Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Hey, Leo. Do you think – can I maybe… ask you for a favor…?”

In a truly historic show of restraint, Leo manages to refrain from throwing himself down at Raph’s feet in an unrivaled fit of profound, desperate gratitude.

Instead, he channels the elated energy triggered by Raph’s hesitant, stumbling question into lounging back across the length of his bed, grin wide and pose perfectly casual. His heart, at a jackrabbit pace from seeing Raph approach a minute ago with a furrow in his brow, gradually starts to slow. He should’ve recognized it was Raph’s Worried Scowl, not his Angry Scowl.

“Why, Raphaela, I thought you’d never!” he jokes, taking care to make sure the laughing edge to his voice leans more towards lighthearted than faux-mocking. It’s not hard, with how deeply relieved he is at being asked to help with something – and by Raph, no less. Every reminder that his big brother isn’t constantly angry with him anymore is like a shot of sunlight straight to his veins. Plus, hopefully a lighter approach will have the added benefit of smoothing away some of those stress lines on Raph’s face. “I was starting to feel like part of the décor over here.”

Raph’s expression takes a brief vacation from consternation to confusion. Score! “You – we’ve been waiting on you hand and foot since the invasion? You knucklehead?”

Leo chuckles, even though the note of real concern in Raph’s voice, as if he’s genuinely worried Leo’s somehow not getting enough attention, takes some of the wind out of his jesting sails. Pulling smiles out of his siblings has always felt like winning something, but nowadays it feels more like the lottery than a slightly-tricky footrace.

“Ahh, never mind that – take a seat, Big Red, and spill your woes.” Taking care to not jostle his bad knee too much, Leo scoots back towards the giant nest of pillows at his headboard and clumsily pats the other end of the bed with his foot. Despite this magnanimous show of hospitality that would normally earn him at least a dirty look, Raph doesn’t rise to the bait even a little; just sits down with a muted sigh.

There’s a minute of silence, only punctuated by the rustling of Leo making himself comfortable in a way that doesn’t disrupt his still-kinda-achy ribs, and Raph… sitting there. Totally quiet. Just slotting and un-slotting his fingers together, over and over. Eventually, Leo decides that the risk of making Raph actually mad at him is worth breaking this tense, uncomfortable atmosphere, and reaches out to poke Raph with a toe.

“Sooooo…?” Leo prompts, pairing his word with an exaggerated hand motion – but not too mean, not too mocking, or he’ll think you’re making a joke out of this.

Raph startles a bit, glances at Leo, and then looks back at the floor. The furrow in his brow starts to become concerningly deep.

“I…” he starts. And trails off immediately, with no signs of continuing. Yeesh.

Leo gives him another five Mississippis before leaning forward again. “You…?” Are taking a thousand years to spit it out? he might’ve said, three months and a lifetime ago.

Finally, haltingly, Raph manages to say, “Raph is – worried.”

Leo nods encouragingly, smiling a little. “A super uncommon occurrence! What about?”

“Well. It’s – Mikey,” Raph admits.

Oh? Huh.

Leo leans back into his pillows, blinking a bit. That’s… maybe the last thing Leo was expecting him to say. Which – okay, that feels sort of unfair to think, a little. It’s only been three months since the Kraang fiasco and every bad thing it carried with it rolled through NYC and the Hamato clan like a Cat-5 hurricane, swallowed their lives whole, and spit them all back out with varying levels of trauma, both physical and mental.

But Raph’s zone-outs have gone from multiple times a day to maybe once or twice a week, and with the restorative powers of cuddles, three weighted blankets, and a noise machine, his night terrors have whittled down to almost nothing. Donnie’s sensory issues, the worst they’ve been since he was a kid, have finally calmed down enough for him to eat something other that flavorless juice and yogurt packets – and, he took off his battle shell for more than thirty minutes twice this past week! Splinter’s limp is nearly gone, and he’s finally letting his kids out of his sight for longer than half an hour. April’s been dragging Casey through one hell of a welcome tour to the modern world – but between visits to the doctor, dentist, nutritionist, podiatrist, optometrist, and a laundry list of other specialists, he’s been able to spend a lot of time with the Hamato clan, gradually rebuilding the family he once knew.

They’re all recovering, slowly but surely. But – well. Given how everyone’s doing right now, Leo thinks the last person he’s worried about is… probably Mikey. Which, yeah, sounds terrible, but! His little brother bounced back from nearly losing his arms and all of his siblings in the span of twenty-four hours in the same way he bounces back from everything else: with a bright, sunny grin and an unspoken dare against the universe to try and hurt his family again on his watch. Okay, he glued himself to one of his brothers’ sides constantly for the first couple of months, but Leo can hardly blame him for that. Nightmares, insomnia, some flashbacks – they’re concerning symptoms, for sure, but ones that all of them have been experiencing.

Honestly, Leo’s mostly relieved that Raph didn’t say he was worried about Leo. That would be – hah. Oh, man. Eesh.

Sure, his body was – broken, after the invasion. Leo plus Kraang Jerk Number One equals an eternity in the prison dimension for the ugly mecha-suited wad of alien chewing gum and one ninja mutant turtle teen with a sprained wrist, a nasty concussion, a wrenched shoulder, and an un-fun laundry list of broken bones, including: left arm, multiple ribs, two fingers, right knee, and one toe. Plus hairline fractures all over his plastron and shell, and – yeah. Even he couldn’t play all that off with a joke and a purposefully-botched backflip.

They’re allowed to be worried about his injuries – because, yeah, they’re sort of impossible to hide, and also, really bad, and admittedly worth worrying over. But anything outside of that? Nuh-uh. Nope. Nada. Whatever other problems Leo has going on, it’s his problem to deal with. He won’t dump it all over his family. Not when it’s his fault that they’re already struggling.

So if his hands shake, it’s because of his broken arm and sprained wrist. If he zones out, it’s just the concussion. If he cries, blame his shattered knee. If he can’t breathe, it’s the broken ribs and cracked plastron.

To be fair, with how poorly everyone was doing in the aftermath… in a twisted way, it actually kind of helped Leo’s agenda of obfuscating his mental health woes. Cuddling with Raph was because Raph had a nightmare, not because Leo was feeling lonely and terrified. Playing video games with Mikey, pressed close and laughing, was because Mikey was haunted by the portal, not because Leo couldn’t sleep. Giving Donnie a body to ramble to about whatever botany breakthrough he just had was to give Donnie a distraction from his sensory issues, not because Leo couldn’t stop hearing the Kraang’s jeering words echoing in his mind.

And now everyone is doing better. So – so Leo will back off. If they don’t need him as close anymore, who is he to begrudge them that? They’re doing better. He should be – he is happy about it. If he wasn’t, that would make him a bad brother, a bad son. So, he’s happy.

It’s not about him, after all.

So he pulls up another smile, making sure this one has a bit of a serious shade to it so Raph knows he’s not downplaying his concerns, and says, “Mikey? Really…? I’m not – don’t gimme that look, Raph, I swear I’m not brushing you off – just… walk me through your thoughts?”

Huffing out a sigh, Raph hunches forward a bit more, gesturing animatedly as he frets. “He’s just – he’s been kinda off, lately. Like, distracted? He’s been cooking the same three things on rotation, without any variation or experimentation. And keeps going on his phone – I mean, more than usual. And you know how he’s been, with his – with his art…”

Leo’s smile wilts and dies right off his face. Another item in his list of slights against his family: opening the portal to save Leo’s stupid ass after he threw himself into the prison dimension messed up Mikey’s arms pretty badly. Mystic healing with Barry and some good ol’ fashioned PT with Doctor Leonardo has done wonders, but his range of motion is still a bit behind what he had before the invasion. Worse than that are the tremors that wrack his hands, making the precise arts he used to pour his whole soul into unreachable for the time being. He keeps a bright façade over it, bounces around like he’s really excited to paint an abstract piece of colors and shapes with no immediately-discernable meaning – and he even seems to mean it, sometimes – but Leo still catches him staring wistfully at his old graffiti, sometimes. Staring at the smooth, straight lines, all done with purpose and a steady hand he doesn’t have, anymore. Barry says there’s a good chance the tremors will disappear completely over time, that it’s partly psychosomatic, but that doesn’t really help in the now.

“–and – and, he’s been sneaking out! And I keep asking him where he’s going but he just says he’s finding inspiration! What does that even mean–!”

Oh, shoot, Leo missed a few words there. ADHD and self-loathing: a terrible combination to strike during conversation. Save me, context clues, you’re my only ho.

“Raphie, Raphie, Raphie,” Leo says soothingly, interrupting his brother’s increasingly-distressed tirade. “Okay, so, maybe I see your point. Just a bit. This is absolutely you being a total mama bear, as per usual, but, I will still do my brotherly duties and investigate.”

There’s a lingering bit of skepticism in Raph’s mismatched eyes as he glances over. “Will you really? Please? I don’t wanna bug you, but I just… Raph doesn’t want….”

Ah, serious time. And Leo doesn’t even have to lie about anything, what a joy. Tilting his head to catch his brother’s eyeline, Leo gives him a soft, reassuring smile, and earnestly says, “Hey. Raph. I promise. Everything’s gonna be fine, yeah? I’ve got you covered.”

At last, Raph exhales explosively, his massive shoulders slumping. “Thanks, Leo,” he sighs, words drowning in relief. “I really appreciate it. Just, y’know – be gentle about it?”

“Me? Please,” Leo scoffs, leaning forward to lightly sock his brother’s spiky elbow. “I’m, like, the king of tender emotional discussions.” Not to mention, the fact that Raph is trusting him with this? If Leo finds some way to fuck this up, he’ll portal himself to the bottom of the Bay.

“And – ah.” Here, Raph looks sheepish. “Maybe… don’t? Tell him? That I pushed you in his direction? I just don’t want him to – I don’t know. I dunno.”

Leo laughs a little. “Yeah, no, I get you. My lips are sealed.” On this point, Leo’s gotta agree; of all their siblings, Mikey handling hovering and fretting from Raph with the least amount of grace. He’s usually patient up to a point, but when it comes to their youngest, Raph can be a little… yeah. The word smothering has been brought up before.

After fidgeting for another second, Raph adds, “And ask him if he wants any new recipes, I found a couple he might like – and if the moisturizing body wash I bought is working for him, I wasn’t sure if he’d like the little beads – and check if–”

“Okay, okay, time to leave, I need my beauty sleep.” Leo taps his foot on Raph’s shoulder until he stands up and moves out of range, frowning in playful disapproval.

“Alright, I’m goin’, I’m goin’.” Raph pauses at the door frame. “Lemme know if you need anything, yeah?”

Such a mama bear. “Will do, Raph-a-doodle.”

“Heh. Love you, knucklehead.”

The words slide off of Leo’s mind like water off waxed paper. “Love ya too, Big Red.”

After a quick two hour power nap – who knew healing bodies need so much rest? cries Leonardo Hamato, uncertified but well-practiced doctor – Leo wakes up refreshed, energized, and ready to not let his big brother down. Why lounge around by himself when he could be out there helping his family instead?

So, he springs out of bed, begrudgingly does twenty minutes of stretches to make sure his busted-up body doesn’t get any more busted up, yanks his mask back on, and saunters out of his room, making for the kitchen–

–and nearly runs headlong into Mikey, who's speeding towards Leo’s room at a full-on sprint.

“Whoa whoa whoa, where’s the fire, Miguel?” Leo asks, bracing his little brother by his shoulders so he doesn’t fall over. Then, he takes a second to sniff the air. “Wait, is there actually a fire?”

“Leo! I – uh, no, no! I just wanted to come see you?” Mikey says, sounding excited but also kind of nervous? Leo’s Anxiety Brain stirs.

“Oh, cool, cool – I had something I wanted to ask you, too, actually,” Leo admits casually, leaning against the wall.

