Just had some sudden questions for Raph and I coerced Mikey to ask for him for me.
Raph sat on the couch in the lair watching a program on Animal Planet about beagle breeding. He would watch anything as long as it didn't involve Shirley Temple or men wearing tights. Well, if there was decent sword play, then maybe.
He felt a puff of wind on the side of his head. He knew that Mikey was standing behind him long before he had started blowing in his ear. Maybe if he ignored him he would go away.
"The female beagle has a brief heat…"
"What smut are you watching?" Mikey said.
Raph reached behind his head and grabbed Mikey's wrist, bending it back painfully.
"Hey, that's uncalled for violence, Nightwatcher!"
He let him go. Nightwatcher. Why did he have to keep calling him that? Would he never live it down? "Why don't you put on your Cowabunga Carl head and go play in traffic?"
The woman on Animal Planet said, "Breeding beagles may seem like a natural process, but there are many factors to consider…"
Mikey stood behind the couch, leaning on the back for a while, pretending to watch the TV program. At least that's what Raph assumed he was doing. "Hey, Raph," Mikey said.
Raph grumbled.
He took it as an invitation to ask a question and leapt over the back of the couch. "Why'd you pick the name Nightwatcher?"
Raph shrugged. Actually, it was the first thing that had occurred to him. "Well, I considered many factors and since I thought Tinkerbelle would give the wrong impression…"
"Don't you think Nightwatcher sounds kind of pervy? Makes you sound like a peeping tom."
Raph did recall a newspaper reporter making the same assumption. "Well, seeing as I was peeping on criminals at night and not naked girls, I don't think anybody has anything to worry about."
Mikey turned to watch the beagles humping each other on the TV. It didn't hold his attention for long and he said, "Where'd you get the suit?"
"Huh?"
"Did you make it? Like Spiderman?" Mike asked.
Raph rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mikey. I forged it in the furnace we keep in the lair. I bought it."
They looked back at the screen to see more small dogs in the throes of passion. Raph felt an urge to keep Mikey's brain clean and changed the channel. He didn't need a litany of questions about canine procreation next. The next show was a talk show. Some girls were fighting over a man. The subtitle said, "My man is my best friend's baby daddy."
"Where'd you buy it from? Can I get one? Is there a superhero store someplace?"
Now he wasn't about to reveal that information, so he whacked him on the back of the head as a subtle indicator that the topic was off limits.
"Stay away from my man, bitch!" one of the girls on the TV said. Raph struggled to understand if this was any more wholesome than the last show. He would have gladly watched it alone, but he still had a lingering desire to keep Mikey in the dark about such things. He knew it was totally beside the point at his age, but he just couldn't stop being the older brother now that they were grown.
"Boy, look at that girl's extensions. So where did you get the motorcycle?"
Annoyance was creeping into his soul and he knew that Mikey had just lit the fuse on the bomb. "I found it."
"Where?"
"The trash."
"Whoa! But that's a great bike. I wonder why they would throw it out."
The annoyance died away as Mike gave him a topic to brag. "Actually, it was in really bad shape. I stashed it and worked on it for a long time."
"So that's where you were after Leo left," Mikey said. Why did the kid have to be so damned insightful?
"No, it was a way to get away from people who ask endless questions," Raph grumbled.
"And Tito is not the father of little Pepsi," the talk show host said. The father got up and danced around the stage until the Pepsi's mother grabbed him by the hair. A few security guards stood on the back of the stage, watching listlessly.
"Weren't you afraid of rust?" Mikey asked. "I mean it rained a lot this year."
"Well, it did kind of rust," Raph said, forgetting to be annoyed. "But I had this cleanser and I used a Brill-o pad to buff it."
"Didn't it rattle? Like the tin man?"
He didn't recall any rattle. "If there was then the helmet was too heavy and I didn't hear it."
Raph was tired of watching girls beat up their boyfriends and changed the channel again. A shark was devouring a goat on a science show.
"Could Megalodon still swim the deep waters of the Mariana Trench?" A slick graphic of a shark the size of a jet plane was on the screen followed by a helpful computer graphic of the shark eating a school bus full of children.
"Wow, that thing's huge. What did you do when you had to go to the bathroom? Did it have a fly or a trap door on the crotch?
"I saved it," he said through gritted teeth, even though that wasn't true.
"Weren't you worried about getting struck by lightning?"
"It was grounded."
"How? And what if you met a bad guy with giant magnet? You'd have been screwed."
"WOULD YOU SHUT UP! LEAVE ME ALONE! LEO, YOUR CHILD IS BOTHERING ME!"
Leo drifted out of the dojo and said vaguely, "What's going on? Why are you yelling at him?"
"I'm just being friendly and asking question," Mikey said.
Leo's eye was drawn distractedly from the argument to the dramatic reenactment of a teenage surfer who had both his legs bitten off by a great white shark. "Why are you letting watch this? You know he gets nightmares." Leo turned off the TV.
"Hey, he's not an eight year old…"
Leo went back to the dojo. Raph thought he should just move his bed in there and be done with it. Mikey jumped over the back of the couch, instantly forgetting the conversation.
Raph was tired of protecting people. That's what got him into this mess in the first place.