping with lethal sweetness.

Kendra’s smirk turned up not just her cheeks, but her ears. 

She knew why.

Jeremy and her gave him enough wedgies that he changed his entire wardrobe choices. 

Hard to pull a pair of shorts already up someone’s ass any higher. 

His mother hopping at the chance at a chance to gush about her baby caused Jase to lose all color. “M-mom!?”

“I have an album!” Deborah Ricci clamped a hand on Mikey’s shoulder.

There it was, Kendra thought. 

Mikey straightened with a gleam in his eye that somehow matched Deborah Ricci’s. “Show me.”

The two cackled as they parted.

Jase stared helplessly after them.

He checked over her dad.

Her dad offered no help and was still staring at the television. 

Jase caught and crowded her away while she was distracted.

He knew enough not to touch her.

She would give him another bite scar.

“What is Michelangelo doing here?!” Jase tried to hiss in her ear, but got spittle on her cheek.

She made a big show of wiping it off. “What do you think, big shot?”

“Fuck you.”

“Eat shit.”

“You first.”

“Ladies first! Where’d you get that blouse again!?”

Her dad made a sharp noise that was code for them to stop fighting.

“Sorry, dad!”

“We’re just talking, Bapak!”

They shared a quick glare before agreeing to a temporary truce until the matter was explained.

“We’re dating.” Kendra said flatly.

“Har, har, very funny.” Jase rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious. Have been for half a year.”

He stared.

She watched him go through the stages.

He obviously didn’t believe her.

The ground grew shaky when she didn’t let him in on the joke. It crumbled when there was no mocking to her being. He fell through after he saw she was neutral on the matter. Jase knew that Kendra never half-assed a thing in her life. Middle ground measures were for cowards who didn’t want to go all the way. Her current stone face meant something and he percolated with it.

What bubbled off was distilled disappointment. “You’re pulling a scheme, Kendra?”

He was a lost cause.

Always had been.

“No.” She stunted out, trying to keep her offense to a minimum.

“Aren’t you tired of it?” He sighed. 

“You think I’m not!?” 

“You want to chance going back to jail?” 

“I’m not chancing shit!” 

“I thought you realized. It was never about Donnie.” Jase actually tried to reason with her.

She shot him a single daggered glare. “It wasn’t!”

“Then why’s Michelangelo here?” He threw a hand out in gesture. “His brother! Donnie’s brother!” 

There was laughter in the kitchen.

Jase remembered the photo albums and closed his eyes in apparent pain.

“Maybe… there… was one…” Kendra started. “Used to be one. One scheme…” 

Jase lit with an, ‘I knew it,’ that he didn’t voice.

“But I stopped! I caught myself.” She was really arguing for this. “It wasn’t about him, never was, and I know that.” 

For Mikey. 

To Jase, of all people.

She had to.  

“I… realized how stupid I was being and… Mikey… Mikey is… I don’t know what you want me to say. It, us, sort of just… happened… and it’s… good. We’re good. I like it… He’s good… Too good, but good and… probably… good for me…”

She wanted to hold herself, but that was weakness.

She settled for an arm around her torso to itch the other under cover.

Again, Jase took her in.

This time with far less obvious disdain.

What emerged was her bitch of a forced housemate who listened to her be honest for once and came out the otherside somehow still convinced she was joking. “Seriously…?”

He snorted out a single bark of laughter and had to cover his mouth.

“Holy shit. Kendra Byerly is in love!” He choked.

She slammed his palm into his nose with a speed that her dad would never have been able to catch, no matter how hard he stared.

“You FUCKING SKANK!!!” Jase gave a nasally hiss as he recoiled.

“Jason!” Her dad snapped to attention.

“What’d he say?!” Deborah Ricci yelled out with a knowing tenor.

“The one off from skunk!” Her dad responded without moving his judgment from Jase.

Deborah Ricci’s chair screeched across linoleum as she threw it back. “Jason!?!”

“She broke my fucking nose!!” Jase scrambled forward to meet his mom and show him bloody palms.

What he had was nothing more than a little snot.

As if Kendra hadn’t known for years exactly how much pressure to exact so as not to leave a shred of evidence.

He should have remembered that much.

He remembered a certain turtle’s name that didn’t give half as much of a shit in return.

He used to be scared.

He used to know his place.

Deborah Ricci caught his ear both with her hand and dragged him into the kitchen.

She would nag him to death.

Kendra smirked to herself before she felt a second oppressive force.

Her dad.

He was still there.

His original target was gone.

Only she remained.

She squirmed as couldn’t remember the last time they were truly alone.

That was a lie.

It was when Deborah Ricci not so politely excused herself so he could kick her out.

“Bapak…” Kendra murmured.

“Mikey seems like a nice boy.” Her dad spoke simply.

Kendra felt herself reduced by one year for each word.

“He helped our community. He reminds me of those bandana boys who save the city.”

“Yeah… I guess…” She mumbled.

“Hm.” He finally looked back at the television. “If he makes you happy.”

She couldn’t say.

She needed to get to him

If Mikey was dead he couldn’t do anything.

Jase burst from the kitchen with a photo album clutched to his chest. “I’m burning this!!!”

He took three long leaps across the living room to the stairs where he vaulted up.

Deborah Ricci stormed after him with a force that was enough to knock furniture away. “Jason Ricci if you lock your door, I am taking it off the hinges! I did it before and I will do it again!”

The two clambered up the stairs in a heated argument and Kendra returned to give her dad a last look.

