Ice Cream Kitty Fallout

DISCLAIMER: Two reasons for this: one, Mikey episodes suffer weirdness with very little emotional fallout, and I am unfortunately programmed to have to ruin the fun. Two, as both a younger sibling and the responsible sibling, I know how it feels to be on both sides of this argument.

Somehow, in all the excitement, Michelangelo had forgotten that he'd screwed up.

Or, maybe he just hoped it would be forgotten. No one else mentioned it. No one else seemed to care about anything but Master Splinter being back and safe and the day being saved. So he went along with it, relishing in their sensei's success and enjoying their first traditional meal in weeks.

Master Splinter went to bed first, as always, but not without first ordering the boys to stay inside tonight. Then Leonardo followed, muttering something about joining Splinter for meditation tomorrow morning. Raphael eventually gave in too, yawning loudly and announcing he'd had enough crazy for one day. He stopped to scratch Ice Cream Kitty on the chin before going, then sucked strawberry from his finger and grinned.

Quiet descended on the kitchen as he disappeared, and Michelangelo stretched his arms out across the table with a satisfied smile. "I don't think I'd want him coming up to the surface with us, but it's so cool when Master Splinter –" He stopped when a hand slammed down between his wrists, and he slowly lifted his eyes to meet Donatello's thunderous expression. He was lost for a second, before he remembered and cringed. "Ice Cream Kitty?"

"April's cat," he replied coldly.

"It's totally not my fault!" he cried, sitting up again. "It was an accident, Donnie, I swear!"

"Explain this accident."

"Um… okay, so, uh, you know how I was eating ice cream and it was kind of getting everywhere and –"

"Stop," Donatello ordered, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Where is the mutagen ice cream?"

He cringed again. "What mutagen ice cream?"

"The one that would have been created when your ice cream cone fell in my experiment," he snarled.

"Oh. That mutagen ice cream," he said meekly. "Um… back of the freezer?"

Donatello sighed out an annoyed breath and turned to check. He unceremoniously shoved Ice Cream Kitty aside—she mewed but otherwise seemed perfectly okay with this lack of respect—and took out the frozen beaker, which now resembled a glass of frozen soda. He looked at it for a long time, then calmly closed the freezer door and set the beaker down on the table between them.

"Has it made any noises? Any sign of sentience?"

Michelangelo blinked "Senti…?"

"Do you think it's alive?" he asked impatiently, and Michelangelo blinked once more before shaking his head rapidly.

"No! No, no, only ice cream mutant is the cat! I swear!"

"Good. Come on, we're moving this to my lab," he said, beckoning with one hand while the other picked up the beaker again.

"Dude, this isn't going to be a lecture on how this happened, is it?" he groaned, but followed his brother out. "Because I don't think I can handle that much science."

"I need to make sure this is harmless. And you need to finish telling me what happened," he said, quieter now that they were in the main room where Raphael might still be wandering around. He led the way into the lab, but waited for Michelangelo to pass him before shutting the door behind them. "You: sit down in that chair and don't touch anything. Now what happened?"

"I may have had one too many scoops on my cone," he said, as he backed into the chair. "And one of them may have fallen into your experiment. And then I may have dropped the rest of my cone on your desk."

"I did notice that," he said, setting the beaker down on a table and then going to the cupboard. He grabbed a bottle of cleaning liquid and a sponge and threw them both over, before going back in for some of the more science-y stuff. "And then April brought in the cat?"

"And I brought her over, and she was just eating the ice cream, and she was so cute and adorable and I loved her!" he gushed, hugging the sponge to his chest. "And I swear, D, I only looked away for a second, but all of a sudden she was eating the mutant ice cream! And then she was melting! And I thought I'd killed her for sure!"

Donatello looked at him from under his brow, his hands taking the samples and putting them in specimen trays on auto-pilot.

"But then she just sprang back up again and was super cute and delicious!" he said, flinging his hands wide. "Happy ends all round!"

"Do I need to point out that that you have literally eaten part of your own pet?" Donatello asked blandly, and Michelangelo perked up.

"My pet? So we can keep her?"

He sighed again. "Master Splinter seemed okay with her, so I guess."

"Yes! Alright!"

"Michelangelo."

He paused his victory dance to blink at Donatello, who had levelled him with another thunderous look. Apparently they weren't finished talking and his celebrations were badly timed. He quickly squirted cleaning fluid on the desk and started working quietly.

A few minutes passed in silence while they did their jobs, Donatello doing lots of small tests and checking his microscope every few seconds, Michelangelo carefully removing ice cream from every inch of the desk and then taking extra special care with the desktop. The last time Michelangelo broke Donatello's computer, the portable TV in Michelangelo's room had become unable to get visuals for the better part of a year. He did not want to live in that world again.

"Okay, we're clear," Donatello sighed, pulling away from his microscope and setting a hand on his hip. "So long as we keep it cool and nobody else eats it, I think it's safe. Though I'll have to do a few tests on Ice Cream Kitty to make sure she's stable, too."