“Oh? I mean – okay!” Mikey says brightly, still a bit uncertain or something. He’s the hardest to read of Leo’s brothers, no doubt. If Mikey doesn’t want his family to know what he’s thinking, he won’t show even a hint of it.

“…You go first, big man,” Leo chuckles eventually, tilting his head and giving a warm, welcoming smile.

Mikey blinks for a second, and then, the picture of nonchalance, leans back with a hand on his hip. “Nah, I was just – it was just, a new skateboarding trick I figured out! Yeah!” There’s a look on his face, one that reminds Leo of watching his little brother try to solve a difficult puzzle. “You – you go first.”

…Welp, Leo will definitely be overthinking about that later! For now, he just gives Mikey a skeptical look, then shrugs and says, “It’s nothing crazy. I just wanted to know if you’d have time to hang out sometime this week? Just us two?”

For a split second, Mikey blinks – and his face graduates to the look he gets when he solves a difficult puzzle – before he lights up, the way Leo thought he would immediately, and cheers, “YES! Absolutely! That sounds awesome, Lee, I’d love to!”

A bunch of the tension in Leo melts away into relief, even as the thorny parts of his brain hiss that Mikey’s faking the enthusiasm, just saying yes to please Leo – “Fabuloso! What day would work best for you, d’you think? Any outstanding plans?”

Mikey considers the question for a moment, like he’s flipping through his mental calendar, but eventually just shrugs and says, “Surprise me.”

Leo chuckles, plans and schemes already spinning in his mind ranging from harmless to nefarious. “You sure? You might regret that.”

“Nah, no way!” Mikey replies with a double thumbs-up, grinning. “Hit me up anytime! I’ll be ready!”

Two days later, a hand taps his arm.

“Mike. Mikey. Mikester. Michael.”

Crawling his way out of unconsciousness, Mikey moans and squeezes his eyes further shut. Oh, there’s the regret. Interrupting his sleep. Not cool. REM cycle broken. Dreams destroyed. Better be worth it.

“Miguel? You there?”

“Hhhhghhhhh,” Mikey groans, and opens his eyes.

Mere inches away, Leo’s eyebags are insomnia-dark, his grin manic and wide.

“Hey,” he hisses, at something close to an hour-appropriate volume, “wanna go do some crime?”

Mikey blinks slowly. Thinks about it for a long, long moment.

“Yes,” he finally rasps, solemnly.

Leo responds to this by furiously fist-pumping. Yeah, okay. Worth it.

His thoughts are hard to catch in his sleepy brain fog, but eventually Mikey grabs one. “What, uh… what crime? Crimes? Y’wanna do?”

“Surprise,” Leo whispers ominously, reaching to turn on the light, like an asshole. Mikey lets out a sharp little whistle, neatly conveying I will snap your legs like twigs if you do that, and Leo’s hand drops. “Also, breaking and entering.”

The adrenaline spike from narrowly avoiding getting blinded sure is doing its job of waking him up. After cracking his wrists, ankles, elbows, and neck, Mikey hauls himself fully upright and considers Leo’s words. Then: “Is that a crime?”

“Hm?”

“Breaking and entering. Is it a crime?”

Leo ponders this. “I mean… I guess not. Not when we do it.” A few seconds pass, and he wilts a little, sheepish. “Also, we’re just going to the mall after hours, so like, technically, it’s not super bad, or whatever, but, y’know–”

“But it’s more fun to say we’re doing crime,” Mikey agrees readily, warmth blooming like a garden in his chest when Leo beams back at him.

“Exactly, thank you, Miguel!” He jumps a little bit, throwing both fists up in the air. “It’s Crime Time with Prime Time, baby!”

Giggling, Mikey leaps off his bed, all sleepiness forgotten, and poses next to Leo. “Don’t forget about Magic Mikey! It’s the team-up of the century!”

“Oh-ho-ho, you know it!” Clapping a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, Leo gives him a razor-sharp grin. “We’re long overdue for some bonding time, mi hermano. Go put on your best parkour clothes, Michael – we’ve got some havoc to wreak!”

Once Mikey pulls on his current favorite hoodie and yanks on the rest of his gear – mask, kneepads, chucks, compression sleeves for his arms, and a pouch stuffed full of special goodies for a certain someone – it takes another ten minutes before they’re on the surface, leaping across rooftops like fish in a river.

Before, it would’ve taken them two seconds flat. But Leo’s still banned from using his portals too much for a whole bunch of reasons, most of them coming back to his recovering ninpo and still-shaky stamina. So Mikey makes the most of their trip up to the surface, racing Leo through the tunnels and dancing his way up the ladder, and the fire escape after that. And before he knows it, they’re in the nighttime-brightness of the one and only NYC.

“Okay,” Mikey calls, over the whistling wind as they leap over an apartment building and land silently on the next one, not missing a beat in their casual sprinting race, “a few more things for the agenda?”

The grin on Leo’s face is audible from where he runs right ahead of Mikey. “Lay it on me, Michael.”

Mikey lights up. “Okay, so, obviously, milkshakes from The Creamery–”

“Do you even need to ask? Though, let’s do that at the end, y’know?”

“Agreed – ooh, we totally have to do the Pose-Off at the mall–”

“Obviously!”

“–and – and the arcade, and the crane machines!”

“For sure!”

A pang of realization cuts through Mikey’s all-consuming excitement, suddenly dimming its light. Mikey is – he’s definitely happy that none of his ideas are being shot down, but….

“Hey,” he calls, hesitant, “how about we pull that prank Donnie came up with – the headlight-brake light one, on that professor who always gives April a hard time?”

And Leo – who vehemently vetoed that plan when Donnie came up with it at the dinner table four months ago, citing all the ways it could go wrong and reasoning that it wasn’t exactly a punishment fitting the crime – just nods and amicably says, “Sure, sounds like a plan!”

Mikey keeps his smile bright on his face, even though it feels like something in his chest is wilting and dying.

The thing is – the thing is. Even before Raph approached Mikey with the demeanor of a nervous horse a couple days ago and asked him to check in with Leo, Mikey knew something was wrong. His siblings all have their quirks – which, after… let’s say, recent stressful events – have begun to evolve into habits, or neuroses. Things that can end up hurting them, or making things worse. And they all, to Mikey’s eternal chagrin, have their ways of hiding them.

Donnie will pull on his headphones and ignore you until you go away – or, start rambling about an obscure invention until he successfully annoys you into forgetting what the problem was. Raph will clumsily dodge concerns and make speeches about the responsibilities of a hero. April will just throw a shoe at your head and insist that everyone in Mikey’s family is insane and has much worse mental health than her (which, fair. But on the other hand: are they a good benchmark? No, April, they really aren’t). Casey – oh, mama. They’re trying to get the physical stuff sorted out first, before moving on to the absolute disaster of that boy’s psychological status. And Pops – oh, mama.

But Leo? Oh, Leo’s the toughest nut to crack. Mikey loves him to – well, Mikey loves him more than anything, but if dodging mental health recovery was an Olympic sport, Leo would win gold. In every category. He’d sweep.

And it’s not like they all haven’t tried to get through to him! Every single one of them has gently pushed him to open up, with methods ranging from his favorite hot soups, his favorite Lou Jitsu and Jupiter Jim movies, video games, low-stakes parkour, karaoke, arts and crafts, yoga, cuddling, and, on one memorable occasion, a thumb wrestling tournament.

But Leo is smart – smarter than any of them have ever given him credit for. And he’s their master planner, too; it was silly to think any of them could ever make a plan centered around him and not have him sniff it out within ten seconds flat. Once he inevitably does, he just talks them in circles until the desired topic is so far out of range, it’s left the solar system. He’s managed to do it every time. And – well, they want to push it, but….

But every time one of them comes within ten feet of addressing the problem, of trying to bring up Leo’s erratic sleep schedule, or the way he freezes at loud noises and raised voices, or the way he tries to pass off his spells of residual terror as pain from his injuries – every time, Leo gets this – look, on his face. All blank and hollow. And in his eyes, he looks… scared.

It’s such a terrible thing to see that none of them have been able to push past it, not wanting to shatter the fragile peace they’ve found. Not wanting to make things worse.

Mikey thinks about how invaluable Leo was when it came to helping everyone recover from the invasion. Like, Leo basically brought back Donnie and Raph, and even Casey, a bit, from destroying themselves in the aftermath. And that was great, and Mikey’s glad they’re doing better, but… he wishes it hadn’t come at the cost of Leo pushing them all away, so artfully subtle that he almost managed to get them all to buy the illusion: that he really was fine, aside from all the broken bones.

Mikey’s only solace is that Leo hasn’t cut them off completely. He does still cuddle with Mikey when he’s scared, and have long chats with Donnie to distract him when he’s feeling bad, and talk Raph and Casey down from panicking. But – but if he can do those things for them, why can’t they do them for him?

Maybe Leo shouldn’t have lied about how he was doing all the time. Maybe he should have opened himself up a little more. Maybe Donnie and Raph and April and Splinter and Mikey should’ve dug deeper, tried a little harder to pry his mask away. But there’s no going back now; all they can do is do better with the knowledge they have.

It’s just… Mikey sighs as he does a triple backflip onto a parking garage. He just doesn’t understand why Leo’s being so… so Leo about all this. He really, really hopes it’s not some kind of weird, misplaced guilt about the whole invasion situation, because if Mikey looks through the whole event with a Leo mindset, then yeah, he can see why Leo would blame himself or something. Which is stupid. But Leo’s feelings aren’t stupid, they’re just how he feels right now! And Mikey might not fully get it, but he sure didn’t need Raph pushing him in Leo’s direction to do something about it. If Leo feels bad about the whole Kraang thing, then Mikey will show him everything’s okay now, and that they’re all okay, and that everyone loves him! And with none of their other family members around to use as shields, Leo will have no choice but to embrace the curative powers of Doctor Feelings!

All this said, however, Mikey knows he has to start out small. Some kind of grand gesture will only push Leo back behind walls and masks and jokes. He just has to figure out what the perfect thing would be….

As he follows Leo’s lead and hops across a line of horizontal flagpoles, giggling all the while, Mikey catches sight of a bright orange and pink sign out of the corner of his eyes – and an idea blooms in his mind like a firework.

“LEO HOLD UP A SEC!”

Nearly stumbling, Leo manages to turn his dive into a neat grab-and-flip off the last flagpole, landing almost-steadily on the next rooftop. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he turns back to see Mikey bouncing up and down a few poles away, a fresh grin on his face.

Leo breaks out a grin of his own. “What’s the sitch, Angie?”

Mikey’s smile starts leaning towards mischievous. “I have an idea – I’m gonna go grab something! Don’t worry, I’ll be back in no time, just wait here!”

With zero further explanation, Mikey unhooks one of his chucks, wraps one end around the flagpole, and uses his ninpo to extend the chain in a blaze of golden light, sending him swinging towards the street in an artful controlled-chaos descent. Leo only starts breathing again when Mikey lands in a forward roll and smoothly pops up onto his feet, retracting his nunchaku-turned-grappling-hook and taking off down the street in a sprint, skipping merrily around pedestrians and traffic cones.

In a way, Leo’s thankful for the puzzlement and slow-fading concern Mikey’s left him with. It’s a great distraction from the shame gnawing at his heart.

What was he thinking? Waking Mikey up in the middle of the night for their bonding time – just because Leo’s being plagued with insomnia doesn’t mean he had the right to force his brother to suffer with him. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, sure, but Leo should’ve restrained himself, and not let his impulsiveness ruin his brother’s night. Worse, Mikey is being so nice about, clearly playing along with Leo’s whims because he’s the best person on the entire planet, but it doesn’t change the fact that he deserves better. If he’s stepping away just to get away from Leo for a sec, Leo wouldn’t blame him in the least.