The man didn’t meet her eye so she crept toward the kitchen.

Seeing Mikey, put years back on her.

Mikey was lit with laughter. “He was such a shorts kid!!”

She couldn’t help but smile. “My pictures aren’t that bad.”

“Uh, yeah!” With a flick of his hand, he had a photo of a younger her clipped between his two fingers. “I stole this one! Look at you!! Look at your hair! It was so short! Your natural color is black?”

“You know that.” She went over to inspect.

It looked to be a photo before the Riccis came along.

Kendra was proudly holding up the first radio she put back together into working condition. “That’s a good one.”

“I don’t need your permission to keep it.” He tucked it back into his person.

“No, you’re gonna need Deborah Ricci’s.”

“So Jason and her are like… the opposite of you and your dad?” Mikey ventured carefully as he got up.

Kendra leaned against a counter. “The Ricci family is loud.”

“Felt.” Mikey snooped around the kitchen.

Kendra led him to a pot of simmering meat and opened it for him.

He was predictably overjoyed at the prospect and located a spoon on his own to taste it.

His lip pursed approvingly.

“Might need to steal this too.”  

“Get the gnocchi instead.”

“I’m assuming you mean the sauce. Gnocchi is just potatoes and flour.”

Kendra shook her head. “I’ve had it other places and it’s doughy. Deborah Ricci gives it that pasta chew.”

“An egg…?” Mikey wondered to himself.

She shrugged and put the lid back on.

“Kendra admits that she likes my cooking?” Deborah Ricci wondered as she came in with the photo album under one arm and an entire door beneath the other. “Hell freezes over. Release the flying monkeys!”

Kendra jumped.

Mikey was right there. “What can I say?! She’s got great taste! You know…! We ate at a Michelin starred place and Kendra rightfully told the chef off!”

Kendra’s eyes flashed at her partner.

Deborah Ricci propped the door up against a wall.

She set the photo album back on the table.

From her distance, she popped a hip and evaluated Mikey.

Mikey stood like the rubber to glue and smiled throughout the barrage.

“You really like her.” Deborah Ricci spoke with some level of admiration. “You like our prickly pride and joy.”

“I do.” Mikey loosened his already carefree posture.

“Sleep the one night on the couch.” Deborah Ricci decided. “Be good and I’ll see how I feel about the rule. Maybe I can talk my darling husband down.”

“I really don’t mind the pullout.” Mikey spoke what Kendra could only hear as honesty.

Deborah Ricci finally approached and it was to take Mikey’s face.

Mikey allowed it, but was clearly unnerved by the unauthorized touch.

It took everything Kendra had not to slap Deborah Ricci away.

“Honey, you need to know your worth. A hammock is no good for that back of yours, shell or not!” Deborah Ricci fussed.

Mikey chuckled awkwardly. “Nah, the crick in my back is from my brothers.”

“Crick!?” Deborah Ricci lit up.

Kendra remembered yet another thing she could have warned him about.

“Let me crack that for you! I had a chiropractic license!”

“Past tense!?” Mikey was spun around and had his arms folded over his chest before he could question the further validity of what Kendra knew was a revoked license.

“Hold still!” Deborah Ricci’s eyes were dark as she hugged Mikey from behind.

A fight ensued before Deborah Ricci could get him off the floor. Kendra had enough and went to stop her. Deborah Ricci wouldn’t let go of her boyfriend and her dad had been the one to intercept. Everyone was sent to their respective rooms and Mikey was allowed to come with her. Jase looked comical, trying to hide without a door, but Kendra paid him no mind. She headed into hers and it was only because Mikey tagged along that she didn’t slam her door closed behind her.

Together they sat in different silent states for a while before Mikey spasmed to his feet.

He was too energetic to be this still, but she was too troubled to move. 

His pacing was just starting to get on her nerves when Deborah Ricci called dinner.

The affair occurred in a bitter silence that made the tender chicken sour. Mikey injected levity in the form of all kinds of questions and only Deborah Ricci dared to answer. Her responses were saccharine at first before she eventually devolved into something palatable. That was Mikey’s way, Kendra knew. He was insurmountable when he decided to target someone. His honesty was infectious and brought out the same in others.

Deborah Ricci was soon reclined and pacified with a goblet of wine. She talked long about her days before meeting Kendra’s dad. She frequented bars and had spiraling stories about what Kendra always thought of as pathetic debauchery. Beating some meathead at pool and being brought to see his boss sounded like the plot of a bad buddy comedy. Kendra preferred her backroom dealings to be orchestrated. The true nefarious knew it was a game of wits and not pathetic bravado. You bluffed for your actual life and not some low stakes scenario at a dive.

She joined her dad and Jase to silently watch some home improvement show.

It wasn’t what any of them would have chosen to watch, but it was the common ground they could agree on.

The fair rule had been decided: you watched something that was palatable for the masses, but desired by Deborah Ricci.

It was this or that pawn show.

Deborah Ricci came in with too much affection for her dad and Kendra was out. Mikey crept up to spend a little time with her before a bedtime was called. Jase, Kendra, and her dad had work bright and early. Her dad and Deborah Ricci turned in with the most partings for Mikey. He was told where to get more blankets if he needed them and left downstairs alone.

Washing up came with tedious bathroom swaps that reminded Kendra too much of her childhood. She fought Jase for time in catty ways, but her reserves for any tangible fighting were depleted. Instead, they glowered at each other in passing. 

Their goodnights were short with Jase’s room was a gaping vortex across the hall.

