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Chapter Text

Mikey leaves Draxum's just ahead of six o'clock and finds Leo leaning back on the wall outside the apartment complex. A thin grey hood covers his face, poking out of the lopsided collar of one of Raph's enormous red sweatshirts. This one has little pink hearts dotting the sleeves. Mikey smiles when he sees it. Raph was scouring the laundry room for it the other day, wondering where it had gone, and of course the culprit was their resident clothing thief. Leo has his swords in a kendo carrying case, slung over his shoulder. The light from his phone illuminates his face as Leo frowns down at it, plucking at his bottom lip, but he pockets it as soon as Mikey sidles up beside him.

He flashes one of those big, easy-going smiles.

"Hey, B-day Boy! Wanna get smoothies?"

Mikey's birthday is technically three days away – marked in orange sharpie on the fridge mini-calendar, accented with rainbow and sparkle stickers – and Mikey knows a "surprise" party is in the works because Donnie has been extra-cagey and hiding out in his lab so he doesn't blow the secret; Raph has been coming up with increasingly-bad excuses when Mikey catches him sneaking around, sometimes carrying nondescript boxes or trash bags full of clearly-not-trash; and Leo has been.

Well, he's been Leo.

Casually evasive. Cool as a cucumber.

But of course, Mikey's not gonna say no to a smoothie, even if it has an agenda. He props his hands on his hips and stances.

"You payin'?"

"Obviously!"

"Then I also want a cake-pop!"

"Yeah okay, fine," Leo says, performatively rolling his eyes, "Twist my arm, why don'cha."

He pushes away from the wall and reaches out to grab Mikey by the shoulder of his own faded orange hoodie, tucking Mikey under his arm, against his side, as they start off along the sidewalk. He's almost a whole week off the forearm crutches and doesn't actually need help walking anymore, barely even favors his right leg at all, really. Mikey is still pleased as punch to be leaned on. He curls one hand around Leo's wrist and winds his other arm around his brother's waist, and doesn't bother trying to keep the warm glow in his chest from spreading over his face as a big smile.

-

Leo orders a Piña Colada smoothie and sips on it with mock impatience, poking and pestering good-naturedly while Mikey waffles at the counter. There are so many good options, he can't decide right away whether or not he wants to try something new. Since it's his birthday (almost) and Raph and his peanut allergy aren't around, Mikey settles on his fav: an almond and peanut butter smoothie with EXTRA honey! He also gets a strawberry cheesecake pop that's nearly as big as his fist, with pink icing and rainbow sprinkles (Leo is a buzzkill and won't buy him sixteen to match his age, even for The Bit).

The sun has already sank well below the Manhattan skyline, painting the dense post-winter clouds orange and purple.

The creamery is across the street from a long-empty corner lot that was unceremoniously expanded after the building next door came down during the invasion. In the wake of no new financial endeavors to speak of, the community has commandeered the space for a park of sorts. Many such cases in the poorer areas. No one wanted to bother with rebuilding. So the people who lived here did. The park is surrounded by hydrangeas budding in the spring air and a low brick wall. It has a couple of small trees in sparse dirt, rickety benches and tables, and raised flower beds; a tattered basketball hoop propped up with cement blocks; and ropes of mismatched lights that create a warm glowing bubble on the steadily-darkening street that's otherwise lit by over-bright streetlamps and flickering ads.

Mikey hops up to sit on the low wall beside Leo, giving him a sly side-ways glance.

"So, is everyone else settin' up for my surprise party?"

Leo laughs, shaking his smoothie to loosen it up.

"Nice one, hermano~" he says, grinning. He pinches Mikey's cheek to point out that not only is he pouting about the dismissive answer , but also that he's the only one of them left with adorable, round, pinch-able baby cheeks, "And anyway, who said anything about a surprise party? Hm?"

"No one," Mikey admits, blowing bubbles into his smoothie.

Dismissing the idea is gonna be Leo's only acknowledgment that there is a party, so Mikey settles for feeling smug that he guessed correctly, even if he is off on the date. He sips his smoothie and watches Leo unwrap the toasted breakfast bagel he got from the creamery. Mikey made pastalaya at Draxum's – it's nice having someone that shares enthusiasm for his culinary adventures, even if Draxum is a little more strict on what counts as healthy and also doesn't trust m any 'feeble human recipes ' to actually be good. The pastalaya was a hit tho.

Letting it sit at a low heat while they did mystic stuff really unleashed the flavor~ and all.

If Mikey had known Leo was going to meet him after and be hungry, he would have brought the leftovers with him instead of leaving them for Draxum.

"Sooo," Leo wheedles, "What'd you learn?"

"Mmm. Boring stuff," Mikey says, kicking his heels against the brick, "He gave me homework! I gotta practice my calligraphy and find like, three different books about ancient runes. D'you think Donnie will go to the library with me?"

"You know that nerd loves the library. Are you gonna get yourself put in baby jail again?"

Mikey huffs in the face of Leo's grin, "No!"

"Ohkay," Leo laughs like he doesn't believe this, "I'll remind you, you're like 4 for 0, baby bro."

"That bat librarian is way too strict!"

The two of them chit-chat amicably while they eat and sip their smoothies, people-watching while the night traffic rolls by. Leo at no point asks about Draxum himself, and Mikey doesn't expect him to. Donnie is over at Draxum's nearly as much as Mikey is, and Raph would be friendly with a man-eating tiger even if it bit him. Leo is Splinter's most made-in-his-father's-image child and can hold a grudge the longest out of all of them, though. It's not surprising that he's taking the longest to warm to their other dad, even after Draxum helped out with all their injuries (and Leo's in particular) after the invasion.

Mikey's no longer convinced it's 100% about the 'threw him off a roof once, three years ago' thing, but Leo will never fess up to what his real beef is and Mikey hasn't been able to Dr Delicate Touch it out of him, so he's trying to be okay with letting it go for now.

Leo will chill, or he won't.

That's his business.

See? Why does everyone insist on babying him still?

He's so mature now.

Movement catches Mikey's eye as he glances toward the entrance to the park. A dirty little orange cat – a kitten, actually – has slunk around the corner, keeping close to the wall nearby. Mikey's heart melts instantly. Jeez, it's barely bigger than his cake-pop was! It's got the thin, skittish look of something half-starved, even around the kitten floof. It moves apprehensively, hunched close to the pavement, constantly stopping and looking toward the noise and movement at the road. Mikey glances over his shoulder into the park, watching for a little while, but doesn't see any others, or a momma cat prowling around.

It's too little to be all alone.

He turns back to the baby and leans over across his knees, putting his hand down past his feet and snapping his fingers for it's attention. The kitten flinches and puffs up at him, standing stock-still. It's got mellow amber eyes. Ears tipped with white tufts.

"C'mere, sweetie," Mikey croons, rubbing his fingers together.

The kitten backs away quickly. About-faces and then darts behind the nearby trashcan.

Mikey wilts. "Aawww!"

"Can't charm 'em all, Miguel," Leo laments with a chuckle, crumpling the bagel wrapper between his hands. He overhands it toward the trashcan. "Kobe!"

Of course it sinks right into the bag with barely a rustle.

Mikey has no idea what happened to the lid with push-flaps on all four sides that are usually chained to those things, but the wildlife is going to have a field-day with it tonight. The current wildlife is startled though, even by that gentle swishing sound.

The kitten darts out from behind the trashcan and across the bike lane.

Into traffic.

Mikey jolts, moving before he can even think; drops his half-finished smoothie, slips off the wall. The first car, by some miracle, rushes harmlessly over the top of the kitten when the tiny creature freezes, locking up in fright and hugging the street. It tumbles over in the rush of air that follows. It meows pitifully. Mikey leaps across the sidewalk, the bike lane – there's no parking on this side of the street, so there's nothing obstructing the next on-coming car's view.

A horn blares.

Tires squeal.

There's a startling onslaught of noise and lights and motion, but that tiny kitten, bedraggled and trembling, is all Mikey is looking at. It's all he's focused on.

He scoops the unbelievably small, downy-soft body into his hand.

Feels a heart beating quick-hard-quick against his palm.

The front bumper of the car hits him with enough force to knock him forward into a rolling tumble, scrapping him raw across the asphalt, black and red and blue spotting his vision, ears ringing. Instinctively, he angled his shell toward the danger, tucked his head in and his arms against his chest. The Kraang definitely hit a lot harder, but wowie.

It still hurts.

It still knocks his breath out.

It still makes him crazy dizzy when he groans and leverages himself up onto an elbow. It feels like the entire earth sways to the left, and then sways to the right, before resolving into a big swirling motion.

Another clatter and a loud bang makes Mikey's heart jump. He swings he head toward the noise. Leo has thrown whatever was left of his own smoothie at the now-stationary car, splattering the windshield with cream-colored slush, and punched the hood hard enough to leave a shallow dent behind (a companion for the significantly larger, Mikey-shaped dent in the front bumper). He calls the driver gaping at him through the windshield names that would make Raph turn purple if he heard them and then he half-hops half-runs to Mikey – oh man, Leo's knee.

Did he hurt it jumping off the wall?

Mikey feels so bad.

Leo's face is pinched into a tight expression, his eyes wide, as he kneels in front of Mikey, grabbing him by the shoulders and leveraging him upright to look him over.

"Mikey! Mikey, you okay?"

Leo's hand shakes as it moves back to rub Mikey's shell through his hoodie, feeling for fractures.

Mikey blinks hard at him, trying to focus. Man, his head is ringing. He's only only seen Leo this scared a handful of times though, and it instantly clears some of the fog away. Leo's hands grip up and down his arms, his shoulders, his legs, checking for breaks and finding none. They move carefully up his shoulders, then his neck. Mikey winces when Leo's palm accidentally brushes against his left cheek. Leo cradles his head in both hands and carefully turns it both ways, staring intently into his eyes.

"Mikey, seriously, can you hear me? Anything broken??"

Mikey feels a lot like a cartoon character who got a fridge dropped on them, spinning in a loose circle with stars or birds chirping around his head or something.

He manages, "M'okay're you okay?" because he's still thinking about Leo's poor knee. He's worked so hard at physical therapy, Mikey doesn't want to be the reason he has to go back to the crutches.

Leo's expression darkens.

Whoopsie daisy.

Mikey's not sure what that look is about.

"Dude, I'm fine," Leo says, "You got hit by a car! Over a stupid cat!"

Leo drops his eyes and tugs at Mikey's wrist – and that's when Mikey remembers the kitten. He looks down too, worry so sharp it sends a spike of pain through his head along with his racing pulse. The kitten is fine. Well. It's terrified and probably more than a little mad too. Mikey's hand is around it's middle, holding it in the crook of his elbow. It's gripping into his hoodie with all 20 claws like it's life depends on it, drawing blood near his wrist that stains his hoodie too-dark orange. But it looks fine. It's breathing hard and shaking. It narrows it's baleful amber eyes, opens it's tiny mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, and hisses at Leo when his hand wanders too close.

Leo grabs Mikey's bicep, instead, hauling him to his feet.

Leo's knee nearly gives out, and when he caves a little under their shared weight, Mikey gets with the program. He steadies himself and Leo both, reaching out with his free hand to dig into Leo's borrowed sweater. Leo tries to laugh, but he's clearly rattled, saying it just to say something,

"Dude, you scared me so bad I almost became a Hamato ghost just now!"

He steps forward, limping just a little.

He guides Mikey out of the street and back onto the sidewalk. He stoops, still holding Mikey's arm, to swipe his kendo case from where he threw it down. The plastic cup containing the remnants of Mikey's birthday smoothie is on the sidewalk nearby, at the epicenter of a sticky explosion of dregs of almonds, melting honey/ice slush, and peanut butter.

They've barely stepped over it when the driver calls,

"Hey, man, waddabout my car!"

"Dude, fuck your car, what about my brother!?" Leo snarls, whipping around, his hand so tight around Mikey's arm it feels like he's trying to take Mikey's blood pressure.

Startled by the reaction, Mikey says, "Leo, I'm okay!"

Leo's voice softens immediately as he turns back, "Yup, you're okay. C'mon, let's get home. Jeez, Mike, I swear I aged ten years just now. What the heck."

"You got a Raph Chasm," Mikey giggles, not entirely on purpose.

"And you have a concussion," Leo giggles back with no mirth and an unhappy smile, self-consciously rubbing his forehead.

He walks them swiftly but calmly away from the commotion, his free hand reaching over his shoulder to unzip the case so he can portal them straight home around the very next corner. Mikey is walking on autopilot, thankful his own legs are working just fine and yet agonized over the way Leo is making an effort not to limp in front of him. Mikey's heart is beating crazy hard against his ribs, but he isn't sure whether it's him shaking so hard, or Leo.

He keeps his arm crooked, cradling the kitten against his stomach, trying to make sure he doesn't squeeze it too hard. It's claws poke through his hoodie, scraping his plastron and prickling his arm, and even though it trembles and squirms, it doesn't try to get away.

Mikey feels bad.

But he's really not sorry.

-

The kitten is fine.

Extremely malnourished and dehydrated, but neglect aside, unharmed.

"An orange and white classic, or 'blotched', tabby; classified by it's distinctive coat pattern," Donnie muses, watching with disgust through his goggles from behind the couch while the kitten shoves it's entire body into the saucer of very wet meat-slush, "Surprisingly female."

Mikey is on the couch and Leo is on a milk crate in front of him with the first aid kit open, tending to the road-rash, scratches, and bruises as best as he can. He checked Mikey's shell twice, and scanned him with one of Donnie's thingies, but nothing is cracked or broken.

From her perch on the back of the couch, April asks, "Why is that surprising?"

She's still wearing her party hat.

Rows and rows of streamers hang behind her, along with a bunch of orange and yellow balloons. A banner stretched across the middle of the lounge says "SWEET 16"! There's a table crowded with cupcakes and another piled with presents. Mikey was right about there being a party, and he was right about Leo being sent to pick him up and distract him while the others finished setting up.

It kinda killed the mood pretty quick though, when they portaled in and matched everyone's excited, "SURPRISE!" with a harsh laugh from Leo and a parroted, "Surprise! We got hit by a car!" Mikey has no idea why he used the royal We because that very much did not Not freak everyone out and it took ten minutes longer to calm their dad and brothers, in particular, down. Mikey had to reassure everyone at least five times that he was fine, showed them his rescued kitten, and beamed when Casey Senior called him a beast for besting a Honda Civic and handed him a victory cupcake.

Mikey felt too nauseous to eat it, unfortunately, and he's still a little woozy.

The kitten took right up with Casey though – at least, she didn't hiss when Casey sat beside him on the couch and held her bundled up in Mikey's discarded hoodie while Leo gave him a thorough once-over. Casey cooed at her and rubbed her through the fabric, and then scowled and turned red when April snickered at her. Now, the kitten is in the floor with a saucer of meat slush in front of Raph, who holds the saucer in place with his hand so the kitten can't scoot it across the floor in it's vigor. The kitten growls at him while she eats, making a guttural mrawmrawmrawm sounds that isn't actually the least bit intimidating when she's like, the size of Raph's thumb.

Casey Junior, occupying a beanbag nearby, watches the kitten warily.

Donnie answers April's question with a shrug, pushing up his goggles, "The dum-dum answer is: Due to weird cat genetics, most orange cats are male."

"And what's the real answer?" CJ asks, probably genuinely curious.

Donnie opens his mouth to oblige, but Leo cuts him off, "Anyway, are we seriously keeping the little jaywalker? Seriously?"

Indignant, Mikey says, "It's my birthday!" Leo shakes his head, dabbing at the scratches on Mikey's forearm and wrist with a cotton-ball soaked with disinfectant. Mikey hisses and squeezes his hand into a fist. Leo shakes his arm gently, a wordless reprimand to relax or else it will hurt more, and Mikey does his best, pouting. "Well, it is. Why can't we keep her?"

"No reason I can think of," Leo admits.

"Think she'll eat Pops when she gets bigger?" Raph asks, grinning.

Leo breaks into a grin as well at that, and Mikey's own smile widens.

From the armchair, Splinter scoffs, only half his attention on the conversation as the projector screen flickers with activity. He paused it to make sure Mikey was alright, to fuss as him for being so reckless and scaring everyone over a silly cat, but couldn't reprimand him too much when he squared up for a handful of tiny turtles sixteen years ago. When it became clear that Mikey was fine, he returned to his program and a decent portion of cupcakes.

"It is the size of a chicken nugget," Splinter declares, "We will see whom eats whom!"

"Dad!" Mikey scolds, "That's my baby!"

"They do taste kinda similar to chicken," CJ says, making April put a hand on his shoulder and shake her head, humming mhmh. He splays his hands."What? They do! Not a lot of meat, though."

"I wouldn't worry, Michelangelo," Casey asserts, folding her arms, "Junior is right, it wouldn't even replenish the calories you would burn chewing on it."

Leo adds, "Not even a mouthful, amiright?"

"Like cotton candy with no flavor," Raph agrees.

"Come on now!" Mikey whines.

"If it's going to stay," Donnie intervenes, "It needs a bath. It needs two baths, for redundancy."

Well, Donnie is right about that. The kitten has finished licking as much of the saucer clean as she's physically able too. She's wet and matted now, covered in chunks of meat slush from head to toe as well as whatever filth she picked up from the street. She squints at Raph, hisses when he smiles at her and reaches out with one careful finger to stroke the top of her head, and backs away quickly. She crawls back beneath Mikey's hoodie, bundling herself up out of sight.

Casey leans over and scoops her up at once. The kitten puffs, but quiets, and Casey shoots Raph a smug look in the face of his visible irritation.

"Poor baby," Mikey croons, "Everyone's pickin' on her."

Leo finishes freckling the scratches on Mikey's arm with a cascade of rainbow band-aids, and Mikey takes the kitten from Casey now that he's free. He sits cross-legged and rests the bundle in his lap, then tentatively holds his hand out over the lump in the center. The kitten flinches. She starts growling and puffing and squirming. She jumps and hisses loudly, probably hoping to startle him into withdrawing. But Mikey lets his palm hover there, cupped around her back, calm as you please, until she quiets down, and then he rubs her bowed back gently with his fingertips.

He can feel every one of her little bones.

She needs a good home.

"She might have a momma that's lookin' for her," Raph points out, "So, we should probably check first, before we go adoptin' strays."

"Regardless," Donnie says, "And I cannot emphasize this enough, it is an affront to the senses and it needs a bath. Immediately. And to be sprayed for possible vermin. And diseases..."

"Alright, alright, we've heard your complaints," Leo laughs, finished packing away his medical stuff. His casual, playful tone is back, at least, "Give it up, Miguel, I'll do bath time – you enjoy your party. But take it easy, yeah? You've still got that concussion."

"Um, actually," April interjects, smoothly swooping in to take the bundled kitten out of Mikey's hands before Leo can, "I'll handle bath time. This little ball of peach fuzz cannot be more difficult than Mayhem. How about you take it easy too, and ice that knee for us, hmm?"

"Ppfff what?" Leo tries, "I'm perfectly fine."

Seven different voices snap in tandem some variant of "Leo/Nardo!" and Leo relents with a typical sigh, lifting his hands in a shrug, "Yeesh! Bunch a worry warts."

He grins and winks at Mikey, who chuckles and makes room for him on the couch. April shoves her way in between them after Leo is settled, the hoodie tucked into her arm. She rubs the top of Mikey's head as she passes, snaps her fingers and points at Leo's bad leg until he lifts it onto the milk crate. Satisfied, April shifts the small bundle into her hands so she can keep track of where the kitten is and carries it out of the room. The kitten huffs a little, squirms and lets out this mewling growl, tense as a rock under the soft hoodie; but they're good hands.

Mikey hopes she senses that.

-

Two baths for redundancy later; after cupcakes, and ice cream, and presents, and CJ's first showing of JJ Sails The Seven Seas, and so many birthday hugs Mikey feels ready to burst with happiness; everyone heads home, and the lair feels too big and too empty.

Mikey is exhausted and really starting to feel like he got hit by a car.

But after all the excitement, he didn't want to be in his room by himself, so Leo agreed to snuggle with him while Raph and Donnie went to search for the momma cat and/or siblings. The kitten got bundled up in a dry towel and placed in a large cardboard box so she could have a break from being manhandled. Mikey's nearly falling asleep across Leo's chest because Leo, of course, keeps cheating. Rocking the hammock with his swinging foot, playing soft lofi beats on his phone, and dragging his fingertips along the curve of Mikey's shell, dipping into all the itchy places in between the scutes.

Mikey knows he's probably subtly checking to make sure he didn't miss any damage.

"Sorry, Lee," Mikey mumbles. His face is hidden in the crook of Leo's arm and he keeps it that way when Leo hums a question. "I didn't mean to scare you so bad."

Leo makes a dismissive noise, as if he's ever worried about anything.

"You're fine, babe. Uh, maybe don't jump in front of a moving car next time though."

Mikey could say a lot of things about how it isn't fair that he's expected not to jump in front of things when every one of his brothers has done it, for him, in particular, at numerous points in Mikey's life. But it's his birthday (almost) and Mikey doesn't want to make Leo feel any worse, and he doesn't want to start an argument when they're both so comfy.

So he mumbles, contritely,

"I'll consider it."