Okay, okay, enough of that, he thinks sternly, imagining his self-hating thoughts as an amorphous blob and bonking it with an imaginary baseball bat. You’re here for a reason. It was stupid to do it so late, but you’re here now and it’s time to focus up. Raph is expecting him to be a decent brother long enough to figure out what’s wrong with Mikey – which is something Leo’s also curious about now, honestly, after thinking it over and realizing that Raph’s list of concerns were actually, shockingly, kind of warranted. Especially the sneaking out bit – that, Leo is very interested in. Characteristically, Leo couldn’t help but start them off on the wrong foot, but he can turn this around. He has to.

…The worst part is, even as he’s supposed to be helping Mikey, he can’t help but selfishly enjoy his company. It’s not the point of their outing, not even a little, but – Leo can’t help it. Being around Mikey just makes him feel better. Like a balm on his soul made of sunshine and honey. Like laughter comes a little easier, a little more honest.

The Michelangelo Effect, he thinks wryly. His little brother, making the whole world brighter just by being himself. Pulling even the worst people into his orbit and making them better – making them want to be better – with only his heart of solid gold and sheer force of will. He’s always been the best of them – not that anyone’s ever had to tell Leo that. He’s known it as long as he’s known anything at all.

If only Leo could be a little more like that, instead of… the way he is. An anchor, dragging everyone he loves down.

Before he knows it, there’s a familiar sparking-metal sound and a flash of gold as Mikey’s nunchaku reprises its role as a grapnel and wraps one mystically-elongated end around the flagpole closest to the edge of Leo’s current roof. A second later, Mikey launches into view, doing a quadruple front flip before landing on the roof in a deep crouch, rising out of it with both hands stretched towards the sky.

“Bravo, bravo!” Leo cheers, clapping enthusiastically as Mikey takes a few bows.

“Thank you, thank you!” Mikey laughs, jumping in place to shake out his legs. Or maybe he’s just excited? As he dances over to Leo, one hand sneaks behind his back.

Leo can’t help but smile when his brother stops before him and just looks up at him, grinning. “Hi there, Mikey.”

“Hi, Leo!” Mikey chirps, wiggling in place.

“…Alright, you know I’m not good at surprises,” Leo says, crossing his arms, fake-serious. “Whatcha got there?”

Mikey wiggles a few more times, humming in anticipation, before he can’t take it anymore – predictably, he hates surprises just as much as Leo does – and whips his mystery item out from behind his back with a flourish.

“Wooooow, a paper bag!” Leo remarks, blandly cheerful, as Mikey poses with it. “Never saw that one coming.”

“Ah, but dear Nardo, it is not the paper bag which is the surprise, but what lies within it!” Mikey sings, in a pitch-perfect, if somewhat mocking, impression of Donnie. Leo chokes on his next inhale, delaying the reveal by a minute with raucous laughter.

Once he’s recovered, Leo asks, “Okay, Donald, then what’s the big secret?”

With a mischievous edge to his grin, Mikey reaches inside the bag and carefully, gently, pulls out–

Oh.

“One strawberry-frosted donut with cream filling, fresh from Dykin’ Dangits!” Mikey exclaims happily, presenting it to Leo like a priceless artifact. Which, of course, tracks: it’s Leo’s current favorite pastry, the one April and Donnie have been using to bribe him into finishing his PT in a timely manner, or to get out of bed. He hasn’t had much of an appetite, between the pain and the meds and the constant emotional rollercoasters brought on from residual stress and nightmares and such, but he’d never turn down a Strawberry Cream Delight from DD’s. The flavor’s been haunting him for weeks, the texture is perfect, and it’s light enough fare that it never upsets his stomach.

Leo–

Leo should be happy. He should be happy, and touched, and grateful. He should be thrilled that his brother remembered his favorite pastry, and that when he saw that familiar chain café sign he decided to take a second, unprompted, to go buy one for Leo, with his own money. A pure gesture of earnest consideration.

But looking down at Mikey’s happy face, and at the proffered donut… all Leo feels is guilt.

And he – he doesn’t even know why. He doesn’t get it. All Leo knows is that his little brother going out of his way to do a little thing like this for him, an act of kindness that should only prompt gratitude, just makes shame writhe in his chest, worse than usual. It doesn’t make sense. Why can’t he just be normal? Why can’t he be happy? Why is he so–

“Leo?”

Startling back to himself, Leo realizes he’s been staring down at the gift, at Mikey, for a beat too long. Shoot, shoot, Mikey’s smile is wilting – what if he gets the wrong idea, what if he thinks Leo’s mad at him, or doesn’t like the donut, or he finally realizes Leo’s not worth his time–

“Sorry, Mikey, zoned out for a sec!” Leo laughs, putting his all towards making it sound real. “Oh man, for a second I thought I could hear April yelling at me to finish my stretches – I might be developing a Pavlovian response to these things, hah!”

Mikey raises an eye-ridge at him, and Leo panics internally for a second – only for Mikey to put his free hand on his hip and retort, “Who sounds like Donnie now, huh?”

Snorting out something more like a real laugh, Leo reaches out, ignoring the heaviness in his heart, and takes the pastry from Mikey’s hand. “Thanks, Angie,” he says honestly, hoping he’s not coming off as insincere, “I really appreciate it.” Then, on a whim, his mind desperately trying to find a way to balance the scales, he adds, “What do I owe ya?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Mikey frowns at him, puzzled. “Uh, nothing? It’s a gift, Lee!” His smile sneaks back in, half hesitant and half impish. “Plus, if you wanna pay anyone back, you can send it to Donnie.”

Leo blinks as the words filter through his brain. “Wait, did you… steal Donnie’s wallet? Michael. I’m so proud.”

“Noooooo!” Mikey snickers, like a liar. “He just leaves stacks of bills around his lab sometimes! And Dad’s always telling him to clean up, yeah? I’m just doing my brotherly duty and lending a hand!”

Leo cackles, using his free hand to scrub the top of Mikey’s head in an adjusted noogie. “You are completely in the right and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, help me finish this so I don’t get a cramp, and we can be on our way, yeah?” Smooth as anything, he tears the donut in two, making sure to hold the half with more cream out towards his brother.

Mikey’s smile fades a bit, but bolsters a second later. And when he reaches out to take the offered half-donut, something anxious and fluttering in Leo’s chest settles.

Grinning, Leo shoves his half into his mouth – Sweet Pizza Supreme, it’s so delicious – and savors it for a moment before swallowing and waving a hand. “Excellent, excellent! Ahh, it just gets more tasty every time! Now – chop chop, Miguel, we’re burning moonlight!”

Well, Mikey thinks, watching Leo bound away across the roof, that was a complete failure.

Sighing, he looks down at the half-donut in his hand. The powdered sugar flaking off of it in the rooftop breeze catches in the textured surface of his arm braces, standing out starkly against the black fabric.

He just – he doesn’t get it. He really, really doesn’t! He tried to start off small, he honestly did – it was just a donut! And Leo’s favorite to boot! And, he didn’t even spend his own money on it, just in case! Why – why did Leo still–

Mikey shudders as it flashes in his mind’s eye – Leo’s face, as Mikey presented to him what he thought would be a welcome pick-me-up. The aching hollowness in his face. The way his smile dropped. And in his eyes – the guilt.

Okay, so – the donut was a misstep. That’s okay, though: Mikey can still fix this. He’s just gotta be a little more careful. He’ll have to stick with words for now – but not too much, he can’t lay it on too thick, can’t make it too big a compliment, gotta make sure Leo knows I’m not saying or doing it because I’ve noticed anything, because then he’ll feel guilty all over again, and – ugh. This is so hard. Doctor Delicate Touch is straining to get out, to flex the healing powers of the hard truth spelled out with an ear-splitting screech – but, no. Mikey holds strong. This isn’t the time for that solution. Years of watching Raph and Donnie’s problem-solving methods have taught him that yeah, some issues require a sledgehammer, but others require the most delicate touch possible. He has to fix this, properly.

Because, if he doesn’t fix this–

Mikey swallows. His chest is all tight, like he’s one of Raph’s favorite plushies on horror movie night and a jumpscare just hit.

The moment passes. With a deep, grounding breath, Mikey re-centers, nudging his confidence back into its proper place. If he doesn’t have faith in himself, then how’s he gonna help Leo?

Squaring his shoulders, he tosses the half-donut into his mouth, chomping it down as he smacks his palms together to get the lingering powdered sugar off of his arm braces. It tastes like cream and sugar and strawberries and not like failure.

He can do this. He knows he can.

With a shriek of, “Wait up, Lee!”, Mikey takes off, following his brother into the night.

“Alright, Blue Bishop, what’s the plan?”

“I’m thinking, Orange Rook, gimme a sec… there’s a lot at stake here, we don’t wanna mess this up.”

“Mm… we’re gonna have to use every piece of our training to succeed here. No mistakes.”

“If we’re not careful, this could be the end of–”

“Um – sorry, but….”

Leo and Mikey break out of their huddle in a flash, whipping around to see a teen with rosy pink hair in a flower-patterned cardigan standing halfway inside the mall.

“Do you… are you guys coming in here, or…?” they say, confused, holding the door open.

The two turtles stare at them.

“We’ve been compromised,” Mikey whisper-hisses.

“EVASIVE MANEUVERS,” Leo yelps, grabbing Mikey and throwing them both behind a nearby bush.

“…Okay?” the person says. They shrug and let the door close behind them as they walk inside.

“Phew… that was a close one!” Mikey exclaims, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

Next to him, Leo crouches with his legs folded up against his plastron, tracing a stick through the dirt with a pout. “Sorry, Angie,” he mumbles into his knees.

“Ahh, don’t worry about it, that human was clearly a master of perception–”

“Nah, nah, I just….” Leo groans and leans back, rubbing his hands over his face. “I forgot the mall is open twenty-four hours a day now!”

“Ohh….” Mikey remembers several things in sequence: Leo waking him up with the promise of crime, the fact that the mall has only recently started staying open past ten at night – after repairs from the Kraang incident were finally done – and their roster of fun shenanigans, many of which hinge on the mall being abandoned for the night.

“Hmm,” Mikey hums thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Hmmmm.”

“It’s okay, Mike, we don’t have to do everything we said we would,” Leo soothes, smile only half-real as he drops his stick and holds up both hands placatingly. “Plus, we can still–”

“I can work with this!” Mikey interrupts.

“What d’you – oh here we go–”

Leo’s voice leaps up a few octaves as Mikey grabs his arm and drags him bodily towards the mall. Before any protests can be made, Mikey kicks the door open – and the next one after that – and then, once they’re inside the mall proper, he leans back, cups his hands around his mouth, and at the top of his lung, screeches:

“GOOD MOOOOOORNIN’, NEW YORK CITY!!”

In a ripple effect, the people in the mall, lingering between stores or marching determinedly on a mission or loitering in clusters, turn towards the two turtles, with expressions ranging from baffled to irritated to mildly entertained.

“Okay,” Leo squeaks, frozen in place.

But despite the cryptids and the horrors and the near-apocalypses, New York City will always be New York City, and within a few moments, one at a time, all the humans turn back to what they were doing, each of them spurred into moving on by the near-surefire knowledge that this probably isn’t even the strangest thing they’re going to see today.

Regardless – they still served their purpose well, for what Mikey was trying to do. He turns to Leo, beaming.

“See? Entering, and breaking! The peace! Get it?”

“Hah, yeah, and some eardrums, I bet,” Leo retorts, but there’s a grin stretching across his face now, so, win!

“That’s just how I roll,” Mikey says proudly, crossing his arms and nodding confidently.

Leo chuckles. “All too true. So, now that you’ve successfully crossed our first item off the list, what are we getting up to next?”

Mikey blinks for a moment – and then, as the realization sets in, gasps. “You – you’re letting me choose?!”