She couldn’t take the thought of seeing him a second more and shut her door. 

Kendra heard the creak from the stairs.

That was Mikey.

He hadn’t listened.

She waited a few extra seconds, but heard nothing more. 

No knock came. 

No one tried to knob. 

He must have been scared off by the noise. 

She went to bed.

She fruitlessly turned until she heard her dad’s snores.

It was Deborah Ricci’s favorite white noise, which meant she was also asleep.

Jase was left, but he wouldn’t rat her out.

They had too much dirt on each other.

In spite of it all, she knew he wouldn’t even tell Mikey about the aborted scheme. 

It was a weird holdover from their strained upbringings.

Kendra crept along the wall. 

The stairs were silent under her socked feet. She got down to the landing and out of the radius of her dad’s ears. Mikey was sitting up in the pull out bed waiting for her. She greeted him with body language and he invited her under the covers. He hid them away beneath a pulled up blanket and asked for nothing more. He was reaching the saint status he disliked and she really needed to ground him.

Pluck each of his feathers. 

Remove those angel wings. 

That wasn’t him. 

If this is what he endured for strangers, what did he do for his family?

She might have asked if his existence had not quieted her thoughts.

They were finally alone. 

Settled. 

She tucked in close to his bicep and watched until the vision of him grew blurry.

-

Nightmare.

Mikey woke not with a start.

He had too many nightmares to get scared awake.

Instead they hit some unknown peak and there he was.

In a dark room he didn’t recognize.

It was Kendra’s parents’ house, his brain eventually supplied.

Oh yeah.

He checked her first.

She was sleeping peacefully beside him and he smiled.

He checked his phone next and was only temporarily blinded by its brightness.

He forgot to turn it down again.

There were messages from his family about his whereabouts.

He would explain tomorrow.

The time read around 2am.

Kendra was safe for now.

He didn’t know exactly, but he had a vague sense he would need to get her back to bed around 4am.

He trusted his body to wake him then, but for now he wasn’t quite himself.

Grounding.

He needed to look in a mirror. The only bathroom Kendra had told him about was up those creaky stairs. They were worn from years of what he assumed was this family running up and down them. Kendra had said something about them and he sort of knew that he needed to step around certain spots.

He took great care in getting out of bed before he evaluated the steps. When he had tried them earlier, they whined immediately. That meant the center was off limits which left the sides. He could head up either beside the wall or the banister, but he didn’t know which would be quieter. He decided to forgo it all and barely bent his knees before he shot up to the top. There, he caught the landing with ninja light feet. On the points of his toes, he came down and reviewed the floor before measuring his first step toward the bathroom.

“When-?”

He paused at the voice.

“You okay…?”

That was Deborah Ricci.

She sounded tired. 

Mikey’s head tilted.

Kendra had mentioned her dad’s hearing was good.

These walls were also comically thin.

He could hear her clearly through the closed door.

“I’m worried, bini…” Kendra’s dad spoke next. 

“Why’s that…?” 

“That Michelangelo…” 

Mikey stiffened. 

“He’s a good kid…” Deborah Ricci yawned. 

“Yes.”

There was quiet. 

It went on long enough that Mikey felt like he was intruding. 

“Is that the problem?” Deborah Ricci sounded more awake now. 

“No.” Kendra’s dad spoke with finality. 

“Then what is it…?” 

The silence was suffocating. 

That bathroom was only a few steps away. 

“Was I wrong…?” 

They both took too long. 

“I did… what I thought was best... At the time-” 

“I know…” She interrupted. 

Mikey would have groaned if he could. 

“We agreed to parent separately. We’ve both always respected that line, but dear…”

“I sometimes wonder…”

“It wouldn’t work.”

Only a second passed. 

“She would never listen to me.”

Mikey felt the steady breaths he had trained to take. 

“It had to be you.” 

The ones enough to make his entire person disappear. 

“She wants you.” 

Kendra’s dad cleared his throat. 

Mikey swore he could hear Deborah Ricci patting him on the shoulder. 

“How has this gone on… for so long…?” 

“What…?” 

Mikey rolled his eyes. 

Deborah Ricci paused as another thought caught her. “What… does that have to do with Mikey?

Mikey decided he didn’t need that mirror.

He was grounded enough. 

In a turn and a leap, he floated down the stairs. 

He landed with the same feather light press before he crept toward his sleeping girlfriend.

He watched her doze over the back of the couch for what seemed like hours until his internal clock urged him that it was time to get her to bed.

Chapter Text

Kendra was tired, but stable.

It didn’t seem possible, but every time she checked in, her body was the same. The last time she had been in this house, her wellbeing had collapsed in a matter of hours. Three days was the max she could last before her sanity would become unrecoverable. Her record of two nights and three days held for years and was celebrated as a holiday triumph. It was all she could ever muster in the toxicity of this place.

Except, starting tomorrow, she had stayed in this house for seven total days.

A week. 

It wasn’t just some miracle, it was a cosmic wrong that needed to be righted.

There was a constant nagging sensation and it wasn’t just Deborah Ricci breathing down her neck. The woman was still the same. She complained the same way and spewed hatred just as she always did. If it wasn’t Kendra’s hair, it was Kendra’s nails. If it wasn’t how she was putting on weight in her legs, it was how she wasn’t eating enough. If it wasn’t her sleeping in on her day off, it was how she didn’t go to bed at an early enough hour. On and on, that was what made sense. That was how the world worked. That was what Kendra knew.