Leo laughs.

-

The kitten's 'distinctive coat', as Donnie called it, is much easier to see once she's clean. This is just about the cutest little cat Mikey has ever seen in his life – and she matches his life colors, too! – so he's relieved when Raph and Donnie let him know the next morning (because he DID fall asleep! Leo!) that their search of the park turned up nothing. Maybe she was a drop-off. Maybe the others got got by the food chain – or cars – or other homes! Mikey's not entirely pessimistic.

Either way, he gets to keep her.

The patterns on the kitten's sides consist of huge swirls of multi-hued orange, breaking off into smaller stripes around her shoulders, face, and along her tail. Her underside is pure white, fading to a rusty cream color between the bright stripes.

She's a perfectly cooked, pumpkin-spiced cinnamon roll.

Mikey toys with calling her that. Pumpkin, or Cinnamon Roll. Maybe Ginny (short for ginger) or Mikan, or Peaches, or something else cutesy and food-related.

None of them feel quite right, though.

None of them stick.

-

On the morning of his Actual Birthday (the one Splinter picked when Mikey was like four, when his brothers were big enough to realize there was an entire set of traditions and reasons for getting presents that they were all missing out on and what the heckie was up with that, Dad), Mikey wakes up to a slew of birthday texts. He lays for a few extra minutes in his hammock, replying to them and checking his horoscope.

As always, it's a good day to be an Aries.

Satisfied, Mikey drops to the floor and checks on the kitten. Donnie helped him barricade off a small corner of his train car so she can't wander off and get lost in the middle of the night, and so she can be close to her comfy little cat bed, water, and litter box. He's probably gonna start letting her sleep with him soon and just shut his bedroom door, because he really can't stand it when she cries because she's lonely. She's so tiny, he just doesn't want to squash her. She's already awake and she starts meowing as soon as she hears him moving, scratching at the barricade.

Mikey crouches and reaches in to scoop her out, smiling.

"Good morning, sweet girl! Did you sleep alright?"

She tumbles out of his hands when she realizes he doesn't have any food for her. She scampers along the barricade, balks when she sees the stack of paint cans Mikey had to move to make room for her, and doubles back. Mikey stays where he is, watching her slink timidly past his knees and then dart beneath his work bench. Once she's under there, she cries.

"Baby, c'mere, let's go get breakfast."

Mikey stretches out on the floor and puts his hands out toward her, palms up.

"Come on! You remember breakfast?"

The kitten ignores him, exploring under the bench.

She cries again.

Mikey lets her have a few minutes of freedom to poke around his room, but he knows she's hungry. He crawls forward and scoops her up in his hand again, barely managing to snatch her before she darts behind a tote of art supplies. She doesn't struggle like the did the first few times he snatched her up. Just accepts her fate and glowers in silence. Mikey tucks her underneath his chin, behind his plastron and the collar of his pajama shirt, so she'll feel safe and warm, and carries her to the kitchen, stifling a yawn behind his free hand. He puts her straight down once they're there and the kitten disappears beneath the table, watching him with those big amber eyes.

She comes running the second he peels open the can of kitten food. She cries at his feet – and cries, and cries, and CRIES – pacing back and forth with her little face turned up at him.

"Yeah I thought you'd remember," Mikey teases, mixing the wet food with the kitten milk as quickly as he can. He tried just giving her the bottle at first because, while she's definitely baby, he isn't entirely sure how old she is. But she's shown way more interest in the food.

When Mikey gets the saucer ready and kneels, putting it right under her nose, the kitten full-body dives into it, eating like her life depends on it.

Up til now, it has.

Mikey holds the saucer in place and gently strokes her back.

He doesn't stop, even when she tries to threaten him by puffing up and growling. She grips desperately at the saucer and vocalizes around every bite. Mikey rubs her neck and shoulders with his fingers, but doesn't pull her away from the food. He just touches her and talks to her soothingly so maybe she won't develop and entire complex about it later on, and hopes she doesn't get a tummy ache. She's so tense, it's a wonder she manages to get any of it down.

Once she's finished licking the saucer, Mikey scruffs her so she can't run away.

"Bath time!"

She meows pitiably, tucked into a round little orange ball, which he sets in his other palm and carries her to the kitchen sink. He keeps holding her by the scruff though. He learned his lesson the first time, when she tried to claw him to DEATH during her second bath. She cries like he's killing her every time the water touches her, and Mikey feels a little bad, but also, "When you learn to take your time and stop getting the food all over you, you won't need to have three baths a day, but until then, you're gross and sticky, little lady."

She meows again and sounds so sad.

Internally, Mikey is bawling. He keeps his composure and sops up most of the water in her fur with a hand towel, and then bundles her up in a second fluffier towel to dry properly.

He's sitting in the booth seat at the kitchen table doing just that when Raph ambles in still in his red teddy bear jammies, minus his retainer. Raph cracks his jaw with the force of his yawn and rubs his eyes sleepily, mumbling, "Mornin'," as he shuffles past.

Mikey beams and holds the kitten up.

"Good morning, Uncle Raphie!" he chirps.

Raph chuckles at that, reaching out to boop the kitten's nose. She glares at him, probably not amused at being presented to people in such a bedraggled state.

"Thought of a name yet?"

"Nope," Mikey says cheerfully. He tucks the kitten back into his lap and continues rubbing her dry. "But today's the day! I can feel it!"

"Lemme guess: your horoscope said so?"

"Yup!" Mikey turns to watch him rummage in the cabinet for a big enough cup. "The day I found her is one of my lucky numbers today! That's gotta mean something~ I was gonna make um, french toast in a minute! If you want some."

"Uh, no," Raph says, putting his hands on his hips and frowning back at him, "Yer not. Someone else is makin' french toast if french toast is what you want!"

"Aw but I like making it."

"Birthday rules."

"Fine! I demand french toast! Please and thank you~ Get the griddle out and let it heat up while you do the eggs, cuz it's gonna take all day if you try to do it in a skillet."

"Sure, boss," Raph chuckles.

He plucks the griddle off the top of the fridge with ease and sets it on the counter.

"And don't forget the milk and the cinnamon! And Donnie won't eat it if –"

"I know, I know! Dang! Raph can make french toast!"

"Raph can make french toast?" Leo quips, carrying Donnie's limp body into the kitchen.

Donnie is draped crankily across Leo's shell, his arms hanging over Leo's shoulders so Leo can hold him in place by his elbows, his toes just barely scraping the floor. He's still half-asleep, chin resting on the lip of Leo's shell, eyes pinched closed against the overhead light. Donnie's wearing his full purple pajama set while Leo is only wearing the striped pants. Leo doesn't bother putting Donnie down anywhere. He just stands beside Mikey at the table, smiling, bowed slightly under his twin's weight.

"I want some," he tells Raph.

"Everybody's gettin' some," Raph says, then points at him threateningly with a spatula, "If they're nice!"

"Uhum, I'm always nice!"

"Literally dragged me from my bed," Donnie grumbles.

"Look, I even brought Donnie for your b-day breaky, Miguel."

Leo bends his knees and angles his shoulders slightly like he's showing off a prized deer on the hood of his truck, and Donnie lets out a long groan of irritation.

Mikey smiles, "Thanks, Leo~"

Leo lets go of one of Donnie's arms to rub the top of Mikey's head.

"I demand to be treated with more dignity than this," Donnie grumbles, making no move whatsoever to get under his own steam as Leo totes him across the kitchen.

"Yeah good luck with that," Leo laughs, "Hey, I know what'll cheer up Cranky-tello. You want a coffee? Hm? A coffee-fee?"

"Do not ask me stupid questions this early, Leo."

"A coffee it is!"

"Blue, you are not supposed to have caffeine," Splinter says, hurrying in next.

"It's not for me, it's for Donnie. I'm not tryin'a have a panic attack at 7am, c'mon."

"Oh! Good yes, that is fine then. Red!" Splinter adds to Raph, who's juggling the tub of butter and carton of eggs in one large hand and grabbing the milk with the other, "Come and sit! I will cook."

"Raph wants to help!"

"Very well! You can mix, I will flip. Purple will not eat them if –"

"If they're still kinda wet, yeah, Raph remembers! Man, ya make one slightly under-cooked piece of french toast one time and ya have ta hear about it for forever!"

"Better than burning it," Donnie mumbles over the sound of the coffee pot gurgling.

Leo gasps, looking at him over his shoulder.

"I'm literally being so nice to you and you're roasting me?"

"Like you roasted that toast?" Mikey snipes, grinning.

Leo gasps extra hard and whips around toward him next.

"I brought you your second favorite brother –"

That gets Donnie animated.

He locks his elbow around Leo's neck in a sleeper hold and Leo grunts, struggling to throw him off. And of course they both end up on the floor, tangled and squabbling, rolling under Raph's feet while he's trying to dig the cinnamon out of the spice cabinet and juggle all the ingredients, so he starts yelling over their yelling and trying not to drop stuff on them.

Mikey watches them, giggling.

The kitten has poked her head out of the towel now that she's mostly dry. She sits in Mikey's lap, watching the half-brawl unfold with her ears perked up.

Splinter sighs like he's disappointed but not surprised.

He turns to Mikey with a fond smile then, and reaches out to pinch his cheek.

"Happy birthday, my little tangerine~"

"Thanks, Dad~"

"And what have you named your chicken nugget?"

"Please don't call her that, I haven't decided yet!"

"You had better decide quickly, or else Chicken Nugget will stick," Splinter warns with a chuckle. He rubs the top of the kitten's head with one long finger, and she surprises Mikey by tilting her head back so Splinter can scritch beneath her chin next. "My, what a sweet girl! We need more of this attitude with all these silly, noisy boys!"

Another surprise:

The kitten makes a loud, crackling noise while Splinter is petting her. He hasn't paid much attention to the kitten the past couple of days – Mikey is pretty sure he forgot about her until he spotted her yesterday, following Mikey across the lounge. Now, Splinter hears that noise and chuckles, smiling and rubbing carefully under her chin. It must be a purr. If Mikey couldn't feel the strong vibration under his hand as it rests on her back, he never would have guessed she could make a noise that big.

Apparently, his brothers don't either.

"Izzat her?" Raph ask, pausing in his efforts to break up the twins. He has Leo tucked under his arm like a football and Donnie dangling by the ankle (the ingredients are on the floor, and most of the eggs are probably broken), and the twins both pause in the middle of pinching or twisting an arm or pulling at each others clothes or mask tails, long enough to listen.

"Aaaawww," Mikey coos, "She's actually purring! Are you happy, sweet girl??"

He rubs the kitten's sides, eliciting more of that same surprisingly-loud, crackly noise. She prickles his leg through the towel, making biscuits. She closes her eyes.

"Happy or not," Donnie says blandly, "Something is clearly wrong with the engine."

Leo laughs, "Right? Man, what a clunker."

Somehow, that name sticks.

Clunker.

Shortened to Clunk, officially spelled with a K to add some pizzazz when Mikey gets her a forest green collar equipped with a silver Genius Tech tag, in case of emergencies.

He loves it when his horoscope is right.

-

Klunk ingratiates herself to the Hamato clan with laughable ease.

Raph, of course, is an easy mark.

He loves animals (...even if they don't always love him back).

And his bed is piled with stuffies, most of which are bigger than Klunk. Once Klunk discovers this, she stalks into his room almost every day to pounce on them. She drags the stuffies off the bed and strews them all across the floor of the train car. She holds them fast by the neck with her teeth and rabbit kicks them with her hind legs, growling like something four times her size. The first time Raph caught her, he'd shouted in dismay, and Klunk had puffed up at him and hidden under the bed.

The fourteenth time, he stands in the door with his hands on his hips, his big shadow thrown across the area of disaster and the tiny kitten that caused it.

Klunk hasn't noticed him yet, too focused on assailing her victim. She scampers in a loop and pounces on the yellow dog stuffie with the felt sunglasses and gold chain necklace. She hugs it with her legs and bites the side of it's face, shaking it vigorously.

"What did MC Biscuits do to you?" Raph bursts out, trying not to smile.

Klunk jumps a good foot in the air.

She whips around to face him and meows contritely, and proceeds to drag the dog under Raph's bed.

"Hey!" he laughs, diving after her, "Get back here, you –!"

-

"There's Miss K.K. Slider," Leo drawls, grinning when Klunk pushes beneath the blue curtain over his door and saunters into his room like she owns the place.

She pretends she isn't interested in him.

Leo, much like a cat himself, does the same, adjusting the lay of his fingers on the neck of the guitar and strumming along with the youtube video he has pulled up on his phone. He's sitting cross-legged on the bed with the body of the guitar in his lap and the phone propped up on a pillow. He doesn't glance much at the screen, familiar enough with the keys to play it by ear, his tongue caught between his teeth. Little harder to pull off with like half the fingers, but he's managing just fine.

The blanket underneath him tugs suddenly under Klunk's weight as she climbs up onto the bed.

Still not bothering to acknowledge him, she picks her way across the mattress and pushes her tiny head under Leo's elbow, wiggling between him and the guitar.

"S'cuse you?"

Leo shifts the guitar and lifts his arm to make room for her, and Klunk settles on his thigh.

"Wowww," he laughs softly, "You are definitely worthless."

Klunk slow-blinks up at him, purring.

-

"I know, I know, I have so many neat toys," Donnie says, "The problem is: they are not for you. And they are not toys. This is extremely dangerous machinery, madam!"

He gives the kitten a little shake for emphasis, pointing her at said machinery the way he might point with a burrito or a wrench. Klunk doesn't seem to mind. She doesn't cry or squirm for freedom when Donnie carries her around the lab like this, cupped in his big hand, while he beds to pick up the stray pencils that she carried off, bemoaning her shenanigans, "Honestly, does the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' mean nothing to you? True, satisfaction brought it back, but my point remains: you cannot gambol about in here wherever you like!

"I have tolerated the missing tools and writing implements for long enough! You're working yourself up to a life-time ban, missy. You keep swatting my magnets down and stepping on my blueprints and I have those precisely where I want them! Oh do not."

Klunk starts purring, that loud crackling sound audible enough over the faint dubstep playing from some speaker in the back of the lab.

"I will not be sweet-talked. Not this time!"

-

Any time Casey is in the lair, Klunk is sitting in her lap, purring noisily while Casey strokes her back and rubs her ears; and both of them look so entirely pleased by their mutual like of each other, it's hard to take the Bond Villain bit seriously.

And in true Casey fashion, she beefs constantly with April.

Klunk darts out from behind furniture to wrap her tiny body around April's ankles whenever April is walking past. She pounces on April's head from the back of the couch and starts biting and attacking whatever up-do April's experimenting with. She gets the zoomies and parkours off of April's chest when April is siting down, straight chilling.

"If you don't stop tellin' this cat to attack me," April starts at Casey.

Casey gasps, both offended and somehow pleased by the accusation, "I would never conspire with one ally against another!! She simply has immaculate taste."

"OKAY!"

"She's just a baby," Mikey says, attempting to placate them both, "She's just playing."

He's at least…. 70% sure she's playing.

Klunk hangs unapologetically in the crook of his arm, purring while the girls argue.

-

"That is Patrice," Splinter says seriously, petting Klunk while she sits in his lap, watching a thin woman with grey hair slide across the projector screen, "You cannot trust her. She poisoned her last husband and framed her step-son for the deed!"

Mikey swears that cat is listening.

"Dad, is this appropriate television for a little girl?" he asks teasingly, hands on his hips when he gets up in the middle of the night and finds them like this.

Splinter bats a hand at him, dismissive.

"Shoo, Orange! We are bonding! Isn't that right, chibi nagetto?"

"Stop calling her that!"

-

Shelldon is going through an aloof phase after his most recent software update, so he really only interacts with Klunk when no one else is around – but if Mikey asks him to keep an eye on her while they're out on a nightly patrol, he agrees a little too quickly. They usually come home and find him launching another jingle ball across the room for Klunk to bolt after, or letting her chase the laser pointer. Or once, to Mikey's dismay, catching Klunk as she launched herself off the highest point of the catwalk Donnie recently installed in the lounge.

She landed on his shell as he was racing past.

Shelldon pivoted sharply and threw her off into the netted hammock strung between posts on her cat tree, in what was apparently a well-practiced move.

Mikey and Donnie nearly had a collective heart attack.

But Klunk loves it.

-

"Ooooh Sydney Allen better watch her back cuz there's a new contender for this years Extreme Skateboarding Finals~"

Mikey shifts his weight on the board, cruising in a loose circle around the pool table and smiling down at Klunk as she crouches between his feet. He's seen plenty of videos online of cats on skateboards – it was one of his favorite types of videos, even before he became a cat dad – and he thought he'd have to like train her or something, but she took to it like a turtle. If she even hears one of their boards rolling she comes running, meowing in annoyance that she was left out of the fun.

They're slowly discovering that she's kind of an adrenaline junky too.

She rides in Mikey's hoodie when he hits the half-pipe, and him and his brothers take turns passing her back and forth because none of them will try pull off any moves they aren't 100% confident with on the off chance they beef it and squash her. Leo is the only one who hasn't skated with her so far. He's still working to get his balance back, though.

"Think she can pull of a 14-40?" Leo asks as he passes them going the opposite way.

"With Uncle Leo?" Mikey asks, grinning when Leo huffs a laugh, "Definitely."

-

"I dunno," CJ says tentatively, "I guess the idea of having a pet is still kinda… Weird?"

"Is it?" Mikey asks, turning around a can of tomato sauce to check the sodium.

"Kind of? It was, y'know. Difficult enough keeping the people alive and fed, I guess, so it didn't really make sense to waste valuable food resources. Sorry," he adds quickly when Mikey makes a sad face at him over a box of tortellini, "Not trying to be a downer."

"It's okay." Mikey doesn't like hearing about the bad future Casey JR is from – but they made a brighter one. Besides, "You should be able to talk about it."

CJ smiles a little, shamelessly shoving three entire boxes of beef jerky into his own basket. He still can't get over the abundance of food (or the fact that it has to be paid for, but that's a whole other can of gummy worms), and Mikey tries to bully him into going on a grocery run with him at least once a week. Klunk is perched on Mikey's shoulder as they cruise through the corner store, grabbing staples and snacks. Raph and Casey SR are at the slushie machine, and Mikey is trying to ignore whatever scene the two of them are making while they passionately debate flavors.

Klunk, in contrast, is on her best behavior.

She even senses when CJ needs a hug, and jumps suddenly from Mikey's shoulder to catch herself on the arm of CJ's jacket. CJ startles, both hands darting up awkwardly to catch her in case her claws give out. His hands hover as Klunk climbs up to his shoulder. Once she's there she rubs her forehead against his cheek, ducking underneath his chin.

CJ pets her hesitantly, smiling when she starts to purr.

"See?" Mikey says, grinning, "Klunk agrees!"

"Yeah," CJ laughs softly, "Guess so."

Chapter Text

"No, ma'am," Mikey says, when he sees Klunk's little face poke over the island counter.

She's perched on the stool on the opposite side, and pretends she has no idea what she's being scolded for, turning her face demurely aside to groom her shoulder. Mikey grins at her, lowering the stove eye to a simmer and cleaning up the cutting board and knife. At just 3 months old, Klunk is chunkier than ever. She's tripled in size, which is saying something because she is still small enough to fit in Mikey's cupped hand – and she's still testing her boundaries.

Like trying to get on the counter when Mikey is cooking.

"You ain't slick, girlie, I see you."

She meows at him, eyes bright, tail lifting and swaying in a curly Q.

"I bet you're hungry," he adds, glancing at the Albearto clock on the wall above the door, "Is that what you came in here for? I thought you were spotting Raph while he's weight training."

Klunk chirps at him. She hops down from the stool and rubs against Mikey's legs, rumbling out that loud, broken purr while he washes his hands and dries them on his apron.

He beams down at her.

"I knew it. I bet there's still food in your bowl, you little Klunker. Are you spoiled?"

Klunk meows again, following him to the pantry.

"You sure are!"

Another meow.

"Yes, ma'am!"

There is still a little bit of dry food in her silver bowl. Mikey picks it up, anyway, and opens a can of wet food for her – the good stuff. Klunk gets absolutely chatty when she hears the metal lid peel up. She butts her head against Mikey's legs and puts her front paws up on him, meowing and chirping and pacing and rumbling. When he takes three seconds too long to scoop it out and set it down for her, she leaps up, hooking her claws into the tail of his apron to haul herself up his front.

Mikey laughs, "Girl! Calm down."

He plucks her off with one hand, setting the bowl down with the other.

She tucks her face into it as soon as it's in front of her.

She doesn't eat like she's starving anymore, horking every bite down without savoring it. After the first few bites, she takes a moment to lick her face clean, swiping at her whiskers, and eats the rest with a little more dignity. Mikey crouches beside her, hugging his knees, smiling while he rubs her back. She never growls at him anymore. He can pick her up and carry her away from her food any time without issue because she trusts him to give it back to her, and that makes him crazy happy.

Mikey gives her one more good rub behind the ears and then stands to wash his hands again. His stew is simmering. Now he's gotta work on the bread. His dough is probably ready by now. Mikey pulls it out of the warm oven and punches the soft, tacky ball. It deflates a little, and he flops it out into the waiting pan, slathers the top with garlic and olive oil, and lets it rest, chopping tomatoes so he can toss them with the basil and olive oil while the oven climbs to the right temperature.