“Of course!” Leo’s answering smile is half-amused, half-bemused. “You knocked off item number one, yeah? You deserve the honor!”

Preening, Mikey spins around a few times, working off some of that happy energy – before he launches himself forward, grabbing Leo’s shoulders and pulling him in close.

“In that case – if we don’t do the Pose-Off right now immediately, I might actually die,” Mikey tells him, fully serious.

“O-oh! Y’know, I thought you’d go for the arcade first, or the crane machines–”

“NOPE! Time for a competition, baby!” Mikey lets Leo go and starts dancing in a circle around him. “Read off the rules, let’s go let’s go!”

Laughing, Leo pulls out his phone and opens the Notes app. “Alright, alright, hold your horses Miguel, lemme pull it up… alright, wanna hear everything, including the sub-rules, or–”

“Just the major ones!”

“Just the major rules it is, then!” Leo scrolls for a second, then nods once, stands up straight, and begins speaking in a lower register. “The rules of the Mall Pose-Off are as follows! The contestants will find a store outfitted with mannequins and pose one of them to their heart’s desire! Must be in plain view of the entrance to the store! Stores within the mall will be split equally among the contestants! Take pictures! At the end, the poses will be judged by our esteemed panel, aka April–”

“And if she’s asleep, we’re allowed to wake her for this.”

“Correct, Mikey, thank you. And in case of a tie, a side-by-side tiebreaker within a new store will commence!”

“YAY!” Mikey cheers, throwing his hands into the air as he continues to orbit Leo, shimmying all the while.

Leo grins at him, then glances around. “Alright, the stores will be….” Spotting a map, he shuffles over, careful to give the still-dancing Mikey time to move with him. “Okay, we’ve got Bullseye, Stacy’s, TK Madds, Suburban Stylers, A&N, Rick’s Sporting Wares, and Hot Topic. Want dibs on any of them?”

“Ohmigosh, Hot Topic–” Mikey gasps, finally ceasing his boogeying to throw himself forward and press his face into the map. “Dibs called for forever–”

“Now Michael, I know you know about Sub-Rule 17,” Leo scolds, tapping the top of Mikey’s head with the corner of his phone.

Mikey lets out a forlorn sigh, sliding down the map and slumping on the floor. “Hot Topic is to be reserved for tiebreakers only,” he recites in a monotone.

Leo nods resolutely. “That’s right. And since there’s only two of us and an uneven number of stores with mannequins, we’re gonna need it.”

Mikey only takes another moment to sulk, then springs back up, dismay forgotten, a grin on his face and a challenge burning in his eyes. “Not if I beat you first!” he yells, full of determination. “Dibs on Bullseye, Suburban Stylers and Rick’s!”

With a sharp smile of his own, Leo leans forward, embracing the challenge. “Oh-ho-ho, you’re on, little man! Me and Stacy’s, TK Madds and A&N are gonna whip you! The Pose-Off starts now!”

A little over an hour later, the two turtle mutants scramble their way out of Hot Topic, chased by the beleaguered employee’s furious yells.

“Oh man – so worth it–” Leo gasps, pumping his arms.

“Just run!” Mikey wheezes, knocking into him a bit as they round a corner.

Once they’re a safe enough distance away, they collapse on the nearest benches, located next to the lovely in-mall fountain. They take a minute to catch their breath.

Before long, however, Leo’s panting devolves into helpless giggling, just as Mikey’s turns into a loud, long groan.

“Man. Man!” Mikey scrubs his hands over his face, frustrated. “I cannot believe I forgot about–”

“Sub-Rule 39,” Leo interrupts, his grin wide and self-satisfied. “If Donnie’s not competing, any and all Jojo poses are fully legal.”

Mikey grumbles as Leo starts posing, only partially effectively as he’s still slumped across a bench. “Stupid Donnie… totally not fair… half those poses aren’t even physically possible anyways….”

“Now now, Miguel, sore loser isn’t a good look on anyone,” Leo titters, purposefully-obnoxious.

After sending him a poison glare, Mikey lets out a full ten-second sigh and leans back, letting his head rest against Leo’s bench. “What-ever, Nardo. I’ll get you next time for sure! Now hurry up and pick our next activity, my brain’s starting to itch.”

Leo hums, tapping his hands on the bench, before he sits up in a flash, a fresh smile dawning on his face.

“Hey, Angie – I think I know how I can make it up to you….”

“…Y’know, you’re gonna have to pick eventually.”

“Shut up, I know! Lemme think!”

Rolling his eyes fondly, Leo turns back to his phone, leaving Mikey to press his face against the crane machine’s smudged glass case and agonize over his target. Tapping a finger against his well-worn Hello Kitty pop socket, Leo finally punctuates his message with an obnoxious number of prayer-hands and pleading face emojis before sending it, locking his screen, and stepping forward to join Mikey.

“That little blue duck is awful cute,” Leo comments casually, leaning on the box turtle’s shoulder.

“Quiet, goon,” Mikey mumbles absently, brow furrowed in concentration. “Your job’s to win for me, not give advice.”

Leo snorts, letting the harsh-but-toothless reply slide; that’s on him for interrupting Mikey’s concentration after a warning. As per tradition, the winner of five consecutive rounds of Pants Pants Revolution – tonight, Mikey, by a longshot – gets to pick a prize from the crane games at the edge of the arcade, and the loser’s not allowed to leave until that prize is in the winner’s hands.

At least Leo’s got a decent excuse for losing this time. Donnie hasn’t rebuilt the arcade in their new lair yet, hard at work doing a thousand and one other things to make their new home suitable – thus, Leo hasn’t been able to get his usual PPR reps in.

Hm. Thinking about it, the broken bones were probably part of it too… ehhh, whatever.

He’s gonna choose to think of this occasion as an outlier in a good way; it’s not often that he’s able to use his crane machine skills to win something for Mikey, after all. It’s usually for Dance Fanatic Donnie, which kind of sucks because he never cherishes whatever hard-won plushie Leo drops in his hands. He does, at least, give them to Raph, where Leo knows they’ll be well taken care of, but still. It’s the principle of things.

Come to think of it, it’s been a while since he’s had the honor of crane-gaming for Mikey. The last time was… oh. Oh. Leo’s heart warms as he remembers – it was a few years ago, wasn’t it? Right, that was it – Mikey had just barely beat Leo out of the final round, and Leo… remembers being irritated, mostly because his winning streak had just been broken, and a little because Mikey would not stop cheering and yelling in victory. But then, he took a real look at his brother, and saw how genuinely happy Mikey was – Leo remembers deciding, right then and there, to not spoil his little brother’s happiness over something he truly earned, and let himself get paraded to the crane machine with grace.

He’ll never forget Mikey’s chosen prize that day: a fluffy kitty cat, the perfect size for hugging. Over two hours of struggling with those stupid controls and a devastating number of quarters later, it was all worth it to see the sheer joy on Mikey’s face as he embraced his gifted plushie. He decided on the name Mister Spaghetti, because he claimed the cat’s orange tabby stripes looked like spaghetti with marinara. No one else could see it, but Mikey stubbornly stuck with it, parading the little guy around the lair for weeks after the fact. Even now, Mister Spaghetti holds place of pride among the plushie collection on Mikey’s bureau, right in the middle. Leo can still remember Mikey’s relief at finding the kitty unharmed after Shredder’s destruction of their old home, dusty and squished under some rubble but otherwise no worse for wear.

“Okay!” Mikey exclaims loudly, snapping Leo from his thoughts. “I’ve chosen my victim. Are you ready to take care of ‘im?”

Leo snaps into a smart salute with a goonish cry of, “Yes, boss!” and saunters over to the machine’s controls. Fumbling with his coin purse for a second, he eventually pumps the slot full of quarters, and then crouches in a ready position: one hand on the joystick, the other hovering over the button. “Alright, Mikester, which one’s the target?”

Tilting his chin up, Mikey raises a hand and haughtily points to his chosen prize: a little pale green elephant wearing a top hat. “That one, please!” he cheers, dropping the arrogant mob boss persona in a flash.

“Aww, he’s so cute!”

“Right?! His widdle hat….”

Cracking his knuckles, Leo flashes his teeth in a confident grin. “Gimme five minutes, and he’ll be yours.”

Leaning forward, Leo grabs the joystick and starts slowly, carefully coaxing it towards the elephant. Mikey’s choice was a good one – the elephant is small, so it shouldn’t weigh much, and its top hat has a nice brim that the claws can get a good hold on. Biting his lip, Leo nudges the joystick in millimeters: up, to the left, back to the right, up, a tiny bit down.

“Spot me?”

Mikey bobs around the case, squinting at the claw from every possible angle. Eventually, he flashes a double thumb’s up. “Looks good to me!”

Posing dramatically, Leo lets out a few finishing-move-type yells and smashes his fist down on the button. He and Mikey instantly move in unison to slam their faces into the case, fogging up the glass as they raptly watch the claw move down… down… its little claws fix on the edges of the hat, good, yes – and then it moves up… up… up–

“NOOOO!” Mikey wails in despair as the claw’s weak grip fails, sending the elephant tumbling back to the floor of the case.

“Curses! Our master plan – foiled!” Leo laments furiously, shaking a fist at the machine. “Just you wait, accursed claw – you haven’t seen our true strength yet!”

Leaping back to his feet, he turns and holds a hand out to Mikey. They exchange theatrical faces for a second, like soldiers finding the will to go on in the horrors of war.

“We’ll get through this, brother…!” Mikey gasps.

“We have no other choice, brother,” Leo affirms, clapping Mikey on the shoulder. As one, they turn back to the crane machine, and lock in.

It’s only after they’ve got another few failed attempts under their belts that Mikey speaks up.

“Um – Leo?” Mikey starts, tapping his fingertips together. He’s nervous – why?

Gentle, be gentle. “What’s up, Mikey?” Leo asks casually, only giving his brother a glance before fixing his attention back on the claw. Showing how chill and open Leo is, like Mikey can totally tell him anything and won’t regret it even a little.

“I sort of, like – I mean, I kinda had a question for you? And it’s not – this isn’t something we would do now, or, y’know, even soon! Of course! Because things are still – we’re – it’s, it’s not something that – we don’t have to rush anything, of course, and I gotta – you’d have to say yes first, which, you don’t have to, but–”

“Michael – hey. Breathe,” Leo orders, huffing out a short laugh to hopefully put his brother at ease and cover up his own anxiety. He can’t remember the last time he saw Mikey this freaked out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mikey take a deep breath, clearly calming himself, before bouncing up and down a few times and finally, finally blurting out: “D’you think you could maybe teach me how to do portal stuff sometime?”

A lifetime ago, Leo might have stumbled and slipped, either letting his real surprise at his brother’s question show or playing it up to diffuse some of the tension. He might’ve fumbled with the crane controls or rattled the glass a bit, either accidentally revealing his own shock or making it seem like part of his everlasting performance.

Now, he barely pauses for a second, giving Mikey a quick glance. “Portal stuff, huh?” he repeats, a sharp smile spreading across his face as he taps the joystick. Inside, he is a storm of fear and guilt and selfish hesitation. Why would he want to learn how to do more portal stuff if he almost lost his arms the first time? Why would he want to learn from ME, the guy who took ages to figure it out? What if I don’t teach him right and he gets hurt and it’s my fault? What if – what if he gets – better at it, than me, and then suddenly I’m that much more extraneous – “Mind if I ask why?”

Unsurprisingly, Mikey starts waving his arms around, the exasperation on his face barely covering his enthusiasm. “Um, because it’s the coolest thing ever, Leon? Do you even have to ask? You’re, like, the ultimate expert! Please teach me your ways, oh wise master!”

To really drive the point home, Mikey falls to his knees, head bent down and hands raised above him, clasped together, fingers interlocked. Leo can’t help but snort a bit at the sight, clinging to the spark of amusement amidst the flood of misery in his heart.

