He just wanted to tear them open. Tear them the hell open so he could keep them, so whoever was taking it from him didn't want it. And just leave it all scattered there in the lounge space.
"This was your idea, Michelangelo. We need the money" he told himself.
And it was good money too. They got a couple of hundred from just selling off action figures and whatever else. Mikey didn't bother to keep track. He hadn't had a decent sleep all week.
"Have you eaten?" He jumped at the sound of April's voice. She was flanked by Rivet; both had their arms crossed with disapproving looks.
"No. I over slept."
"I'll just have to make you breakfast then."
"No!" Mikey leapt up between April and the path to the kitchen. "I'd rather you didn't."
"Hey, my cooking is not that bad!" April huffed and picked up the tub of merchandise. "Is everything in here?"
"Yeah," Mikey sighed. "That's everything."
"I'll bring you back a pizza, Mikey." April smiled with a sad look in her eye and turned to leave the lair.
"Bye, Leo" Mikey mumbled to himself when she was gone.
-:-
Leatherhead stared at the small space. He had never been in any of the bedrooms and he felt like he was intruding on some precious, sacred ground.
"I will not need a mattress, Michelangelo" he said quietly.
"I didn't think you would. I've just got to clean out Donnie's room to keep it in and then I can move the boys into Raph's old room."
"They are getting quite big aren't they?"
"Yep. I've had to send Rivet and Casey out to get some wood for new cribs."
He looked so old. Nearly six months had gone and Leatherhead had never seen Michelangelo don his orange mask, or stay in the dojo long enough to train. Leatherhead had watched his friend slowly let things go, things that without, Michelangelo just wasn't Michelangelo.
"Will you start training again?" Leatherhead asked, casting his eyes off to the dojo.
"I'll have to. I remembered Splinter saying he took a break from hard core training when we all got mutated. I do a kata every now and then. I just can't pick up a weapon again just yet."
Michelangelo smiled.
Leatherhead hated that smile. So tired, withered, forced.
"May I train with you?"
"What?"
I know how you hate to do things alone. "April confessed she would like to continue her training. And I think it would help me with my anger issues."
"Sure!"
Michelangelo smiled.
Leatherhead loved that smile. So honest, youthful, bright.
I will fight for you, Leatherhead thought; I will keep you from drowning.
Even if that meant fighting Michelangelo himself.
-:-
Play pens were a gift from God, Mikey lamented after playing a long, long game of '"I'm the adult come back here!" "But adventure!"' with Leo.
None of them could walk quite yet, but they could crawl like it was an Olympic sport. And as such, Mikey had panicked and over done it on the child gates. There was a set blocking off the kitchen, one for the entrance to the lair, one for the entrance to the lab (and its garage door padlocked) and a gate blocking off the dojo. But none of them had working doors - the catch of taking things from the dump – so they doubled as hurdles for everyone else. The gates were mostly duct tapped together and haphazardly secured to the wall with nails, screws and some wood.
But Mikey also kept a play pen set up in the living area, so he knew where they were. Or for when he was vacuuming.
Yes, Hamato Michelangelo was vacuuming the lair. Admittedly he wasn't doing a very good job of it, convinced the thing was trying to choke him to death.
"Why didn't I get Rivet to do thIS!" Mikey yelped as the vacuum wrapped around his ankle and sent him toppling over. To add insult to injury, one of the boys threw a soft toy from their pen hitting Mikey square in the head. "The universe is trying to tell me something."
He disentangled himself from the vacuum, but didn't get up off the floor. The lair was quiet, with only the slight giggles and grunts of the boys echoing around the lair.
It's so peaceful.
Mikey wouldn't have gone so far to say he was at peace; there were a lot of different things still jumbled up inside him. Top of the list being routines, loneliness, lack of sleep, do I want to know what happened to Splinter, yes I do, no I don't.
"Ugh, I'm not doing that again!" Mikey raked his hands over his face and rolled onto his stomach. It was a fight he had regularly with himself, whether or not he should storm up to Shedder's tower and demand to know what happened. On the other hand, Splinter only had one wound on him. Mikey didn't want to see Shredder revel in what Mikey knew had to be his father's slow, painful demise.
Some things are just meant to be left alone.
Or are they?
Yes, there are.
