So You Think You Know Us
Rated: G
Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.
Author's Note: The events the turtles talk about in this fiction actually took place in one of the many sources you will find the TMNT. In other words comic, movie, or cartoon so don't tell me something didn't happen because I am ready, willing and able to back it all up. It of course is all in fun. Ramica
Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in their shoes.
Mike groaned " Not again" he clicked off the website and snapped the monitor off in sheer irritation.
Don, Leo and Raph where watching a movie on TV, while Mike had been fiddling on the computer in the living room of the lair, that Don had set up for the entire family so they wouldn't have to keep pestering to use his private computer.
" What's a matter Mike?" Raph asked curiously.
" Oh just reading another one of those stories about us. You know I really don't mind most of them but I get real fed up with people who think I am lazy, or just a goof off or I'm too weak to hold my own in battle." Mike replied.
Leo laughed, " Oh you mean the immature little brother role?" He teased.
" I am not the little brother. Just who, came up with that idea I don't know but I'd like to find them to teach them a lesson," Mike growled.
" It is just stereotyping Mike they do it to all of us" Don pointed out kindly.
" Easy for you to say," Mike coughed and held up two fingers on each hand crooking them up and down " you're the 'intelligent one'. The turtle most likely to succeed." Mike rolled his eyes.
Don grinned " Well that isn't stereotyping, that is just the truth" he declared.
Mike went over and plopped himself down on the couch between Leo and Raph.
A sudden smirk played across the usual fun-loving turtle's face " Yeah so you can get away with skateboarding to knock an enemy down, or bringing marshmallows to a meditation session at the farm, or even stand on a chair going 'surfs up dude' before being knocked to the ground" Mike grouched.
Don began to look anywhere but at his brother whistling a tune.
" Yet you are the smart one and when I do that. I act like some drugged out fool and am cast as the party dude." Mike concluded almost bitterly as he crossed his arms over his plastron.
" I know what you mean Mike, you and I got the short end of the stick" Raph agreed, " I mean Don is the smart one who is supposed to get us out of any jam, and yet if he is so smart why doesn't he finish a lot of the projects he begins. Instead he lets the unfinished work pile up in a corner when he decides to move on to something else." Raph scoffed, " Absent minded professor is more accurate."
" Hey!" Don yelled.
" It's true Donny. Okay you are good with stuff you stick with but you get distracted easily. You spend so much time in your lab you hardly come out 'cept to eat and scavenge for more junk" Raph pointed out. " Not that you aren't a big help to us when we need it. You always have the right trick up your sleeve but face it, you don't know everything."
" I never said I did." Don admitted.
" Then there is Leo everyone thinks he is perfect." Raph continued he paused looked at Mike and Don arching an eye ridge.
It was enough to send all three of the turtles into laughter, as they knew their brother was far from perfect. If anything the perfect image only seemed to feed Leo's ego making him harder to bear.
Raph finally stopped laughing long enough to point out " Meanwhile I am supposed to be the angry, aggressive one. Who acts on emotions and impulse a sort of shoot first ask questions later kind of guy."
Mike grinned, " It is a wonder you are still alive."
" That, is what some would have you believe all right," Raph agreed " but it is not entirely so. I admit my emotions can and do get the best of me and I can't always control it."
Leo nodded he knew his brother was aware of that fault within himself " You most often end up going off the deep end, though, when you are stressed out or worried about something, like when Splinter was gone and we didn't know what happened to him." Leo paused as he recalled that time when they had all felt a little lost and worried about their Master's strange disappearance. " Or you tend to jump to conclusions without thinking of consequences." Leo added.
" All right if I want to hear a list of my faults I'd ask ya Leo. How bout you tell us all your faults?" Raph leered.
" Are you kidding?" Leo joked, " I don't have faults I am perfect!" He whipped a pocket mirror out of his belt pouch to admire himself.
Pillows and other soft objects were suddenly tossed Leo's way from almost every direction of the room.
" When pigs fly maybe," Raph snorted.