Klunk finishes her meal at some point and comes over to smack around one of the smaller cherry tomatoes that rolled off the counter at Mikey's feet.

Mikey toes it across the room, laughing at her skittering sideways run.

Once he's finished with the prep work, he washes the few dishes, picking up Klunk's now-empty bowl as well and refilling her water bowl. She's lost the tomato under the wire rack against the wall that houses most of the pots and pans. She cries about this, pacing over to Mikey and then back to the rack.

"What?" he asks.

Klunk meows, crouching to paw beneath the rack.

"What is it?" he insists, hands on his hips, smiling as he watches her fuss. He can see the tomato through the wire shelf, a red spot on the concrete floor near the wall.

Klunk looks at him, clearly not amused by his feigned ignorance of her predicament.

Mikey moves the rack away from the wall, wincing as he steadies the wobbly stacks of pots and pans, and then reaches behind it, plucking up the wayward tomato. Wow, someone really needs to clean back here. There's a dust ball stuck to the side of it that's so big, he momentarily thinks it's a spider and flinches. He tosses the tomato, dust ball and all, over his shoulder.

Klunk watches it hit the bottom of the cabinet and go rolling toward the booth seat in the corner. Then she grooms her paw and swipes it behind one of her ears, indifferent.

"Wow," Mikey says.

The nerve of this girl.

What a brat.

He moves the rack back into place, rearranges the stacks a little so maybe they won't tumble across the floor, and checks on his bread.

Draxum is coming over for Family Night.

He promised to be nice.

Raph and Leo were on his case the other day because there was a resurgence of oozesquitos in Central Park, and a couple of new mutation cases before they could cull it. The bugs (allegedly) weren't supposed to be able to breed – and they were supposed to be all accounted for. But after the invasion, and the Kraang residue left all over the city that's taken literal months to get cleaned up, when it got crazy humid over the summer any place near the water became a hot spot for Weird Shit. Something something empyrean and Kraang biology allowing the oozesquitos to spawn something something. Draxum's dry assertion that "he did not control the evolutionary process" was understandably not well-received by the majority of the Mad Dogz.

Mikey couldn't really say anything in Draxum's defense.

The new surge of oozesquito activity isexacerbating problems with cleaning up the Kraang gunk, making more confused mutants and chaos in general. It's been kinda stressful.

But Mikey also knows everyone is working on it, Draxum included.

So it'll take time, but it'll get fixed.

Until then, Mikey is really hoping that his homemade bruschetta will be tasty enough to stave off any Confrontations this evening. He pulls himself up onto one of the stools and scrolls on his phone while waiting on his bread to bake, and Klunk climbs into his lap. She butts her head against his arm until he pets her, beaming down at her when she tilts her head back and slow-blinks at him. That crackling purr rumbles out of her. Mikey scritches her chin, then her neck and sides, following the swirly patterns as Klunk rolls in his lap, showing her white tummy.

"Are you the sweetest girl?"

Mikey swears she purrs louder.

"Yeah," he laughs.

-

"You will be pleased to know, I'm sure," Draxum says by way of greeting as he enters the kitchen, where everyone else is rightfully appreciating the simmering smell of the stew and how good Mikey's toasted and decorated slices of bruschetta look, "That I took time out of my busy schedule to look for more breeding grounds, and captured a large brood of oozesquitos this evening in Riverside Park."

He backs up this claim by swinging a very large duffel bag up onto the table and unzipping it with a flourish. There's a mystic mesh screen under the flap, and probably a good hundred or so oozesquitos buzzing and writhing around underneath the shimmering glow. Donnie's interest is piqued – he was unanimously out-voted when he petitioned to keep a few of the new era oozesquitos in his own lab – and he rocks forward with his goggles flipped down to examine them while he can.

Mikey frowns because it's on his table where the food goes.

"C'mon, man, that coulda waited til at least dessert!"

He flaps his hands in a shooing motion, then startles when Klunk leaps up onto the table to get a closer look at the bug noises coming out of the bag. The little hunter is as curious as Donnie is. Mikey has lost track of the number of dead bugs she's dropped in his bed. He scoops her up and tucks her under his arm. Klunk keeps reaching out, swiping her paw toward the bag, humming a half-growl.

Raph is mad, hands on his hips, "Why'd you bring 'em here??"

And so is Leo, mirroring him, "What, you don't have an extermination kit at your house?"

"You truly are an ungrateful lot," Draxum complains dispassionately.

Splinter sniffs, muttering, "If someone had not released them into New York in the first place, perhaps he wouldn't be having to clean up his own mess."

Draxum glowers at him and starts to zip the bag back up – but the zipper gets hung, as zippers often do, and won't budge. Draxum curses, yanking on it. Mikey is watching it apprehensively, clutching Klunk around the middle with both hands because she keeps trying to wiggle out of his grip so she can investigate the bugs, and he sees when something goes wrong with the screen over the opening. Why the whole interior isn't lined with it is beyond him. Draxum usually isn't so sloppy. Maybe he was in a hurry, maybe he was actually trying to appease them or impress them or whatever, because he does actually care about them and take their concerns seriously.

Anyway, when Draxum manages to wrench the zipper loose, the edge of the barrier fails.

The mystic screen wavers for a handful of seconds before it re-establishes itself, with Mikey's help. He's watching, so he sees it, so he tucks Klunk into his armpit and puts his other hand out toward the bag, pulling up that rush of fire that sits behind his navel arm in arm with his ninpo.

Draxum has made sure they're taking baby steps with his mystic lessons. It's been kind of a drag until super recently. They've focused on the methodology more than the actual application, and building up Mikey's basic knowledge and endurance with simple stuff so he doesn't accidentally go supernova or something. The bright golden cracks that spread up his arms after he forced open the prison dimension to save Leo faded months ago, along with the rippling pins-and-needles feeling that would race from his fingertips to his shoulders if he even thought about using his ninpo.

He had to relearn how to hold everything because his nerves and muscles were shot, he still has to do grip-strength exercises, and the first couple of weeks in particular were super frustrating. Flare ups were more common, and he stopped picking up anything that was breakable. But he can comfortably hold a pencil again now, and use his chucks without hitting himself in the face (or accidentally throwing them and hitting someone else in the face). He's close to having his full range of mobility back.

And besides that, barriers are easy!

He can't possibly overtax himself with that.

The mystic screen turns a vibrant, humming gold.

But the momentary flux is still enough for an alarmingly large number of oozesquitos to burst out.

Draxum flinches back, grimacing and batting a hand in a very undignified manner, when the glowing green bugs dart up into his face and swerve around him. Leo bellows, "DUUUDEE ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" and Mikey bolts away from the table, clutching Klunk as the chaos unfolds. The table gets knocked over, set dishes cast down, chairs overturned, and everyone bumps into everyone else trying to orient themselves toward the exit around the confusing swarm of loud, buzzing insects.

"DRAXUM!" Splinter bawls angrily.

"Oh calm down!" Draxum bawls back, "You cannot be mutated twice!"

"Let us not test that theory today, thank you," Donnie calls, panicked, into the PA system, "Shelldon, gas the room!"

"Gassing the room," Shelldon's bored voice says.

"What d'you mean gas the room?!? Do not gas the room!!" Leo shouts, as a thick purple mist begins to spew from a couple of overhead vents, "Donnie!!"

"Don't worry, it's just a minor paralytic agent!"

Oh, he has a gas mask on though, clutching it to his face and ducking beneath the heavy mist.

"That's not encouraging, Donnie!" Raph scolds, scooping Splinter up under his arm the same way that Mikey has scooped Klunk and carrying their dad, swearing and struggling, toward the door.

Leo swats one oozesquito belligerently with a plate as he passes it.

They trip over each other trying to get out into the hall and the literal second Leo's heel clears the doorway, a heavy metal shutter slams down, closing the kitchen off. What little smoke eked out into the hall sinks to the floor around their feet. It's got a weird smell to it. Donnie's battleshell extends a couple of extra arms with fan attachments that work to dissipate it more quickly.

Mikey holds Klunk aloft anxiously. She frowns at him, her ears laid back, clearly offended by this brusque treatment. He tucks her under his chin, petting her apologetically, but she tries to squirm out of his grip, and her tail starts whipping hard back and forth when he still doesn't let her down.

"Sorry, baby," he murmurs, fanning at the air. He doesn't like holding her when she doesn't want to be held. With obvious exceptions for her safety. He lets some of his irritation burst out then to the hallway at large, "Man, what the heck! I dunno who I'm madder at right now!"

Donnie is poking at a set of semi-opaque purple screens floating in front of him.

Draxum, for some reason, brought the duffel bag.

Leo, Splinter, and Raph are all giving them both hell already, and the noise level in the hall is so high with everyone's raised voices (defensive and irritated) and the humming of the fans, that if Mikey had ears they'd be laid back just like Klunk's. He fumes in silence for a minute. Tries to breathe through the knee-jerk anger. Just one single day out of the entire week, they're supposed to have a nice meal together as a family. He worked really hard all afternoon on that food! And now it'll probably paralyze them if they eat it, and everyone's mad, and this is stupid!

Why can't everybody just be nice??

He's nice all the time!

Wow actually, Mikey doesn't like that he's so upset about this again.

He turns his back on the arguing without anyone noticing, and stalks off to his room with Klunk under his arm. He puts her down on her cat tree inside the door once he's slid it closed. He usually makes sure she can come and go as she pleases, but he doesn't know how long the gas will linger and he doesn't want her to get into that, or into the oozesquitos. He can't believe Barry brought an entire hoard to Family Night. He can't believe Donnie gassed the entire kitchen, dinner and all.

But he's also not surprised.

It's always something.

Even he can only be so optimistic.

Mikey flops face-down into the orange beanbag beneath his hammock and doesn't bother turning his face out of the plush fabric so he can breathe. Instead he groans, steadily building volume until it's a long muffled shout and his lungs are totally empty.

He's so mad about that bruschetta.

He's been wanting to make one for ages and it turned out so good.

He's not gonna cry over it...

Klunk prickles her claws on the cat tree, then leaps down with a soft thud to meow at the door. When that doesn't get Mikey's attention – and it usually does – she comes over to check on him. She walks up the back of his leg where it's stretched across the floor and up onto his shell. She perches on the rounded edge and peers at him. She reaches out with one paw to swat at his mask tails, and when that yields little more than a reluctant puff of breath, she reaches down to repeatedly tap his face.

In spite of his heavy mood, Mikey smiles. He scoops the kitten off his shoulder and rolls in the beanbag so his shell is settled in the dip. Klunk climbs up his chest to rub her face against his, purring like a broken engine, her whiskers tickling his cheek.

"Klunk, you're such a sweetie. Did you know that?"

She purrs a little louder, closing her eyes and tilting her head back when Mikey scratches under her chin with one finger. He smiles, making sure he gets all the sweet spots.

People are so right about the frequency of a cat purr making you feel better.

It works on Mikey in just a handful of minutes.

"Wow, you're good," he says lightly. Klunk has tucked herself under his chin, behind the ridge of his plastron. He strokes her back with one hand, rubbing circles in her soft orange fur, and browses the online menu for Bro's Pizza on his phone. He's got a coupon that's about to expire. He might as well use it to feed his family of jerks because it's still Family Night, whether they like it or not! "You should come with a warning label, Klunk. 'Too Cute To Be Depressed Around.' Anyway, come on, girlie. Let's go do some damage control."

Mikey's halfway up the stairs with Klunk on his heels when he spots Raph at the top, on his way down. Raph hesitates, bumping his fists together in front of his chest, but smiles real big.

"Hey big man! Y'okay?"

"No, I'm still mad," Mikey says honestly, frowning. He glances at his phone. "...I was gonna order pizza though. So I was comin' to ask what everyone wanted."

"You don't wanna eat that fancy bread and stew you made?"

"....Is it gonna paralyze everyone if they eat it?"

"That a down-side at this point?" Raph asks, chuckling. Then quickly adds, "Raph's kiddin'. Donnie sanitized the kitchen, and he checked. The food's fine! The lid was on the stew, and you put that bread in the oven so it'd stay warm, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Mikey mumbles, still looking at his phone.

He plucks at his bottom lip, and feels kinda like he over-reacted.

"So, c'mon." Raph makes a big sweeping gesture with his hand, still all smiles. He glances at Klunk when she brushes up against his leg, and leans down to rub her ears real quick. "Hey, Klunker! You gonna help Raph knock those bozos heads together if Dad and Barry don't stop squabblin'?"

Klunk blinks up at him and saunters off.

Raph chuckles, rising.

"Anyway," he says to Mikey, "I know we promised to be nice! So me an' Leo already apologized for bein' on Barry's case about the bugs."

"It was kinda dumb to bring 'em all here," Mikey vents, "And in a crappy barrier too!"

He follows Raph across the lounge, glancing back to see if Klunk is with them. She changes coarse halfway across the room, slipping under the pool table to stalk off to her bigger, more exciting cat tree, where she's hidden all her favorite toys.

Mikey leaves her to it.

She'll come get them if she wants attention.

"Yeah. We got 'em all cleaned up, though," Raph says, glancing back at him. Mikey teased Leo before about his Raph Chasm, and the OG makes an appearance now, wrinkling Raph's bandanna with the force of his concern. "I saw you make the new barrier, by the way. It was cool! But, are you supposed to be doin' non-ninpo mystic stuff on the fly like that?"

"Not really," Mikey admits, looking at his hands and holding them palms-up, "But it didn't hurt anything! I didn't even feel a tingle."

"Okay good! Raph was worried."

"Raph is always worried," Mikey teases, smiling.

"Raph has a bunch of stupid little brothers that make him worry!"

Raph says it with a grin though, full of warmth and affection; and when he's not being an over-bearing worry-wart even though Mikey is sixteen god-dang years old and is more than capable of taking care of himself – and when he's not being a jerk, rolling Mikey's head up in car windows – it's almost as hard to be sour at him as it is to be depressed around Klunk. It's Mikey's job as a stupid little brother, though, to be as annoying as possible sometimes. So he leaps up onto Raph's shell, settling between the spikes, and bops Raph's not-scarred shoulder with his fist.

He sing-songs, "Raph wouldn't worry so much if he had a healthy coping mechanism that was something beside punching stuff! I have suggested multiple fiber arts. I think you would really like knitting!"

Raph laughs, carrying him to the kitchen, "Raph ain't a math guy."

"But Raph could be a math guy who makes scarves!"

"Nah!"

-

Later that night, well into the wake of Draxum's departure, Klunk stalks through the kitchen.

The light above the stove is on, as it always is, and it floods the otherwise dark room with feeble orange light. It's more than enough for her to navigate by. She prowls around the island counter, crouched low to the floor in the deep shadow. She thought she heard something earlier when the dishes were getting washed and put away, but the music from the speaker and the boys' laughter was too loud to pin-point it, and she'd been more concerned with getting a snack then, anyway.

Now, the lair is dark and quiet.

She could hear it even from down the hall:

The frantic, rhythmic buzzing of wings. The tap, tap, tap of a body unable to get airborne.

Klunk moves to sit near the wire rack with her tail stretched across the floor, the tip occasionally flipping up; listening to the skidding, thumping, buzzing. Her sharp eyes track each darting motion, the lime green glow in the gloom beneath the rack. Eventually, the bug fumbles it's way out into the open. Bumps the face of the cabinet and skids down along it toward the sink.

Klunk stalks after it, her tail swishing.

When it lands in front of her, she balks and smacks it with a paw.

A series of short, playful blows convinces the bug to take flight and Klunk's pupils widen, her head tilting along with it's clumsy, circular movements.

She leaps up onto the stool.

The counter.

She hesitates, looking toward the door.

Her ears perk up, but the sound of the bug dropping into the sink and skittering and dinging around in there is too enticing to ignore – so she ignores the rule, instead. She crouches near the edge of the sink, hunkering down, shifting her stance a little wider, wiggling her rear end in preparation. Watching, listening, watching. The bug's wings buzz desperately, it's body scraping along the deep bottom of the stainless steel basin, the tinny sound echoing up.

Klunk pounces.

-

Mikey's phone PINGS loud enough to startle him.

He's in his jammies and everything (an over-sized tye-dyed t-shirt that he made last week), in the middle of winding down for the day, and he nearly flips out of the hammock trying to right himself and grab his phone and catch his sketchbook and colored pencils at the same time. Half the pencils race to the floor in a clatter. Mikey says, "Fudge!" and throws the pencil case after them.

Fed. Up.

His hands were shaking anyway....

From the beanbag, Donnie says, "Gasp. Language, Michael," without looking up from his phone. He crept in to parallel play after dinner and didn't saying a single word, but it was an obvious apology for gassing the kitchen earlier, and Mikey accepted it with grace.

Now, Mikey checks his phone.

There's a bright orange alert on the lock screen and he sighs when he sees it, "Girl…."

"What?" Donnie asks.

"Klunk. She got her chubby butt stuck somewhere and popped her collar off again. M'gonna go get 'er."

Mikey drops out of the hammock, leaving his art supplies in disarray and thumbing into the app Donnie paired with his Genius Tech tag. He's glad for that breakaway collar, but the app only shows him where the collar is (Mikey made Donnie promise not to microchip her until she was at least six months old, because it seems cruel to do it when she's just a baby). Assuming she'll still be relatively close to it, Mikey heads toward the kitchen to investigate.

He jogs up the broken escalator and down the short staircase to the hall at the back of the lounge.

"Kluuunnk," Mikey calls, listening for her.

She doesn't reply.

Normally she comes running when he calls for her. Mikey hesitates in the kitchen doorway, reaching in to flip on the overhead light.

Klunk isn't there and nothing looks out of place.

"Klunk," Mikey calls, "Hey, baby, c'mere! Klunker!"

He paces around, ducking to peer under the table, the stools, and into the corners. Nothing. He crouches in front of the open pantry, looking into the dark space beneath the bottom shelf and pulling out half-empty soda boxes and stacked gatorades. He finds that tomato from earlier, but no sign of the little cat who knocked it under here. He's still crouched, turning to scan the rest of the room, when he spots her green collar on the mat in front of the sink.

Mikey crawls over and scoops it up, bouncing it in his palm so the little bell jingles. He glances around for some clue, but can't figure out how she even got it off. The safety catch has definitely been popped. He pulls open the lower cabinets and checks in them, just to be sure, and then he checks the bench seat around the table because she sometimes like to nap there.

When he doesn't find her, he cuts the light off, puzzled, and wanders slowly back to his room, looking around the lounge as he passes through and occasionally calling for her.

"Where is the fugitive?" Donnie asks when Mikey returns.

"I dunno, I couldn't find her," Mikey says, tossing her collar into the catch-all bowl by the door that he made when he was really into ceramics. It's shaped like a microwave ramen bowl. "Probably somewhere bein' nosey. I can't believe she popped this thing off again!"

"I would make it sturdier, but that would defeat the purpose of not strangling her."

"It's okay. I'll put it back on when she comes back."

It's not out of the ordinary for her to spend time off by herself. The lair is a big place, and she's an inquisitive little cat exploring her new independence. Mikey glances around his bedroom floor, rubbing his neck, thinking something feels out of place though. Something's bugging him. He feels uneasy all of a sudden, and he isn't sure why. Then he notices all his colored pencils aren't in the floor anymore, that the pencil case is closed and sitting on top of his sketchbook, on his art table.

Mikey puts his hands on his hips and grins at Donnie, who shrinks further behind his screen.

"Donnie."

"Mikey."

"Did you pick up my stuff for me?"

"The disorganization was bothering me."

"Uh-huh. I love you!"

"Obviously, the feeling is mutual."

Mikey spreads his arms and free falls, landing on Donnie's side and wrapping both arms around him, smiling even when Donnie grunts in annoyed acceptance.

-

Okay, it is kind of his own fault.

Sometimes Mikey doesn't realize how strong an effect even an easy spell has on him until several hours after he's cast it; when h e wakes up in the middle of the night , instantly aware of the painful numbness in his hands and how hot his body is , and knows something's wrong.

Mikey tries to move his arms but can't.

Then he tries not to panic.

He lays on his shell in the hammock with his eyes squeezed shut, breathing too hard, shaking like he's got the chills even though he's burning up and sweating like crazy, while his heart knocks around inside his chest like a ping-pong ball. The faded string lights woven around the posts near the ceiling glow in starbursts of gold and red and white behind his eyelids. Mikey's chest starts to ache. He lets out a harsh breath without realizing he'd been holding it, and a helpless whimper follows it.

His hands feel like a thousand bees are stinging them, and the sensation races up his arms in waves.

He's gotta get up.

He's gotta move.

He's gotta – something.

Mikey drops his leg over the side and rolls so the hammock flips him out and dumps him onto the pile of pillows on the rug below. He tries to break his fall, but both his arms crumple uselessly under his weight and he bangs his snout on the metal floor beneath rug.

