Mo's actual birthday (October 20th) is in two weeks but I guess I'll post this fun and not at all angsty Birthday chapter today. Yup. Definitely no angst in this bad boy...

Mo woke up early on his 14th birthday and began laying out his evidence in the kitchen, covering the table in the breakfast nook with photos, copies of newspaper clips, scribbled notes. All the information he'd been gathering since July.

He lay out his dads' phones, which he had swiped last night when they were both in bed, on the table and typed in the passwords. It was 0415 for dad and 1020 for pop, Louie's birthday and Mo's birthday respectively. He needed to see the final confirmation one more time before he woke them up and confronted them about what he'd found. But you couldn't argue with the information he'd found. Aside from newspaper clipping and old photos, there were dozens of mentions of Jailbird if you searched through pop's phone, right down to an attached file of the Jailbird armor blueprint sent to grandad, CCed to Uncle Huey. Everyone had known. Everyone had known and no one had ever told him.

Mo swiped at tears that had begun rolling down his face and clicked open a different application, one on Boyd's phone. A moment later all the lights in the house sprung on, waking up two groggy dads who were in for a big bad birthday surprise.

"What the fuck," Louie groaned, reaching for his glasses and squinting in annoyance.

"Where's my phone? What happened?" Boyd asked, looking around and then checking his watch for the time. 6:30 AM. Weird.

A notification appeared on his watch.

"Hey, Lou, you just texted me."

"What? No, I didn't, I haven't even found my glasses yet," Louie said, reaching in the space between the bed frame and side table.

"Then we have a mystery on our hands. But the culprit wants to meet in the kitchen."

"It's Mo's birthday," Louie commented, "Probably just wanted to be dramatic."

"Hmph," Boyd said, rolling his eyes and putting on a smile, "He gets it from you."

"Maybe. Let's go start this day on a good note, after all, you only turn fourteen once. We can change our passwords later."

They didn't expect to see Mo sitting at the breakfast table with anger in his eyes and a real-life murder mystery spread out in front of him. His floppy dark hair fell in his face now and he looked like he hadn't slept a wink. What's more, his Detective Museum hoodie had been spontaneously cropped and his jeans abruptly distressed, like he'd had some free time after cutting out all the newspaper clippings in the dead of night.

"Mo," Boy said, as Louie took in the scene with a feeling of dread building in his servo, "What is this?"

"You tell me," Mo said, venom dripping from his words. He was digging his fingernails into his arm just to keep his voice steady and tears out of his eyes.

"Mo, I can explain," Louie said quickly.

"Oh yeah? Well, then why didn't you? 'Cause you've had eleven and a half years, and I had to find out all of this stuff on my own."

Louie winced, "It was the worst part of my life, Mo. I thought it would be for the best if it never got dug up."

"You had to know I'd find the grave. You can't just leave something that big buried."

"I just didn't want to hurt you! I didn't want to break your trust."

"Bullshit! Nothing says trust like lying to your only son!"

"I wasn't lying, Mo, I just… Didn't tell you the full truth."

"So why the hell should I trust you?"

"Morio! Don't talk to your father like that!" Boyd finally weighed in, feeling sick as he watched the two people he loved the most fight.

"Shut up! You're not innocent of any of this shit- you- you did this too! You knew all of this and you kept it quiet. What kind of good guy are you?!"

"All of that is in his past! Your father is a good person and he's changed! He's not Jailbird anymore!"

"It doesn't matter if he's not Jailbird anymore, he was Jailbird and you let someone else take the fall. It doesn't matter if it's in the past, this isn't about his past! It's about MINE."

Mo turned on Louie, breathless and furious, "I know what you did! I know what you did and you never told me! That's unforgivable."

Louie froze in place, waiting for the accusation. He was trying his hardest not to cry, head hung in shame.

"Mo, I'm so sorry."

"You killed my dad. My real dad," Mo said this part quietly

Louie and Boyd winced in unison.

"Mo, I know how bad that sounds but he would have destroyed this whole family if left unchecked."

"That's why we have the legal system. Gods, you vigilantes are all the same. I can't trust either of you anymore!"

"Mo," Boyd tried again, "Don't say that. We're your dads, we can work through this."

"You're not my real dads! I had a family and you destroyed it. And you didn't even have the decency or guts to tell me."