It is a little funny, that Mikey thinks he has to beg, or even ask at all. If it’s for the sake of his family, Leo will swallow any and all reservations or hesitations and do it. Even if it leaves him with a chance of hurting himself somewhere down the line.

So, Leo lets out a loud, contemplative hum, stroking his chin exaggeratedly while leaving his other hand to tap the button on the controls. His humming does its job of both drawing out the tension and covering the soft, muffled thump in the bottom of the crane machine.

“We-e-ell…” he hums, reaching down, “when you put it like that…” his hand sneaks under the worn flap, and touches something soft, “then I don’t really think I have a choice.”

And, to punctuate his point, he delicately places the now-free top-hatted elephant atop Mikey’s joined hands.

The stars in Mikey’s eyes are going supernova as his head shoots up, both at Leo’s words and the extremely adorable little plushie. The victorious screech he lets out is probably also akin to the sound a supernova would make if there was sound in space.

“YES YES ohmigosh thank you Leo I’m so excited this is gonna be so much fun I’m gonna be just like you this is amazing this is the best day-slash-crime-night ever–”

“Of course, Mikey!” Leo laughs, as soon as his hearing comes back. “I’d do anything for you!”

As Mikey dances around with his new little friend, Leo sneaks a glance at his phone – and lights up when he sees the reply notification waiting for him on his homescreen.

the package has been delivered 🎨👍

Leo giggles under his breath, beaming in anticipation and relief. Maybe he really is turning this night around after all. Who woulda thought?

“Hey, Mikey! I’ve got our next location picked out – let’s go!”

When they arrive at the spot, there’s something waiting for them.

“Whoa, a random back alley! Thanks, Leo, you shouldn’t have!” Mikey laughs, probably completely sincerely, as he spins around and takes in the dumpsters, the dim lighting from the street lamps, and, most notably, the blank brick wall painted all black. “Is there something special happening here?”

Leo just hums noncommittally as he crouches by the duffel bag that Mikey thankfully hasn’t noticed yet. It’s covered in paint marks and neon patches, clearly showing off who the owner is, but there’s one new addition: a purple sticky note stapled to the top, right over the zipper. Carefully working it free, Leo can’t help but chuckle at the chicken-scratch handwriting.

have fun doing “crime” (lol). don’t be home too late. also, send pics when you’re done here. xoxo D

When Leo works the bag open, there are two still-cold bottles of Gatorade atop everything else: one Mango Xtremo and one Strawberry Kiwi. Leo smothers a helplessly fond grin. He loves his twin so much.

“–and honestly, the lighting’s not bad here – wait! Is that my–?”

Letting his grin break through, Leo stands up and turns to face his brother, stepping to the side to fully show off Mikey’s duffel bag of spray paints and other graffiti odds and ends. “That’s right, Angie – time to flex that creativity!” he exclaims, throwing in some jazz hands for fun.

Predictably, Mikey lets out a high-pitched noise of excitement, and gives Leo approximately no time to brace himself before he’s slammed with an ecstatic brotherly limpet-hug.

“Thank you thank you thank you this is PERFECT this is gonna be SO GOOD I can’t believe I didn’t know about this spot before–”

“I – ah – found it – while on a walk,” Leo wheezes. Mercifully, Mikey frees him a moment later, bouncing back over to the wall, hands flapping with pure joy. “I poked around and no one else had a claim to it, so: it’s all yours, little brother.”

“You are my favorite,” Mikey declares, hands on his hips as he surveys his newest canvas.

Chuckling, Leo crouches back down next to the duffel bag and opens it a little wider, poking through the wide selection of cans. “Okay, Michael, what color d’you want?”

“Okay okay okay,” Mikey says, vibrating with excitement, “I’m gonna start with cyan, magenta, and chartreuse, then throw in some gamboge and coral, maybe some celadon? Definitely saffron, and seafoam, and – oh, this wall needs some periwinkle and cobalt yesterday – wait. Wait wait wait, hold up. Did you say color?”

“Huh… did I?” Leo hums vaguely, a small smile on his face.

“Color, singular? As in one? Just ONE?!” Mikey demands. Oh, he’s getting riled up, now. “You cannot lock me outta my full palette, Leo!”

Leo scoff a little bit, fond. “As if you couldn’t make a masterpiece with just one color, Michelangelo,” he snorts, and enjoys the way Mikey grins and preens a little.

“Uh, yeah, I totally could, thank you for recognizing my talents, Leonardo, but, like, that would be boring.” Mikey pairs this airtight argument with a puppy dog face that Leo’s been 83% immune to since they were kids.

Leo laughs anyways, and shoots him a playful look. “Don’t worry, you’ll get more than one color – in just a sec. We’re gonna tackle this one a little different than you’re used to, okay?”

Mikey pouts a little at his request being sidestepped, but raises an eye ridge in grudging intrigue. “Uh-huh? Alright, I’m listening.”

Solemnly, Leo says, “No more words, Miguelito.” He throws a can directly at Mikey’s face, holding in his laughter when he catches it with an alarmed yelp. “Make your first stroke, Master Writer.”

Mikey squints at him suspiciously, but as Leo continues to make frantic go on gestures, he eventually caves and turns to the blank wall. After a long minute of consideration, Mikey raises his arm as high as possible and, as he presses the trigger on the nozzle, brings the can down in a slow side arc, as if testing his arm’s range of motion. He stops at the bottom, completing what looks like a closing parenthesis.

If it looks a little wobbly, a little uneven, Leo doesn’t give him the time to ruminate on it. He does feel a little bad when, before Mikey can make his next mark, Leo yells, “OKAY STOP!” and Mikey jumps half a foot into the air, whirling around with a glare that usually precedes extreme levels of violence and abundant property damage.

“Leon I swear to Pizza Supreme–”

“My turn!” Leo sings, grabbing a can at random and skipping forward. Gently shoving Mikey back, he uncaps his can with a sharp snap of his wrist and sprays a straight horizontal line right through the middle of Mikey’s, kicking one foot up whimsically and finishing the line with a dramatic pose.

After holding the pose for an appropriate amount of time – and receiving absolutely no response whatsoever from Mikey, which, okay, fair – Leo straightens and beams at his brother. “Okay, your turn again! You can pick a new color if you want.”

As expected, Mikey’s got his puzzle-solving face on, and it only takes him a few seconds to put the pieces together.

“Tag-team wildstyle?” Mikey gasps, eyes alight with excitement.

“That’s the only style I know, baby!” Leo declares, holding up a hand and relishing in Mikey’s whoops of laughter as he slaps him with a crisp high-three.

“This is gonna be a-ma-zing! So, we’ll alternate after each stroke?”

“That’s the idea!” Leo confirms. “And you can switch colors anytime. Though, if that’s, like, not a good idea, or something, you can tell me – you’re the expert, not me–”

“Are you kidding! This is, like, the best idea ever!” Mikey exclaims, bouncing up and down. To Leo’s relief, he seems to really mean it. “I can’t believe I never thought of it before! Sure, it’s gonna be a totally uncoordinated mess, probably, but we’re gonna do it together and it’s gonna! Be! Great!”

Leo laughs, drumming his hands on Mikey’s shell before dancing back towards the wall. “You bet it is!”

“I just have one more question,” Mikey says, digging around in his bag.

“Shoot, mi hermano!”

Mikey looks back at him, smiling sweetly. “Do you want lung damage, Leo?”

Ohh, dangit, maybe he’s still angry? Wait, is that code for something – “Ahah, well, it’s sure not on my Christmas list–”

“Then put on a mask, baby!” In a flash, Mikey stands up, turns, and hurls something directly at Leo’s face, probably as payback for earlier. Leo gets 0.3 seconds of reaction time to catch it with his hand and not his face, and puts it to good use, even if his palm stings a little after. “’Cause we’re gonna be here for a while!”

Glancing down, in his hand is a well-loved respirator with neon pink straps. Leo grins.

In the end, Mikey was, as per usual, right. It’s a huge mess.

The collab started out organized enough; Mikey had pieces of a vision going, and Leo was happy to follow his direction while also making suggestions of his own, most of which Mikey graciously allowed. But then Leo painted over one of Mikey’s smiley faces, and Mikey retaliated with a doodle over one of Leo’s meticulous palm trees, and from then on: war. All-out spray-paint war. Sure, they eventually signed a peace treaty, both of their signatures visible at the bottom of the wall, but the damage was done. What they’re left with is a jumbled mix of all the colors in Mikey’s bag, every inch boasting unique shapes and patterns, piled on top of each other in a vibrant, disordered collage of… something.

But there’s something beautiful and undeniably fun about the colorful chaos of it. And, when he was laughing and shrieking with Leo, trading paint blows and making an army of kittens and tracing out explosions over Leo’s mini unicorns on the beach, all of his worries just… melted away.

“Thanks, Leo,” Mikey mumbles into his shoulder, absentmindedly balancing Gregory the dapper little elephant atop his empty Gatorade bottle. They’re slumped against the wall opposite to their masterpiece, Leo taking pics and Mikey taking a rest after the multi-hour art session. His hands smart like crazy, but – worth it. So totally worth it. “I really needed this, y’know?”

Leo finally puts his phone down, giving his camera roll a rest. If Mikey peeked into his photo gallery right now, it would be a wall of snapshots of their collaboration.

“Anytime, Angie,” he says gently. A hand starts rubbing his head, and Mikey leans into it contently. “You do such a good job looking after your family. You deserve the same.”

Oh. A lump rises in Mikey’s throat. Oh. Well – okay. Okay.

Sniffing a little, he leans into Leo a little more. “Heh. Yeah, I know.”

There’s a pause.

“…Hey, wanna get some fresh air?”

Blinking a little to clear his eyes, Mikey opens his mouth to say yes – but pauses, thinks, and then replies, “I thought you were still on portal house arrest?”

“Eh? I am, why?”

“Well, how else are we gonna get fresh air if we don’t leave the city?”

Mikey’s head shifts as Leo barks out a surprised laugh. “Hah! Oh, man. Good one, Mikey. But, there is one place we can get pretty close….”

It takes some trekking – and a couple subway rides, which thankfully pass without incident – but eventually, the two mutant turtle teens find themselves approaching the glorious heights of the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up in all of its nighttime glory. If there’s anywhere in a fifteen-mile radius they can get fresh air with only their feet and NYC’s dubious public transportation at their disposal, this is it.

Though, as they start walking the bridge – opting to use the walkway for now, saving the cables up to the tippy-top for later – Leo can’t help but wonder if he should’ve just broken his portal ban and taken them to Todd’s Cuddle Cakes Puppy Rescue instead. Fresh woodland air and insanely adorable puppies and the best lemonade ever made! And, as a fun little added bonus, Leo wouldn’t be staring up at a bridge where, the last time they was here, he – he brushed off Raph’s every concern, belittled him, acted like all his worries were trivial–

“–and that’s why I never, ever use a sword instead of an axe in Minecraft,” Mikey finishes, nodding once to punctuate his point. “Sorry, but also, I’m right and have nothing to apologize for, so – Leo?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Leo glances up. Mikey’s balancing on the thick, rounded railing between the walkway and a steep drop into the East River – but it’s Mikey, so there’s not a hint of fear on his face, and instead of walking he’s doing a silly dance as they make their way along.

Leo joins him in his dance-walk without even thinking about it. “Yeah – sorry, bud, I was just – ah, y’know, distracted by the view!”

As one, they turn and look at the bridge, and the city beyond it.

“…Yeah,” Mikey says, a little softly, “our city’s pretty great, huh?”

Though it was just an excuse for being lost in his head, Leo can’t deny it: their city really does look incredible at night. All the twinkling lights, the warm glow on the clouds above, the gentle mist of the super-early morning just starting to roll in, the never-ending hum of traffic and construction and people, people, people.

