Baby brother.
Leonardo always called him that, in moments of affection and in moments of frustration. I was a term that Michelangelo had come to loathe and love in turns. He could tell by the inflection in his brother's voice which way he was meant to take it.
There was always that deep seated feeling of bitterness. Leo could never see him as anything but the baby. The empty headed one. The fun loving goof. Leo was never going to be able to take him seriously, no matter what he did. No amount of effort was going to convince his strong, silent brother that he wasn't the baby, and he didn't need to be guarded.
It was true that while they were small, he would creep into Leo's room. Leo was the best choice. Donnie was too logical to understand what it meant to be afraid of something that you couldn't put into words. And as for Raphael, well, Mikey knew better than to wake him up unless he planned on running far and running fast.
So he would creep into Leo's room and stand at the edge of his bed until his brother opened one eye. Leo would always smile faintly and move over. No questions asked. That was one of the best things about Leo, Mikey thought. He knew when to shut up. Mikey would curl into his bed and fall into a healing sleep.
Idiot.
Raphael usually called him idiot. It was a term of endearment and a slur at the same time. Except Raph was so good at sarcasm, Mikey couldn't always tell just what way he was supposed to take it. It left the younger brother feeling a little uneasy around his brother.
No matter how many jokes he told, no matter how many pranks he pulled, he couldn't seem to get through to Raph. There was nothing that seemed to break his tough exterior except for Splinter. And Mikey knew that he was no Splinter.
When push came to shove, it was true that his older brother was going to protect him. If Mikey looked very hard, he thought he could detect just an ounce of tenderness in moments like that. If he squinted, he could catch just a few seconds of concern on Raph's face as he flung another person away. And it was also true that Raph was always going to come to Mikey's aid first.
The one and only time that Mikey could even pretend that he knew Raph loved him was when they were alone in the dojo. It was usually after a practice when Raph could see he was slipping on a move. He would snatch his younger brother as the others were leaving.
They would go through it again and again. It was like Raphael was afraid of him getting hurt. It wasn't until he saw that flash of concern in his brother's eyes that he realized one day, Raphael might not be there to protect him all the time.
Dork.
It was weird that Donatello always called him a dork. Donnie was usually the one that everyone associated with that term. Maybe that was why he used it, because he was deflecting the pain he felt from that phrase.
Donnie was the one that Mikey never had to worry about. He always knew exactly how the calm, logical brother felt. He was the one that Mikey was the closest to, he was the one that watched the movies, read the comics. He was the one that Mikey felt the most connected to.
Maybe, Michelangelo liked to think, they were the closest to twins that the brothers could get. They were like two halves of the same person. That was okay, it was like Donatello could balance him out. He needed that sometimes. There were times that even Michelangelo felt like he was too much to handle.
My son.
Although the name that Splinter gave him was not unique, it was probably Mikey's favorite. In a way, he loved it even more because it was what Splinter called all the boys. It let him know that their surrogate father saw them all as exactly the same. No one was better than or more than any other. They were brothers, they were family.
And even though Splinter called them all the same, it felt special every time he said it. It felt like love, whenever their Sensei called them by that familial term. Whenever it was say to any of them, it filled Mikey with a sense of comfort. He knew that he was home. His home was here, in the sewer, with his father and brothers.