B Team Forever
Love
Devotion
Feeling
Emotion
Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny.
Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence.
That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence.
Part One: Mikey and Donnie Together
Dear B Team: If you could just be a little more perfect, it would be the best. Like, Donnie, try not to yell at Mikey so much, he really adores you and admires you and he just wants to help you work off some stress. And Mikey, don't interrupt Donnie so abruptly, do your best to be soothing before you get excited about all the shiny things, after all, you could learn everything from him.
Also, you guys should totally adopt Ice Cream Kitty as your mascot and build her a portable chilled carrier that doesn't need ice, just coolant, because she can help you do the things.
Mikey can learn how to be a field medic with the best bedside manner ever and Donnie can learn how to be a logical psychotherapist recommended for his ability to connect instantly - they taught each other those things, without even trying. Mikey became Master of Healing Hands and Empathic Voice while Donnie became Wizard of Engineering and Chemistry. But sometimes they would trade off and randomly utilize a skill more suited to the other.
In one reality, they allow terrapin instincts to take over and become lovers. In another reality, they find a pair of mutants eerily similar to themselves and take them as lovers.
And no matter what, Mikey and Donnie are always together, Bouncy and The Brain, Emotion and Logic, Air and Earth, Sugar and Salt, Chocolate and Coffee, Innocence and Experience, Sunshine and Stardust, Speed and Savvy.
Part Two: Lifelines
One day, something happens to Michelangelo. It's nobody's fault, it would have happened eventually, no one is meant to shine so brightly for so long, no one is meant to be the pure heart forever. Donatello is in the path of danger and Michelangelo pushes him away, taking a near-fatal hit. He is happy to do it, through Donnie's tears and growls of "Foolish little brother, I'm supposed to protect you, how could you do this" and Mikey just smiles through a mouthful of blood and laughs "I've always watched out for you, braniac, we need you" and somehow Leonardo manages to apply the Healing Hands mantra to keep Mikey's lungs and heart working and somehow Raph is able to slow the bleeding with his extraordinary strength and somehow Don is able to wrap the stab wounds and broken ribs long enough to rush home for surgery, and somehow even as Mikey falls unconscious he fights to remain steady and cling to the spiritual warmth of Master Splinter's mental embrace.
When Michelangelo awakens two weeks later, free from the breathing apparatus and IV tubes, something is different. Something is wrong. There are cracks in the sun. Mikey doesn't smile. Mikey has stopped shining. He dutifully goes through medical therapy, he dutifully informs Donnie whenever his chest hurts or his breathing is labored. But the light in his eyes has dimmed.
Raphael struggles to joke in an awkward way, Leonardo helps with meditation that includes fidgeting and music.
Donatello, heartbroken yet completely aware, treats his only little brother as normal, bringing Mikey to his bedroom to sleep, finding and cleaning up stuffed animals and random toys. Secretly, he knows that Mikey has read a large amount of classic fantasy and science fiction novels and he takes care to keep those books clean, loved, and read, sharing a blanket with Mikey in his lab as they read aloud "The Velveteen Rabbit" and "The Brothers Grimm" and "The Vorkosigan Saga" and every Kurt Vonnegut book. Mikey's voice is soft and monotone but Donnie knows to listen to the broken emptiness underneath, the way the hollow sliver of darkness has curled around his brain like a feral abused angry kitten, spreading inflammation along his brother's nerves and exhaustion along the weakening motor cortex; Mikey's muscles are still strong and tight and powerful, but the fatigue has wrapped around them like fire wrapping around a wire fence, allowing ice to crackle along in its rusted wake. Mikey's eyes are hollow, his hands chilled, his neck and shoulders sore and spasming from the weight of his brain's sudden sickness.
Donnie makes coffee mixed with rich chocolate so that sweet overpowers bitter, to soothe his only little brother's ADHD and fatigue; coffee will calm Mikey rather than excite him and chocolate will relax him rather than stimulate him. For months, this is routine. When insomnia strikes, Donnie gives Mikey a piggyback ride to the lab and they watch the flatscreen monitor that Don hooked up to the DVD player, movie marathons until Mikey falls asleep. When oversleeping happens, Donnie goes to Mikey's bed with a handmade plush cat in Neopolitan colors and cuddles him, resting his beak on Mikey's temple, murmuring when Mikey cries from nightmares.
On a day when Raphael is attacking a practice dummy with alarming vigor, Michelangelo stands in the doorway and watches. Raph whirls on him and yells at him to stop being depressed and get on with his life. In a startling move, Mikey screams and lunges at his brother, pinning him to the floor and delivering a single punch that leaves Raph's face bruised.
Mikey's wail of desperation is heard throughout the lair, and by the time the family runs to the weight room, Mikey is curled on the floor, howling wordlessly until a seizure grips him. Only Donatello can reach him, holding him like a child, whispering comfort and promises. Four minutes later, Mikey returns to reality, panting and sobbing, clinging to his immediate older brother as though he were adrift in space and Donnie was the gravity pulling him to safety.
Don grabs a towel and wipes Mikey's face clean of tears and saliva and blood from a bitten tongue, and Leo finds a blanket and wraps it around his baby brother, who nestles in Don's lap and whimpers around stuttered apologies; he has failed to be the good fun brother, the team's morale, the spirit of comedy, the light in the shadows.
His family surrounds him and holds him and firmly tells him of their unending love and devotion and desperate need.
But all he can do is look into Donnie's warm, worried eyes, searching for the truth he really wants. And when Donnie leans down and nuzzles Mikey beak to beak, forehead to forehead, that is the confirmation Mikey desires.
Through hoarseness and tightness, Mikey gasps, "I'll be okay. I have you. Everything will be okay." and Donnie gasps, "I know. I have you. I'll help you. I'll always help you."
Mikey whispers, "B-Team forever..." and Donnie whispers "B-Team forever..."
And the road to healing stretches out before them, paved with sunlight and stardust, glittering and shining, paint and chrome and technology and nature, and slowly the cracks begin to close.