Rockwell's 'lair' was nice. Mike frowned.

"Did you plaster the walls? And paint them?"

Rockwell had found another abandoned portion of the subway system to make a home out of. It wasn't anywhere near as big as Mike's lair, but it was big enough for Slash to walk around comfortably.

Speaking of.

The first thing Slash did when he saw Mikey was rush over to the couch whack him across the back of the head.

"Oww!"

"You deserve it."

"Yeah, but I don't appreciate it!" Mikey jumped up and over the back of Rockwell's couch. "I'm gonna tell on you!"

"Sit down, squirt. Show me this tattoo Casey keeps going on about."

Mike's smile dropped with his shoulders and he rubbed at the bandage around the top of his arm. "Its just the family crest."

"Still kinda cool," Slash huffed. He dropped onto the crouch, flinching when it groaned under his weight.

"Why aren't you mad or something?" Mike rounded the couch and stood over Slash. "April probably wants to kill me-"

"April can choke."

"Rockwell has gone full dad mode, which I don't know what to do with, really. And everyone else is weirdly ok, I don't get it!"

"You want someone to be mad at you?" Slash asked, surprised.

"I don't know! I did the wrong thing!"

"Well, if you want someone to yell at you find April. Because I'm not the one."

"Why not!?" Mikey screeched, stamping his foot on the ground.

"Remember that time I tried to kill you because I was jealous?"

"Wha-?"

Oh.

Oh.

"I don't think you did anything wrong, Mike." Slash reached out and tugged Mikey down onto the couch next to him. "Its what you didn't do. And I'm not even mad about that. I'm worried little bro."

Mikey frowned, wrapping his arms around himself. "I was talking to Rockwell. I was talking to Leatherhead. I talked to you. I think… I don't think I meant to but, I just didn't tell you guys everything. I didn't know what I was supposed to be telling." Mike sat up a little straighter, looking Slash in the eye. "Everyone needs to stop beating themselves up though. Rockwell was a neuroscientist, not a psychologist. It's not fair he's shouldering all this blame."

"Who should shoulder it then?" Slash asked cautiously, not accusing.

"No one! This is no one's fault!" Mike rubbed at his eyes. "I'm messed up, ok? Everything is really, really wrong inside and out. But that just happens sometimes, people up top have perfectly fine lives and get sick like this too. Blaming people won't help me!"

"No, it won't." Slash reached out suddenly and pulled Mikey into a hug. Mikey yelped a little, but hugged Slash back. "I'm glad you're ok, Mike. I was pretty worried."

Mike sat of a moment, stunned. Slash wasn't ever one to admit being worried like this. At least not verbal confirmation and a hug. Maybe one or the other but never both. Mike squeezed him back hard. Slash didn't make any effort to pull away, settling into the hug even more.

Which made Mikey fell better and worse. On one hand he really needed this. On the other, Slash was he brother now. And Mike had run out and ditched him with no word for a month to get high and laid. During the worst time of year when they were both grieving for their dead family.

"I'm sorry."

"Kid-"

"No, let me say this. I'm sorry." Mike buried his face into Slash's arm. Slash squeezed him a little tighter.

"I ain't mad at ya."

"Doesn't mean I shouldn't be sorry."

Slash hummed. "Anyway, I'm supposed to be helping you get new furniture for your room."

"I don't know. This couch is pretty neat."

"He's right, you do need an adult."

"Shut up!"

-:-

His new room was just that. New. It wasn't lived in, or laden with memories and signs of wear. The sheets smelt new. There was clean, soft yellow paint on the walls. Generic but humble canvas prints of flowers hung on the wall above his bed. Those were the things Rockwell had. It was all so… human.

What Mikey brought to the space? A few worn books and a lamp he found particularly charming. A thin photo album he tucked away under his pillow. The blanket Casey and Shadow had given him. The bear Leatherhead gave him. Sitting primly on the bedside table was the get well soon cards each of the boys had made him.

He felt muddled.

-:-

"How are you adjusting?" April asked curtly.

Mike had expected World War III. Yelling, screaming, maybe a few punches. But April did everything to avoid looking him in the eye, or at his tattooed shoulder. She fluffed pillows and fussed with the fake pot plants Rockwell had around the place.

Mike's mouth felt dry, but he had to stay focused, so he could make this work.