Despite everything, Leo feels something like peace settle over his mind.

“You got that right, brother,” he agrees, smiling gently.

“Of course! I’m always right,” Mikey laughs, pumping his arms in front of him as he hops along.

“We-e-ell, I don’t know about that,” Leo hedges, doing a little spin in place.

“Excuse me–?”

“For instance, Minecraft swords are superior to axes, so, y’know–”

Mikey makes a loud buzzer sound with his mouth. “Incorrect! Axes have a higher attack speed and do more damage! Moron!”

“Erm, only in Java edition – in Bedrock, swords do a whole extra half heart of damage!”

“Erm, in Bedrock – that’s you right now, fool. Literally who even plays Bedrock? Weak argument, go home, axe superiority forever.”

Leo smirks, already relishing in his little brother’s reaction to his final trump card. “Okay, well,” he begins grandly, “what does any of that matter when swords have all the best enchantments?”

Instantly, with his shoulders hiking up, Mikey – who everyone knows has never been able to get a solid grasp on enchanting – whips around, eyes alight and finger raised, ready to rain hell down on Leo, who’s also entirely incorrect because axes actually have all the best enchantments and they both know it.

Except, as he turns, Mikey–

slips.

His foot slides out from under him, misplaced just slightly on the slippery railing, and with a squeak, Mikey flails and falls back, disappearing over the edge of the rail in a heartbeat.

Mikey, whose arms are still recovering. Mikey, who has already strained them enough tonight, with his donut-fetching mission and their mall shenanigans and the hours they just poured into their graffiti masterpiece. Mikey, who will seriously hurt himself if he tries to use his chucks and ninpo, or even just his hands alone, to break his fall. Mikey, the worst swimmer of them all.

Leo–

Leo doesn’t reach forward, knowing he won’t make it in time, instead redirecting his instinctively-outstretched hand towards the katana handle sticking out from over his shoulder – grabs it, starts to pull it out–

One second.

Calculations fly through his mind, portal ban forgotten entirely as he pieces together how to catch Mikey with a portal that can’t have a bigger diameter than ten inches while not exacerbating his brother’s still-healing arms, without hurting Leo in a way that might endanger Mikey further, might prevent him from being saved–

Two seconds.

–portal has to appear in just the right spot, considering how far Mikey has fallen, have to do it quick, quick, can’t let him gain too much momentum – equations fly through his mind, he strains uselessly to hear something, anything, as if that might be a reliable metric to know how far Mikey’s fallen–

Three seconds.

His grip tightens and, for the first time in months, Leo whips out his katana and swipes it down through the air with laser precision.

There’s a tug in his soul, in the center of his being, and an ache, like a long-dormant muscle being flexed too quickly, too sudden–

A small glowing portal flickers to life at knee level, barely ten inches across, facing directly up – with desperate faith that his aim was true, Leo sticks his less-bad arm through the portal and grabs–

And his hand locks around Mikey’s ankle, yes yes yes – before Mikey’s momentum can drag him down, Leo concentrates all his might on rotating the portal near Mikey while keeping the one near him fixed in space, using Mikey’s momentum to swing him towards the bridge’s thick support structure, knowing – hoping – praying that his little brother will be able to grab on and hold tight, please please–

There’s a klang right below him, and shuddering vibrations travel up Leo’s arm, wrenching his hand from its death grip. Heart in his throat, he drops the portal and his sword and sprints forward, slams into the railing–

And meets Mikey’s eyes, wide and sparkling and alive.

Taking a deep breath, Mikey pushes down any pain he might be feeling in his arms or his wrist or his ankle and scuttles back up onto the bridge proper, punctuating his arrival with a little hop and a cry of, “That was so fun!”

Before him, Leo reaches out, with an expression of – unhappiness, let’s call it. Mikey just grins wider and hops down from the railing, wrapping his arms around one of Leo’s, hoping that any second, that look of – that look will fade from Leo’s face, that he’ll laugh, or smile, or–

“Mikey,” Leo finally gasps. His hands plant themselves on Mikey’s shoulders, pushing him back to give him a thorough once-over. “Mikey, are you – you’re okay? You–”

“I’m good! I’m all good, I promise,” Mikey laughs, beaming. “Sorry ‘bout that, I forgot how slippery those railings can be! They should put up a sign or something.”

“We – we’ll make Donnie get a civil engineering degree,” Leo agrees, a little faintly. Some of the color is coming back to his face. “Does he have one already? I dunno.”

“Like Donnie could manage to stick with anything that has civil in the name,” Mikey retorts, relishing in the startled laugh it pulls out of Leo. Emboldened by this tiny success, Mikey decides to risk it, and leaps forward, throwing his arms around his brother.

“Mike–”

“Thanks for saving me, Leo,” Mikey declares, imbuing his words with all the love he has. “You’re my hero!”

With the way they’re pressed together, Mikey feels Leo stiffen, feels his breath catch in his throat.

“Whuh. Uh. I – you. Me? Huh?”

Aww! Mikey giggles a bit, tightening his hug up a bit. Maybe Leo’s just a little flustered about it, as if he’s not the picture of everything Mikey wants to be when he grows up. Doesn’t he know that? “Yeah! Of course! You just saved me!” Humming, he thinks. “Plus, I mean… you’ve got the best flips – aside from me, duh – and you make my favorite pancakes when I don’t feel good, and you let me beat you at Pants Pants Revolution even when I know you want the top spot, and you’re the funniest – haha, don’t tell Donnie, okay? – and you’ve got cool portals and you never, ever give up on us, even when we’re dumb or make mistakes, and you’re just, y’know, the best!”

There’s a long beat of silence. From what Mikey can tell, Leo’s holding himself as still as possible, not even breathing.

After an eternity, Leo manages to ask, “What… about Raph?” in a hoarse voice.

Mikey rolls his eyes a little. “I love Raph too, duh, but you’re the best!”

“Um… Donnie?” Leo rasps.

Now that’s a laugh. “Leon, you know as well as I do that Donnie should be a role model to literally no one. He can concede to that too, ask him yourself.”

“…April…?”

“None of us are powerful enough to aspire to be her,” Mikey says sagely. “I’m too scared of complex machinery to get my crane license.” He thinks for a moment. “And before you say it, Pops is all of our hero. Doesn’t count!”

It takes Leo what feels like five months to respond. Only after Mikey gives him a nudge does he startle out of his stupor and stammer, “Oh – hah, yeah, that’s – right.”

Mikey nods once, firmly. Hopefully, the more non-negotiable this fact appears to be, the less Leo will try to argue.

Then, an idea blooms in his mind. Slowly, at first, and then all at once, like a sunrise you look away from for just one second, and all of a sudden the whole sky is lighting up.

“I have,” Mikey begins, excitement barely contained, “a secret to show you.”

Leo’s brain is on fire.

They’ve abandoned their quest for fresh air, having unanimously agreed that they’ve had quite enough of that for one night. Now, Mikey leads Leo through the city, bringing them deeper and deeper. He won’t say where they’re going; just says it’s a surprise. As they walk, he chatters on, hopping from one topic to the next, never releasing his grip around Leo’s wrist. His voice is light and happy, and his movements are smooth, and his eyes are bright.

Leo can’t hear a single thing over the roaring in his ears, the hurricane in his mind.

Thanks for saving me, Leo!

He’s the one who suggested they go up the bridge in the first place. He’s the one who had them graffiti, too – without that, they wouldn’t have needed fresh air. He’s the one who kept that stupid debate going, the one who said something he knew would tick Mikey off, despite knowing he was walking along somewhere precarious.

You’re just, y’know, the best!

What is he, next to his brothers? Raph works through his anger and anxiety and comes out of it kind and patient, an endless wellspring of love. Donnie hones his sharp mind and turns his vicious nature out towards anything that could possibly hurt their family, reserving the soft inner parts of his heart for his loved ones. Mikey is – Mikey.

His brothers are everything – they protect and invent and bring light to dark places, and next to all of them, Leo is–

You’re my hero!

Hero.

Leo is – he’s–

(a joke an embarrassment a fool who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut can’t listen can’t stay still can’t focus can’t take anything seriously rude inconsiderate disruptive took so long to master his portals not smart not strong not funny just makes mistakes and gets the people he loves hurt annoys them and causes them pain just makes everything worse a stain on his family’s legacy it’s all his fault it’s all his fault it’s all your fault it’s all your fault you hurt them you hurt them it was you it was you it was you)

–nothing.

You’re my hero!

Leo wishes he could see the script Mikey’s reading off of. It might make for a laugh or two.

With everyone else right there – why Leo? Why not Raph, kind and strong? Why not Donnie, sharp and smart? Why not April, fierce and loyal? Why not Splinter, who was all of their hero twice over before they even knew it? Why Leo? Why Leo? Why me? Why me? Why me why me why me why why why–

Mikey hums as he saunters down the street. He’s run out of words for the moment, but he still wants to keep putting some happy energy out into the world, so for now, he’s humming and swinging his unoccupied arm at his side, almost-but-not-quite-skipping as he leads them to their destination. The anticipation builds in his chest, like bubbles in a can of shaken-up soda, all fizzy and excited.

Turning a little, he asks over his shoulder, “Hey, got any song requests? If there are no objection, I’m sticking with Mika.”

Behind him, Leo is silent.

Mikey nods, taking it in stride. “No problem-o!” he sings, letting his head bounce from side to side as he starts whistling Lollipop.

Ever since the bridge, Leo’s been dead quiet. But – but it’s okay! It’s okay, because Mikey’s gonna show him something so amazing and perfect and good that he’ll have no choice but to melt and smile, or maybe, stop shoving all his bad feelings down and talk to Mikey. Maybe. He’ll see where the night takes them.

Pushing away the fluttering doubt in his chest, Mikey keeps his smile wide as they turn a corner. Won’t be long now – they’re nearly there, and then everything will be better.

“I’m so excited for you to see this,” he says to Leo. “I haven’t told anyone else, d’you know that? You’re gonna be the first, Leo. You’re lucky I like you so much!”

No response.

“I’m gonna tell Raphie soon though, and Donnie and April too. I think Casey still needs some shots… hmm. I’ll ask April about that again. Last I heard, he got his Tdap a few days ago, did you hear about that?”

Nothing.

“Let’s be real, it was long overdue – if he’s gonna be hanging with us, he might need something even sturdier than that – oh, look, we’re here!”

Finally letting go of Leo’s wrist – if he disappears now, Mikey’s sure he’ll be able to catch him – and skips into the alleyway ahead of him. It’s a dead end between two dilapidated brick buildings he’s never seen anyone come in or out of. There’s a comfortable mountain of trash piled up in the back, and a dumpster sagging against the building on the right. Thanks to the old streetlight at the edge of the alley, the whole place has a warm, homey feel to it.

…At least, that’s how Mikey sees it. Maybe a human who grew up outside of a sewer wouldn’t agree.

Whatever! He slows down and starts creeping forward a little more cautiously. If the past few weeks have taught him anything, it’s to approach halfway and be as nonthreatening as possible. Slowly, he reaches down to his side pocket, unzips it, and pulls out the little plastic baggie he stashed there before leaving the lair. When he opens it, a pungent, meaty smell immediately permeates the air.

“Heeeey, buddy,” Mikey coos, lowering himself into a crouch. “Didja miss me? Aww, d’you wanna see me? Wanna come out and say hi? I’ve got something yummy for you!”

As he clicks his tongue and waves the bag around, he hears Leo approach gradually from behind. Quietly, he hopes his brother’s face has lost that blank expression, even if it might mean he’s looking at Mikey like he’s insane.