Pain sears up Mikey's forearms, bright and blinding, and Mikey curls up tight, shoving his face into a pillow to muffle any noise he makes. After several agonizing seconds, the wave eases, enough at least for Mikey to slowly sit up. He manages to drag his hands into his lap, resting on his thighs, and looks at them through the blur of tears. They're shaking really bad. His pine green skin doesn't look like light beaming through broken pottery though. The spots on his thighs and arms are glowing, and he can feel that heat in his throat, behind his eyes; can feel a fissure of it pulsing up from his hands and into his chest, an inferno thinking about breaking loose.

Over what?

This is so dumb.

It was just a barrier. A small one. He's made dozens of those before. It's frustrating never knowing for sure what's going to cause a flare-up.... Mikey tries to catch his breath, but he can't stop crying. He drags one trembling hand up and clumsily scrubs his eyes with the back of his wrist.

It lights up every nerve like fire.

The curtain moving abruptly aside startles him and he looks over.

Donnie pokes his head into the room. He has his noise-canceling headphones down around his neck, one hand busy shoving his square-framed glasses into place as he squints into the dim room. He spots the still-swinging hammock first, and then Mikey in the shadow underneath it.

"I felt a thud," he says.

"Oh. Sorry, Dee," Mikey mumbles, trying to keep his voice even, "I – I fell outta bed. M'okay."

"You do not sound okay and your heart rate, temperature, and mystic output are all elevated." Donnie nudges the frames of his glasses in a way that seems almost nervous, and Mikey sees a glint of purple energy in the left lens. "Also, apologies," he adds belatedly, "I forgot to knock."

The five of them had to have a really annoying, really embarrassing talk about why it's rude to barge into peoples' rooms without knocking and that you're not allowed to complain if you do and you end up seeing something you didn't want to see after Leo hit Raph in the face with a lamp. Donnie is the least likely to barge in without announcing himself, so the fact that he forgot the new protocol states pretty loudly how nervous that mysterious thud actually made him.

He's always been a light sleeper and merging with the Technodrome, however brief it was, only made all his sensory and sleep issues worse.

This huge well of guilt immediately floods Mikey's eyes with tears.

"Sorry," Mikey mumbles again, a whimper choking his throat.

Donnie makes a startled noise.

He wavers in the doorway for all of two seconds and then seems to decide that even though he probably isn't best suited for the task, he is the one who is present, and charges in. Donnie scoops Mikey into his arms and lays down with him on the rug, in the scattered pile of pillows and blanket, tucking Mikey beneath his chin. Mikey's breath hitches, shuddering out into Donnie's hoodie and warming his face. He shoves his uncooperative arm around Donnie's middle and curls his legs over Donnie's hip, trying to hug him back. Donnie's arms squeeze around him, solid and strong and grounding, palms flat against his shell as he rubs it through Mikey's t-shirt. He holds Mikey extra tight until Mikey stops crying and shaking so hard, and stops feeling like that heat inside is going to burst out of him.

His arms still hurt – but it's a little less scary.

"If you'll tell me what's wrong, I'll fix it," Donnie says.

"S'just my arms," Mikey mumbles, half-laughing, "Stupid barrier earlier..."

"Ah. So, I will throttle Draxum for his negligence."

"S'not Barry's fault. S'normally fine. I dunno why…."

Donnie pulls back enough to look at him, taking careful hold of Mikey's wrist and lifting it to examine it. He rubs his thumb across the pulse in Mikey's wrist and lets it rest there a while. Mikey tries not to flinch at the touch, and hopes his shaking masks it.

Donnie hums.

"Come on," he says, after a moment. He rolls them both upright so they're sitting up and Mikey is cradled in his lap. He keeps his hands on Mikey's elbows, steadying his still-trembling arms. "That ointment Draxum acquired from an herbalist is in the medbay, isn't it? It should help with the pain. Do you want to wake the others? If two of us are up, we may as well make it four."

Mikey hesitates, plucking loosely at the sleeve of Donnie's hoodie. Or trying to. He can't really get his fingertips to come together, and it hurts to try...

"I feel bad," he mumbles, "For wakin' you up. I know you've not been sleepin' good. It's no biggie. I can… I can get the stuff myself."

"Well, it is too late for that," Donnie says frankly, "I'm already awake, and cannot leave a brother in distress. Besides that –" He lifts his hand to momentarily press it against Mikey's forehead, and it's so blissfully cold on Mikey's heated skin that Mikey closes his eyes and sighs, pushing further into Donnie's palm. " - you're still uncomfortably warm. If your temp doesn't come down, I will wake the others and Papa as well. But in the meantime, ointment for your arms, and probably a fever-reducer just to be safe. Do you want to sleep in my room with me?"

Darn it…

Mikey's mouth wobbles.

"...Is that okay?" he asks quietly.

"I would not have offered otherwise."

"Okay," Mikey lets out a little laugh, sniffling, "Thanks, Donnie…"

Donnie cups his hand around the back of Mikey's head and bumps their snouts together. It stings because Mikey smashed his face on the floor a minute ago, but Donnie doesn't know that, and he isn't so openly affectionate often, so Mikey isn't mad about it. If anything, he feels ten times better. It's a good sting. Donnie hoists Mikey to his feet and follows him up, ducking under the hammock.

"Wait." Mikey says, turning suddenly, "Where's Klunk?"

Donnie pauses in the doorway and looks around as well, "Probably with Raph."

Mikey nudges the hammock with his elbow, but it's obviously empty. He flips over a couple of pillows with his foot and checks the cat bed in her tree.

She isn't there either.

She sleeps with Mikey most nights, but she'll get up in the middle of the night to make her rounds, and takes turns sleeping with each of them when she feels like it, or if one of them is having a rough night. Those have been plentiful the past few months. They've also eased a little, with her around. They've even caught her curled up in the center of Splinter's water bed, while the rat himself is snoring, half wedged in the sunken dip beneath the ledge of the bed frame like he would be when his sons were smaller but taking up all the prime real estate.

"Want me to go get her?" Donnie asks, holding the curtain open so Mikey can duck through.

"No, it's okay," Mikey says.

He does want her, and he hasn't seen her all evening now that he thinks about it – but if she's with one of the others, they probably needed a good snuggle more than he does.

Mikey follows Donnie to the medbay and sits patiently while Donnie (grimacing at the smell and texture of the ointment, but enduring it anyway) rubs his arms down. At first, the touch feels bad. The ointment is cold and that's almost soothing, but Mikey's nerves are mystically charge and raw, and every swipe of Donnie's fingers up his arm burns and tingles; to the point where he's involuntarily clenching his fist and trying to pull away, and shaking again, biting his lip so he doesn't cry.

Donnie, dismayed by the reaction even though Mikey tries to keep it in check, murmurs apologies and numerous variations of 'it's okay', as much to himself as to Mikey.

They're both relieved to be done.

And after a little while, once he's tucked into Donnie's bunk and dozing off against Donnie's shoulder while Donnie plays Minecraft on the switch, it does feel better.

-

"Klunk didn't sleep with you last night?" Mikey asks anxiously the next morning.

Raph shrugs, following him up the staircase to the lounge.

"Nah. She's probably with Leo. I know his knee was hurtin' him last night cuz he came to get the biofreeze outta my room. Don't change the subject," he adds with a little more heat, pointing at the compression sleeves on Mikey's forearms, "S'matter?"

Mikey sighs, rubbing the sleeves self-consciously. At least they look cool. They're decorated with floral patterns, a bright blue background with green leaves and orange and yellow hibiscus. There's a charm woven in the bands that Draxum added that's supposed to help ease any discomfort from mystic discharge. He was doing so good, he hasn't had to wear them in over a month!

Of course Raph noticed right away...

"My arms started hurting last night. Donnie helped with me the ointment. They're okay now! But I can still kinda feel that weird tingling so..." He gestures, indicating the sleeves, then glances up at Raph. "Will you help me make breakfast? I don't wanna drop a bunch a stuff today..."

"Of course," Raph says. The Raph Chasm makes another appearance. Raph also reaches up to dig his knuckle into his right eye – it's tinted pink this morning, just barely. "You sure they don't hurt? Raph doesn't care to rub 'em down again for ya."

"No, I'm okay. At least, I wanna eat first. Is your eye okay?"

"Is it pink….?"

"Kinda…"

Raph grunts unhappily. He starts to rub it again but catches himself this time and clasps his hands together in front of him instead, twisting his fingers.

Mikey pretends not to notice, picking at his sleeves.

"Mh. It kinda itches. Is all," Raph mumbles.

"Nobody really feels good this morning," Mikey muses. He isn't convinced that Donnie slept more than an hour or two last night. "Do we want potato soup?"

"Yup!" Raph says, with much more cheer.

Mikey smiles.

"Why you so worried about Klunk?" Raph asks, "By the way."

"Oh. I'm not!" Mikey says. Some of the apprehension he felt yesterday evening is back, but now he's wondering if it's just because his arms feel all weird. He rubs them absently. "You're right, she's probably just with Leo. Or Splinter."

Raph hums. He's digging at his eye again.

Mikey can't ignore it a second time. He stops just inside the kitchen doorway and plants himself in the middle of it, his hands on his hips, and lets Raph, distracted, nearly walk over the top of him. When Raph staggers back in surprise, Mikey points up at him and barks, "Go put in your eye drops!"

"Wha – you said you needed help cookin'!"

"I can put stuff on the counter. Go do your eye drops first."

Raph growls in irritation, but it's mostly for show. He leans down and pokes Mikey's forehead with one large finger, and narrows his eyes at him, "Bein' sixteen don't mean you get to boss Raph around, buster brown."

Mikey absolutely beams at this.

"No, but being concerned for my big brother's well-being does~"

He doesn't like being babied, but he's not above weaponizing it.

Raph opens his mouth to retort because he was expecting something saucy and then falters, processing in the face of Mikey's innocent smile. He doesn't buy it, necessarily. But he caves like an ice sculpture in July – with a lot of grumbling – and retreats further down the hall.

"Don't start peelin' those potatoes without me, Mikey!"

"I won't!"

Mikey has no intention of butchering the potatoes; his hands are shaking way too much, and he'll definitely chunk them if he tries to peel them. He isn't actually sure how many they have left, or if they've sprouted, and goes straight to the pantry to check. He hauls out the large plastic mesh bag from the back of the shelf and counts the dirty spuds. Luckily, they're the big boys. There should be enough for soup. Only two of them have sprouted, but none of them are soft.

Mikey sets the sprouting ones aside for Donnie to replant and carries the rest of the bag over to the sink (his arm only tremors a little under the combined weight of the potatoes), grabbing the biggest soup pot off the bottom of the wire rack as he passes it.

He swings the bag up onto the counter, lifts the pot with both hands to set it on the lip of the sink.

He reaches to turn the faucet on and a flash of green in the basin catches his eye.

Mikey's stomach drops to his feet.

It kind of feels like an out-of-body experience, to be honest. Mikey doesn't consciously decide to scoot the huge pot out of the way, or reach into the sink and grab the wing of the lifeless oozesquito, pinched between his fingers – but he's standing there staring at it, holding it's crumpled body aloft when Raph comes back into the kitchen. Raph is retying his bandanna, saying, "Okay, eye drops are in. Happy now? Everything's a little blurry, but who needs to see to peel taters?"

He laughs as he crosses over to the counter and stops when he sees the bug.

"An oozesquito! Where'd that come from?"

"It was in the sink," Mikey says, and his voice does something funny, weirdly flat.

"Okay," Raph says, "So. We missed one. Apparently. That's –"

"Klunk popped her collar last night."

"What?"

Mikey lowers the bug slightly, but doesn't drop it, turning his head without actually looking at anything, his mind racing, "She popped her collar and I haven't seen her. I haven't seen her since yesterday. I found her collar here in front of the sink and couldn't figure out what it got snagged on or why it even broke, I didn't think to look in the sink because she never gets on the counter, but she would've if there was a bug and she was after it, I didn't even think –"

"Mikey, Mikey! Hey, it's okay!"

Raph has come around the counter now. He grabs Mikey by the wrist, shaking his arm so Mikey's grip loosens and he drops the bug back into the sink.

"Don't freak out," Raph says. Mikey didn't realize he was freaking out. He hasn't even moved. "It's okay! Let's – let's go look for her right now. Raph's sure she's fine."

"Why would her collar just break, Raph?"

Okay yeah, maybe he is freaking out.

He realizes that freight-train-like sound is his own harsh breathing, and his voice wavers out of him, too loud, as Raph tugs him by the arm, leading him out of the kitchen.

"Why didn't I look for her?"

"It's okay, we're lookin' now! She's okay."

They both have their heads on a swivel as they pass through the lounge again – Mikey feels dizzy, like he's vibrating, like he can't catch his breath – like he might hurl from nerves – but there's no sign of Klunk napping on the bar stools or any of the beanbags, or in her kitty hammock in the cat tree, or creeping along the cat walk near the ceiling. Raph calls for her, ducking slightly to look beneath the furniture. Mikey's voice is caught in his throat. It feels like he swallowed a rock. A rock full of bees. His heart is thumping so hard, he can barely hear Raph's voice over the way it hammers in his ears.

Raph doesn't let go of his hand the whole time.

He barges straight into Leo's room without knocking.

Leo is awake, sitting on the edge of the bed and wearing one of Donnie's over-sized purple hoodies, in the middle of pulling on his knee brace. He looks over, annoyed, when they push past the curtain.

"Net zero info retained in this house! I have another lamp, y'know, and they're cheap!"

"No, for real," Raph says distractedly, "Sorry. Is Klunk in here?"

"No," Leo says carefully, looking at Mikey, who is scanning the room for any sign of his little orange furball, "She didn't sleep with me. S'goin' on?"

"We – Mikey found an oozesquito in the kitchen, and Klunk apparently popped her collar at some point last night, and he hasn't – hasn't seen her – Mikey!"

Mikey wrenches his arm out of Raph's grip and whirls.

If she's not with Leo then where is she?

Mikey checks his own room first.

Her collar is in the ceramic bowl where he left it. Her catbed and tree are empty and so is his hammock. Mikey picks up every pillow and tosses the blanket, the bean bag, increasingly frantic. He bolts back out of the room, shoving past Leo – and feels a sharp twinge of guilt when Leo winces, stepping back suddenly on his bad knee, but doesn't stop. He throws open the sliding door of Splinter's room and climbs onto the ledge of the waterbed, ripping the blanket off.

Splinter grunts in alarm and flails inelegantly as he's tumbled out of it, the water-filled mattress sloshing him back and forth.

"What, what! Orange –?"

"Have you seen Klunk?" Mikey asks, pulling up another blanket. He tosses them in the floor and yanks the large pillow out from under his father, sending Splinter rolling.

Splinter sputters in confusion, "No, I have not! What is wrong?"

Mikey walks across the bed, wobbling for balance, jostling Splinter into each dip his foot leaves, and hops to the floor on the other side of the bed, pacing around. He checks the laundry basket, dumping the clothes in the floor. Checks behind the bar. Checks under the sewing machine table and in the half-closed boxes of spare fabric Splinter always keeps around.

He bolts back out of the room, ducking underneath Raph's reaching arm.

He's gotta think.

Where would she go if she was scared?

What are her favorite hiding places?

Donnie is running out of his lab, frowning, when Mikey gets into the lounge – so she's not there, napping with Shelldon in his charging dock or bothering Donnie's stuff – and Mikey swerves toward the hall and the set of steps that leads down to the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry areas. He was just in the kitchen but he checks it again anyway, calling, "Klunk! C'mere, baby! It's okay! Klunker!" He's shaking as he circles the room, furious with himself for overlooking that stupid oozesquito last night.

He should have known something was wrong – he did know something was wrong.

He should have looked for her sooner.

Mikey darts back out into the hallway so quickly, he forgets how narrow it is and slams full-body into the opposite wall. He staggers back, dazed, and runs. His heart is beating so hard, he can't think straight. He leaps down the next flight of steps three or four at a time. The space at the foot of them opens up to the bathrooms on the right, and the laundry straight ahead, with another access door leading back around to the subway platform on the left.

Mikey bangs his shoulder on the door frame in his hurry and barely feels it.

The laundry room lights are on.

It's a big open space with a mismatched collection of drying racks piled with forgotten clothes and lines criss-crossed over one another, draped with forgotten linens or empty clothes pins. A few industrial-sized machines, some of them broken with their parts strewn out and some of them functional, line one wall; and shelving and cabinets line the other. There are a handful of different sized hampers, most of them empty and stacked near the dryer.

Mikey grabs the first full basket he comes to, turning it over and dumping all of it's contents onto the floor regardless of whether they were clean or not. He shakes the clothes out pointlessly. She's bright orange! It's impossible to miss her! This is one of her favorite places to take a nap because there's always comfy clothes to pile into and it's one of the warmest rooms in the lair. If she's not with Shelly or one of his brothers or Splinter, she has to be here.

Mikey kicks the empty plastic hamper out of the way and grabs the next one.

He snaps open the purple bed sheets and the Atomic Lass comforter – no Klunk.

Mikey has his own clothes hamper off the floor and half-tipped over, ready to throw it's contents, before he registers the weight. It's heavy. Not heavy like there's two extra pounds of kitten hiding in his hoodies and shorts. Heavy like something a lot bigger is. When he starts to heave the basket and then hesitates, the clothes inside it stir, and a little noise that sounds less like a meow and more like a whimper hits Mikey dead-center.

His breath rushes out.

He eases the basket back onto its base.

He grips the handles too tight, and notices how bad his hands are shaking then, sending zings of prickly pain up his forearms.

"Klunk?"

The hoodie on top twitches at the sound of his voice and something shifts underneath. Mikey grabs the handful of clothes and drops them onto the floor beside the hamper. Klunk flinches, but doesn't uncurl from the tight little ball she's tucked herself into, hiding her face.

Mikey reaches in and lifts her out, holding her up in front of him.

This is definitely his cat – or was his cat.

She has the same short, soft fur covering her body, and the same cinnamon-roll patterns in creamsicle orange-and-white. But she's more human-shaped than cat-shaped now, about the size of a small toddler. Before, when she was curled up like this, she was small enough fit comfortably in his hand – now it's taking both of them to hold her up under the arms. Her little hands are up, covering her face, but he can see her whiskers poking out around them; her white-tipped ears are laid back against her head and her tail is tucked up around her legs, bristling and trembling.

She looks like a little furry.

And Mikey would laugh if he wasn't so relieved – he for real expected something a lot worse when he saw the oozesquito – and he nearly does around the sob welling in his throat.

"Oh girl.... You got Mrs. Nubbins-ed..."

One of Klunk's ears flickers.

She's kinda heavy now, and his arms are starting to shake with the effort of holding her up.

Mikey doesn't want to drop her, so he sinks down to sit on his knees on the floor, holding Klunk in his lap. He loops one arm around her, lifting the other to scrub the tears out of his eyes. Man this sucks. What the HECK.... He feels a tug on the sides of his pajama shirt then, and glances down. Klunk fists her hands into his shirt and uncurls, just enough to wrap her arms and legs around his middle, squeezing him real tight. She presses as close to his chest as she can manage, and she's shaking.

She slowly lifts her head to peek up at him, so he sees her round little face for the first time.

And it's kind of like looking in a furry mirror.

Mikey has seen tons of his own baby pictures. Splinter managed to salvage most of his photo albums from the wreckage of their old lair, and he gets nostalgic sometimes, flipping through them and gushing about how cute his boys were when they were babies (as if they're not still cute now) and telling embarrassing stories that some of them only half-remember. Mikey is smiling in most of them, all dimples and tooth-gaps and crinkled eyes, but he's pouting in a fair few for one reason or another.

Klunk's eyes are almond-shaped now, a darker amber that's almost brown – and swimming with tears.

Oh.

Mikey feels really dumb.

She got mutated, but she's still just a baby.

If anything, she's even more of a baby now. Like, an actual baby.

And she didn't get those eyes from Splinter – she got them from him.

"Ohmigosh," Mikey mumbles in a rush.

He shifts to sit cross-legged instead so Klunk can settle more comfortably in his lap and scoops her up under the arms again, tucking her under his chin.

"Ohmigosh! I'm so sorry, Klunker."

How many times has he heard full grown adults complain about how much the rapid mutation hurts. She's just a baby, and she was in here alone all night, hurting and scared and confused, and he didn't immediately comfort her because he was too busy freaking out. Klunk's arms squeeze around his neck, scratching the back of his neck with her sharp nails. Mikey tucks his face against her tiny shoulder and wraps both arms around her, hugging her tight.

She was trembling before, but it eases some now as Mikey rubs her back.

Her tail whips cautiously back and forth.

Mikey pulls back after a minute to look down at her again, smoothing her ruffled fur back from her forehead and rubbing her ears. Klunk looks up at him with those big wet eyes, and Mikey smiles warmly.

"It's okay, Klunk," he says softly, "I'm so glad you're okay, I was really worried! I know this is confusing, and probably scary, but it's gonna be fine. I promise."

-

"Okaaayy."

Leo naturally breaks the silence as they stand in a semi-circle in the lounge. Mikey sank into a beanbag with Klunk right away; he thought for sure his arms were gonna give out on him while he was carrying her up the stairs, and now his hands are kind of numb in protest. Klunk has gotten shy again surrounded by so many people though, and she's hiding her face in his shirt.

"So," Leo goes on, "This isn't great, obviously. But also, she's not a giant, hideous monster that's trying to eat and/or kill us, so. W?"