The doorbell rang and Mo grabbed his backpack, not looking at Louie and Boyd, whose hearts had shattered, and headed towards the door.

"Leo's driving me to school."

"We'll finish talking about this when you get home," Boyd said softly, not sure what else to do or say. Louie was paralyzed by Mo's declaration, staring vacantly as Mo left.

"What just happened?" Louie asked when Mo was gone, sinking down to the ground and hugging his knees to his chest.

"Nothing that can't be fixed," Boyd said, trying to sound optimistic.

"No, no, he hates us. He hates me. He said that we weren't his real dads… I broke him. I didn't tell him and it broke him-"

"No! Louie, Louie, you can't fully blame yourself-"

"Who else is there to blame? I was supposed to be there for him and I couldn't even be honest. I saw all the signs, I knew this was coming, and I refused to open up. Of course he's hurt, Boyd. Of course he doesn't trust us anymore. I can't imagine what's going through his head."

"Yes you can," Boyd said softly, thinking back to his traipse through Louie's past, "You know what it's like to lose someone. To be filled with so much hatred that it turns your sky dark and your heart hard. You know exactly what it's like to be in Mo's shoes and when he comes home you can try to reach him."

"What if I can't reach him?" Louie asked, wiping at tears as they poured down his face.

"You already have, a little. He wrote down what you said about hatred nearly destroying your life. He just needs to step back, get some fresh air and a little more clarity."

Louie nodded, but he couldn't help worrying about his little boy, especially as he felt so far away.

"We're not going to school," Mo said, still angry as tears began to stream down his face.

Leo looked at him in alarm, "Mo, what's going on?"

"I can't explain but I need to talk to Raph. Please, before he leaves for the day, I need to-"

"Okay, okay- take deep breaths, Mo, steady. It's going to be okay."

"No," Mo managed to sob, "No it's not. It can't be okay again."

At the first stop sign, Leo turned on speech-to-text and told his brother he was headed over so he wouldn't leave for school. He made sure to signify that it was an uppercase EMERGENCY.

Raph was waiting at the door with a grim expression and a weighted blanket.

"Go to school," he told his younger brother.

"But-"

"No buts or I'll tell dad."

"You're the worst."

"You need your education! Mo and I are going to be fine." Raph offered Leo a smile and Leo sighed. He was really, really worried about Mo, but Raph was impossible to argue with.

"Everything is going to work itself out, Leo. You can come over when you're done for the day, and I'll text you updates."

Mo just stood, with his head hanging low and his backpack in his hands, while Raph and Leo talked over him. He was fourteen, getting older, getting smarter, but he felt so small. The smallness only intensified when Raph wrapped Mo in a weighted blanket and Mo burst into sobs.

"Let's go sit on the couch," Raph said softly, "I already put in for a sub, so take your time. I'm here, I've got you."

That in of itself was immensely comforting, and for a few minutes, Mo just curled up in his cousin's arms and sobbed. Raph held him close and let him process his grief, worry evident on his face. He was a little less than ten years older than Mo and felt the burden of being older, being responsible for his family, not just responsible for Mo but for his uncles. Because the fact that Mo had come to him instead of Louie or Boyd meant something was wrong. And he owed it to everyone to help Mo through it.

"Raph? You were adopted when you were a toddler, right?" Mo finally caught his breath and was able to start talking, though it wasn't clear what this had to do with why he'd been crying.

"Mm-hm. The twins and Leo were adopted as babies but I was roughly the same age you were when you were adopted."

Mo nodded, "I thought so… Do you remember your birth family?"

"I don't have any of my own memories, but I've heard stories. Dad was friends with my bio-dad. I got my middle name from him."

"Do you know what happened to your parents?"

Raph sighed, "Yeah, dad told me about it. It's not a pretty story, but you're old enough. I can tell you if you want."

"Mine's not a pretty story either, and no one ever told me. I had to find out all on my own…"

Raph nodded grimly. He had no context for Mo's past, other than that whatever had happened the day they brought Mo home had paralyzed Uncle Louie. But if Mo had come to him in tears, years later, it must have been bad.