She limited it.

That was a given.

Jase, for all his stupidity, was somehow smart enough to do the same.

His timeline overlapped hers, but he would leave first. A fumigation was only supposed to take two or three days, but his landlord had been of the typical New York stock. They hemmed and hawed about having to do the one job they were assigned. When they did finally get around to whatever repair it was, it was only when it was at its worst and they could try to do it themselves for cheap.

She would have thought the pests conjured up in Jase’s apartment were bedbugs of his own patent variety, but she had been more disgusted to find out they were fleas. There was something far more unsettling about him being driven out by something so common. She had apparently missed Deborah Ricci bagging up all his belongings and coating him in a fine layer of powder before making him wait outside until she deemed him okay to enter the house.

If there was footage, Kendra would have liked to see it.

She found all this out secondhand and would keep it that way. It was knowledge traded in passing and that was the most she could muster. The few hours of the day where all the tenants  aligned were either late or in the wee morning. The latter of which were thankfully mostly silent. Kendra wouldn’t call herself a morning person, but she adjusted to the schedule she had to. Jase was the same and trudged around between the time table they organized for using the shared bathroom. They traded where necessary and kept all speaking to a minimum.

It was the nights that got her.

She could stay out of the house as much as she could during the day, but she had to crash eventually. It was then that her true savior took form. Mikey did whatever was necessary to be there for her when the sun dipped low. Through his family and vigilantism, she wasn’t sure if he ditched the middle of fights with supposed bad guys, but he was at her door when she was ready. They entered the house as a unit and battled dinners with him taking helm.

For every barb Deborah Ricci tried to throw, Mikey was there with a distraction. Kendra didn’t know how he hadn’t hit the bottom of some proverbial barrel, but he had an endless supply of topics to rave about. To any other eye, he might have read as a master conversational manipulator, but in reality he was just versed in one too many hobbies. His vague knowledge meant he could jump into any speech and his inherent charisma meant he could win over a speaker even if he was lacking context. His interest read as genuine and Deborah Ricci was fool enough to fall for it.

It didn’t seem right.

As thankful as she was for it and as obvious as it was that Mikey was the only reason she had made it this long, something about the transaction seemed wrong. She knew Mikey had the tendency to bend over backwards, but this seemed like something else entirely. There was being a buffer to one’s family and then there was what Mikey was doing. He engaged what was usually his non-existent attention span, for hours, all the time, while also manipulating his schedule to its absolute limits, and still appeared functional.

Kendra was tired, but she figured Mikey would be exhausted.

He didn’t seem to be.

He was pert even though he disappeared most nights after she fell asleep.

Warning texts called him away to deal with crime, but he still made every dinner.

She tried to grill him on date night because, on top of everything else, he still took her out that first week for the sake of it. A late lunch off her shift, they dined somewhere with records lining the walls and she asked him plainly if he had inverted his sleep schedule. He chuckled and told her he hadn’t, but she pressured him about when he slept. He had prettily dressed up lines about how he could do anything for her, but she noticed his incessant dodging of the question.

How could she force the truth out of him when her current existence depended on him keeping up the charade?

She hated how bad it made her feel.

She used to use people without a second thought.

Now she could barely stomach having someone willingly choose to help her. 

Affection made her soft and weak.

A her from just a few months ago-

A version of herself still dating this man-

-would gag at the thought.

In less than a year, she was nothing more than a sap who was getting a little too used to warmth in her bed. She liked pressing into the dumb shapes of Mikey’s shell. She told herself and him that it was because the bed was too small, but, in reality, she liked his being. Though his carapace, a term she refused to acknowledge she looked up, was firm, it also was perfectly curved. The texture of it felt good to her fingers and the way it tapered gave her room to kick her legs up. When reversed, she had points in his plastron to deal with, but those had become softer grooves with what she guessed was age. He had miles to explore in aged lines that were marked up from battle or wearing stickers for a little too long on his modified bone structure.

Point was, he let her touch him.

He was never opposed.

He seemed to like the affection.

He would watch on whenever she did anything, even when he couldn’t see her.

When did he sleep?

He was awake during that time.

Awake through the night for stupid missions.

Awake during the day to take her to lunch.

Awake for all those homecomings.

He had to be tired.

She was missing it.

She would find those obvious signs tonight.

She couldn’t do anything about it, but she could at least acknowledge them.

That helped, right?

Being there helped.

It helped her.

She should not have been as bad at this as she was.

She walked the sidewalk in a miserable state. The moment she put the microscope on her relationship knowledge, the glaring hole there was all she could see. It wasn’t even in a romantic sense. She had never been the sort to offer a shoulder to cry on. That entailed snot on her clothes and she wasn’t anywhere near kind enough to stand that. She would tell someone off for blowing their nose too loud, yet here she was, faced with a boyfriend bending over backwards.

Which he could do.

Damn his ballet training.

He was probably in some kind of need and she had no idea how to handle it.

She didn’t know what to do to lighten his load.

She asked everything of him and he got what in return?

It wasn’t like that.

She kicked a rock, but instead of going straight, it sputtered out in the grass so she couldn’t kick it again.

She glowered at it as she passed.

There was a dumb therapy exercise for this.

When you felt out of control, you categorized what you could.

No one in that house was under her thumb.

Mikey would avoid them if he could.

He was acting as a distraction to protect her.

She couldn’t get in the way of that for her own wellbeing.

What could she do?

She came up with little as she neared the house.

Mikey wasn’t there yet.