Joke’s on him, though – after a moment, at last, there’s a familiar klunk from within the dumpster, like something just bonked its tiny little head on the door. Giggling, Mikey rises to his feet and frantically gestures for Leo to join him. Together, they approach the dumpster, where Mikey reaches out and opens the lid to reveal–

“Klunk!” Mikey cheers, like he’s a character on a sitcom welcoming the fan favorite onto the scene – though, he takes care to keep his voice down. Wouldn’t do to scare away their guest star right when he shows up!

Because Klunk is the best cat in the world, he squeaks back right on cue, perched precariously on the edge of the dumpster, his bright orange fur all fluffed up and ruffled. His little pink nose twitches, and his eyes – one bright green, the other scarred over and milky-white – narrow at Mikey, then focus on the treats in his hand. Within a heartbeat, Klunk’s mewling like he’s never seen food before, clambering out of the dumpster and launching himself onto Mikey with zero hesitation.

Laughing, Mikey passes the bag of treats to Leo with ninja-dexterity and stumbles backwards with Klunk’s momentum, catching and steadying the little creature effortlessly. “Aww, my special little guy! So hungry! Here buddy, let’s sit down, yeah? Let’s sit down right over here, Mikey knows you like this spot, c’mon….”

Trying to contain the cat clambering all over his frame without letting him fall is a task and a half, but Mikey manages it. Once he gets Klunk settled on his folded-up legs gnawing frantically at a tiny mountain of chicken-tuna treats, Mikey glances up, and doesn’t let himself hesitate as he calls out, “Hey, Leo! We’ve got room for one more down here! D’you wanna meet Klunk?”

Leo, who hasn’t moved from his spot next to the dumpster, twitches. Then, almost mechanically, he turns, walks over, and sits across from Mikey. Smooth and soundless.

For a good few minutes, Mikey leaves Leo be, giving him the space to just take in the scene before him. It’s only half intentional – it’s not Mikey’s fault that Klunk is the cutest cat in the entire world and demands all of his attention at all times! Cooing, Mikey alternates between feeding the kitten treats and giving him itty bitty scritches on his itty bitty head, marveling at how soft his baby fur is, how tiny and delicate and precious he is.

Then, at last, Leo stirs. When he speaks, his voice is hoarse.

“He – uh, he?”

Mikey giggles, ignoring the way his heart is doing flips in his chest. “Yeah, he’s a he, Leo.”

“So, he’s your little secret? The thing you’ve been sneaking out for – a kitty cat in a dumpster?”

“Yep!” Sheepish, Mikey scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “So, I guess you noticed, huh?”

A beat, and then: “Raph was worried.”

“Raph was–?” Noting the way Leo instantly looks like he regrets speaking, Mikey stops himself. Bites his tongue. Tucks that piece of information away in his mind for later. “Right! Well – don’t worry about it, okay? Like I said, I was gonna tell Raph and Dad and everyone soon, I just wanted to… y’know, gain his trust first and stuff. He was so shy when I first found him, Leo, you wouldn’t believe it. Took me, like, three visits for him to stop scratching me whenever I tried to pet him!”

Mikey smiles brightly at Leo as he rambles, praying that something he says will break whatever spell’s on his brother, will crack through the icy shell around his heart and let him cry or smile, something, anything–

And then, Leo does smile back. He smiles, and says, “Yeah, that makes sense. The little guy has really come around to you, though! Nice job, Mikey. You did good.” He smiles, and reaches out, letting a curious Klunk sniff his fingers. He smiles – but.

But it’s wrong. It’s like watching someone pull on a mask, bright and distracting and covering up everything underneath. It’s fake and wrong and it looks like half the smiles Leo’s shot in his direction tonight, like most of the smiles Leo’s given them since the invasion, since even before that.

Mikey’s stomach swoops sickeningly like he missed a step on the stairs. As he watches his brother smile plastically and scratch the underside of Klunk’s chin, he can’t help but wonder: how did I not notice?

Well – that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? He was so busy trying to figure out how to fix the problem that he let it get worse, right in front of him, without even realizing it was happening. Hell, he even made it worse himself, with that stupid accident on the bridge. Maybe if he’d been honest, and not shoved down his fear – or if he’d told Leo his arms were hurting before, or if he’d actually confronted him about the donut thing – if he’d done a thousand little things differently, maybe he could’ve helped his brother sooner. Saved him some of the ache his big, brilliant heart has been suffering.

Instead, Mikey’s wish has been granted in a twisted way: the blankness on Leo’s face is gone, but now he’s further away than ever.

But Mikey is the guy who fixes thing. His magic hands brought Leo back from another dimension; surely he can bring Leo back from the dark corners of his own mind. No – there’s no surely about it. Mikey has to. He doesn’t have a choice. And even if he did, this is what he’d choose.

So – Mikey swallows down his guilt and fear, and leans forward. “Hey – Leo?”

Leo doesn’t glance up, too busy concentrating on scratching Klunk behind his ears. “Yeah?”

Mikey’s voice stalls in his throat. He wants to – he’s going to, he has to – but he can’t shake the phantom of Raph over his shoulder, his oldest brother’s voice echoing in his mind. Even as he speaks, he can hear it, can see the raw concern in Raph’s eyes as he told Mikey:

“No matter what – you know this already, don’t you? You’ve seen how he reacts. You cannot, under any circumstances, directly ask Leo–”

“Are you okay?”

Leo freezes.

The question hangs in the air, simple and earnest and somehow as damaging as a blade. Mikey doesn’t take it back, he can’t, but now, Leo’s blank, vaguely pleasant expression has taken a turn towards something desperate, like a wild animal caught in a trap.

“Aw, Mikey!” he sings. His grin strains, contorted, sickening. He’s trying so hard. But there’s a new, fervent desperation bleeding into his voice and body that betray his inner turmoil. He’s not petting Klunk anymore, slowly pulling away, like Mikey won’t notice if it’s gradual enough. “C’mon, you know you don’t have to worry about me!”

“But I do worry about you,” Mikey says plainly, holding back his wince at how potently it hits Leo, the way his shoulders curl forward. “You’re my brother! I love you so much, and I can tell that you – that you’re hurt, and I don’t want you to feel like that! You deserve better! You deserve to heal, to not be scared anymore, to relax and–”

Mikey can’t bite back his rambling, even as he sees the terrible hunted look in Leo’s eyes, the way he keeps hunching back further and further – but Mikey can’t stop, nothing else has worked tonight and dancing around the problem will never fix it, so it doesn’t matter if this method isn’t helping yet, because maybe it will. Any second now, it will work. It has to. Maybe the next question, the next look, the next gesture–

But at last, Leo cuts him off with a hiss and a sharp gesture. When Mikey meets his gaze, his eyes are burning, furious and miserable. “How the hell can you stand to say all that nice stuff about me when I’m – when I’m–”

Mikey has a sudden moment of realization: whatever derogatory nonsense Leo’s about to say about himself, Mikey doesn’t even want to hear it.

“You’re a good brother,” Mikey interrupts. Gentle, plainly. Completely earnest.

Leo just – stares at him. And then he laughs.

It’s not a nice laugh. It kind of sounds like someone choking on a straw, honestly. Mikey’s blood runs cold. In his lap, Klunk lets out a distressed mewl.

“A good brother?” The mirth in Leo’s voice is edged with a poisonous hate. “Really, Mikey. That’s what you’re gonna go with? For real?”

Heart pounding, Mikey starts to raise a hand. “Leo–”

“Haha – no. I’m not – you really think – a good brother. Pull the other one, Angie. Maybe you forgot, or hanging around that cat gave you toxoplasmosis and you’re not thinking straight.”

Toxo-what? Can hanging out with cats poison people? It’s the least alarming of the things Leo’s saying. “Leo, what–”

“But I’m the one who ruined everything,” Leo continues, ragged, like he didn’t hear Mikey, like he’s not there at all. “I didn’t take the leadership role seriously. I riled up Raph all the time like it was a full-time job, even though he was just worried about us. I destroyed everything the future, I almost destroyed us in the now, and I – I’m the one who can’t keep it together long enough in the aftermath to help everyone else, even though it’s not about me!”

“What?” Mikey interrupts, baffled. “Of course it is.”

Leo stops.

Then, his expression breaks into despairing confusion. “I – no, you – no, you don’t understand – I was selfish! I was stupid, and selfish, and immature, and it was all on purpose! I hated myself every second of it, but I still – and it was my fault. Every bit of it. You can’t deny it – I lost the key, I pushed ahead when Raph told me not to and got him hurt and captured, I almost got us all killed–”

His voice cuts off, strangled by emotion, and Mikey takes the opening, heart in his throat. “Leo, you went through so much – you almost died! You had to fight Raph – you had to fight the Kraang alone, and ended up in another dimension! You went through the wringer – you’re allowed to not be okay!”

Leo shakes his head sharply, like he’s casting off all of Mikey’s pleas. “You’re the one who almost lost his arms doing the portal thing to save me–”

“Yeah!” Mikey interrupts, before Leo can go on another insane tangent, “and it was really scary!”

Leo gestures emphatically, as if to say, see?

Mikey blinks, and then squints at him. “…You know it wasn’t scary because I almost lost my arms, right? Like – yeah, obviously that wasn’t great, but – but that was nothing compared to the thought of losing you.”

Leo’s face goes blank.

Taking that as a sign to keep going, Mikey continues, “Leo, when that hole over the city closed with you on the other side, it was – it was like the sun went out. It’s kinda hard to put it into words, but it was just – the worst feeling I’ve ever felt before. Like the world was ending around us, without anything to do with what the Kraang did.” With a deep breath, Mikey sets his shoulders and looks right into Leo’s eyes. “If it meant bringing you back, I would’ve given up both arms. Easy trade.”

At that, Leo’s nothing expression gives way, crumbling into devastating panic. “No no, don’t – don’t say that. Please. I couldn’t – I would – no. No. Please.”

Even as his heart cracks, Mikey forges on. “We were all hurt when the Kraang attacked, Lee, but that includes you too! Not just the bruises and broken bones, but everything. They took Raph and hurt Dad and me and Donnie almost got squished and I know we scared you. We scared you a lot. I’m really, really sorry, Leo.”

“Mikey–”

“And when you were on the other side, I know – we know that the Kraang said… something. We don’t know what, but you talk in your – when you’re dreaming, sometimes, you… I just – I wish that never happened. I wish we could’ve been there with you, or gotten you out sooner. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you’ve made – it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t deserve to go through any of that, Leo. Not ever.”

“Please….”

“And what do you mean, not helping us? You’ve helped us a ton! You’re our medic! Not only that, but no one else could make Donnie smile on his bad days like you do. You draw Raph out of his shell – literally and figuratively. Without you, I think Dad would’ve regressed to his strict diet of bad TV and cake and self-hatred. You distract April and get her through her anxious episodes, and no one’s been able to connect to Casey the way you have. And – and every day, I get to wake up, and know that I’m in a world that still has you in it. D’you even know how lucky I feel? Because I am. I’m the luckiest turtle in the world, and that’s because you’re my brother, Leo, whether you like it or not.”

Before him, Leo shakes.

“And sure, okay, maybe you’ve made a few mistakes – during the Kraang stuff, and before, and even a few after. But Leo – all of us have made mistakes! Every single person in this family! Big ones, small ones, stupid ones from not thinking things through, unlucky ones with the best intentions – but none of that matters! It doesn’t matter, because no matter what you did, it would never mean that you deserved what happened to you. That’s not how that works, Lee. Okay? Here – here. We’ve got you. We got you.”

Leaning forward, Mikey scoops Klunk into his hands and deposits him onto Leo’s lap. As gently as can be, he takes Leo’s hands by the wrists, puts them on Klunk, and leans back, punctuating it all with a firm nod.

Klunk immediately starts purring, and wiggles around until he can turn over and expose his fluffy little belly to the world, because he is the best cat in the world.

And Leo–

leans his head back, baring his tear-streaked face to the golden glow of the streetlight, shoulders shaking and trembling hands pressed gently but firmly into Klunk’s downy fur.

