He was kind of glad that his room was deeper within the sewer, as he didn't think he would have gotten away this long with the small sobs he was making as he sat on the wet ground, knees curled up to his face.
Michelangelo could hear Raphael's faint snarky laughter from where he had been stationed for the last few minutes, as well as the squeaking of Donnie's wrench as he works on one of his many projects and muffled talking, blending in with Leo's scolding.
Clearly, Raph was up to his old tricks again. Leo sounded pissed.
They always were together, a well-oiled machine, the green team, they always had been.
He was...just so different from them. Everyone, over the time that Father had them, Master rasing him practically from the ground up the day they were abandoned in the New York underground, had gelled as brothers and as fighters and had managed up to this point to work together no matter the arguments and issues that had appeared.
Everyone that is, except him.
The others always taunted him. Referring to him as 'the baby' of the group, even if they were technically all the same age as each other. 'The smartass', 'The weird one', 'The strange one', all of the above. He hated the name-calling, but he would never admit it. They most likely would just continue it, knowing it got a rise from him.
He didn't question that they loved him, in a way. Of course they did, but sometimes he just wondered if maybe he should just leave. Make it easier on them or something.
It seemed most of the time, other than a few lightbulb moments, they could function without him anyway. He wasn't sure if they would even notice if he just...left. Packed a rucksack full of his stuff, left his room untouched and just walked out of the sewers and disappeared.
Where would he even go? April and Casey didn't need someone hauling along with them, they were busy enough, plus it's not like if he was above ground, he wouldn't get attention. 6 foot high turtles in masks were not a sight you normally saw, even on the streets of New York City, one of the most random places in the world.
He could use the mutagen he'd sneaked from April and become some form of a human, which was always in the back of his mind after all since it had appeared.
He was supposed to destroy it, hell Raph was supposed to anyway, but...he just couldn't let it end up in the wrong hands, swapping out the vial for another that got destroyed, given that he had it and the antidote made by Donnie in case someone ever crossed the line and actually did something stupid like take it.
It wasn't the first time he'd thought about just leaving, it had been happening since he was just a hatchling and learning the basics that Father bestowed upon them.
Even that small, he noticed how the others got along more, how their playfighting was better and more sharpened, how their ability to use their chosen weapons was faster than his.
Father never said that he was lagging behind the others, but he didn't have to. He knew.
It was always 'Mikey, shut up.', 'Mikey this', 'Mikey that', 'Sorry about Mikey-' "We need to talk about Mikey-" blah, blah, blah. It just made him feel...defeated. Not in a way like they'd just lost a fight against Shredder, but a deeper feeling inside, curling its hold around his chest and stomach and heart and making him want to just cease to exist.
The first time it dragged him under, Raph had just beaten him in a sparring match and smirked as tears fell from his eyes unexpectedly. "Aww, poor little Mikey. Maybe next time, you'll block me instead of aiming for my face." That had hurt. A lot, now he looked back on it.
The feeling that came afterwards followed him around for days, like a bad smell that didn't let up and sometimes, got stronger. Donnie was the only one who noticed and tried to talk to him about it, but he brushed it off, a pattern that followed the more times it came up.
April and Casey also noticed, their attempts to talk to him were less invasive, but just like he had been taught to over his childhood, Mikey was still a hard shell to crack in public.
Hence why he was here right now, away in his room, letting out the bottled up stuff he had been holding onto for a while now. It was by no means healthy, he knew that, but it was easier than having a full-blown breakdown yelling and breaking things like he wanted to.
While it would most likely get his point across (and cause his brothers to maybe feel a small bit of dishonour at the way they treated him), Father most likely wouldn't appreciate him messing up their home, no matter the reason behind it.
Father would most likely be mad at him for messing his room up as well, of course, but the scratched in 'They hate me' on the bottom of the wall where no one would bother seeing it isn't going away and he knows he probably should take care of that before long, but he's just not bothered to do so, given the circumstances.
He also knew deep down, it might not even make a difference him throwing all his emotions and feelings out on his brothers, that he would just be laughed at and no one the wiser would see he meant every word that had spilled from his mouth and tasted a lot like rancid pizza that had gone off in the sun and made his insides sick.
While he was in his head, he barely heard Leo calling for him before he was much closer and he quickly stood up, limbs shaky on the unsteady ground as he collected himself and wiped whatever leftover tears were on his face, re-tying the bright orange mask that had been sitting on his cot, replacing it with himself as he grabbed a random handheld game and pretended to be beating a level that he had been working on for a while as Leo entered.
"Hey, was calling you. Donnie wants to test out that weird gadget he's been putting together since last week. You up for that?"
"Yeah, sure dude-" His voice thankfully didn't go up several octaves as he threw the game to the side carelessly and swung himself up to standing as Leo turned, but froze as he stopped and turned back, a frown on his face as he watched him.
"What? Have I got something on my face, man?" Mikey wiped at his face and almost died inside his shell feeling that his cheek was still wet, a tear that had gotten through the bottom of the mask rolling off his finger and into the dip of the palm of his hand, shiny and greenish bright in the dull sewer lights as he stares at it.
Leo must have also seen it because no sooner as it has fallen into his hand, Leo's own hand closed over Mikey's, staring at him. "Mikey? You okay?"
"I'm fine." It takes Mikey a moment, shaking his head and holding his chin high, a very fake but hopefully, realistic-looking grin on his face. "Come on, man, Donnie hasn't shut up over this damn thing, I wanna see what the bolthead's come up with now to make my job easier."
Leo laughed, seemingly distracted for the moment and shakes his head. "Sure buddy, come on, let's go to the main area and hope that no more stuff gets damaged."
He hopes that the looks Leo gives him on their way though are just him making sure he was actually coming and not because of what happened earlier and if by some happenstance that his brothers, his best friends, have a small hushed meeting without him across the room while he's goofing around with Donnie's latest gadget and are suddenly asking him questions he can answer without missing a beat and lighting up on the teasing and name-calling, Raph's snarky remarks that he endures every day less heated, well, he wasn't going to comment much.
That's just his brothers and this is just his home. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's all he cares about.