That was.

Not ideal.

She stalled out a few houses away.

This was new.

She had texted him when she left the café. It had been easy to pick up extra shifts with her apartment under tarps. She had gotten the job through pity, so pity gave her extra cash while she was seemingly homeless. Even though the owners knew she was staying with her dad, she guessed whatever worked, worked. That didn’t explain Mikey though and she waffled on sending a nervous check in.

It was another oddity that made her scream.

Kendra demanded whereabouts.

If you said you were going to be somewhere, then you needed to show up at that time.

This whole schtick of feeling bad could kick a million rocks in her opinion.

She angrily slammed out a message wondering where Mikey was until she noticed him typing as well.

When she stopped, so did he.

She wrote a few random letters and found he appeared again.

She narrowed her gaze and, instead of thinking how moronic that was, she thought about why.

He had the text screen up.

He was staring at it.

He was held up.

For how long?

He should write that.

Unless he couldn’t.

That was annoying.

What could keep him?

She didn’t know and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

A blue light that was decidedly not her phone ghosted over the pavement.

She stared at it for a moment before looking up.

A glowing disc floated in front of the house.

Her jaw slacked, but she didn’t allow her mouth to gape.

“Uh huh! Yeah!! I said ‘yes!!!’ Bye!!!” Mikey walked straight out, didn’t compensate for the orb floating off the ground, and fell directly onto his face.

She started towards him.

Mikey shoved himself up.

He saw the light around him.

He spun around.

“Close it!!”

There was a mocking voice that parroted him before the blue aura popped from existence.

Kendra reached Mikey in that time.

He looked up at her and dusted himself off.

“Sorry I’m late.”

She thought about offering her hand, but he got himself up.

“The fam misses me, but they were trying to hold me back with a news article! Like we’re a hundred years old. News!” He made a repulsed face. 

She gave him a look that said she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“It’s a whole thing, but basically, as I was getting ready to leave, Leo came in asking me if I thought some news article was about him. Donnie was right there arguing that it was another mutant and both of them kept trying to make me decide which it was!”

She felt how oppressive her continued silence was, but she didn’t know what to say.

“There was a blurry photo attached! It looked like a green and blue blob, I guess. I’m sorry Mondo is blue and wears green and Leo is the opposite! Shouldn’t Leo know if he was where the photo was taken!? Why would I know?!”

“Mondo?” That should not have been the first thing out of her mouth.

“Gecko. Another mutant. You don’t know him. It was all an excuse to make me stay. It was so obvious. I was trying to leave! I kept saying that, but they were like ‘you need to taste test this’ or ‘we had a new board game’ that. I know I’ve been busy, but I was clear. I’m staying with you for a few weeks. It’s not like I don’t see them every night!”

So he was staying up.

“I’m starting to get what you mean.” He rubbed his arm. “Maybe I do get enough of them when I’m awake. My dreams can stay dreams. It’s not like they’re different, but who knew that seeing them just a little less would have that much of an impact on them? Wasn’t I the clingy one? That’s what they always told me!”

Or they knew who he was staying with.

Her eyes felt dull.

His head tilted.

She perked up to avoid that matter.

He had enough to deal with already.

“Was that one of those portals?” She gestured with her chin to the air.

“Huh?” Mikey almost looked around before he realized what she meant. “Yeah! That was one of Leo’s. I got a portal pass since he made me late!”

“It looked blue from the side. Could you see through yours?” She waved a hand where it was.

“Not really. It’s sort of murky? When Leo was figuring out how to make them, it was a total crapshoot of where they would go.”

“Design flaw.” She spoke.

“Right?” He watched for a moment and then held up the phone clutched in his hand. “Oh, why didn't you message me?”

“Huh?” She looked at him.

“I was waiting!” He shook his device. “I was going to use you as an excuse! I was going to say ‘Oop, there she is! Now I really need to go!’”

She should have badgered him?

“Are you… okay?” He leaned into her.

She darted away. “Yeah, fine. Come on.”

He made a little hum before he trailed after her.

The moment Kendra reached for the knob, Deborah Ricci exploded out.

Kendra fell back into Mikey who was mid-ascending the few steps.

“There you are!” Deborah Ricci exclaimed.

“What!?” Kendra got herself upright and ready to fight.

It was only then she noticed that Deborah Ricci was dressed up and talking through an audacious mouthful of lipstick. “I’m going out with the girls. I wanted to see you before I left.”

“Why?” Kendra gawked.

“Nice earrings.” Mikey leaned out from behind her.

“Thank you!” Deborah Ricci preened. “Someone-!”

She yelled back inside.

“-noticed!” She returned with a smirk.

Mikey nodded cordially.

“And ‘why?’” Deborah Ricci scoffed as she returned her attention to Kendra. “Because you’re home. I don’t want you coming back and wondering where I am. Honestly!”

Instead of letting either of them get out of her way, Deborah Ricci barreled down the steps and they had to scramble.

It was mostly Mikey who took helm by picking Kendra up and setting her aside.

 Kendra wasn’t sure if she wanted to be angry or thankful.

“Don’t wait up! Spend some time with your father! He can get so lonely when I leave!” Deborah Ricci waved as she got towards her gaudy land yacht of a car.

“He’s not a houseplant!” Kendra growled.

“That stud?” Deborah Ricci winked.

Kendra felt her soul leave her body.

Mikey still had a hold on her and was the only thing that kept her upright.