Mike chuckled as he pointed towards the ceiling " Oh look! There goes another one of those flying porkers."
Don held up one finger " You don't like failing any more then Raph does. Raph does get angry when he feels he has failed or let family down. You don't get angry but you don't care to fail or let family down either."
" You are too bossy" Raph chimed in.
" Stubborn" Mike agreed.
" Leo was also very impatient and acted impulsively with bloodsucker not obeying Splinter's command to hold his sword." Don cut in, " In other words you and Raph share a lot of the same traits."
Raph gave an evil grin, " I'm sure it was Leo, not me, who was lured into a trap by the Foot and almost killed." He concluded.
" Okay so I'm not perfect," Leo declared " it isn't easy even living up to that role. Do you think I enjoy that perfect typecast I've been put into?" He turned the small mirror around that had somehow survived the brief pillow fight, all the boys could see a tiny piece of paper stuck to the glass that read ' You are not perfect.' " I look at this when ever I fall into that trap."
" I don't believe it he admitted it" Raph gasped in shock.
Mike whirled to face Don " Tell me you just got that on tape? I doubt he will ever say it again."
Don shrugged and shook his head " Sorry. No" he confessed wincing slightly.
" And they say you are intelligent!" Mike scoffed giving a disparaging shake of his head.
Leo was considering the battle that had almost killed him and the aftermath, he had spent a great deal of time in the woods and had one point tried to bring down a male deer and failed at that too.
" I admit I got scared Raph. I didn't want to come back to New York. Shredder was supposed to be dead seeing him alive and having him trap me, hurt me as he did. It just seemed easier to stay on the farm and the longer we were there the harder it was to come back" Leo spoke in a slight trembling voice.
Raph sighed, " I know that Leo but I also know if it had been any of us who were afraid and faltering you would push us into coming back and facing our fears. Force us to regain lost honour." Raph smiled, " We both hate failing as Don already pointed out, so I knew how it was, and I couldn't let you just drop it and eat away at you."
Don nodded " Raph could very well be a leader."
" What d'ya mean I could be?" Raph sneered, " Don't you recall I had a brief stint leading the Foot Clan I thought I could bring them back to the way Homato Yoshi's ways ya know? Sides felt kind of sad the Foot was once a noble clan and it was hard seeing them like that."
Leo glowered suddenly " But you went about it the wrong way Raph."
" I asked for your help and Splinter's, both of you refused." Raph retorted.
" For good reason" Leo snapped, " Then you went and used Shredder's armour to gain the Foot's respect, who were they really respecting Raph? It wasn't you." Leo accused.
" The point is I did lead and I proved myself," Raph declared.
" Proved what an idiot you are and that you don't think" Leo snapped a rebuttal.
" Hey guys, Come on can't you two get along?" Mike demanded cutting in and pushing himself more firmly between his two brothers, " Try it just once, you might even like it."
Don sniggered, " They are too much alike to get along."
" Oh right Don go ahead and buy into that type casted role of Leo and Raph must always argue with one another" Mike interjected, " I thought you were smarter then that!"
Raph chuckled at this exchange " We can get along. It just isn't as much fun. Sides sometimes I just got to make sure Leo is making the right choice by playin' devils advocate, so to speak." Raph concluded.
" Since when?" Leo huffed.
" I didn't exactly see you tryin' to stop that fun little game of put the leech on Raph's foot that ended up in me demutating" Raph replied almost maliciously.
" After all the trouble you caused we figured it was fair payback" Leo shot back but it was clear by his stance he wasn't comfortable with it especially with what had happened afterwards. " How were we to know that leech would end up growing from the mutagen in your blood, and later sucking enough blood from you that it caused you to become a pet shop turtle again?"
" Yeah" Raph gave a wicked grin as he pulled a sai " But I got bloodsucker back but good, and it was just as well, considering he was gonna chow down on the rest of ya."
Leo smiled at that memory as well " Wait lets not forget the day you kicked Shredder's can but good, after he lured us all into traps."