But-
"NO!" he yelled, jumping up suddenly. The boys stilled in their pen, staring up at him. Great, he scared them. Mikey sighed and bent over to pick up the toy that had been thrown at him. He smiled and said, "And who exactly is responsible for this?"
-:-
Blood.
Blood everywhere.
No.
NO!
"This can't be happening."
"But it is, Michelangelo!" Shredder roared, twisting the blade in Splinter's gut. "And it's all your fault."
Karai cackled. She had him pinned to the wall, her forearm blocking off his airway.
Fear is not something that bubbles or trickles in your stomach. It pounds in your chest, violently beating your ribcage and tainting the blood running through your veins until you feel it in your toes and you stop breathing and everything just slows and all you can focus on is that one thing. Like a spider, or how high up you are, or how small your space is.
Or your father's blood dribbling down his chin.
Knock.
"Splinter!"
Knock.
Shredder pulled the blade out, twisting as he went.
Thud.
Knock.
"DAD!"
Knock.
"Ahh!" he screamed, bolting upright from his bed and rushing to his door to turn the light on.
He was home, he was safe.
Knock.
Carefully, with shaking hands, Mikey opened the door. Rivet looked in, eyes a bright amber colour.
"Hey Rivet! How are you? Are the boys awake? What's up?" Rivet beeped at him. Mikey could tell he was unimpressed, a quality he didn't think could be found in a robot. He sighed, "It was just another nightmare."
There was a time where Mikey would have rambled, he would have jumped out from behind the door and landed in whoever's arms were waiting. But he was an adult now, at the tender age of sixteen, nearly seventeen. And adults don't snivel and cry about some silly nightmare.
Right?
-:-
Michelangelo hadn't stepped foot in his father's bedroom since the day they left to bury him. April and Casey had to go in and put all of Splinter's clothes in vacuum bags because getting rid of all of Leo's things was hard enough, he couldn't bear the thought of packing up his father's things too.
Even though they were just putting them away in storage, so bugs didn't eat his last connection to his father.
How pathetic is that?
But here he was, standing at the threshold of his father's room to find it.
"Come on, Mikey."
He was doing an overhaul. He had looked at himself in the mirror that morning and couldn't recognise the skinny boy staring back at him. Things had to change.
First was his diet. He had meagre groceries in his fridge, so he settled for canned beans on toast and some canned peaches. Normally they were reserve stocks for when they weren't able to reach a grocers, but Mikey had April and Casey for back up.
Second was his routine. He couldn't shift it too much because the boys were used to it and so was Mikey and he was finally getting some sleep, but he could devote the spare time he used to stare through news reports and soap operas to his training. He figured he'd gotten so thin from a lack of diet, sleep and training. His muscles just felt faded, unaccustomed to lifting more than a baby's weight.
Yes, we are going to ignore the burden he carries on his shoulders because that's mostly in his head.
And the third step was his friends. The only time he saw April and Casey anymore was when they dropped off supplies, and he hadn't seen Shadow in weeks. He only saw Leatherhead regularly once a week for lunch, what with the babies still being so loud, small and fragile.
So, in an attempt to fix his problems Mikey set out to find it. Splinter had anticipated a day when he would not be around to guide his sons in their training. He had everything any self-teaching ninja could need in a trunk, locked tightly and kept away from unnecessary eyes (and feet).
Michelangelo had been one of them.
Leonardo knew where the chest was kept and so did Donatello. It was somewhere underneath Splinter's bedroom floor. Donatello had helped to build the compartment and Leo knew about it naturally because he was the leader. Mikey and Raph tended to block out all conversation of the damn thing because they didn't like what it represented or what it meant for their future.
Poor Raph, Mikey thought, he spent all that time loathing something that would never affect him.
After about twenty minutes of rapping his knuckles against the floor, Mikey figured Donnie wouldn't leave the hole too hollow to be found so simply. Knowing Mikey's luck Donnie probably buried it twenty feet deep with a missile launching robot, more padlocks than there are keys and three voice activated locks, one of which only responds to Swedish.
But it would also be Mikey's luck that Donnie wrote all that down and put it somewhere in his lab. Because it's not science unless you write it down. And Donnie was a bit of a hoarder.