“Talk about ornamental! He’s got the looks!” Deborah Ricci cackled as she threw a door open with jangling keys that scratched the paint. She said a few more things in parting that Kendra was thankful she was too delirious to hear before she peeled out of the driveway with that repurposed engine of hers.

If Kendra was lucky, the girls’ night would end in her getting arrested for another drag race.

“Inside…” Kendra croaked and escaped Mikey’s clutches.

He hovered behind her as they entered.

She liked the safety net as she felt faint until she saw Jase.

He was similarly taken out, only he had the comfort of the couch. He was reclined in one corner with his head collapsed over the back. He had his phone placed across his eyes with the brightness clearly turned up to scald his retinas. It was a cleansing ritual Kendra knew well and it meant Jase had been party to one face sucking goodbye from their parents.

Her step-brother’s pain was her fine wine and she flopped down as far from him as possible on the same sofa.

She wanted an eye on his anguish, but not enough to give him the hope of familiarity. “Where’s dad?”

“Backyard.” Jase groaned.

“Working on-”

“The path still, yeah.”

She grunted out a response.

She felt Mikey looking before he scooted into her vision.

He threw out a questioning thumb to the easy chair one of the older adults usually used and she waved that he was clear to use it.

In one solid leap, Mikey had his butt in the cushions and yanked a lever that snapped the footrest up. Jase wasn’t exactly startled by the creaky piece of furniture but the sound jostled the phone off his face. Kendra watched it slide down before it rocketed, corner first, directly into his crotch.

He doubled over in pain while Mikey hissed in male commiseration.

She slammed a fist to her mouth and barely withheld bawling at the slapstick.

Jase didn’t even have the wherewithal to complain.

He keeled over until he fell off the couch.

“Want some ice…?” Mikey ventured gently.

Jase shook his head into the rug.

Mikey accepted and was tentative in leaning back.

He looked tired to her now.

He appeared to be one set of closed lids away from falling asleep in the chair much like her dad. He was missing some trademark tube socks, but the comparison was enough. She had to give him the night off. Deborah Ricci was non-negotiable, but her dad and Jase were different.

Her dad was a silent vulture type so as long as she didn’t offer her carcass, he wouldn’t try to pick at her. Jase was the lanky version of the boy she had long put in his place. He had some semblance of a spine now, but only because they were finally both aware of each other’s buttons and how to push them.

The siblings that were tied by familial lines that didn’t connect.

With her dad working on his hobby, she only had to deal with Jase for the time being.

She could do that.

To be successful, she would have to approach interacting with him differently.

Keep the peace.

She squirmed against the couch so as not to shudder.

What a repulsive thought.

Be kind, on purpose.

She could try to twist it as manipulation for Mikey’s sake, but it was plainly for his benefit.

She couldn’t avoid it.

Did she need to be nice or did she need things to be calm?

Jase would probably call her out if she faked it.

He would be a pain in her ass like he had always been.

Stupid twerp.

If he just acknowledged his faults then everything could have been so simple.

No, she always had to show him.

She always-

It dawned on her then, without effort.

Middle ground.

A guise that she used to use when she was tired of fighting.

Jase wouldn’t flag it as strange.

Two Christmases ago, she had swung the same thing.

She would shift focus, reframe, and give Mikey his space to rest.

She just needed to hang out with Jase.

“Deborah Ricci moved more of my things.” Kendra started.

“So?” Jase caught his breath and sat up.

“So? I was looking for our game console.”

“My game console.”

“Our game console. Both of us were gifted it to share.”

“You lost your right to property.” Jase craned his elbow into the couch in preparation to sit back down.

Her eye twitched. “The FBI was pretty specific about their seizures.”

“Eminent domain.” He said casually as he got onto his feet.

She tried not to give in to her jeering and thought for a second.

It took all her control to hold out her hand.

Jase looked at it dully where he was half squat.

He got upright to ask, “What?”

“Eminent domain means I get compensated for my shit, so pay up.”

Jase was caught by his own line.

Kendra used the time to get her phone and type out a quick one handed search.

Mikey looked on through one barely open eye.

“Let’s see… 30$ for the console, 15$ for each controller… Oh! The games are the money makers. Says here just one game is as much as the console…!”

“Yeah, like you actually care.” He finally reclaimed his seat with minimal readjustments to his pants.

“I’m asking.”

“Raid your tip jar. Oh sorry, that’s empty! Here’s one: smile more, spit less, and you might get a few crumpled dollar bills that should have gone to strippers.” He leaned back.

She would suffocate him with his own yellow stained pillow while he slept tonight.

She heard the labor of her breathing as she stared his insolent form down.

For Mikey, she reminded herself.

For Mikey, she had to repeat. 

She checked.

Her boyfriend was still watching with a weak gaze.

When he saw her glance, his mask lifted with his brow ridge.

“I just thought…” She started and stopped.

Jase didn’t bother to look.

He had already dismissed her.

What could she say that wasn’t her true thoughts.

That he was a worm she wished she had long squashed.

That their parents should have never taken their solitary children and tried to force them into a pair.

That he had been a member of the team, but the thought of acknowledging that Deborah Ricci had been right about their interests aligning made her complicit.

Mikey didn’t think like that.

Mikey did.

Just cause.

“We’ve been watching the same stupid, boring, repetitive, crap TV for days now…” She told the room.

Jase didn’t budge.

“We’re not going to agree on something, but…”

She had to take a deep breath to get out the last part.

“I… You… might be fine with a compromise…”

She watched Jase’s lids lift.