"No," Raph says irritably, "This ain't a W!"

Splinter is groaning, rubbing his face with both hands, despairing, "Why can anything never be normal in this house? First my precious goldfish and now Orange's chicken – I mean cat! No more pets! We are officially instigating –"

"Initiating," Donnie says absently, crouching near Mikey to look at Klunk with his mystic goggles.

Klunk shoots a glance at him and then tries to hide herself in Mikey's arms. There's nowhere for her to go really, except under his shirt, and when she starts pulling up the hem and wriggling in against his plastron, scratching his bridge with her claws, Mikey doesn't stop her. He gives Donnie an apologetic smile, but Donnie simply adjusts one of the lenses.

"Initiating!" Splinter corrects, "We are initiating a No Pet policy!"

Leo and Raph shrug and mumble agreements.

Donnie hums.

"Is she okay?" Mikey asks nervously.

"Perfectly fine," Donnie says, "Vital signs are all normal. The injection site is here –" He points without touching. "- on the outside of her left hand, but it doesn't appear to be inflamed. A 3-ish month old kitten is roughly the equivalent of a 2- or 3-year-old child and it appears that age range is correct in this case. She's smaller than average.... Strange that the mutation seems to have prioritized cognitive faculties rather than physical age, but animal-to-human mutation has a different 'base' than human-to-animal mutation. I don't think it's cause for concern."

Mikey relaxes back into the beanbag with a sigh.

"Good," he says. He laces his shaking fingers together, cupped behind Klunk's back, and peers down through the stretched collar of his nightshirt. "Why are you bein' so shy, Klunker? You love Donnie! ...Do you just not want anyone to look at you?"

Klunk doesn't answer.

Mikey doesn't remember if kids this small can talk. Donnie didn't – but he had 3 brothers that were more than happy to talk for him and usually found more efficient ways to communicate when he wanted to. Such as now: One of Donnie's spider arms extends out from beneath the hem of his hoodie, offering a small box of apple juice.

Mikey looks at it, surprised, and then takes it with a smile.

"Oh riiigght! You can have people food now! Wow, a whole world of culinary goodness just opened up for you, baby girl. Just way til you try PB&J! Do you want some juice?"

He peels open the bendy straw and punches it through the hole in the top, adjusting it so it doesn't drip and offering it to Klunk through the collar of his shirt. When she just stares up at him, he shows her how to sip out of the straw and then offers it again.

Klunk's tiny hand darts out and roughly seizes the box, wrestling it down into Mikey's shirt and spilling some of the juice. Mikey smiles, watching her shake the box. Her pupils, which he hadn't really noticed had narrowed slightly, widen again, following the way the straw rattles and sways. She eventually puts in her mouth and chews on it with sharp teeth, glaring up at him when nothing more exciting the puncturing the plastic happens. But he sees the moment she figures it out and actually gets some juice in her mouth and tastes it, because there are literal sparkles in her eyes.

Her tail whips again, hitting his leg.

"Wow," Mikey laughs, rubbing her back, "You're so cute!"

He tunes back in to what his brothers and Splinter are saying when Leo groans, dragging his hands down his face, " - have no idea, dude. We don't know anyone in the market."

"Raph just thinks 'kids that used to be pets' is more of a market we wanna start punchin' people over and not one we wanna like. Advertise to."

"No, Red, definitely not… There is a better way to word that."

"I'm in a mutant discord server, I could make an inquiry as to the protocol. The number of children and pets that have been mutated in Manhattan is not zero. But –"

"M'kay, and is it safe to assume the number of orphans that suddenly appeared in the Hidden City also went up around the same time?"

"The two are probably not unrelated."

"Ah man, don't tell Raph that… That's depressin'!"

"A yokai orphanage though," Splinter muses, tapping his chin, "That might be for the best...."

"The best for what?" Mikey asks, confused by the thread of conversation. He must've missed a lot. Why are they talking about orphans?

Everyone looks at him, and then at each other.

Then Raph says, "For Klunk."

Mikey stares at him blankly. Blinks.

"What?"

"Mikey, what're we gonna do with Klunk?" Raph elaborates, sounding a little annoyed that Mikey wasn't paying attention.

Mikey feels something really hot and familiar flush through his whole body, lightning quick. Oh man, he's never been so mad so fast in his life and it blazes out of him as an almost-shout, "What d'you mean 'what are we gonna do with Klunk'? This is her home!!"

"Mikey, I know, but – we can't just keep 'er now! She's a little kid!"

"So!"

"So?! So Raph can't even get you bozos to do ya chores half the time! She needs parents or somethin'!"

"I'm her parent!"

Raph looks at Leo, alarmed, and Leo, normally composed, frowns at rubs his forehead. Donnie is holding his phone in front of his face, his eyebrows knitted, but he isn't actually looking at it.

"I mean," Mikey falters, glancing down his shirt collar.

Klunk is holding the empty juice box in both hands now, her ears perking toward the popping sound it makes when she squeezes it.

He isn't imagining it.

She looks just like him!

Splinter puts a hand on his arm, drawing Mikey's attention, and says, gently, "Orange, I know this is upsetting because you love Klunk very much, but Red is right. She is not a pet anymore. You cannot give her the care and attention that she needs now."

"Why not? I've already been doin' that anyway! I literally take care of her; I feed her and give her baths and buy her toys and make sure she's healthy and happy! And besides you kept us!"

"That was different –"

"How is it different?" Mikey demands.

It's no mystery where that Hamato temper comes from. Splinter's hands fly to his hips and his expression darkens slightly, his tail whipping across the floor behind him.

"It is different because there was an evil alchemist that wanted to make living weapons out of you, and because I was forty years older than you are now!" he says sharply, as if there's no room for arguing, "Children are a huge responsibility, Orange, and not one that should be taken in on a whim, especially at your age! You are too young to understand what you are getting into –"

"I really don't think I am."

"That I have to tell you this is proof that you are!"

"Okay, move, old man," Leo says, plucking their father up and physically setting him aside. Splinter sputters at the rude treatment, but doesn't jostle Leo back out of the way as Leo kneels in front of Mikey, gesturing with both hands. "Dude, you need to stop and think about this real hard for a sec because we cannot take care of a baby." He says it calmly, but Mikey is furious, and Leo's genuinely apologetic expression doesn't lessen it an inch. "A 3-year-old is way more work than a cat, right? I know you know that. I get that you're upset, this is super dumb and I'm really sorry. And look, we all love Klunk, obviously, but this is – we're not doing anything right now, okay? We have some time to think about it and we'll make sure it's a good home, we're not gonna just dump her –"

Mikey is too fired up to let it go.

"Donnie has Shelldon!"

"Shelly is not alive, dude –"

"Offended gasp!" Donnie gasps, offended.

Leo throws his hands up.

"You know what I mean!!"

"Name one actual reason why we can't keep her?" Mikey demands.

"You are sixteen!" Splinter butts in, "Parenting is a full time job, Michelangelo! Every single second of every single day until you die! You do not get breaks, you do not get to tap out –"

"That's funny," Mikey snaps, and there's a tiny voice in the back of his head that's telling him not to say it because it's mean and it's unfair, and it's not going to feel good or help his case. But it comes out anyway, "Because all you've done is tap out!"

Splinter flinches.

Raph straightens and snaps, "Hey!"

Leo frowns and says, "Dude!"

Mikey doesn't know when tears started burning his eyes. He blinks them back hurriedly, rolling forward out of the beanbag, hugging Klunk with one arm and bracing the other on the floor. For a moment, he's worried one of his brothers might try to take her from him – Leo stands when he does, wincing though, and not much quicker. Nobody stops him from shoving past Donnie and carrying Klunk out of the room on legs that are nearly as wobbly as his arms.

-

The door to Mikey's room rattles and slams shut; the sound of it echoes across the platform and up the broken escalator, breaking the tense, lingering silence in the lounge.

"Gentlemen, that went poorly," Donnie tells his phone with no inflection.

"Yeah, no shit," Leo huffs.

He turns and flops into the beanbag Mikey just evacuated, grimacing. He props his foot on the edge of the bag and holds his knee close to his chest, massaging the fabric brace with both hands. Donnie wordlessly produces an ice pack from his battleshell. Leo glances at it, looks quickly away like he's going to pretend he didn't see it and has no idea what it's for, and then slowly reaches without looking to take it. He folds the cool gel over his sore knee and sighs, pinching his eyes shut.

"We really beefed that one, fellas." Raph sighs softly. He doesn't even reprimand Leo for the swear, rubbing his right eye with his knuckle and glancing at Splinter. "Sorry he said that, Pops..."

"Why? It is true," Splinter huffs. Sounds kind of like he still wants to double down on being mad, but can't quite manage it. "I did tap out, and you boys suffered because of it."

Leo tips his head back and sighs, rocking his knee.

"Dad. No one's like... mad at you," he says, like it kills him to be so candid. He rolls a hand, gesturing toward the escalator and rolls his eyes. "I mean, a little. Obviously. Some of it sucked. But like – we get it. Y'know? We understand why so it's not like –"

"There is no excuse, Blue," Splinter says firmly.

"Yeah," Leo agrees, but grins anyway, "But if we were really that sore about it, we'd have already bounced your wrinkled butt into a nursing home for retired actors."

"It's true," Donnie puts in, the corner of his mouth twitching up, "We've been financially independent for quite some time. And this is technically our place of residence, given that we found and furnished it. We simply let you abide here."

Splinter's whiskers twitch like he doesn't know whether to smile or not.

"So I am just a useless old man!"

"Nah." Raph nudges him gently with a big fist, grinning, "You're our useless old man."

"Hmph!" Splinter accepts this in good humor. But sighs after a moment, tugging at his beard, and then asserts, "None of you are old enough to even think of making babies. Am I understood? The No Pet policy extends to children until you are all in your thirties!"

"Uh, yeah no, heard, chef," Leo says agreeably, rocking his knee along with the ice pack, "Don't worry, there aren't any budding inclinations to reproduce in this fruit ninja."

"I mean," Raph mumbles, bumping his fists together, "Raph would – probably like t'have kids. Some day! But not like, right now."

They all glance at Donnie, who belatedly looks up from his phone.

"Well," he says, "Define 'make'."

"No."

"Donnie."

"Purple!"

"Alright! Fine, no 'making' –" He air-quotes condescendingly. "- babies of any kind. What, pray tell, would you like to do with the child that has been made, though? Because Mikey was adamant and I for one am not willing to lose a limb attempting to wrest her from his arms." After a contemplative pause, he adds, "I volunteer Leo."

Leo holds up his hand to block Raph from seeing and flips Donnie off.

The extended silence sort of speaks for itself.

"I don't know!" Splinter bursts out in frustration, "We will – we will have to change his mind! Somehow. Once he calms down."

"Right," Donnie says, "You mean when he comes back."

"What do you mean 'when he comes back'?"

"The motion camera on the east-bound track pinged, he snuck out three minutes ago."

Donnie swipes up on his phone so that a purple screen materializes. They all watch the replay of the security feed: Mikey, in shorts and a faded orange hoodie, hopping down onto the bare track from the platform and making an obvious effort to avoid the camera. While Raph and Splinter compete for who's going to have the biggest aneurysm, Leo sighs again.

"And you didn't tell anyone he was sneaking out because...?"

"I didn't realize we were under house arrest," Donnie says vaguely.

"Ugh, we're not, Don. Did he take Klunk?"

"Obviously."

Donnie zooms in and refocuses the video, enough that the small figure holding Mikey's hand partially off-screen is visible until Mikey scoops her into his arms.

Chapter Text

Oh man, Mikey is so grounded.

Like, he's definitely got bigger things to worry about at the moment – and he is so dang mad that he's really beyond caring – but there's a tiny part of him still feels bad. For sneaking out and for snapping at Splinter. It doesn't help at all when he exits the subway in a cramped, unfamiliar part of Manhattan, on a corner that's more scaffolding than store front, and belatedly realizes that he took the south line when he'd meant to take the north line. That would be why all the signage on the stairwell said 'Soho'.

Mikey mutters, "Crud!" and turns, looking for a landmark to orient himself with.

Everything looks different from street-level.

There's no way he's getting up any fire escape right now, so he shifts Klunk over to the arm that hurts less, triple checks the street signs, and heads west. He'll definitely recognize the Hudson, and he'll figure out where to go from there. He can't waffle around on a busy sidewalk in the middle of the morning, and he can't get back on the subway with Klunk. She hid under his hoodie and shook the entire train ride (he's never taken the subway with her before; he almost never takes the subway, which is why he got turned around in the first place). She seems better now that they're out of the crowded station, though.

Her tail swings out from under the t-shirt Mikey dressed her in before leaving the lair. It's one of his and it's way too big, the short sleeves hanging well past her elbows and the hem past her knees. He had to use one of the clips he keeps around for art purposes to close the neck of the shirt so that it wouldn't keep slipping off her shoulders. He shoved a beanie onto her head to hide her ears too, but somewhere between here and the lair, she's lost it.

Her white-tipped ears are perked up, head swiveling to look over Mikey's shoulder.

Halfway along the sidewalk, she wriggles to get down.

Mikey hesitates, glancing around, but puts her on her feet and takes her hand. His arms are throbbing anyway and he's not used to how heavy she is. He definitely should have grabbed the ointment out of the medbay, but he kinda left in a hurry. He didn't even bring Klunk a snack or anything, and she's gotta be hungry after hiding all night and missing breakfast. Mikey's hungry, and his stomach growls as an ugly reminder. He can practically feel his blood sugar dropping.

He feels his back pocket with his free hand.

There's probably only four dollars and some change in his wallet from the last time he bought a lemonade and takis at the bodega...

Man, talk about irresponsible.

How was he supposed to know he'd be a single father on the run?

What the heck is he supposed to do now?

He doesn't actually think Splinter and his brothers will take Klunk away from him. But he can't get over the fact that they were seriously thinking about it.

The sidewalk blurs a little and Mikey frowns, scrubbing the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes. He glances down at Klunk, who's looking up at him Hamato Yoshi's big brown eyes. Hers a more amber tinted than his, her pupils narrows in the bright sunlight.

Mikey smiles reflexively, squeezing her hand in his.

"Sorry, girlie," he says, "It's okay! C'mon."

They traverse another two blocks before they get to the river. Mikey has to scoop Klunk back up after less than half that distance because she keeps trying to pull her hand out of his, and then sits down on the sidewalk and refuses to budge. Mikey gets it.

He thinks he knows where he is now, though, but wants to be sure.

It's one thing to get himself lost, it's something completely different to get lost when he has a little girl to take care of. Feels a lot bigger than having a cat for sure. The last thing he wants is to get into trouble and have to call for help. His brothers and Splinter already think that he can't even take care of himself. He's not looking to prove them right. He crosses the six lanes of traffic to the park, clamping his free hand over Klunk's head to pin her ears down and hoping no one looks at them too closely in the crowd. He puts her back on her feet once they're behind the pedestrian barrier.

There are a couple of joggers in the park, a few tourists snapping pictures, and some of the half dozen tables in the small shaded picnic area are occupied. One older lady glances their way when her Yorkie barks at Klunk, who shies back behind Mikey's legs at the sound. Other than that, it's quiet enough under the lull of traffic to hear the Hudson lapping at the posts along the break wall.

Mikey finds an empty bench off by itself, hemmed on both sides by some seriously overgrown bushes, and sinks onto it with relief.

He rests his forearms on his thighs.

His hands are cold and shaking, his arms throbbing under the compression sleeves. The zings of pain aren't anywhere near as sharp as they were last night, but they're strong enough to make him hiss between his clenched teeth as they wave up and down his arms.

Mikey takes a few minutes to breathe through the worst of it, slow and deep, counting them in and out just like Splinter taught him. It calms his racing heart, as well, and eases some of that clingy anxiety. Klunk climbs up onto the bench beside him and stands with her hands on his shoulder, peering across him in the direction that old lady with the Yorkie went. Her tail whips, ears twitching. Mikey isn't surprised when she climbs the rest of the way up onto his shoulder. She's always perched there. It's just that she's a lot bigger now, and he huffs out a small laugh, bowing slightly to give her more room to settle on his shell since she doesn't fit in her usual spot anymore.

Klunk sits and drapes one of her legs over Mikey's shoulder.

"I don't think that doggie is coming back, Klunk," Mikey says, glancing along the river, more to get his bearings than to look out for the dog.

Okay so. That's definitely the vent thing in the distance – a pair of gated piers extending out across the choppy water to a tall brick tower – which means the Holland Tunnel's right underneath. He's looking at maybe an hour-long walk to get back uptown. Mikey groans, digging the heels of both hands into his eyes and rubbing until he sees spots. Stupid. Why didn't he pay attention to the signage when he came out of the maintenance tunnel? He doesn't usually leave the lair that way... and he's not as familiar with all the let-outs of the abandoned subway terminal as he was with the sewers...

He digs his phone out of his pocket.

Aaaannd, great. He forgot to charge it last night.

It flashes 18% at him and the brightness is so dim, he can barely see the screen. Mikey brings it close to his face and squints at it, cupping his hand to shade the screen even more.

He has like ten missed calls from his brothers and Splinter.

He clears the notification and googles Barry's address with the limited battery life he has. ...And yeah that walk time is almost exactly what he expected... It'd be quicker over the roofs. Mikey flexes his hand experimentally, frowning, and knows he won't have the grip strength to climb a ladder. He can barely hold the phone, and besides that, he can't parkour with Klunk. Mikey's never been afraid of falling, even with her. But it somehow felt safer to do when she fit in his hand.

He'd have no trouble walking that distance on his own. But he doesn't think Klunk will be able to do it, and he can't carry her the whole way.

He just had to go and have a flare up last night...

He doesn't know what to do now. If he pays for anything with his phone, like a cab or breakfast, Donnie will get a notification. But Donnie already technically knows where he is because of the tracker; and if Leo felt so inclined, he could portal to Mikey in less than two seconds; and Raph could sniff him out with his Big Brother senses even without the twins' help. He's surprised they haven't already ambushed him, to be honest. So trying to stay off the radar probably isn't worth the effort.

Mikey groans loudly and pressing his face into his hands, smashing the phone against his cheek in the process. The pressure hurts, but he presses harder, stubbornly, just to feel it.

"Uuuruggh!! Man, I've never had to think this hard in my life...! Stupid jerks!! Whatever!" He straightens and pockets his phone with one hand while the other reaches up to steady Klunk, who clutches at his hood when he moves. "Who can think like this on an empty stomach?! I'm gonna pass out if I don't eat soon and that's not gonna help us figure anything out. I saw a food truck on the way over, I can definitely afford falafels! Well. I dunno if you'll eat falafels, actually. I guess I'll get some fries too, and you can try both. What d'you think, Klunker?"

He stands slowly, reaching up to pull her down so she's sitting on his actual shoulders, between the back of his neck and the ridge of his shell. Too big to perch now, but she's still small enough to fit comfortably in the narrow space without Mikey feeling like he's breaking his neck. He keeps one hand loosely around her ankle and pauses to see if she'll stay put.

Klunk leans forward and hugs his head with both arms. She claps her small hands around his forehead and her tail sweeps across his collar bone, hitting him in the face. Mikey gently pinches the end of it, and chuckles when she whips it out of his hand.

"You okay, girlie?" he asks, walking back the way they came.

There's a tiny, tiny hum in answer that Mikey can just barely hear over a car horn blaring nearby. For some reason, he smiles so big his face hurts.

"So you do have a little voice! I knew it. Are you gonna talk to me?"

Klunk fidgets with the edge of his hood.

"That's okay," Mikey goes on cheerfully. He feels better, now that he has a goal in mind. "I get it. The talkin's hard for some people to figure out. We can work on it."

Wow, he's a genius, this is way easier than carrying her and she likes feeling tall so it gives her a great vantage point (and she's not trying to hide in his hoodie). Mikey pauses at the cross-walk, watching the traffic as well as the light. He can't do anything about covering her ears, but what little girl doesn't love cats? He gets away with the 'cosplay' excuse 9 times out of 10, and that's if anyone bothers to notice or ask why his skin is green in the first place. People will probably just assume her ears are part of a headband. He's really not tryin'a stress about it.

They need breakfast.

So he's getting them breakfast.

-

Mikey finds the food truck, orders their falafels and fries and a bottled water (has just enough cash in his wallet to cover it), and beelines for the nearest alley.

He plops Klunk down ontop of the stack of pallets that's only about chest-high and not super wobbly, and hops up to sit beside her, wincing at the pressure his own weight puts his arm. He unpacks the paper bag. The fries are extra fresh, so Mikey picks one up and blows on it to cool it off before he offers it to her. Klunk looks at it warily, sniffs it and sniffs it and sniffs it, and then grabs it in her fist, crushing it the heck out of it. The look on her face – kind of confused, kind of grossed out – when she slowly opens her palm to chunks of unofficially mashed potato, makes Mikey laugh. Klunk turns her hand over and lets what's left of the fry fall to the pavement, shaking her hand and wiping it on her shirt.

Mikey offers her another one.

"Gently, okay?" he says, pinching her arm with the kind of pressure he wants her to take the fry with.

Klunk doesn't full-throttle her grip this time.