"My dad, my bio-dad, met dad, Dewey, in flight school. But he, I'll just call them Omar and Dewey for simplicity, couldn't hack it and dropped out. He worked as a mechanic, kind of like Scar, but his little shop was just a front for moving drugs. I guess he got lazy on that too, started trying to stretch the drugs by cutting them with something else, and one of his buyers found out and came and shot up the place, killing my mom and dad. I didn't know Dewey very well then but he was listed as my godfather. Omar knew him, saw how he was raising the twins, and trusted that Dewey was a good person and that if anything ever happened to him, I would be taken care of. Omar made a lot of bad decisions, but I know he cared about me."

"I'm sorry about your parents," Mo said quietly. Raph nodded, accepting the sympathy. It had taken him a long time to feel comfortable letting people know about his past. He wasn't ashamed of his parentage anymore, and he felt nothing but pride when he talked about the father who had raised him.

"Do you want to tell me about yours?"

Mo hugged his knees to his chest. Did he? He wasn't sure. All these thoughts were swirling in his head, and he'd known, somehow, that Raph would understand. But he still felt so sick. Anxious, angry, and alone.

"Can I have some water?" Mo requested quietly.

"Of course. Do you need anything else? Have you had breakfast yet? I make pretty good pancakes, and it is your birthday."

"I don't want to talk about my birthday. And I don't want to eat breakfast. I… I ruined everything, Raph."

That was the first time he'd thought of it that way, and hearing himself say it out loud surprised him. Because he was not the one who had hurt and killed people and yet- he could still see the look on his dads' faces when he told them they weren't his dads. Why had he said that? He was a monster, too. He was a Jailbird, same as Louie, same as Satoshi.

"Mo, don't think like that. Tell me what happened, I'm sure it will work out."

"I don't think I can go home," Mo said suddenly, panic rising in his chest. He was digging his fingernails hard into his arm but he couldn't feel it anymore. He had to throw off the blanket because he was feeling suffocated.

"Hey, hey, no. Morio, talk to me." Raph came and sat back down, handing Mo a water bottle. Mo drank and took a deep breath. He felt ill, feverish.

"Raph I… I was so angry at pop and dad. I lashed out. I didn't have to do that, I could have just… It didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to be today. I made a mistake.

"It's okay, Mo, mistakes happen, family moves past it. Your family loves you too much to lose you."

"Louie killed my bio-dad," Mo finally managed.

"Whoa, what-" The door swung open suddenly and both of them fell silent as Nick came in, sweaty from a workout.

"Hey, babe, what're you doing home from school?"

"Family emergency," Raph said, putting his hand on Mo's shoulder.

"Ah, okay. I'll give you guys some space, I'll be in the room until I have to leave for class." Raph was an art teacher, his boyfriend was a grad student on his way to becoming a librarian. Neither of them really knew why you had to go to grad school to become a librarian, but you did.

"Sorry, Mo, now, what's this about your pop?"

"It's… A lot. Pop did a lot of bad things. Like your bio-dad. And my bio-dad worked for him, but when pop- when Louie met Boyd he changed, for the better I guess. And my dad- Satoshi, he didn't change, so Louie let him go around the same time my mom apparently died, and then… I guess Satoshi wanted revenge. So he took this supervillain suit that Louie had created for himself and attacked dad- Boyd. And then Louie attacked Satoshi and killed him and lost the use of his legs and found me. And Satoshi is still the one blamed for all of the supervillain attacks, even before he was the one doing them- and pop never told me about any of it and- I just don't know what to do."

That was a lot to take in. The fact that a fourteen-year-old was dealing with all that on his own made Raph feel so sad.

"And you confronted them about all that today?"

Mo nodded, looking utterly worn out.

"That's so hard, Mo. I'm so sorry you're going through all of that."

"I don't think I can go home. I told them they weren't my dads. I told them I didn't trust them anymore."

"Do you trust them?"

"No, of course not- but… But I want to, Raph. They're still my parents, I know they still care about me. I'm just so upset that I never knew who I was, about what happened when I was adopted."

"The way I see it, Louie and Satoshi both did bad things, right? And obviously, there are repercussions, and your feelings are valid Mo, but what happened back then doesn't define who you were. We get to choose who we are, Mo. We get to make that choice every year, every month, every week, every day-"

"I get it. We choose our own destinies or whatever."

"What I'm trying to say is that as much as you deserve to know what happened when you were little, you shouldn't feel like who your parents are forces you to be anything. You can confront who they were without it fully changing who you will be."