Michelangelo looked up hopefully, only to immediately draw back when Donatello frowned at him. "But I'm serious this time, Mikey. Do not eat this. Do not spread this on your skin or shell or eyes. Do not use this as pizza topping. Do not use it as skateboard wax. Do not touch this. And, just so I know you heard me, I'm gonna say it again: do not touch this!" he ordered, and Michelangelo nodded quickly. Donatello turned his head and squinted one eye at him. "What did I just say?"

"No touching the ice cream mutagen," he said, and, just to show initiative, added, "and don't let anyone else touch it either."

Donatello continued frowning at him for a few seconds, then nodded once and turned away to get a container. Michelangelo did another lazy swipe of the desk, jaw working its way forward in what he tried to convince himself wasn't a pout. "You didn't have to tell me. I'm not stupid, you know."

For a minute, Donatello didn't even respond to that, just silently poured the ice cream mutagen into the container and then pulled out a sheet of stickers to label it. Only when he was done did he look up at Michelangelo again, his expression softer than it had been all night.

"I know you're not stupid, Mikey."

"Could've fooled me," he said bitterly. "Always makin' fun of me. Treating me like I'm some kind of joke. Using big words just so I won't understand. Lecturing me all the time."

The softness disappeared so fast it may as well have never been there. "Of course I lecture you! You don't read safety labels and then you come crying when you get hurt," he said. "You never listen when I tell you not to do something! You had a cat for all of two seconds before you turned it into a mutant—"

"Technically, it was your experiment that turned her into a mutant," he pointed out, but regretted it straight away when Donatello's expression turned dark again.

"—and you never accept responsibility for your actions!" he snapped. "How many times is this going to happen? How many times are you going to mess with my stuff and have something go wrong? I know you're not stupid, Michelangelo, but what is this, the fourth time in the last ten months?"

Michelangelo had the nasty feeling the count was a lot higher in less months, but he knew better than to say anything.

"You're not stupid, but you keep doing these stupid things!" Donatello cried, and then let his hands drop back to the table. He frowned at them for a moment, then scooped up the mutagen and started toward the door. "Come on."

Michelangelo silently followed him back to the kitchen, where the mutagen was put in a corner behind Ice Cream Kitty. Donatello paused with his hand on the door, just watching her sway for a few seconds. "She seems happy enough, despite the mutation."

"Uh huh," Michelangelo mumbled, but Donatello didn't even look around.

"Well, every experiment has an outlier," he said, and shut the door before turning to face him. He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and moved around him, heading back to the lab in silence.

If he were smart, Michelangelo knew, he would take the chance to escape to his room. Donatello wouldn't say anything if he did. Wouldn't follow him. He'd already explained everything and cleaned up his mess, so there wasn't anything else he needed to do. He could go and call it a night.

Instead, he dragged himself back to the lab, to where Donatello was piling his slides and petri dishes into a small white machine.

"So, um… you need help with that?"

He glanced at him, eyes flicking from his face to his feet and back again. "Can you get me a couple of litres of water from the pool?"

"Sure thing, D."

By the time he got back, the only mutagen he could see was the half-empty vial on Donatello's desk. Everything else had been put in the machine, which Donatello got him to pour the water into as well, before firmly shutting it tight.

"Everything that gets touched by mutagen has to be specially washed," he explained. "Even my attempts at retro-mutagen. Even a trace of it could prove dangerous."

Michelangelo got the distinct impression that he hadn't just said that to hear himself talk. It had probably been another mini-lecture. "So… don't touch anything that hasn't been in that machine."

Donatello looked up at him for a moment, then let out a breath and nodded, before quickly tapping a couple of buttons. The machine started vibrating, and Donatello turned to lean his hip against the table, arms folded over his plastron. "My lab is dangerous. It's not like before, when I was building TVs and stereos, and the worst that could happen was we'd get a little electric shock. You've seen—you've experienced—what could happen if something went wrong in here."

"Sorry, Donnie," he said quietly.

"Sorry doesn't really cut it," he said, and lifted one hand to press between his eyes. "D'you know why I gave you such a hard time with the shellacne?"

"Because you've become a real jerk in the last couple years?" he muttered, and Donatello lowered his hand just enough to give him a deadpan look.

Which Michelangelo knew he deserved. It used to be Donatello everyone made fun of all the time – all the stuff he liked was so lame, and he'd gotten so mad so fast. But then, when they were about thirteen, he'd stopped… reacting so much. He'd started doing like Splinter had been telling him for years and just ignored their teasing. And so it had kind of stopped being so much fun to pick on him. One of the reasons they liked ribbing him about April so much was because she was the first thing in a long while that he'd given them a real reaction about.

But part of him kinda figured that since they couldn't make as much fun of Donatello, he shouldn't have been allowed to make fun of them. So he was still a jerk.