She only smushes it a little bit. She spends another few seconds smelling it and looking at it (and looking at him like she's trying to check if it's okay for her to eat it, because he's never fed her off his plate before) before she licks it and takes a bite. She hums again, covering her mouth with both hands while she chews, and closes her eyes. Mikey grins. He unpacks his own small to-go box of deep-fried chickpea mulch cakes, and doesn't bother waiting for them to cool off before he pops one into his mouth. They smell herby and delicious and he literally doesn't care about burning his mouth.

Mikey puffs and chews around the heat, groaning with relief.

Ohmigosh, he was starving.

He's been shaky and unsettled all morning; he didn't realize how much of it was Body Needs Food Like Right Now Bro. Halfway through, he feels a little guilty because he'd planned on making potato soup for his brothers, because none of them were feeling good this morning.

But they were being jerks!

So, he doesn't feel that bad.

Klunk is devouring her fries with gusto, licking her palms clean of salt. When Mikey offers her one of his falafels, now cooled, she takes it without hesitation. But then she sniffs it and wrinkles her nose, her whiskers twitching, and sets it back in his palm.

Too many smells, he guesses, chuckling.

Didn't he read in an article for picky eaters once that kids have a simpler pallet or something?

He'll have to keep that in mind for the future.

"I guess I'm your dad now," Mikey says quietly after a while, collecting the trash and stuffing it into the paper bag, crumpling it between his hands. Klunk is shaking the half-empty water bottle, watching the water slosh against the clear insides with acute interest. Her ears turns his way, but it's hard to gauge how much she actually understands. "I mean, I was kinda like your dad before, but now it's like. For real. ...I don't know if I'm really ready to be a dad, Klunk."

The admission isn't hard. Now that his belly is full and he's not piping hot with anger, Mikey's starting to realize that running away from the problem and the bad feelings wasn't the most mature thing he could have done. But he did do it, and he's not ready to go home just yet.

He's still got some stuff he wants to think about, and doesn't want to be mad when he says it.

"I'm gonna do my best, though," he adds, "Okay?"

He reaches out to rest his hand on top of Klunk's head, gently rubbing her soft scalp and around her ears, just the way she likes it. Klunk leans back into the touch and glances up at him, watching his face with the same sort of attentiveness that she was giving the water bottle.

Mikey smiles again, some of that worry easing.

Now he just has to think of a way to get them halfway across Manhattan...

He glances up when something clatters against the wall at the entrance of the alley. A couple of skateboarders, human kids around his own age, are horse-playing as they travel in a tight pack down the sidewalk and one of them accidentally kicked their board out of the way. It rolls unattended toward Mikey and Klunk and thumps into the side of a nearby dumpster. None of the kids notice it, and their play fighting and laughter quickly carries them out of sight.

Mikey stares at the abandoned board.

Okay.

How bad is he willing to be right now?

He glances at Klunk, who's looking at the skateboard with her ears perked up, craning so far forward that Mikey grab the back of her shirt to make sure she doesn't topple forward off the stack of pallets. He... shouldn't set a bad example for her. He also can't carry her that far, and he doesn't think she'll like the bus or a cab anymore than she liked the subway; he's already worried she's traumatized because she's usually so vocal and chatty with him, and she's barely made a peep this whole time.

...Screw it.

The teenagers voices are fading into the din of traffic.

Mikey's kind of tired of being nice all the time.

He takes the water bottle from Klunk and hops down from the pallets, shoving the bottle into the pocket of his shorts and then tightening the waist strings so the weight of it doesn't pull them down. Then he picks up Klunk under his arm and uses that good ole ninja agility to dart forward, grab the board, and sprint back down to the far end of the alley. He jogs to a stop, glancing over his shoulder. No one's come looking for the board, and he doesn't wait for them to.

Mikey blows out a breath, and laughs, dropping the board on it's wheels and setting Klunk down. She immediately climbs onto the board, and Mikey has to steady it with his foot to keep it from rolling out from under her, catching hold of the back of her shirt.

"Easy," he says, hauling her back, "Hang on!"

Klunk frowns up at him, and he laughs again in surprise.

"You're used to balancing on four legs, not two! Lemme think."

Mikey's doubled on a board with Donnie and Leo, but Klunk is a lot smaller and they can't hold onto each other for balance (plus, Donnie and Leo both shoved him off (into the water! But still!)). After thinking about it for all of two seconds, he decides Klunk probably had the right idea actually. He lets her step up onto the middle of the board with his foot keeping it steady. She crouches there, and grabs onto his leg. Her tail whips back and forth and she looks up at him expectantly.

Mikey shifts his foot around, trying to feel it out, and then he kicks off.

He wobbles a little after placing both feet, splaying his hands, bends his knees – Klunk's tiny nails pinch into his calf and make him wince – but he quickly gets control of the movement and turns them so they cruise out of the alley and down the sidewalk.

Dang, he's good!

Mikey glances down at Klunk and grins when she eagerly turns her face into the wind.

They've so got this.

-

Draxum opens the apartment door after Mikey has banged on it exactly five times.

It's nearly noon and he's still wearing his floofy maroon 'I swear I didn't kill my husband, officer' housecoat, his mane of hair disheveled, wielding a steaming coffee mug in one hand. He doesn't seem all that surprised to see them. He looks at Mikey, looks at Klunk propped on Mikey's hip, and says mildly, "I was wondering why the rat called to yell in my ear first thing in the morning."

Mikey bristles, mad all over again.

"What'd he say?"

"He told me that if you showed up here with the child in tow, I was to 'change your mind'."

Draxum sounds unimpressed with this demand and sips his coffee.

Mikey should have assumed as much – it still hurts to hear.

Especially when he had actually managed to calm down a lot on the way here. Now his heart's beating hard again. He shoulders past Draxum into the sunlit kitchen and props his borrowed skateboard against the wall beneath the landline. Klunk cranes to look over his shoulder at the rest of the apartment, her tail lashing back and forth against Mikey's hip.

Draxum shuts the door and turns to face them, tucking one arm into the other. He steps closer, drawing Klunk's attention to him, and stoops slightly to peer into her face for a long moment. Klunk stares back at him without blinking, her pupils and eyes narrowing slightly. She's never paid much attention to Draxum, and he's never paid much attention to her either beyond a mild query of 'What purpose does this creature serve?' when Mikey introduced them months ago. Since she didn't serve a purpose, Draxum wasn't interested in her – and since he so wholeheartedly ignored her, Klunk returned the favor.

She's never even been in Draxum's apartment, now that Mikey thinks about it.

He never brought her along when he was doing mystic lessons.

Now, Klunk's tiny hands fist into Mikey's hoodie and she slinks back slightly against Mikey's shoulder, and Mikey frowns, rubbing her side. When Draxum begins to circle them, humming contemplatively, Mike turns first one way and then the other trying to the alchemist in view.

"What?" he asks.

"A fine specimen," Draxum observes, straightening, "Interesting. But what did you bring her to me for?"

"Because your stupid oozesquito did this!" Mikey bursts out, "You brought 'em all into the lair and one of 'em survived the gas and got Klunk!"

"Yes, obviously," Draxum says, waving a hand, "And your grievances have been heard. In the interest of keeping the peace, I destroyed the rest of the brood when I returned home. All that work, wasted. And yet, your feline companion has been much improved."

"She's a baby now, Barry!" Mikey says angrily. Klunk tenses in his arms, her ears laying back, and he feels bad for raising his voice in front of her again, but goes on anyway, "She's a little person! And Splinter and my brothers think we should just get rid of her now!"

"That's uncharacteristically dark of them."

"Like, give her to a new family, Barry!"

"Ah. That makes more sense. Is there a reason you find that course of action unpalatable?"

"Well first of all, she's my cat and I love her and wanna keep her! Obviously! Or – she was my cat! And now she's – she's my – she's a baby now but she's not just any baby she's my – well!" Mikey looks at Klunk, her golden-brown almond-shaped eyes, her round little face; then he picks her up under the arms and turns her slightly so she's facing Draxum. His heart's beating so hard he feels like he's gonna pass out. "I mean, just look at her! I'm not crazy!"

To his surprise, Draxum validates all of Mikey's suspicions this with a thoughtful nod and says, "Yes, no doubt if you were both the same species, the resemblance would be uncanny. Clearly it was your extended proximity that led the chain in the mutation."

"So I was right! But why isn't she part turtle then?"

"My mutagen was designed to isolate and amplify the strongest genes. In your case, Lou Jitsu's DNA has much more to offer than that of a common box turtle."

"Rude," Mikey huffs.

He settles Klunk on his hip again.

Apparently tired of being man-handled – or maybe of being in Draxum's line of sight – she wriggles to get free. Mikey sets her down; his arms need the break anyway. The elevator is broken and he had to carry her up the stairs and that. Sucked. Klunk crouches behind his legs, looking curiously beneath the table. He turns to follow her gaze and sees the huge array of plants (both mystic and non-mystic) that Draxum has crowding the windowsill and the narrow shelf behind the table, and a few flowering vines that hang from the ceiling in different-sized braided planters. Donnie has had to get creative with keeping her out of his greenhouse, and from knocking over the plants in his room.

She's kind of a menace.

Mikey watches Klunk's tail whip back and forth around her feet.

"So she really is mine," he says, "like I'm Dad's?"

Draxum sighs, the way Donnie does when someone over-simplifies his explanations, and rubs a hand down his face; "If you want to get sentimental about it, then yes. Your genetic connection is the same with her as the rat's is with you, though neither of you are technically offspring. She does not contain a muddied fraction of Lou Jitsu's DNA the way a third generation child would, she contains a precise copy of his DNA. The same copy that you and your brothers possess."

Mikey doesn't understand all that science stuff.

But he understands this:

"She's family," he says softly, trying to keep the wobble out of his voice, twisting his fingers, "She's mine. Even before all this! Why don't they want her?"

"Children are a burden, Michelangelo," Draxum says. Not cruelly, just the same way he'd say water is wet, if he bothered to say something so obvious. He leans back against the counter and motions with his coffee. "I'm confident the rat said something similar when he made his protestations."

"Well he didn't say burden," Mikey grumbles, stung.

"He wouldn't," Draxum sniffs, "He was probably too concerned with not hurting your feelings by implying that you were a burden, even though that's precisely what you are and what you have been ever since he stole you from my laboratory. Being cared for and willingly endured doesn't mean you aren't a burden. Every emotional attachment is a burden. Children in particular." Draxum points at him then, and Klunk, who slowly crawls beneath the table. "Because they require a literal lifetime of resources. In this case, his ire with your impertinence was justified. It is frustrating to watch one of your creations desire to brazenly throw away their potential."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means that if you choose to keep it, you will waste your youth caring for this child, and you will never have the opportunity to live your own life and discover who you are without it."

"Oh..."

Okay yeah, now that Mikey thinks about it, that's probably exactly the same thing that Splinter was trying to say. Mikey was just too mad to hear the part that mattered, though. And now he feels extra bad for snapping at his dad the way he did.

It wasn't fair.

And it didn't feel good.

Splinter might have struggled with raising them on his own, but when it mattered, he's picked Mikey and his brothers every time without fail; even if it just made things difficult for him, even when it ostracized him from the rest of his family, even when it might have meant the end of the world. Mikey knows that he's loved, in spite of how Draxum has phrased it. He has never doubted that ever in his life – he's never had a reason to – and he for sure doesn't doubt it now. There's so much love flowing into him from every possible angle, it feels bigger than an ocean sometimes.

Mikey sighs, crouching and reaching beneath the table to grab Klunk around the middle as she's inching toward the plants.

She really didn't learn her lesson with the oozesquito.

Mikey stands and props her on his hip again, and Klunk grabs the pull string of his hoodie, tugging on it to see how much she can get out, and letting go of it to watch it fall and swing against his chest, her pupils round and dark. Mikey takes her hand and turns it over in his, thumbing her palm, then each of her fingers. Huh. She doesn't have fingernails like he does. She has sharp little white claws that come out when he presses gently on her fingertips. Her palm and the pads of her fingers are pink, the rest covered in downy orange and white fur.

She curls her fingers around his thumb, squeezing hard.

An unexpected well of emotion closes Mikey's throat.

Her hands are so small.

Klunk is looking intently at their hands, lifting Mikey's now to examine it the way he had done with hers, poking his fingernails. When she finally looks up at him, Mikey smiles at her. Klunk meets his gaze steadily, her eyes flicking back and forth across his face.

Then she smiles.

A big smile, not something small or shy. And she's got one sharp little tooth that pokes out over her lip that reminds him instantly of Raph.

It's like a beam of sunlight shining right into his heart. And then Klunk lifts her other hand and smacks Mikey in the face, the exact same way she always does when she's trying to get him to laugh, and it works, startling one out of him around the tightness in his throat. He hears Draxum mutter, "Ugh. Repulsive," and turns to watch the goat-man stomp out of the room. Well, Mikey doesn't care what he thinks. He doesn't care what any of them think. How could he give her away, just because she's different now? Just because it might make things harder? How could he give her to people he doesn't even know, and just hope that they take care of her and treat her right?

Even if someone else would, he'd regret it for the rest of his life.

Mikey's a No Regrets kind of guy.

It's not like he has crazy big plans for the future – his most immediate concern this morning was whether or not they had enough potatoes for soup – and the vigilante stuff is whatever. Being a hero has only ever had almost-deadly, nearly-world-shattering consequences like twice, and they bodied it both times. Mikey's not worried about it. Besides, he was already locked into the idea of taking care of her for the next 12 to 20 years. It's just that now she needs shoes, probably.

Mikey's as excited to make her first PB&J as he was to make Casey Jr's.

What are the odds she has an allergy like Raph?

Mikey scoots out one of the chairs at the table and sits with his hands cupped around Klunk's back. She grabs at his hoodie strings again and puts one of them in her mouth, chewing on the soft knot while she looks toward the window and the plants. She stills when Draxum returns carrying a large cardboard box, which he drops heavily onto the kitchen table.

"Here," he says.

Mikey eyes the box dubiously, angling his body so that Klunk is on the opposite side of him in case Barry has any ideas about grabbing her and stuffing her into it so he can drop her off at the nearest Hidden City Firehouse.

"What's this for?" he asks.

"She needs clothes." Draxum pries open the flaps of the box and begins riffling through it's contents, casting small colorful shirts, dresses, shorts, and jeans onto the table. "The district is doing a Back To School charity event for the impoverish and among the many donated items that were thrust into my unwilling care, there are clothes for small children. Some of these should be an acceptable fit until you're able to fill out a proper wardrobe for her. Pick whatever you think suits her best."

Mikey watches the pile grow, delighted, but surprised.

"Splinter said to change my mind, not help me."

Draxum grins, and looks every bit as sinister as he did when they first got him that lunch lady gig, "I am rarely in the mood to find the rat's demands agreeable."

Well, Mikey doesn't usually like to encourage his Dads' combative attitudes.

But in this case, he'll let it slide.

-

Mikey spends the rest of the morning sifting through boxes of donated clothes, trying to keep Klunk's attention on him long enough to see what might fit, and trying to keep her distracted from her current obsession: Draxum's plants. And then he has to wrestle her out of his too-big t-shirt and into her own clothes. Klunk does not appreciate this. She scratches him twice, and then she kicks him in the face and hides behind the couch, and Mikey has to drag her out from behind it. Maybe she liked his shirt because it was familiar and it smelled like him, and it was so baggy.

She lays, prone, on the floor, on her front, for five minutes after Mikey finally gets her into some blue shorts and a pink shirt with a sequined unicorn on it.

It's a very Leo outfit.

Mikey starts to take a picture of her to send to him, but remembers that his phone is nearly dead and slumps back into his chair at the kitchen table, instead, folding his arms and frowning at Klunk's seemingly paralyzed form.

"Should I take it off?" he asks, looking across at Draxum, "I don't think she likes it..."

"I would not begin a lifelong endeavor by giving in to tantrums, no," Draxum says in a bored tone, without looking up from the day's issue of the newspaper.

"She's not used to wearin' clothes. Maybe it's just not comfortable!"

"She will acclimate or perish."

"....Okay..."

Mikey doesn't really know what his parenting style is going to be yet, but it's definitely not 'Acclimate or Perish'.

...Splinter wouldn't have made him wear it.

"C'mere, Klunker."

Mikey leans forward and grabs the back of the shirt, pulling it up. Klunk realizes she's about to be freed from the constricting fabric and wriggles backwards until her head pops out. She gives it a quick shake, her ears flapping, and then wrenches her arms free next. She narrows an absolutely scathing look at Mikey and crawls beneath the table out of sight.

She makes a low, annoyed cat noise.

Mikey is glad to hear it; it's better than this worrisome silence. He smiles, ducking his head under the table to be sure she can see it, "Sorry, baby. It's alright if you don't like it. We can try again later, okay?"

Klunk wiggles out of the shorts next, and throws them at him.

Mikey goes through the clothes again, looking for things that fit more loosely and grabbing another dress while he's at it. Maybe she'll like those better. He stuffs the new set of clothes into the big canvas bag Barry dug out of the closet for him and then sits back at the table, checking his phone and absently rubbing his arm. Oh right, the battery.

It's super dead now.

"Do you have an extra charger?" Mikey asks.

He should probably. Call his dad.

Draxum waves a hand in the direction of the kitchen drawers.

"There is a spare in the junk drawer you started and then never organized," he says, "Also, there is more of that ointment in the bathroom cabinet."

"Huh?"

"Michelangelo, I can clearly see that you're wearing the compression sleeves."

Mikey glances down. Oops. He's pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to rub his arm because it started tingling and feeling weird again. He tugs the cuff back down across his wrist, but there's no point in denying it – and anyway, he should let Draxum know.

"Yeah... I had a flare up last night. I dunno why. I thought I was doin' better!"

"You are a novice, and still a poor judge of how much energy is actually required for a task," Draxum says, idly turning a page in the newspaper, "You needed a fraction of what you spent last night on a mere barrier. Hence the consequences."

"Okay." Mikey huffs and rocks to his feet, stomping across the kitchen and pointing at Draxum with both hands. "The consequences of the crappy barrier you made in the first place! By the way. Also, you mutated my cat! So, I don't really want some mystic I-told-you-so right now, Barry!"

Draxum shrugs. "Then perish."

Mikey whips around. "Did you just quote a meme at me?"

"A what?" Draxum asks irritably.

...Sometimes Mikey isn't sure if Draxum is trolling him or not.

-

The lair is way too quiet.

It's been that way all morning.

Raph ate cereal, and felt guilty for running Mikey off when he saw the bag of potatoes on the counter; but Donnie wouldn't give up his location, and Leo wouldn't save them all time and stress by portaling him and Klunk home so they could actually maybe talk about this, and Raph didn't really feel like scouring half of Manhattan for the little dipstick, anyway.

Who just runs off on their own like that?

Normally when they sneak out, they sneak out together.

What happened to the Buddy System??

Klunk barely counted before she got mutated, Raph doesn't think she counts anymore now that she's a foot taller or something. She's not just small little, she's young little.

They both are!

Raph has chewed his fingernails down to the quick over it. He only stops biting them when he tastes blood, and grimaces down at his ravaged fingers. No way he's gonna do the walk-of-shame to Leo over it. Raph cleans and bandages his own fingers in the medbay, and then hits the weights to keep himself occupied. He parks it on his work-out bench on the platform between their rooms and picks up a dumbbell to work his biceps. At some point though, his mind wanders again, and he sort of forgets to keep lifting. It just makes him think of all the times Klunk has come in here and sat at one end of the weights and 'spotted' him while he sweat through his work out...

So now he's just holding his heaviest dumbbell with his elbow propped on his knee, staring into the distance, thinking himself in literal circles and not sure how he feels about any of it; and he stays stuck like that until Leo slips out of his own room across the platform and sidles over to him, turning to flop backwards into Raph's side.

Leo folds his arms and asks, "So, do you also feel like the biggest jerk ever over the whole 'Klunk needs to go to an orphanage' thing, or is it a Leon Exclusive?"

"Nah, the feelin's definitely makin' rounds," Raph agrees.

He sets the dumbbell on the floor. His muscles are sore from holding the weight for so long. Raph opens and closes his hand a few times, massaging his forearm.

His fingertips sting...

"Like, I get it," Leo says, both hands up and moving in Raph's peripheral. This is great, because now that he's had a while to cook, Leo will talk out both sides of the argument and land on something that makes sense to Raph, and Raph's head will stop hurting about it. Right? And then they'll all know what to do. "But also, what the heck is Mikey thinking?? This is crazy, right? None of us know the first thing about kids, we're still mostly kids ourselves! We should not be raising one."

Raph shrugs, "We shouldn't be savin' the world, neither, but here we are."

"Eugh," Leo groans, dropping his head back to rest of Raph's shell, "Here we are."

He doesn't offer up anything else.

Raph would be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed – but he's not gonna tell Leo that. He's not disappointed in Leo. It's just that his head hurts.

And his heart hurts.

Klunk is one of them. But Leo's right: they've barely managed to raise themselves...

Raph groans and rubs his face with his hands. He digs his phone out and checks it again, even though it's never gone off, wishing Mikey would at least text and let them know he's okay.

He's probably fine.