Which was actually great for Mikey. For anything to migrate from the lab to Donnie's room he had to like working on it. A t-phone he was planning to upgrade would make the cut but not a t-phone that needed repairs, so most things in the lab Donnie remained firmly detached from as responsibilities, which made for ample, guilt free snooping.
Ok, so snooping was the wrong word given the situation, but this expedition was all about rejuvenation and bringing back the old Michelangelo, the snoop-master!
And it was never that hard. He just had to go for whatever had a "MIKEY DO NOT TOUCH!" label on it and he generally got a reaction (sometimes the reaction would come from Mikey on the few occasions Donnie planted something to try and ward him off for a while, like the 'oozing file incident' which will never be brought up ever. If you must know, when Donnie pranked, he pranked hard).
Red labels were usually the first thing on Mikey's list to sniff out, but things with locks were too difficult it meddle with so he left them. But not today! Today anything with a lock was probably his best bet. This was important stuff he was looking for; Donnie wouldn't just leave it lying around.
-:-
An hour, probably more, and nothing! He had found nothing! Mikey was starting to wish Donnie was more of an organised hoarder. This was no fun, it was draining flipping through every notebook he could find, thumbing through every idea Donnie's ever had. He even still had the battleship plans him and Mikey had drawn up as kids in crayon.
"Splinter probably took them and burnt them or something," Mikey groaned as he carefully slid a note book back into Donnie's desk drawer. "At least I know how to fix the fridge now if I need to."
He didn't really. He just knew what notebook to read to find out how.
Mikey glanced at the clock on the desk, checking if the boys were due for a feed. They weren't, but he didn't feel like searching anymore and he was not going to fall back into the habit of watching bad soap operas and home shopping channels.
"Beep beep beep."
Thump.
"Huh, what is it Riv- how the heck did you find it!?"
Of course Donnie would have told the robot, of course! Rivet nudged the trunk further into the lab with his foot and tapped his temple, his eyes glowing a funny blue colour.
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? Like when I told you I was going to go looking for it!?"
Rivet shrugged and Mikey swore if the damn robot had a mouth it'd be smirking at him. He was getting sassed by a robot!
"Bloop."
"How dare you bloop me!?"
Rivet sniggered – sniggered, Mikey thought, who does he think buys his oil? - and left Mikey to his own devices.
"It's locked," Mikey mumbled, tugging at the padlock latched onto the trunk. Just his luck. Now he'd probably have to spend another hour looking for a key until Rivet decided to troll him with the key.
Nah. Mikey knew where the bolt cutters were. That's one mistake Donnie was never able to live down. He'd just break the lock and get moving.
-:-
My dear sons,
"Nope," Mikey sighed, "Just son."
If you are reading this, then the worst has happened. It hurts me to write this, especially with you all being so young.
Did he really have to do this? He wasn't supposed to read this. This was written with the intention of Leo reading out, not Mikey to himself.
I can only hope you are all doing well.
"Nope! Nope, I'm done! Too much!" Mikey yelled, scrunching the note up and throwing it into some god forsaken corner of the lab. That could wait. It's not like he didn't know what the letter was going to say anyway. It just felt so wrong, right down in his stomach, reading it. It wasn't meant for him it was meant for them. All of them. Had it been addressed to 'My dear Michelangelo' he might have been able to eventually get through it regardless of the mess it would make him.
But he couldn't afford to become that mess. There were too many people depending on him.
And that's not a feeling he was used too.
Everything in the trunk was written in Japanese like he thought it would be, so he couldn't just send April home with a scroll as an assignment. He smiled and pulled out his t-phone and sent a text to April.
You may call me Sensei.
A minute went and then: You found it!?
Eventually. We can start training next week. I need to wrap my head around everything in here.
:D!
Mikey laughed and turned back to the trunk. Some of this stuff was old and he felt weird touching it, worried it would turn to dust.
"Now you're being dumb, Mikey." And just like that, his smile was gone.
-:-
"Heck yeah! Let's do this!" Shadow shouted, waving her fists wildly in the air. "I wanna be a ninjette!"
"The word for a girl ninja is kunoichi, Shadow. Not ninjette," Mikey laughed as he led her to the dojo. April and Casey followed closely behind. The boys were playing quietly in their play pen, set up under the tree. Any and all weapons were far away on the other side of the dojo, well out of reach.
"Is Leatherhead not joining us?" April asked.