She retreated into her person by pulling her legs up onto the couch. “Video games. Racing. Fighting. Whatever. Beats sitting here until we reheat the leftovers.”

Jase’s pupils darted along the ceiling before his head turned to study her.

Value her conversational worth.

Weigh it on guilty scales.

She stubbornly kept a pinched expression on the floor.

She had said all she needed and the proverbial ball was in his court.

“Yeah, I guess it does beat… whatever this is… The system’s still mine, though.” He was all limbs as he rocked to his feet. “I’ll get the box, no looking.”

She stared after him as he made his way up the stairs.

She heard him stop just short in the hallway.

They were in the linen closet.

She bet on the top shelf behind his old baby blankets.

Things Kendra annoyingly couldn’t reach or want to.

A worthy enough spot, though she would have found it given a moment to consider.

“You guys playing a game?” Mikey ventured.

“Yeah. There’s only two controllers though.” The sentence popped out and she felt guilty.

“No, I get it.” He squirmed to get more comfortable. “Ours was two too.”

She grappled with the feeling that he had brushed his own interest away. “With four brothers?” 

Mikey chuffed and his blinks were slower. “It was a whole thing. So competitive.”

Jase appeared at the top of the stairs. “Mikey! I’m sorry! We only have-“

“Kendra just told me!” Mikey responded with little effort.

Jase only gave a mildly put out hum as he stomped down the steps with a familiar box in hand.

It was a repurposed brown one that had long held their system and games.

“I’ll plug it in.” Jase defensively rounded toward the TV.

Kendra had spent years taking that duty from him.

He messed up one time and she never gave him the chance again.

It felt weirdly like she was outside, looking in.

When had she gained perspective on the matter?

She never cared.

He always set it to the wrong channel.

Didn’t he?

She watched him squat and hook everything up.

She counted out cords.

He plugged them in the order she would have.

He stretched out the length so there was no kink.

She had done that how many times?

He eventually sat back, turned the console on, checked the light, and then reached back, without pretense, to get the remote, and change the television channel.

He was on his haunches as the console logo appeared and he turned to her.

Her eyes must have been wide because he paused.

Had he done it like that because he had grown or because he had learned?

If it was the latter. 

There was no one else to teach him. 

He would have learned from her. 

Her, of all people.

She shook free of a startle and went to sit in front of the coffee table, too close to the screen.

He took his long standing seat next to her.

“Fighting game first?” He asked as he took the second controller.

“No priestess.” She said the age old house rule.

He found the game after a short rummage in the box and got it going.

Familiar music caught her.

They played so many times there was no one moment to go back to.

There were hundreds.

They knew every move.

Every stage.

Every glitch.

Every cheap shot.

They were equals here and she selected her favorite character.

He did the same.

They played in silence.

All grunts and glowers were done on screen.

Matches evenly went back and forth.

Kendra didn’t keep score.

She did at first, but it fell away.

It didn’t matter.

This was to pass time.

This was.

Nice.

It was nice.

Nice to indulge in something old without being assaulted mentally.

Nice to actually sit without Jase jumping through a thousand hoops to one-up each other.

Nice to let their button mashing do the talking.

She got to her ultimate first in this round and finished him off.

He only clicked his tongue as they rolled back to character select.

She took the loading screen to glance at Mikey.

He was asleep with his feet jutting out from the recliner just as she imagined.

She must have smiled because she felt Jase’s judgment. 

“I see why you keep him around.”

Her head snapped in his direction.

“He’s not great with direction, but he does what you ask with a smile. Works well enough as a lackey.”

“He’s not my lackey.”

“You really prefer the term ‘boyfriend?’” Jase didn’t look at her and picked a new character.

She did the same.

He waited her out as the stage selection appeared.

“I like him.”

His finger slipped and he picked random.

Kendra made an irritated noise as they were flung to some battleground.

She took a few quick jabs at his health bar before Jase remembered himself and grappled free.

“He’s asleep. You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not.”

“What’s he doing here? He’s your fluffer.”

Her tongue appeared in a gag. “Don’t call it that. What is wrong with you?”

“Am I wrong? He keeps my mom away from you. You’re lucky she’s just self-obsessed enough to not notice or if she does, she loves the attention.”

“Shouldn’t you be happy?”

“Why would I be?” He charged up a long range attack.

She readied her character the same way. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Happy you're using someone else? Happy you're one step away from destroying the city again?”

“That’s not-!”

“It just started out that way. He was useful for something.”

“It had nothing to do with him.”

“It had to do with he-who-shall-not-be-named.”

“It doesn’t!”

“Not anymore, right?” He unleashed his attack.

She did the same.

The two cancelled each other out. “But when does it come back? You don’t sideline Kendra. She reworks the plan and comes back because how dare anyone, even a teenager, take a shot at her pride?!”

She put her control down and faced him.

He killed her before he did the same.

The menu selection music sauntered on.

“I like him!” Kendra told him and felt the raw edge to her voice.

He took note with a cold flick of his gaze.

“I’m not… going after Donnie.” She broke away to breathe. “You want to know so bad?! It was typical, the classic honeypot. The date was the ruse. I’d get close and he’d lead me to Donnie’s systems. I had a virus ready to plant. I’d finally have the final word while the world watched their genius get his supposedly impenetrable system hacked.”

Jase was quiet.

She couldn’t check why. “One date became two… He didn’t take me home. I dropped… everything… after our fourth date...”

The chimes from the game were grating.