“I–” he chokes out, cut off almost right out the gate by another sob.

Mikey bites back every word in his vocabulary. It feels like he’s watching his childhood home burn down. It feels like he’s seeing a chrysalis break open, unfurling color and life, fragile and new.

After a long stretch of silence, marked only by Leo’s poorly-stifled sobs, he finally rasps, “Why – earlier. You s-said. I’m your… hero. Why?”

And Mikey–

He knows that whatever he says tonight, in all likelihood, won’t stick. He knows the words and their meanings won’t hold in Leo’s head; knows that whatever he will say, it’s going to roll right off of his mind, like water off an umbrella.

A part of Mikey, bigger than he’d like to admit, wants to grab Leo by the shoulders and just shake him. Wants to groan, and grind his teeth, and let Doctor Delicate Touch loose. Wants to use his impressive lung capacity to drive the truth into his stubborn, annoying, incredible brother’s giant brain until he forces it to stick, because the thought of walking around in or under this city while knowing that Leo doesn’t fully believe him is tantamount to literal torture.

But he knows that Leo’s brain already treats him roughly enough for the both of them. He knows that it takes his silly, smart, wonderful big brother, and hunts for every little part of him that could possibly be considered a flaw under the wrong light, and blows them all up to skyscrapers, looming over anything good and shining, their shadows eclipsing everything.

But Leo still needs to hear something. Even if it’s a logic he doesn’t understand, a script he can’t yet read without getting a headache from not understanding it all. He just needs to know it’s real, somewhere.

And so, Mikey tells him.

It takes a long time. The moon moves across the sky. Tissues are used up by both of them, and then tossed around for a restless Klunk to play with. Leo barely makes eye contact with him. But through it all, Mikey speaks. And he tells nothing but the truth.

“You’re our brother. You’re Donnie’s other half and Raph’s best friend and Splinter’s favorite for a whole lot of reasons, not least because you inherited so much of his charm and showmanship. And yes, Leo, you’re my hero. You’re kind, and funny, and compassionate, and so smart. Every day, I’m glad to know you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it properly earlier. You deserve everything. Okay?”

And it might be his imagination, but Mikey thinks that maybe, just maybe, he sees something click in Leo’s eyes.

Before he can dwell on it, his brother sniffs loudly and brings his hands up to wipe at his eyes.

“Um,” Leo starts. His voice is wobbly, like something taking its first steps. “I, um. I don’t – don’t know. If I really… believe you, yet. I’m sorry – I know that sounds bad, but – I just – I don’t know. But I’m going to try.” With this, he raises his head and meets Mikey’s gaze head-on. And in his eyes, at last: determination. “I promise, I’m gonna try.”

For about the millionth time tonight, Mikey wishes his brother could see himself the way Mikey sees him, a hundred feet tall. He wishes he could tell what Leo’s thinking; wishes more than anything that he could tell if Leo’s lying to him, right now. If he’s smiling along and saying all the words he knows Mikey wants to hear, because Mikey might be Doctor Feelings, PhD, but Leo’s a world-class actor, and if he doesn’t want others to know what he’s feeling, they won’t. End of story. And of course, Mikey will be on Leo’s case more now, to make sure he knows how loved he is and to accept help and take care of himself. But he won’t know for sure – not for a long, long time – if any of it is taking root. If he’s tossing seeds into a fertile field, or onto concrete.

But maybe that’s a part of it, too – maybe Mikey has to trust his brother a little, in this small way. It’s hard, with how much Leo’s lied about it in the past, but Mikey thinks he can make that leap, now. And he knows, better than anyone, that a little trust can go a long way. Being given it so scarcely as the baby of the family taught him that lesson very frequently. But with it came the flipside: when he is given that trust, that responsibility, it feels more precious than gold.

And honestly, trusting Leo isn’t exactly a hard muscle to flex. Mikey has left so many things in his brother’s hands throughout the years without a second thought: his Game Boy, his favorite set of markers that one time, his spatula whenever he has to prove to Donnie that he totally can do two backflips in a row right in the kitchen, his hand to pull him along, his life. To be fair, trusting Leo with his own wellbeing is new territory, but… well. Mikey can manage to find the faith.

So Mikey leans back, gives his brother a sunny smile, and says, “Okay, Leo. I trust you.”

A little over a decade ago, Splinter took his sons to see the ocean for the first time.

It was the first time any of them could remember leaving the sewer proper. Sure, Splinter brought them along to the ends of drainage pipes and to peek out at the streets of New York City from beneath the streetside grates. But this was something special. It was the first time any of them hadn’t had walls around them that they could recall.

They made a day trip out of it. To avoid being seen by any humans, they went in the dead of winter, on a frigid day in the middle of January. The sky was a pale gray, glowing with the hidden light of the sun. Splinter made it an exercise in stealth for himself, sneaking around corners and slipping through shadows, all while corralling four little baby turtles bundled up in enough scavenged winter gear to make them nearly bulletproof. The whole event was troublesome for boys who had always been able to be as loud and rambunctious as they wanted at all times, especially with a promise they couldn’t even envision waiting for them on the other side–

But it was all made worth it when they spilled out onto the beach, and saw the Atlantic stretching out forever in front of them for the first time.

For kids who had only ever seen the insides of boxes and hidden-away corners of the sewers before, it was overwhelming. All of them were excited – Leo can especially remember how awestruck Donnie was, his twin’s fingers twitching, like his whole brain was igniting at once at all the new information on display in front of them. He remembers Mikey shrieking in excitement, sprinting across the sand at breakneck speeds, playing tag with the waves. Remembers Raph spinning around, running his hands through the sand, meticulously picking out pretty shells and storing them in every pocket of his jacket.

But Leo was… scared.

He did his best to hide it, but Splinter still noticed and asked him about it. Leo couldn’t explain what he was feeling, or why he was feeling it, but some part of him knew that it was fear gnawing at his lungs, tugging on his heart.

“It’s just… so big,” he whispered, voice trembling.

Now, Leo sits with Mikey on top of the Ferris wheel on Coney Island, milkshakes from The Creamery in hand and Klunk fast asleep in Mikey’s hoodie. The little guy passed out after their run to The Creamery for milkshakes ended with him getting his own modified pup cup – but only after Mikey mistook it for an actual menu item and earnestly tried to order one for himself. The hilarity of it was enough to shock Leo out of his emotions-induced haze, drawing an honest bark of laughter out of him.

Before them, the sun rises over the sea, peeking over the horizon and painting the sky in an endless array of colors and light. Mikey’s got his eyes glued to the sight, enchanted by it – which is fair. Though, Leo’s not quite as impressed. After all, he’s had the sun by his side all night long.

No; instead, he’s thinking about the last time he found himself face-to-face with something too big for him to comprehend. Despite everything he’s done, every way he’s failed the people he loves, the idea that Leo’s family could still love him unconditionally is – it just starts to become something painful. Like he’s staring out at the open ocean for the first time in his life all over again: he can’t help but want to look away. To give in to the instinct to turn his back to it all.

But if there’s one thing he knows after tonight, it’s that he can’t do that anymore. If nothing else, he owes Mikey that much.

(And maybe – maybe he owes himself too, a little bit? It feels so stupid to think, outlandish and silly, but. It doesn’t feel as wrong to think as it might have before. Isn’t that something?)

Inhaling deeply, Leo focuses on the smooth cardboard of his milkshake cup, exhaling slowly to try and center himself. Geez, what a night. He feels emptied out and sort of blank, but not completely in a bad way? And also, utterly exhausted. At least he’s not making it worse by keeping up his everything-is-fine front anymore. He does still have a bit of a front up, because otherwise he doesn’t think he’d be able to get a single word out, and then what would Mikey be left with? But the words are coming easier, which is nice.

And honestly, even if he tried, Leo doesn’t think he could pull off his usually happy-chill-confident mask. That little chat with Mikey knocked him completely off balance, and now it’s like he’s been locked out of Normal And Stable Mode. Eugh – no, wait, that was too much of a Donnie-ism. It’s like – it’s like he lost the pages of his usual script, so he’s stuck doing some kind of haphazard honest improv instead. There, much better.

One of the few things keeping him from completely falling apart is the fact that even in the face of Leo’s raw honesty, by all accounts, Mikey is… actually okay. Shockingly enough, he actually seems a little better than before, like seeing all the ugly, miserable parts of Leo’s brain pulled into the light actually… helped Mikey? Somehow? Leo will think more on it later, when he’s not half-asleep. Maybe he’ll even talk to Mikey about it himself, instead of just ruminating on it alone. It seems to have worked this time – why not keep up the trend?

Communicating with his siblings; who knew that might actually solve some of his problems? Something like hope flutters in his chest at the notion. For the first time in recent memory, the thought of tomorrow isn’t quite so daunting.

“Soooo…” Mikey says slowly, jarring Leo from his stupor, “I’ve kinda been wanting to ask you: the reason you wanted to hang out… is it because… did Raph say anything to you?”

Several dots connect in Leo’s head at once. “Ohhh, so that’s why you–”

“I knew it!!” Mikey hollers, slapping his hand down onto the metal roofing of the Ferris wheel with a klang. He’s clearly peeved at the deception, but it’s all made worth it when he smiles as Leo laughs, bright and loud and long. Even so… “We can’t let this stand. This is a slight against younger siblings everywhere. Our revenge is imminent, and will be swift.”

“Oh, yeah,” Leo agrees easily. “Younger siblings’ prerogative. They’ll never see it coming.”

Mikey nods firmly. The intimidating air he’s projecting is dampened somewhat by the kitten sleeping in his hoodie, and the sugary pink milkshake he takes an angry sip of.

Leo can’t help but smile fondly. Whatever he did to deserve such a good little brother, he’s thankful for it every day. “Plus, we’ve got another new prerogative.”

“Hm?” Mikey glances over, revenge momentarily forgotten and cheeks full of milkshake. “Wazzah?”

“Uh, taking care of each other, duh!”

“Ohh – well, yeah! That one goes without saying,” Mikey approves, nodding and raising his cup. “We have each other’s backs for forever now. Like, we already did, of course, but even more from now on. I can fight someone for you, Leo. D’you have someone for me to fight? Fillet? Psychologically torment? All of the above?”

“Well, we should probably head home and hit the sack first,” Leo replies wryly, setting down his empty milkshake cup, “but before we end things: let’s count up our crimes for the night, shall we?”

Mikey perks up immediately. “Ooh, yes yes yes!”

“Alright, first up, we’ve got… hmm, trespassing?”

Grinning, Mikey holds up two fingers. “Disturbing the peace!”

“Heh – vandalism?”

“Stealing!”

Leo blinks. “We – uh, what’d we steal, again?”

“Everyone’s hearts,” Mikey answers, smiling angelically.

Leo can’t help but chuckle at that. “Yeah, alright, y’know, fair enough. Was there anything else… um, kidnapping?”

Mikey giggles and gestures to Klunk, earning an adorable cat-activation noise for his efforts. “Cat-napping!”

“Hah! Catnap.”

Mikey’s giggling tapers off into a yawn. “Hehe… could really go for one of those right now,” he admits, rubbing at his face.

Wincing, Leo hunches a bit. “Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Hey, uh, speaking of which… I’m sorry, for waking you up so early – so late? – for all of this. That wasn’t really cool of me, huh?”

“Oh, nah, it’s totally fine!” Mikey waves a hand. “I mean, sure, I may be tired, but, y’know.”

Leo snorts. “Do I?”

Mikey beams at him. “Well, it was worth it, right?”

And Leo…

Leo basks in the brilliance of his little brother, and today, just this once – or maybe, as the start of a new trend – he takes his brother’s words to heart.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was,” he affirms. And when he smiles back, it’s not wide, or bright, but it’s real. It just needs a little more time, but someday, he’ll get there.