"But it does change me, a little bit, doesn't it? I can't take back what I said to dad and pop, and I probably can't ever fully rebuild the trust I've lost. And I don't know if I'll ever outgrow these what-ifs I have about my birth parents. Because if I'd grown up with them, I would be entirely different."

Raphael nodded with a sigh.

"Yeah, that's true, those what-ifs are going to linger for a long time. But not forever, Mo. You're just going to have to trust me on that."

"What do I do with the hurt until then?" Mo asked, resting his head on Raph's shoulder.

"You talk to people about it. You talk to me, to your friends, to your dads, to a therapist. It hurts a lot and maybe it'll hurt for a long time, but good people will be put in your life at just the right time."

"How do you know?"

Raph pointed at the bedroom door.

"I found out about my bio-dad when I was in high school and I think that I would have been really fucked up if I hadn't met Nick. He was my first really, really good friend in school and he pulled me from a dark spot. I was incredibly lucky that he also ended up being my life partner."

"So you never wondered what-if?"

"Of course I did. I wondered if I was destined to be a delinquent. I wondered if I would make the same mistakes as Omar. But I'm not Omar's kid, not really. I'm Dewey's kid. I have a perfectly excellent father who has helped me become who I am. And I hope I can pass that on to my own kids someday."

Mo sat quietly for a bit.

"So you think there's a reason I'm in this family? A reason I'm your cousin, and Leo's, a reason I'm my dads' son, and Paige's bestie, and all that? Those people were put into my life for a reason?"

"I do. And what's more, you were put into our lives for a reason. You're a really good kid, Mo. And even when bad things happen, like this morning, you make everyone's lives better. Later, you're going to go back and talk to your dads and you'll see that it'll all work out."

Mo nodded, letting out a little sigh.

"Do you want those pancakes now?"

"No…"

"Well, more for me then." Raph got up and Mo lay out on the couch, silent and thoughtful. He played with the strings of his hoodie and thought about how he didn't want to be mad at his parents. He didn't want the past to ruin their relationship and didn't want to throw everything away because of a grudge. He took deep breaths and focused on a bug crawling over the carpet.

"You're sure you don't want any pancakes? They have chocolate chips in them."

"Do you have any whip cream?"

"Yup!"

"Do you think you can drive me home a little later?"

"Of course, Mo. but you can hang out until you feel more comfortable going back."

"Thanks. You're the best cousin."

"I know. But don't tell Azure, it would break their heart." Mo laughed, feeling a little bit better, a little less alone.

Around 2 PM, the door opened and Boyd and Louie's head snapped up, relieved to see their son and- Raph?

"I skipped school today," Mo mumbled because Raph had suggested that he be honest with his dads.

"Don't worry, Uncle Louie, Uncle Boyd, he was with me the whole time. But he's ready to talk with you, right, Mo?"

"Right."

Raph stepped out and before Mo could even think about saying anything else Louie and Boyd were quick to fly to his side and wrap their arms around him.

Mo let out a gasp of surprise and hugged back, quickly and tightly. The three of them seemed to burst into tears at the same time and they just stood there, hugging and sobbing.

"Morio, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I never told you, I broke your trust and that's unacceptable. I'm so sorry, please let me set things right." Louie crouched down and wiped Mo's tears away gently with his sleeve.

"I'm not mad anymore. I'm hurt, but I'm not mad. And I didn't mean it when I said you weren't my dads, I didn't mean it when I said I could never forgive you. Please forgive me..."

"Oh, Mo, of course we forgive you. We love you so much, Bug. We're sorry that this happened, that we hurt you. We'll be honest from now on," Boyd said.

"Tell us how to make it right," Louie said, still holding onto Mo.

"I need you to tell me all of it. I need to know all the details I can't find in newspaper clippings and old emails."

"Okay," Louie nodded, adding, "I understand why you did it this time, but don't go through our emails again."

"Okay. Am I in trouble?"

"No," Louie said, leading them to the couch, "You're okay. We're going to be okay."

"I don't know if things can be okay, but I want to try."

This time, as he began the long tale of Louie the Criminal and Louie the Jailbird, his promise that everything would be okay almost felt true. At the very least, it was the first step in rebuilding trust. Maybe it would still take a long time, but a family like this was always worth the effort.