“I honestly want to stay as far away from his family as I can.” She admitted to her own horror.

The sentence had shot out of her.

The exit wound gaped and bled. “I don’t want to chance-”

She hit a button just to move.

Jase’s controller was still on the ground.

She selected and unselected the character so the music was interrupted.

“I don’t want to chance it.” She decided with a final tap. “I can’t. Not with him. Not messing this up.”

She heard Jase breathe.

It made her wince.

A humiliated part of her raged.

Why?

It was Jase.

She wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. 

He had never once hit her.

She hit him.

She always.

Hurt.

Him.

“I’m tired.” His voice was lifeless.

Kendra flew to check on him.

Her step-brother.

Now of all times.

His face was hidden away with his half turned frame.

“Jase?” She felt herself asking.

“I got a promotion.”

That sounded familiar.

She wasn’t sure.

Deborah Ricci probably peacocked that detail, but Kendra had tuned her out.

She knew for a fact that Jase hadn’t told her.

Not himself.

“Senior Mechanical Engineer.”

She didn’t know what to say, but opened her mouth for a stereotypical, ‘congrats.’

“I was given my own project. I’m lead. I have a budget. I took on a few freelancers.”

She started to move.

She had to see him.

Read what his problem was.

He turned his head further away.

He was going to run.

She knew it.

He would go.

“Jeremy was on the list. I hired him.”

Her whole body flinched.

She felt him give a warped smile with his tone. “He asked about you.”

Her lips made a sound as they popped apart.

“I didn’t tell him anything, but he said he wanted to see you.”

“Me?” Her voice was microscopic.

Jase exhaled heavily. “Yup.”

“Oh…” It felt like a revelation she would rather have been kept ignorant of.

“I wasn’t going to tell you.”

She searched what little of him she could.

“Not about the job. Not about Jeremy.”

Her nails dug into carpet fibers.

“You didn’t deserve to know. To fuck them up anymore than you already have.”

That incessant music played.

Jase’s hands twitched into fists, but he forced them loose.

She didn’t know what that meant.

He stilled as if he stopped breathing and then his head lifted to look up the stairs. “I’ll write his number and put it in the kitchen tonight. Whatever happens after that is up to you.”

He got up and walked away.

She felt herself crawl a few steps, but he never deviated in his path.

He hit the top of the stairs and she murmured one thing, “Night…”

He paused only at that before he disappeared towards his room.

The first thing Kendra did was turn off the game system. She reviewed Mikey who slept peacefully and was methodical in putting all the video game stuff away. Once it was safely back in the box, she set it aside before taking some perspective. She had clearly upset Jase in a new way, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t felt his silent treatment before. He had once spent an entire week not talking to her, but this was different.

He had talked to her.

He had been candid with information he supposedly didn’t want to tell her.

He had also fled.

Why?

It didn’t make sense.

Who could she ask?

She had done all this for Mikey and wasn’t about to bother him.

She looked at him again.

His plastron barely moved if she stared hard enough.

A motherly thing to do would be to throw a blanket on him.

That didn’t feel right so she left him.

Her dad.

He was probably still in the backyard.

She could ask him.

He knew about Jase.

More than she cared to.

She didn’t know if she could.

Would he use her vulnerability against her?

Her blood pressure dropped.

Is that what she thought of her dad?

Her dad was avoidant.

He made stark comments.

He didn’t laud things over her head.

That was Deborah Ricci.

The fact that she would mistake that person for her father-

Jase unsettled her more than she knew.

Kendra would talk to her dad about it.

With some last ditch effort pulled from the carpet, Kendra made it to her feet. From there it was so many steps to the kitchen and to that decrepit door that led outside. They barely had a backyard, if it could be called that. Instead, the space behind the house was more of a glorified deck that led down to what was once a grass patch. It existed in the way zoning required green space to deem whatever this property was.

She saw the back of her dad’s head before she exited.

He was a clear image, looking out at that sparse patch like it was worth something. When she turned the door knob, opening the door caused the blinds attached to swing and knock. It wasn’t a loud enough noise to wake a sleeping man in the next room, but it was enough that her dad turned his head to glimpse who was coming out.

“Anak.” He spoke with the most of a smile he could usually muster on his stoic face.

“Hey, bapak.” Kendra came out with her guard up.

She stood beside him.

He looked out at the garden.

“What have you been up to?”

“Played some games.”

“Jase brought down your game system?”

“We coulda been playing cards.” She felt the need to shift culpability.

“You two are both screen minded.”

“What’s that mean?” She finally saw where he was looking.

She knew her dad had been working on some path, but not really where.

She moved forward.

“Always glued to a screen.” Her dad answered somewhere behind her.

“Pak…?” She got closer to the edge of the deck and found the small bit of yard had been transformed with mosaics. Instead of cement slabs or gravel she might have expected when the word ‘path’ came up, little mandalas of coordinated shards were formed into circular stepping stones. They laid out a path with no beginning or end that was inlaid amongst more glass pieces. If the sun were high, they might have glittered, but in the late hour, they sat in former shades of their usual hued glory.

“Long time project.” Her dad supplied.

Her head reared away as she knew those.

Deborah Ricci’s crafts.

Her gaudy projects that trapped suburban women thought gave them creative minds.

“I have a new one.”

He did?

She turned.

Her dad gestured to a small wooden work bench.

She identified what was laid out on its surface instantly.

They were infrared camera lenses.

A box of them.

One from her favorite shop.

That’s what her dad had been doing that day.

This project was his.