"I've been here three days. I'm not sure how I'm adjusting." Mike spoke quietly, sitting on the couch and staring at the blank TV. The sound of April's shuffling feet was getting on his nerves. "Will you sit down already!?"

Why did Rockwell have to leave? Mike really needed someone to mediate this… thing. He was tempted to call Slash but apparently his brother had been laying into April quite a bit for the last few weeks.

"I'm not ok." Mike said plainly after a lengthy silence. April shifted on the couch next to him and they both kept their eyes firmly on the TV. "I don't think I've been ok for a long time, April."

"We can fix this," April said boldly, suddenly straightening her shoulders.

"I'm not broken," Mikey spat. "I'm just not… ok. Rockwell says I might be bipolar."

April's eyebrows shot up in the reflection on the TV screen. Mikey had assumed no one said anything to her about it.

"I thought…"

"You thought what?" he asked curiously. April was really good at reading the most outward emotion a person was feeling. Her skills weren't as finely tuned as Rockwell's, so Mikey had no idea what she assumed.

"I just thought you gave up."

Screw making it work, Mikey wanted to hit her.

"Are you kidding me?"

"But I think i-it was me." Mikey flinched at her stutter. "I went through some of Donnie's old notes. He was working on a theory that…"

"That what?"

"That after an extended period of time a mutant might not be able to be retro-mutated."

What did tha- "Oh, your dad."

"Yeah. I tried looking for him. I haven't seen him in six months and those weird monster hunters online haven't seen him either." April took a deep breathe and finally turned to look at Mikey. "I think I've been confused about what emotions were in the air around you. There was always so much going on but the most prominent was the feeling of giving up. Which made me angry, then you would get angry and it would go away."

"This whole time, we've been picking fights because you thought I was throwing in the towel?"

"After you ran off, I asked Rockwell to look through my head. It took him two seconds to tell me I was wrong and that's off second-hand emotions."

Mike frowned. "Apr-"

"So, I'm sorry. I've been a jerk."

"Oh, because I'm perfect?" Mikey arched a brow.

"No but I should have asked. I made an assumption and it was wrong. I didn't want to believe that I was giving up and admit that my dad is as good as dead and…" April clenched her fists. "And I forced that on you and drove you away and that was, is, the last thing I want."

"Ok."

He didn't have it in him to say anything else. Maybe she could sense that. But judging by the scowl on her face and her white knuckled fists, April was trying her best not to sense anything.

"We're gonna be ok, April" he offered after the silence went for too long. "We're pretty tough all things considered."

April swallowed, nodded, and left.

-:-

Rockwell gave him a fairly strict routine and goddamned chores. The worse part about it was he didn't have a vacuum, Mike had to sweep the place for dust.

"We can make you a vacuum!" Angel said brightly, tugging at Rivet's arm. The three of them were walking to Mike's lair. After being consistent enough with his chores, Rockwell was finally happy for Mike to start light training again.

"I think he's trying to keep me active, but you can ask him."

Rivet beeped some. Mike was sure the guy was already planning the perfect prototype in his head.

"How's the renovating going? Or has it stalled?"

"No, it's going great!" Angel exclaimed. "We're working on the lab. Rivet's building me a loft because the ceilings so tall."

Mike smirked at Rivet. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I wanted a hammock, but he said it wouldn't be good for my back."

Mike laughed.

-:-

"You're spoiling her," Mike said casually, wrapping a bandage around his wrist. Rivet made no effort to acknowledge him. "I think it's cute."

"She's been staying less" was what Mike got from Rivet's beeping. Mike mulled it over, trying to ignore Rivet's piercing stare as he stretched out on the dojo floor.

"Because I've been gone?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you want me to talk to her or do you want the words, so you can talk to her?" Mike asked.

"Words."

It hurt a little. But he'd been gone a month. He couldn't expect to still be needed the same way as before he left. His family probably didn't expect much from him at this point. Which probably hurt the most because he didn't even have a good reason for it. He went on a bender, not a soul-searching mission. He hadn't come back with some major life lesson that justified putting his family and himself through it all. Anything he had learned he had been told.

All he had to show was a tattoo and square one.

Mike shook himself from those thoughts "I guess just make sure she knows she's always welcome here. And I know Donnie filled that head of yours with ninjutsu. Teach her some stuff. I know Shadow has and that really can't go unchecked."