He'd definitely call if he wasn't fine. Right?

Splinter said to leave him alone and let him think for a while. But that means Raph has to sit here and think, and that's not really Raph's strong suit sometimes! Dang it, he misses Klunk, and he's worried about Mikey, and he feels bad about the way that conversation went earlier, and he doesn't know how to fix this. What're they gonna do if Leo doesn't know either?

"You're digging at your eye again, bro," Leo says, and Raph drops his hand from doing just that, a little too quickly to play it off, "S'matter with your fingers?"

This time, Raph stifles the groan the wants to come out, looking at his bandaged fingers.

Lucky for Raph, a distraction appears in the form of Donnie.

He comes down the stairs with a halo of purple activity floating around him. He marches straight across the platform toward Mikey's room without sparing either of his brothers a glance, and Raph and Leo both watch him with open curiosity. There are a handful of purple screens in front of him, 3D schematics for a train car, and more than a dozen bots of some kind (clearly ninpo constructs that are barely bigger than a golf ball) that start flitting around. A handful of the bots separate and dart into Mikey's and Donnie's rooms. Most are working their way in a grid across the platform, scanning and beeping and flagging something on one of Donnie's smaller screens, which flickers in time with the beeps.

Others are carrying... Pool noodles. In an assortment of colors.

And duct tape.

The Grid-And-Pool-Noodle team start laser cutting said noodles in half and down to size and affixing them to the lowest corners of each pillar they encounter, as well as the corners of the bare kotatsu. Another team is measuring the width of the enormous staircase. Donnie himself hops off onto the track in the narrow space between his room and Mikey's, and starts uncoupling the cars.

Raph glances back at Leo. Leo shrugs.

"Donnie," Raph calls.

"Hm?"

One of the bots has come close enough to scan Raph's weights, issuing a lot of beeping and fussing. Raph watches it warily.

"What are you doin'??"

Dropping a large chain on the gravel, Donnie answers, "I'm baby-proofing the lair, making space for another train car to convert into a room for Klunk, and tolerating that incredibly redundant question, Raphala, what are you dum-dums doing?"

Raph and Leo share another look.

"Uh," Leo says, pushing off of Raph with his shoulder and striding over to the edge of the platform, "Wait a minute, hold up. Your okay with it? Mr. Don't Disrupt My Routine, bluh bluh bluh What's The Color Coded Itinerary For If No One's Gonna Follow It? Do you have any idea how disruptive a kid is?? You pitch a fit if we change the laundry detergent without giving you a ten day notice!"

Donnie drops the lever he was heaving up in favor of frowning at Leo, "Changing the detergent with little-to-no notice is INEXCUSABLE in this day and age –"

"Donnie, babe, this is so not about the detergent, Mikey wants to keep an actual, literal child!"

"Correction! He wants to keep Klunk."

"Ugh, Donnie, I can't believe this – Klunk isn't a cute little cat anymore, she's a cute little kid! She's a kid, and kids need all kinds of things like food, and clothes, and attention, and –"

"You need those things as well and we haven't shipped you off to the orphanage. Believe me, I tried. It wasn't worth paying the shipping price."

"This is SO DIFFERENT, Donnie!"

"Obviously this is DIFFERENT, Leo, but what is the alternative?" Donnie asks with sudden heat, "Mikey made his intentions and his feelings on the matter very clear and if we do not get 'okay with it' – quickly – then what incentive does he have to come back here?? Regardless of how you both feel, I am not interested in losing a brother or a niece!"

Leo, who had been building up a good head of steam, suddenly deflates.

Raph's heart starts going a mile a minute, ramping up his anxiety again to the point where he bites compulsively at his bandaged fingers.

He hadn't even thought of that.

Mikey'll definitely come back. He knows he can, right?

Like, in what world is Raph gonna let a little brother do something this big all on his own? Even if it's not what Raph wants? And it's not like he doesn't want Klunk –

Donnie is way more fired up about the situation than Raph originally thought he was. The constructs he was keeping together waver slightly as his voice rises with emotion, "Mikey is not the least stubborn turtle among us, if anything one could argue he is more of a force to be reckoned with than all of us combined considering he has breached the unbreachable before, so it is pointless and stupid to attempt to change his mind – and I for one do not understand the caveat here. We have all anthropomorphized Klunk and we all adore her, ergo she is already family. Having acquired access to a sudden higher sapience does not get her shipped off to random strangers who might not understand or care for her the way that she requires, it gets her her own room, and her own stuff, and her own place at the table – all of which she will have within a few hours if you will shut up and let me move this stupid train car!!"

Those last couple of words really ring across the platform.

The only reason Leo is quicker to initiate a hug is because he's closer.

He drops down onto the track and wraps both arms around Donnie's shoulders, pulling him in tight. Donnie stands rigidly in his embrace with his hands fisted at his sides, looking like he is half a second away from committing fratricide. He grunts in irritation when Raph slams into them next and scoops both of them up to squeeze against his chest. That all by itself makes Raph feel 100x better. He knew one of these knuckle-heads would pull through with something smart.

"This is not necessary," Donnie grunts.

Leo shushes him with a hasty, "Yesitis!" and pats him on the head until Donnie sighs and begrudgingly relaxes. Raph chuckles, hugging them a little tighter.

"C'mon, fellas," he says, setting them on their feet. He cracks his knuckles, grinning. "We got a niece to move a train car for!"

-

Mikey is jogging down the stairwell of the apartment, carrying Klunk under his arm, and he's so focused on watching his feet and not dropping her and ignoring the painful throbbing in his arm protesting her weight, that he startles when April shouts,

"Mikey!"

His heart lurches and his hands go pins-and-needles all at once. Clutching Klunk against his side with both arms, he drops the bag of clothes instead. It thuds onto the step below him and then slowly flips forward, tumbling down another few steps all the way to the landing and spilling clothes along the way. Mikey blows out a breath, sitting down on the step behind him.

Klunk immediately wriggles across his lap to peek between the rails.

April lets out a breathless laugh from below.

"Sorry! Didn't think I'd scare ya!" She climbs to the landing and starts picking up the clothes, stuffing them back into the bag. Her hair is still wrapped like she just climbed out of bed, and she's wearing a t-shirt and pajama shorts. "I was headin' to Barry's. I heard like a crash or somethin'," she says, pointing up in reference to the ceiling in her apartment, "And some shouting, and I normally just hear Barry clip-cloppin' around up there, so I got outta bed, and then I check my phone and I've got like a hundred texts from the guys that make no sense and Donnie, specifically, told me you were at Barry's and asked me to check on you, so: here I am!"

April pauses as she straightens, holding the bag, and actually takes a moment to look a him then.

She points with her phone and asks flatly, "Mikey, why does Klunk look like you but a baby?"

Mikey grimaces, avoiding eye contact by fidgeting with the baggy t-shirt that he stuffed Klunk back into before carrying her out of Draxum's apartment.

"....She got got by an oozesquito last night."

April stares, then looks down at her phone, her thumb swiping over the screen. She pulls in a breath and her mouth forms an O shape and she nods.

"The texts make sense now." She waves her phone and then stuffs it into the pocket of her pajama shorts. Then she claps her hands together around the handles of the bag. "Okay so, where are we goin'? What're we doin'? I need to put on some clothes first so we do need to stop by my place first, but after that I'm down for whatever."

The way that puts Mikey instantly at ease is kind of stupid really.

April is just immediately on his side, down to clown no matter what, and all kinds of tension Mikey hadn't realized he was carrying eases right out of his shoulders. He launches himself down the stairs and slams full-body into April, hugging her as tightly as he can with his arms throbbing and shaking. A 'thank you' isn't big enough, and Mikey's throat squeezes shut around the words, but they squeak out anyway. He bounces on his toes, jostling her. Gosh, she's his favorite, ever.

April laughs and hugs him back, rubbing his shell.

"Okay, alright, cuddle bug. Fill me in!"

Mikey leans back out of her embrace, sniffling and scrubbing his face with his sleeve. He feels something brush against his leg and glances down to find Klunk staring up at April.

April notices too and looks at her with a rueful smile.

"Girl, you are so cute right now! Look at them big ole eyes!"

"She's always been cute!" Mikey huffs.

"True," April agrees, "But now she's got that Hamato charm." She puts her hands on her hips and returns Klunk's stare full-force, without blinking. "Girl, if you jump on my head though, you and me're gonna go around and around this stairwell. You are way too big for that nonsense."

Klunk narrows her eyes as if she disapproves of this assessment, and it's So Donnie that Mikey clamps a hand over his mouth and turns his face away to keep from laughing. Across from him, April struggles to keep a straight face too.

"Now listen here. I mean it!"

Klunk closes her eyes and turns her face away.

April's mouth opens in surprise, and Mikey's shoulders start to shake.

"Okay," April says, half laughing, "Attitude check on aisle four."

"Sorry," Mikey murmurs, grinning, "Um. Being a person is hard?"

"I heard that," April agrees.

"We were comin' to see you, by the way."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Uh, she kind of -" Mikey motions at Klunk, and laughs, "- peed on one of Barry's plants."

At that, April does sputter out a laugh. She quickly whips around to face the other direction. She grips the handrail for support as she doubles over, clutching the bag and shaking with suppressed laughter until it bursts out of her, echoing in the stairwell.

Mikey goes on, overcome with his own contagious giggles, "Right! So, she's litter box trained? So she knocked the planter over and, well, she peed in the dirt and all over his plant. I don't know the first thing about teaching little girls how to use the toilet! So, I was thinking – April's a girl! And was wondering, if you don't care, if you'd – y'know –"

"Okay okay," April cackles, barely recovering enough to wave her hands. There are visible tears on her face and she pulls her glasses off to wipe them with his wrist. "Hold up! I have not recovered from peed on Barry's plant! How mad was he?"

"Pretty mad," Mikey laughs.

"Oh man, I wish I coulda seen the look on his face!" She finally manages to compose herself, clearing her throat. She puts her glasses back on and spreading her hands in a calming gesture. "Okay. WHEW! First of all, hell no," she says amicably, "I am not qualified to potty train. Second, lucky for you, my mom's home! And she taught this little girl –" She points at herself. "- everything she knows. So c'mon."

She gestures for Mikey to follow and in the same movement rocks forward to tug at the front of his hoodie, pulling him along. No arguing.

Mikey wouldn't, anyway.

-

He does kinda forget how scary April's mom can be though.

"Hamato Michelangelo, you made this baby?" Carol says with so much intensity, Mikey is sure she's about to wring his neck for philanderin' at his age.

Dang, she full-named him and everything.

Mikey turns scarlet, shielding himself with the canvas bag full of clothes.

April intervenes, "An oozesquito made this baby! This was Mikey's cat! Klunk! You've seen pics! Cute orange tabby? Hello? Be real, Mom, he woulda had to've been like twelve if this was his actual baby. Well, I guess more like fourteen, but still –"

"That's what I'm gettin' upset about!" Carol says, hands on her hips.

"Literally no reason to be upset," April counters smoothly.

Carol and her have some kind of mother-daughter stare off. This is not the first one Mikey has witnessed, but it's just as uncomfortable as if it were. Somewhere between the Shredder incident for the most part outing yokai-kind and the Literal Alien Invasion, the 'my besties are actually turtles' situation seemed kind of silly to keep under wraps. The O'Neil apartment was already like a second home because April lived here – it's just that now, Mikey and his brothers don't have to sneak in through the window, or out onto the fire escape if her parents are home.

Eventually, Carol folds her arms and turns around to watch Klunk. She's forgotten how to by shy, apparently. The tiny cat-girl has climbed onto the O'Neil's couch and is cautiously approaching Mayhem, who's pretending to doze curled up on the back. He cracks one eye open every now and then to look at Klunk, his bushy tail swishing back and forth, deliberately catching her attention.

Carol looks at Mikey again.

"Your cat?"

"Yes ma'am," Mikey says, lowering the canvas bag from in front of his face.

"Where are your brothers and father?"

"Uh. At home, probably?"

"Do they know you're keepin' this baby?"

"Y...yeah?"

"Are they gonna help you?"

Mikey hesitates, mumbles, "Uuuhhmm..." His heart throbs and his sinuses burn and he blinks rapidly at the canvas bag in his hands to make sure he doesn't cry, because for the first time in his life, he isn't 10000% sure that they will. They're his brothers, and they've always got his back just like he always has theirs. But Mikey also understands how big this change is, and why his brothers probably don't want it. That's the only thing he's struggling with, honestly.

April bats her hand, dismissive.

"Of course they will! They just need to get their heads outta their butts first. And anyway." She hooks an arm around Mikey's waist and yanks him in against her side, beaming at him, "He has April!"

Carol's eyes narrow slightly.

"April is in college and does not need a baby."

"Well, April has a baby," April says evenly, "Because Mikey has a baby. So we had all better adjust our expectations real quick because – we have no idea what we're doin' and you need t'run as through a crash-course on parenting real quick. Please!"

"Mhm," Carol hums, folding her arms.

April smiles at her expectantly, and Carol sighs, rolling her eyes, the corner of her mouth twisting up. She walks back into the hall and crouches in front of the short bookshelf there. She picks out two dog-eared paperbacks and carries them back to the living room, setting them on the coffee table.

She points, looking at Mikey.

"You can take these home with you. They're parenting books. First thing's first though, you need to give that baby a bath." She points at Klunk next, who glances over at them from where she's sitting directly below Mayhem. Mikey grimaces because Klunk is a lot bigger and stronger now than she was when she was two pounds, and he's positive she's going to claw him to Death if he tries to give her a bath – but she does need one. She's covered in dirt and she smells like pee. "Right now, while I run to the store. I'll get a few of the things you might need for her, alright?"

Clutching the bag to his stomach with both arms, Mikey bows at the waist, so low his hood flops down over his head again.

"Thank you, Miss Carol!"

"Also, I'm calling your father."

Mikey straightens with a snap.

"UH," April says, laughing nervously, "You don't have to do that."

"Yes, April," Carol says firmly, already taking her phone out of her pocket and thumbing through her contacts as she walks to foyer, "Because I would want a phone call if it were you."

Mikey grimaces at April, and she mirrors his expression right back at him.

This might be about to go really bad... The two of them stand still, shamelessly eavesdropping on the phone call. When Carol, gathering her keys and purse and stepping into her shoes at the door, cheerfully says, "Hi Splinter, this is Carol," and goes on to explain that Mikey and Klunk are there without pausing to wait for a reply, Mikey full-body droops with a sigh of relief.

Splinter didn't answer the phone. Typical.

He probably put it down after Mikey never answered his calls and doesn't remember where it is.

The front door closes with a click, and Carol's voice fades.

"Well," April says quietly, propping her elbow on Mikey's shell. She reaches down to pluck at the sleeve of Mikey's hoodie and Mikey grimaces at his arms. They're shaking and throbbing painfully again, the canvas bag rattling in his weak grip. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I overdid it a little yesterday," Mikey mutters. He sets the bag down, rubbing his arms. It hurts more than helps, sending fizzy sparks shooting up his nerves. Dang... "Draxum gave me some more of that ointment for my arms, but I didn't have a chance to put on before..."

He gestures.

"Okay well, you do that then. And I'll do bath time."

"No, I can –"

April puts a hand up, covering Mikey's face and growling, "I SAID I'll do bath time, and you take care a your arms, Mikey! What did Gramgram say? Hm??"

Muffled, laughing, Mikey answers, "Anatawa hitori janai."

"Exactly! This is what your family is for! We got this. Right?"

Man, that's a relief.

"Right!"

When they look back at the couch, however, Klunk and Mayhem are both gone, having apparently, literally, vanished at the word 'bath'. Mikey feels a cold, horrible rush sinking all through his insides as he stares at the empty couch, and turns to take in the equally empty room.

April bites her lip.

"Okay," she says, in that I Can Be Calm tone she uses when she's about to snap, "The odds of him zapping them to somewhere not in the apartment are like. Very small."

Mikey's hands are shaking, bad.

-

Splinter sits in the center of the waterbed with his eyes closed, his hands resting on his knees.

Not meditating, per say, but at least trying to clear his mind of turbulent thoughts. He pulls in another slow, deep breath – and it bursts out as a frustrated sigh, his posture sagging. ....He was never very good at this crap. It's difficult to focus on being calm when he can feel his blood pressure rising every time he thinks about Orange and his little chicken nugget-turned-child. She was such a sweet cat! And she has been so good for the boys!

This is the worst thing that could have happened!

Well.

Not the worst.

She didn't get flushed down the toilet before getting mutated.

Still if Red or Purple had been the ones to randomly bring home a child and say, 'I'm keeping it!', Splinter would not be half as worried, and Blue would have done the sensible thing and foisted the responsibility off onto the next most qualified person at the first opportunity. Orange has a big heart fit to burst with good intentions – but he left so many sick and starving tamagotchis in Splinter's care growing up that if he had just been even a year or two younger, Splinter would have never left something alive in his absent-minded vicinity. He has matured a lot recently.

He has always taken very good care of Klunk, and it certainly helps that Klunk has the kind of personality that cannot be ignored. She fits right in with this bunch...

Splinter sighs and grumbles, "Why did it have to be Orange?"

His chaotic little free spirit....

Of course he wants to keep her.

He doesn't know how difficult being a single parent is!

That's Splinter's fault. He should have talked more about the years of sleepless nights he endured with four tiny, rambunctious sons keeping him on his toes at all hours! He should have complained more about how stressful it was when they were all sick with different things at the same time, or how overwhelming it was to have one child that has not stopped talking since he first learned how, and one who kept taking apart the appliances, and one who kept eating paint, and one who kept head-butting the wall even when he injured himself, and he really should have emphasized how manipulative children are and how difficult it is to feed them, and keep them alive as well as happy all by yourself with no help whatsoever when you are already old and tired and still have nightmares about all the people you killed or disappointed...!

Splinter wasn't very good at parenting, even when he was trying.

(The only things he was ever 'good' at were fighting and flirting – and look at where that got him.)

He never wanted children.

He was so bitter in his youth, he was determined that his family line and all it's burdens end with him. All he wanted for his sons, once they were his, was for them to live happy, normal lives. Or as close to normal as he was able to give them. They have become soldiers, anyway. He nearly lost them all because of his own negligence. But they are also strong and wonderful and loving, almost in spite of him. They have filled his life with so much joy, it would simply not be worth living without them. And they do not know the first thing about what it feels like to struggle through something, alone.

Of course Michelangelo wants to keep her.

He has no reason to view a child as something that might ruin his life. He will keep her whether Splinter wants him to or not. And besides. All his sons have something now that Splinter didn't, back then. He cannot be so wrapped up in his own failures and struggles that he cannot see that.

Splinter looks down at his soft, wrinkled hands and sighs.

Motion in the air above him catches his eye.

Splinter recognizes the growing whorl of energy for what it is an instant too late. Mayhem appears in a pop of light and drops Klunk onto the waterbed as Splinter attempts, futilely, to scramble out of the way. The mattress sinks under her weight and rises sharply across from her, smacking Splinter in the face as he tumbles head over tail across the waving sea of blankets and pillows. He slams into the headboard of the bed with a dizzying crack.

Mayhem himself lands safely on the ledge of the bed.

Splinter gets his bearings and glares at the yokai.

"You -!"

Then he spots Klunk, flat on her stomach, hugging the wobbly mattress and staring at him with wide amber eyes. Splinter looks back at Mayhem and swears the creature grins at him.

Splinter connects the dots at once.

"Dog-thingy!" he bellows, "Don't you dare...!"

Mayhem crouches – he always jumps before he teleports – but Splinter can move quickly when he wants to. He rolls and kicks off the firm footing of the headboard and in an instant closes his hand around Mayhem's bushy blue tail. Unfortunately, he overshoots, and the two of them dive into the floor in a heap. The yokai chitters at him irritably, that fizzle of energy in his fur crackling out. He tries to pull himself free, but Splinter holds him fast, struggling to his feet.

"Ooh no! I know what you are up to! You are not leaving her here with me, take her back to Orange! He will be worried, and – !!"

A thud behind him makes Splinter turn in surprise.

Klunk is picking herself up off the floor, tripping more than once inside the too-large t-shirt, and slinking toward the wall. She glances at Splinter, sees that he sees her, looks panicked (eyes wide, ears laid back, tail bushed out to twice it's normal size), and bolts behind the bar.

"Nononono," Splinter is says, cursing himself and lowering his voice at once, "I am sorry, little one! I should not have shouted –"

Mayhem turns and bites Splinter's wrist.

"YEOWCH!"

Splinter drops him.

Mayhem twists midair and disappears in a curl of blue energy before he hits the floor.

-

Mikey is trying to swallow down the panic as he bolts back into the living room after checking the bathroom mirror, calling for Klunk. The only answer in the apartment is April, searching the bedrooms, calling for Klunk and Mayhem both and swearing when she also comes up empty-handed. Mikey yanks up the couch cushions, and all he finds is loose change, an empty Doritos bag, and a flashlight. He shoves the cushions back in and throws himself into the floor to crawl beneath the side table and look in the narrow space between the back of the couch and the living room wall.

This is the second time this morning that he's frantically looking for his cat – daughter – whatever she is now. Mikey feels like he's gonna throw up.

He's shaking as he gets to his feet.