"No. He comes and trains with me at night when the boys are asleep. It's easier that way, especially with Raph's old room cleared out."
"Enough talking, let's get to fighting!" Shadow said, darting towards the closest weapons stand.
"Not so fast!" Mikey cried, catching her by the back of her shirt. "You're not ready for a weapon yet."
"Boo" Shadow pouted.
"We have to stretch first. April, Casey?"
"I'm not joining," Casey said. "I'm fine with the way I fight."
"You could at least help us spar. You could stand to learn a thing or two," April teased, poking Casey in the ribs.
"Is that a challenge?"
"Maybe."
"There will strictly be no flirting in my dojo!" Mikey warned, earning a giggle from Shadow. April and Casey both went pink and sat down to stretch.
"This is gonna be so cool!" Shadow rambled. "I wanna use the swords!"
"Not yet," Casey grumbled. "And you're not bringing anything home. Dad will kill me."
"But I'll need to practice at home if I want to get any good!"
"You can practice at home. You just can't practice with any weapons."
"You do," Shadow sneered.
"A sword is different from a baseball bat, Shadow" Mikey leaned over to pat her on the head. "If Casey hurts himself practicing that's fine, we can replace him. New York is bursting with street thugs. But we're a little short on kunoichi."
"Sensei Mikey is right," April smiled, giving Casey a side eye. "You have to listen to him."
"Or I won't bring you back down here" Casey warned.
Mikey could see Shadow trying to gauge how serious her brother was, so he put on his best serious face. He really didn't want to deal with Shadow stealing weapons and then bringing them back as if to prove how good a ninja she was (and he's pretty sure she would at least try it).
"When can I start using weapons?" Shadow asked.
"When you're twenty" Casey mumbled, earning a glare.
"Depends how well you do," Mikey said, standing up. "Who's ready for some training?"
"I am!" April cheered, shaking Casey by the shoulder. "Ready to lose?"
Mikey sent April and Casey off to one side of the dojo to spar. The idea was to warm April up a little bit more and to help her bring everything she knew ninjustu wise to the forefront of her mind. That's how Splinter helped to get Mikey focused for training, with a quick spar first up. Mikey and Shadow stayed close to the play pen. He showed her very basic stances, some punches and kicks. He honestly didn't know where to start, and all of Splinter's notes were on what to teach an already established ninja. Mikey just counted himself lucky Shadow was a better student than he ever was.
"This'll be good practice for you when the babies grow up, huh Rooish?" Shadow said between punches. "You're a really good teacher."
"It's Sensei Rooish when we're in here, Shadow" Mikey said lightly. "Do you really think so?"
Shadow stopped her round of punches, turned to him and bowed. "I really do, Sensei."
Michelangelo, no, no! Don't you dare! Don't you dare cry! It'll undermine your authority!
Who was he kidding? He'd never used the word undermine in his life.
"Thanks, Shadow."
Training went on for another hour before Casey and Shadow had to leave. Mikey had spent most of the switching between Shadow and April, coaching her through her sparring with Casey, which had become much slower and more calculated than it had started.
"What do we do now, Sensei?" April chirped after saying goodbye to Casey and Shadow.
"Katas."
They went on for another hour, going through katas, learning new moves and sparring, before Raph started screaming his signature 'I'm bored as all heck' scream demanding attention. Mikey and April decided to take a break, lying down with the boys in the play pen.
"I've really enjoyed this," April said quietly. "It's good to see you a little bit greener."
"I feel greener" Mikey laughed as he shook a toy at Raph. "I'm not too sure about teaching though."
"I think you're a good teacher. Just… just don't try and be like Master Splinter was. Be you."
"It probably isn't totally right for you to call me Sensei," Mikey said. "Senpai is probably more appropriate."
"Oh, senpai!" April pretended to swoon, with her backhand pressed to her forehead.
"I feel like you're mocking me."
"You'd be right."
They laughed. For the first time in a long time, they laughed and just talked - like they used to, like they were young again.
"Same time tomorrow?" April asked before she left.
"Yeah. Bring your tessen and we'll have a real spar."
"You're on."
And for once, when she left, Michelangelo didn't feel like his home was emptier for it. It felt fuller.
So, I've had pretty full on hip surgery. Hence why its been a bit silent this way.
Tell me what you think. :)