" Kicking his sorry metal butt was the most fun I ever had. Except for the time I spent with Ninjara." Raph confessed, he shook his head a bit " I miss her, wish she hadn't stayed with that cur Mokoshan."
Mike gave a sympathetic nod " It is a pity it didn't work out for you two. I liked Ninjara she was a good fighter. Can't say that you weren't warned about her leaving though."
" I know" Raph winced, "If only I had listened to my future self." He gave a rueful shake of his head " Guess you really can't change the past or the future for that matter."
Mike nodded " No I guess not but there were a few events that the future dudes ran into that didn't happen in their time."
Raph gave a sharp nod of his head " Man remember the battle where you lost your eye sight Mike?"
" That flash bomb how could I forget then I ended up in the hands of some government types that tortured me seeking information." Mike snorted, " That is kind of hard to forget." Mike replied he trembled slightly. " At times I almost wish I could forget that."
Raph sneered slightly " Then when we rescued you, that one scientist who beat you up tried to follow, and ended up in the water only he couldn't swim. If it had been me I would have left him there Mike but you went to rescue that no good…" Raph grumbled under his breath.
" I couldn't do that though." Mike replied, " I can hold my own in battle and I can kill if I have too but what would we have gained by leaving him there?" Mike asked " As it was the taped footage of me rescuing the scientist worked in our favour before a live audience on Inside Affair." Mike laughed, " Mcintyre tried to roast us, only we roasted him." Mike gloated.
Don smiled " Yeah the audience went from condemning us to hailing us as heroes. After all Mike went through at the scientist hands to save that one who had hurt him so proved a great deal."
Mike ducked his head " Aw shucks guys."
" Face it Mike that was the best thing you could have done for anyone. Very serious work and showed a great deal of maturity." Leo said.
" Hey we are far more then what we are made to be. I mean I have seen Raph act pretty silly or light-hearted…" Mike began.
" Since when?" Raph demanded.
" Might I just say Nim and Rod."
Raph rolled his eyes " Not them and that insanity." He muttered.
" Don has had a few no brainer moments or times when for an intelligent person he has been a complete fool, Leo isn't always perfect and me I'm not the goofy baby brother though I may act that way once in a while." Mike stated, " After all you have to enjoy life where you can. With us fighting and going through so much sometimes it is just a way for me to cut loose and ease tension. It's that or go crazy."
" We know that Mike." Don agreed solemnly, " We were all trained by Splinter in the same way so our fighting skills are all about the same it is just we have different strengths and weakness in battle."
" Yeah Mike, you will never hear any of us say you don't pull your weight on the team or hold your own in a battle. After all you and Klunk handled those hoods all by yourself that Christmas Eve."
" I know that and as Splinter says we are much more then one element we are the sum of all our parts and more."
" Exactly" Don agreed.
" So why don't people let us stretch our wings and do more then the role they figure we ought to play?" Mike wondered a puzzled expression on his face.
" They might be afraid that we are ' out of character' Mike" Don replied.
" I write myself so I totally understand keeping things in character. But a character also has to be well rounded, mature and grow, learning from mistakes." Mike insisted, " After all if we kept making the same mistakes we would have died years ago."
" True, maybe people are afraid of change and can't see us as being anything but the role they have placed us into."
" In other words we never grow beyond it" Mike moaned sadly.
Don nodded " Such is life at least we don't have to be worried about being placed as Gary Stu."
" No put we have been placed with Mary Sue" Mike rolled his eyes, " I hate her!"
" Everybody hates her just because she isn't real and she can't grow but supposedly everyone loves her."
Mike raised a finger to his open mouth while making gagging noises. " If people realize Mary Sue is no good then they ought to open their eyes and realize stereotyping isn't much better."
Raph chuckled " Listen to the published author like he knows it all."
Leo smiled "It is clear that a balance must be formed then between yin and yang" he held out one hand then the other " Hopefully people will find that balance Mike."
Mike sat back on the couch " Only way we will know is if we keep looking." He decided as he glanced towards the computer.
The End.