April jogs into the room, gesturing helplessly, her voice cracking, "Okay so – they're not here. I dunno what got into him! He's been doin' so much better with the bath thing!"

"Oh man," Mikey moans. He starts to pace. "What'm I gonna do?"

"It's okay! We're gonna calm down, and we're gonna call Donnie! Like, right now!"

"She isn't micro-chipped!!"

"But Mayhem is! And there's no way he would ever leave her –"

Mayhem reappears, sitting primly in the middle of the sofa.

Alone.

April shrieks, "MAYHEM!!!"

-

"It is alright," Splinter says gently, "You can come out. I didn't mean to frighten you."

He kneels at the edge of the bar, cursing that stupid dog yokai for putting him in this situation. Could have minded his own business, is what he could have done! But noooo! Splinter leans forward to peer around the corner. Klunk probably thought she could hide back there. It's one of her favorite sneaky places. But that was before she more than quadrupled in size.

There are so many boxes and miscellaneous items stuffed onto the shelves beneath the bar that there wasn't anywhere for her to wedge herself, so she just sat in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest, lifting the collar of her too-big shirt to hide her face.

When Splinter speaks, she only trembles, hugging her legs tighter.

He sighs, pinching his snout with both hands.

"Okay," he murmurs, rising to his feet. He stifles a groan as his hip pops loudly.

He is getting too old for this!

-

"Mayhem, what is the matter with you?!" April demands through gritted teeth. Mayhem has retreated to the one place in the house that isn't the bathroom mirror where he might fade into oblivion, and where April can't reach him without assistance: the top of the fridge. He hunkers there with his ears laid back, peeking anxiously down at April's swinging fists. "Where did you take that baby, I am so for real right now!! Don't make me climb up there...! Mayhem!"

Mikey paces the living room, his breath snagging, flapping his hands, "Man, I'm the worst parent ever! I've only had a kid for like four hours and I've already lost her!"

"Calm down and breathe, please! Did you call Donnie?"

"No," Mikey gasps.

"Why not??"

"My phone is dead!"

"Mikey, baby, my phone is right there. Please call Donnie!"

"I can't...!"

"Yes you can! What's the matter?" April sounds rattled now rather than mad.

She abandons the chair she's moving in front of the fridge to come and intercept him. Mikey turns away from her and paces in the other direction. He for real can't breathe.

He's gonna throw up. Or cry.

Maybe both.

He flaps his hands harder. Jeez, they hurt...!

"Poor Klunk," he sobs, "I should've grabbed her collar when I was in my room! I should've put it on her wrist or something in case we got separated! Why didn't I think of that before? I shouldn't have even left home in the first place! This was so stupid!! Splinter was right –"

"Mikey –"

"I have no idea what I'm doing!"

"Mikey!"

April grabs Mikey's wrist to finally stop him from pacing, and the sensation jolts, red-hot, from his wrist to his shoulder. It thumps violently in his chest. Mikey jerks his arm away with a shout, clenched behind his teeth. He curls forward against his knees, trying to pin his arms against his stomach, trying to go somewhere with the sudden pressure. He sinks to his knees, bowing so his forehead nearly touches the floor. His hands are numb, his arms throbbing with a sharp, sizzling pain that snags his breath. April hovers, saying something but careful not to touch him again; and Mikey can't even hear it around the ringing in his ears, around his own thundering heart.

He's so hot all of a sudden.

That crackling surge of pressure in his arms and in his chest is so intense, it's scary. It hurts. It feels like he's going to burn up and blow away into ash – and he's trying so hard to breathe, to hold it in, to pull himself back together. He squeezes his arms around himself as tight as he can, his fingers digging into his elbows, his nail leaving crescent marks even through the fabric.

His whole body quakes as a sharp wave of pain ravages it.

A flame flickers at the edges of his vision. His stupid emotions being tied to his ninpo is really annoying when it's not saving his brother's life.

Mikey knows he needs to calm down – it's just that he can't even breathe right now.

He feels stupid – and helpless and –

That inferno bursts free –

And is instantaneously smothered by something cool and calm and blue.

"Whoa there," Leo laughs, cupping both hands gently around Mikey's face, "Easy, baby bro. You tryin'a turn the sprinklers on in here or what? The interior design's not that bad."

"Leo," Raph sighs. He rests his big hand on the curve of Mikey's heaving shell; something safe and warm and red. "This is serious!"

"Nah, he's fine. You're fine, Miguel. Right?"

Mikey nods, his eyes shut tight, his breath bursting out and dragging back in.

Tears pour down his face and close his throat.

Donnie rests his own hand lower on Mikey's shell – a contrasting blend of both, something solid and soft and purple – and says, "Your flare ups usually piggyback off of one another for a couple of days and are exacerbated by stress. This one is not actually worse than the last one, it just feels like it is, but it will pass. Do you need to be squeezed?"

Mikey nods again, a whimper sneaking past his lips.

"Raph can take care a that!" Raph says.

The other two pull back so Raph can scoop Mikey into his lap, his biggest brother's arms curling around him and squeezing him tight. Mikey tenses, his arms throbbing when they're bumped, but his breath releases a little less harshly the next time, and he doesn't feel like he's at risk of bursting apart. His heart stops thudding so hard in his throat. He rubs his forehead against the ridge of Raph's plastron, surrounded by the comforting, familiar scent of his brothers. He focuses on Donnie's cold hand clasping the back of his neck, and Leo's voice calmly telling him to breathe.

That he's okay. That it's going to pass. That they're right here if he needs them, and they'll figure it out together, and everything's gonna be fine.

-

Splinter searches his bedroom with no real haste, picking up the clothes that Orange threw in the floor earlier more because they're in the way right now than because he cares about them being in the floor. He thinks they were dirty, anyway. Probably. Just when he's beginning to think that he'll have to risk leaving the room, he finds what he's looking for: A small round, green jingle ball that makes a merry noise and bounces across the floor when he shakes out a discarded pillow case.

He snaps it up and carries it back to the bar, crouching at the corner again.

He rolls the ball gently across the floor toward Klunk.

Her ears perk up as soon as she hears the familiar rattling chime of the bell tumbling around inside it's plastic shell. She pulls her head out of the collar of the shirt and straightens, her eyes big and brown and dark when they land on the ball. Other than that, she doesn't move at first. The ball bumps into the side of her foot and jangles to a stop. The white tip of Klunk's tail twitches, sweeping out in an arch from beneath the hem of the t-shirt. She stares at the ball, and then looks up at Splinter, who leans back to poorly hide himself around the corner.

A moment later, the ball races out in front of him and bounces off the wall with a loud chime.

Splinter retrieves it and rolls it back around the corner.

Klunk rolls it back without hesitation.

Splinter plays a few rounds of this and finds himself smiling when he hears Klunk's hands smack the floor when she pounces, or the trilling little half-humming noise she makes when she catches the ball. After his next turn rolling, he runs to the bedside table and opens the drawer where he keeps a store of snacks. He takes out a bag of chips, and by the time he returns to the bar, Klunk has sent the ball his way again. Splinter picks it up, but doesn't roll it back.

Instead, he opens the bag of chips and sets it around the corner, where he can still see it, and waits.

It doesn't take long for a little orange hand to come into view.

Klunk snatches the open bag upside-down, crushing half the chips in her novice grip and dumping the rest of them onto the floor and across her lap. Undaunted, she picks one up, sniffs it, and eats it. Splinter thought she might like barbecue – it is a staple flavor in this house. He shifts forward and leans around the corner, watching her openly now. She shoves another handful of chips into her mouth and hums while she chews, her tail whipping back and forth behind her.

Klunk glances at him, and stills.

For a moment Splinter wonders if she's going to try to hide again.

She smiles at him instead.

The kind of smile that scrunches her almond-shaped eyes into little half moons, that reminds Splinter of Michelangelo so quickly it crushes his heart to pulp.

Okay so, he is a stupid old man, alright?

Splinter returns Klunk's smile, putting out his hands.

"Come on, chibi nuggeto," he says, surprised when she lets him lift her without issue, her whiskers and fingers covered in chip crumbs. Splinter struggles to his feet, stifling a groan as his back pops, and settles Klunk on his hip. She is almost too big for him to do it! He forgot what it was like, having a warm little child pressed against his side. He gently rubs her back, chuckling when Klunk puts her arms around his neck. "If I know Orange, he is worried sick about you! Let's go find Blue, hm? He will take us to your papa, and Jiji can apologize."

-

"Mikey, April said you got some of that ointment from Barry, but it's not in this bag," Leo says, "Is it in your pocket maybe?"

"Yeah," Mikey mumbles, "But what about Klunk?"

"We're gonna figure that out in just a sec, okay? Which pocket?"

It takes Mikey a minute to get with the program.

He jerkily lifts his arms from where they're clamped around his middle, wincing and pinching his eyes closed. Raph loosens his arms so that Mikey can move, but keeps them looped around him, one hand rubbing the curve of his shell, the other settled on his knee. There's no way Mikey can actually get it, but as soon as he makes enough space, Leo's hand slips in and tugs the small glass jar free of his hoodie pocket. Mikey hadn't even noticed it digging into his plastron, where he was curled up so tight.

He braces his wrists against his knees and turns his palms up slowly, checking for cracks.

There aren't any.

But it feels like fire ants have bit his poor hands raw, and that numbness crawls up and down his forearms in slow, heated waves. He was so hot before and now he's chilled, sweat cooling on his forehead and his damp bandanna, and in his pits. He's kind of scared to move too much. He's dizzy, and the tight knot in the pit of his stomach is still there, lurching.

Raph's hand on his shell is most of the reason Mikey isn't actively crying right now.

"You feel better, Mikey?" Raph asks, craning down slightly into his line of sight.

Mikey nods, flexing his hands a little to work some of the feeling back into them. He at least doesn't feel like he's dying anymore. This is so stupid...

"M'sorry," he mumbles, his breath hitching, "I shouldn't've –"

"Nah." Raph's hand pauses, cupped around Mikey's shell. "We're sorry. We were bein' jerks earlier."

"Yes, your other brothers have finally come to their senses," Donnie agrees, crowding close enough to shove his phone under Mikey's nose. Mikey flinches back slightly, squinting. It looks like a pdf file with really, really tiny text. "I, meanwhile, drew up a floor plan for Klunk's new bedroom as well as size and age appropriate changes to her cat walk, etcetera, and child-proofed the whole lair. I also googled adoption laws in the state of New York and forged some paperwork –"

"Yeah okay anyway –"

Leo's hand covers Donnie's face and shoves him forcefully backward. Donnie's foot comes up to hit Leo in the chest, and Raph raises his voice, exasperated, "Ey ey! Knock it off!" and tries to scoop Mikey out of the middle of it as the two start to wrestle over the space. Mikey is so relieved – and so surprised, and also not surprised at all, actually – that he laughs. He laughs so hard that his chest hurts and he starts to cry, sinking back into Raph's lap with his trembling hands covering his face.

He loves his stupid brothers so much.

Raph sighs again, "Mikey, don't encourage their shenanigans!"

April smacks both twins repeatedly with Donnie's staff until they separate.

"Can y'all act right for three seconds?? If my mom comes home and we don't have that baby, she'll call CPS and ground every one of us until we're Splinter's age! Get with the program please!"

"Okay okay!" Leo says, fending her off with his arms over his head and rolling out of the way. He's laughing, grinning in the face of April's scowl and putting up his hands in surrender when she brandishes the bo at him. All too pleased with himself for making Mikey laugh, probably (Donnie is also smiling as he folds his knees against his chest and hides behind his phone). "Chill out, Apricot! I'll get the niece-ling, no worries!"

Leo grabs one of his swords from where it was resting on the floor nearby. He's still wearing one of Donnie's hoodies, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and his knee brace. The effort that it takes for him to stand is obvious in the way his face momentarily pinches into a frown, the way he wobbles slightly and splays his hands, the hilt tucked into his palm with his thumb.

"How're you gonna do that?" Raph asks, raising a brow, "You had t'do line-a-sight just to get us here when April called. You sure you can make a portal to Wherever Klunk Is?"

"Jee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Raph," Leo says, blowing off the concern as April heads back into the kitchen, "Gimme a break, I can at least try."

"You shouldn't," Donnie says without looking up from his phone, not exactly calm, but flat – an indicator of stress and/or irritation if ever there was one, "You have chronic pain and fatigue from being beaten nearly to death 10 months ago, and you are currently having a bad leg day. You'll just exhaust what little stamina you have making a portal to an undisclosed location."

"Whatever, as long as I get her," Leo says, grimacing and pointing the ninjato at Donnie, "And if I throw up, I'm throwing up on you."

"Do not –"

"If y'all don't focus," April says through her teeth, "Mayhem took her! He can go get her!"

She's currently stepping down from the chair she pushed in front of the fridge and holding the culprit by the scruff of his furry mane. Mayhem could easily portal out of her grip if he wanted to, but he hangs there looking sad and miserable, as if he's never done anything wrong in his life.

April gives him a little shake, props her free hand on her hip.

"Well???"

Leo's phone rings, and all of them jump.

Leo fumbles it out of his pocket, winces at the screen, and says, "It's Splinter!" He shoves the phone toward Raph, and Raph leans back as far away from the phone as he can. The only reason he doesn't straight up move is because Mikey is in his lap, and Raph shrinks like he actually thinks he's going to hide his bulk behind his littlest brother, swatting a hand at Leo.

"It's your phone, dummy!"

"Eugh.... I don't –"

Raph points at him and whispers, "Don't tell 'im we lost the baby!!"

The royal we would make Mikey feel better under normal circumstances.

Leo hesitates, the phone ringing in his hand, filling the room with a jaunty tune that makes Mikey's poor heart work double-time until Leo abruptly silences the call. He tucks the phone back into his pocket. April, swinging Mayhem in the process, and Raph both throw their hands in exasperation.

"What," Leo says, throwing his as well, "I panicked!"

"You bozo! Now he's just gonna call one of us!" Raph hisses, gesturing between himself and Donnie.

Sure enough, Donnie's phone rings right in his face.

Donnie's eyebrows shoot up in alarm, but he can't not answer it after the second ring, thumbing it onto speaker phone, "Uh, this is Donatello, how can I help you, Father?"

"Purple," Splinter says through the speaker, "Good! I tried to call Blue and Orange but neither of them answered. Where are you?"

"At April's," Donnie says automatically, looking irritated when multiple people shake their heads and wave their arms at him, "I-I mean. Not. At April's. Sorry, I misspoke, we are definitely somewhere other than at April's and definitely not in her living room."

Donnie gestures helplessly, watching April slice her hand across her own throat, frowning, and Leo aggressively motion and mouth, 'HANG UP!'

"Dad, I'm – I'm really busy, I have to go."

"Purple, do not hang up -!!"

Donnie hangs up.

Then he sighs, presses another button on the phone, and says, "Shelldon, erase the '14' on the Days Since Last Grounding section on my whiteboard, please."

A laughing, "You got it," chirps through the speaker and Donnie puts his phone away.

"Dude, you suck," Leo says.

Donnie scowls at him, and if April wasn't standing in between them, probably would have started another squabble for real. Mikey almost laughs, almost cries. He folds his arms around his knees and presses his forehead against them. Man, they're all gonna be in trouble at this rate.

This is all his fault...

Raph's phone rings next.

He digs it out and answers it warily.

"Raphael," Splinter barks before Raph can even say hello, "Is Michelangelo with you?"

"Err –" Raph glances down at him, and Mikey shrugs despondently. "Y-yeah. He's here. Why –?"

"Tell him that I have Klunk."

Mikey's head snaps up. He grabs onto Raph's wrist and yanks the phone toward him, his voice shaking with relief, "Dad! Klunk is with you?"

"Yes!" Splinter huffs, "April's stupid doggy thingy dropped her on my head! She is fine." Mikey lets go of Raph and sinks against his knees, wrapping his arms around his head. "I went to get Blue, but everyone snuck off without telling me where they were going, and then no one bothers to answer their phones when I call, or if they do answer, they hang up on me!"

"'I was under extreme peer pressure,' he said loudly in his own defense!"

Mayhem twists in April's grip and disappears then, and April yelps, jerking her hand back from the spot where he was. Through the speaker of Raph's phone, they hear Splinter curse, and the sounds of a struggle, and the noises layer over the top of one another as Mayhem reappears over the couch, and drops Splinter and Klunk both onto it in a cascade of barbecue chips.

Mayhem lands on the back of the couch.

On the cushion, on his side in a disarray of limbs and tail and robes, Splinter groans and attempts to roll over, "Oh my aching back...! This is no way to treat an old man!"

Klunk, evidently panicked by the sudden change of room, tumbles off the couch and bolts. Mikey stumbles up out of Raph's lap to catch her, but Leo is the closer. He chuckles, "Whoa-ho there, girlie, hang on!" and darts forward to snag the back of her over-sized shirt. He has to catch himself with his other hand on the arm of the couch when his bad knee gives and Klunk's momentum drags him forward, but he pulls her back and leverages himself up to both feet easily enough, puffing out a breath.

He swings Klunk around at arm's length and Klunk's face, scrunched into a hard frown as her fists and feet both swat the air, lights up at once when she sees Mikey.

She says, "Ah!" and puts her hands straight out, reaching for him.

She smiles, and Mikey laughs around the lump in his throat, reaching out to take her.

"Wow. Hey, girl! I was worried about you!"

Well, his arms super do not want to cooperate. He grabs her under the arms, but can't actually hold her. Luckily, Leo doesn't let go of the back of her shirt until Mikey sits on the floor and drags Klunk into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. His arms ache in protest, but he really doesn't care. That smile is still firmly on Klunk's face, even when she tucks herself up under Mikey's chin, snuggling in as close as she can get and squeezing his middle with her arms and legs. Mikey squeezes her back as tightly as he can, pressing his face between her ears.

Man, his face hurts from how hard he's smiling.

He swears his heart grow fourteen sizes.

Especially when he feels and hears that rumbling crackle start in her chest and expand into his. Klunk rubs her face in Mikey's hoodie, her little hands rhythmically flexing into the fabric, humming with her little voice and purring at the same time.

"Aawww, Klunk, are you purring?? You haven't done that all day!"

Klunk hums a little louder, and it bubbles into a giggle.

Mikey grins down at her.

"Are you happy, sweet girl?"

Klunk smushes her face against Mikey's chest and nods. Then she turns in Mikey's arms and points at Splinter, who has gotten to his feet beside the couch, and says clearly: "Jiji!" Splinter sputters inarticulately, turning red beneath his fur. From everyone else, there's a small collective gasp because she spoke. Mikey waffles between that and confusion.

"Baby, that's Splinter."

Donnie, grinning at their father, who he's directly beside, says, "Judging from Papa's reaction, she means the rude slash affectionate Japanese word for 'grandfather'."

Raph chuckles, "That's cute! Raph likes it!"

Leo crouches on Splinter's other side with a matching grin, "Aw, did you ask her to call you that, daddio?"

He reaches up as if he intends to pinch Splinter's cheek.

Splinter smacks his hand down and Leo complains 'Ooowww' and flaps it, still grinning while Donnie, April, and Raph both laugh at him.

"I have never cared what any of you call me," Splinter sniffs, "As long as you call!" He puffs up as if to play the assertion off, and then in the middle of a breath decides to be earnest, instead. He looks at Mikey and adds, "I am sorry if I made you feel like that was not the case before, Orange."

"It's okay," Mikey says, totally not crying.

Sure tears are streaming down his face and blurring the room, and he can't breathe for all the snot chugging his sinuses, but he's definitely not crying.

Splinter steps closer, resting his hand on top of Klunk's head, rubbing around her little orange ears and smiling fondly when she absolutely beams up at him, her tail whipping behind her. She's so happy, she keeps right on purring, kneading her hands in Mikey's hoodie. Okay, so Mikey's crying for real. His mouth wobbles and he blinks and several tears streak down his face.

"It is not okay," Splinter says softly, "I love you boys so much. I want you to make good choices... Probably because I made so many bad ones! Keeping you was not something I have ever regretted, and I wish I could have done better. But you all have something I did not!" Splinter cups his hands around Mikey's face then, to brush away his tears, and smiles, "You have your family to help you, Michelangelo, even when you mess up. We are here for each other no matter what. Yes?"

Mikey nods, sniffling.

He mumbles yeah okay and thank you and sorry and I love you and he's not sure in what order they come out in, because Splinter wraps both arms around his neck and hugs him tightly. Mikey almost wishes he was small enough to fit in his dad's arms properly again.

He rubs Klunk's back and squeezes her instead, and she purrs even louder.

April swoops in then, cheerfully, plucking Klunk out from between Mikey and Splinter while they're distracted. Klunk's claws are prickled into the fabric of Mikey's hoodie, and April has to literally pry her away, saying, "Okay, great! Y'all hug it out! Meanwhile, I'm gonna give Girlie Pop a bath before my mom gets home, cuz she still smells like she peed on Barry's plants!" There's a chorus of laughter from Mikey's brothers, even as Donnie grimaces and ducks out of the way as April swings Klunk around.

Mikey swipes his sleeve across his face, his arm shaking and hurting only a little now, and laughs as his brothers and dad converge on him.

They hug and squeeze him tight, tight, tight.