Rivet just nodded. Mike couldn't tell if he had been expecting more or if he was just awkward about the elephant in the room. Mike stopped his stretching and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."

He'd had this conversation enough times that he knew how it would have gone if he was talking to anyone but Rivet. But Rivet said nothing. He just tilted his head and listened.

"Everyone keeps telling me not to for one reason or another but I am. I hurt you guys. I didn't want to do that. I just…"

"Wanted some freedom?"

"Yes! Sort of." Mikey tapped his fingers against the floor. "I used to do stupid stuff all the time, you know? And I kind of got away with it because I wasn't really in charge of anything. I'm still just a kid, Riv."

Rivet didn't have a mouth, so he couldn't actually smile. But from the soft, warm yellow his eyes had gone and how he patted Mikey's head, Mikey imagined he was.

-:-

Even though he wasn't ready to take on the boys again – and he would, that was his goal, to be well enough to be there for them again – Rockwell insisted he maintained regular socialisation with everyone. In an attempt to start a new tradition of sorts, Rockwell decided that once a month everyone had to go to Mikey's lair for a potluck dinner.

Mikey had wanted to do something to help. Partly because it was the right thing to do, but mostly because those idiots were going to blow up his kitchen.

"Rockwell! Casey's using a sword to cut food again!"

Mikey groaned, catching the attention of Raph. The boy peeled his eyes away from the cartoon on TV to stare at Mikey. He just smiled down at the boy in his lap. Raph seemed happy enough with the response, turning back to the TV and snuggling into Mikey's hold a little more.

At least being banned from the kitchen is worth the cuddles, he thought. He leant his head to rest his cheek on top of Raph's head. Leo and Donnie were sitting o his left, playing with Lego he didn't remember having.

The boys were easier in a sense. For the first couple of weeks, when Mikey would come over to the lair it would be wonderful. But when he'd leave everything turned into an ear piercing, snotty, teary, heartbreaking nightmare.

Mike thought he deserved it in some sick way. Not for the running off and partying bit. After two months of being home he'd come to terms with that. But he didn't think he'd tried hard enough in those two months he'd been back.

And no one had really pushed him. None of them could predict how Mikey would do on mood stabilisers. Rockwell had said it was important to build up the list of Mikey's responsibilities again slowly.

"Not that you couldn't manage before," Rockwell said encouragingly. "But your mental battery ran dry. You worked too hard to be ok."

"Dad?"

Mike jumped a little out of his thoughts. "Yeah, Raphie?"

"Can we watch somethin' else?"

Mikey blinked a little. He looked up from Raphie and up at the TV. They were watching Raphie's favourite princess show. This was his favourite episode.

"You sure, bud? I thought you liked this one."

Raph shrugged. "You're not watching."

Oh god.

Oh geez.

"No, no, I am watching, Raphie. I promise. Tell me what's gonna happen, who's the bad guy?"

Raphie frowned a bit and turned back to the TV, hesitantly explaining why the lizard wizard was bad. Mikey listened and stubbornly ignored the tight feeling in his chest and gut. Raphie was still a baby. He thought Mikey didn't like his favourite show and instead of throwing a tantrum like he had so many times when Mikey didn't or couldn't make the time to watch it with him, Raphie wanted to appease Mikey.

Was he worried Mikey would leave again if he got bored?

Was that what he thought to begin with?

Did he think Mike didn't love them anymore? Because they asked for too much?

Raphie shouldn't have been thinking that, he was a brat. The absolute brattiest. Mikey liked him like that, he loved him like that.

"Super princess charge!" Raphie yelled suddenly in tie with the TV, breaking off Mikey's train of thought.

"Is she winning?"

"She's gonna," Raphie said with a conviction Mikey suspected was more from unshakable belief in the heroine than the fact Raphie had gone through a phase of watching this one episode four times a day.

"When's the next episode come out?" Mike asked, squeezing Raphie a little closer.

"Tomorrow," Raphie replied absently, engrossed by the fight scene.

"Then I'll be around tomorrow to watch it with you."

Raphie spun around so quickly he nearly headbutted Mikey. "Really?"

"Really." Mike smiled fondly. "We can make cupcakes before it starts."

"Awesome," Raphie said quietly. "You promise?"

"Promise."

Mike was never one to break his promises. Not when they were this important.


I'm trying to write smaller chapters and post more for this fic. For no other reason than I've missed writing this.