"You were never going to die from the shellacne," Donatello said blandly. "When you popped, it would have been gross, and hurt a lot, and even if the zits healed, you would have had massive scars, but you would have lived through it. That's why I wasn't really worried."

"What?!" Michelangelo looked up, then stamped his foot. "You had me thinking I was gonna explode!"

"You would have," he said. "In a big pile of mutagen and blood and when we cleaned you up and sensei stitched you up, you would've been fine."

"Stitched? I would've – hey!" he cried, shaking off the thought of massive needles with the memory of what he'd actually thought would happen. "I thought I was gonna die!"

"I know. I wanted you to."

"Donnie!"

"I wanted you to be scared," he said. "I thought that if you realised just how dangerous this is you'd start taking my work seriously!"

"No, you be serious, man!" he yelled. "How could you do that, Donatello? I was freaking out –"

"Good!" Donatello shouted, and Michelangelo flinched back. It hadn't been a shriek, or a screech, or any of the usual Donnie-freak-out-noises. It had been a proper yell. And now he was storming forward to poke his finger into Michelangelo's chest, hard enough that it actually hurt. "Do you wanna know what I found in the Rat King's lab when I was scavenging after the fight? I found a half-mutated human rat that couldn't breathe! It couldn't breathe, or see, or move, and all it could do was beg me for help as it died! Do you want that to happen to you, Mikey? Do you?" He swung his arm around and pointed at the Pulverizer. "What about that? You want to end up like that? You want me to have to freeze you after you get melted into pure ooze and sent insane?" Donatello straightened up to his full height, something he almost never did, and glared down at him. "Or maybe you want to see what happens if I finally make retro-mutagen. You want to be our new pet turtle, Mikey? I'm sure Raph'll take even better care of you than he did with Spike! After all, you guys shared a bed for six years, there's probably some kind of obligation there!"

"I…" He found himself shrinking down against the table. It wasn't like he'd never realised how bad things could go, but it had never seemed… and Donatello had never said… and now he was yelling at him, like Raphael, only worse, because this wasn't Raphael's anger issues – Donatello was actually mad at him. Because he was scared. "I just…"

"You just what?" he demanded. "After the shellacne and the explosions and that cat, what could you possibly be thinking?"

"I just… wanted to hang out," he said. "I didn't think anything would happen."

"That's just it, Mikey, you don't…!" Donatello cut himself off, wrapping one arm over his plastron and pressing the other against his face. He took a couple of deep breaths, then apologised. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't want to yell at you tonight. You saved me from that fan, and – you save everyone a lot. And we don't say thanks. I just…"

Michelangelo blinked wide eyes at his brother. He was pretty sure that was some recognition, right there. But Donatello wasn't focussed on that. He was still trying to calm himself down.

"I need you to understand how serious this is," he said finally. "I need you to be more careful with this stuff."

"I will, Donnie," he said quietly. "I promise, I'll never screw up again, I'll be totally careful, I swear!"

Donatello opened his eyes, then lowered his hand down to his mouth, and for a couple of seconds, just looked at him. "You know, I think that right this second, you actually mean that."

Which was Donatello's way of saying he didn't think Michelangelo would follow through. "I do! I'll be careful, I will!"

"I don't want you to be another Pulverizer," he said, frowning at him over the top of his hand. "I don't want to have to chase you down and fix you."

"You won't ever have to, I swear!" he insisted. Anything to keep Donatello from yelling at him like that again.

Donatello didn't answer, just kept staring at him seriously for so long that Michelangelo felt himself starting to fidget. But in the end, he just flicked his fingers and unfolded his arms, turning back to the still vibrating machine.

That could have been the end of it. Donatello was clearly expecting that to be the end of it, at least until Michelangelo screwed up again. He was expecting Michelangelo to slink off to bed, and probably forget this whole conversation ever happened. He didn't think Michelangelo would take him seriously. He was still going to worry. Still going to get mad.

So Michelangelo surged forward, wrapping his arms tight around Donatello and rubbing his cheek against his shell. His brother went stiff, but Michelangelo ignored that with long practice, just squeezing even tighter.

"Thanks for worrying about me, bro. I love you."

Donatello slowly relaxed, until Michelangelo could sense his soft smile. Better. "You too, bro." He knew that was probably the best he was going to get. So he wasn't all that surprised when Donatello leaned back into him, but said, "Now go to bed; it's late."

"Umm… do you mind if I stick around a while?" he asked, peeking up as if he could see Donatello's face past his carapace.

"What? Why?"

"Like I said: I wanna hang out. You never let me hang out anymore."

Donatello stilled again, then let out a soft breath. "Okay, fine. Just until the dishwasher's finished. Don't touch anything."

"Sweet."

There was a long pause, and Donatello started tapping his fingers against his thigh. "You gonna let go of me sometime soon?"

"Nope."

The breath was more annoyed this time. "This is payback for the whole shellacne thing, isn't it?"

Michelangelo just grinned, and clung onto his brother even tighter.