"Why do humans care so much about hair?" Michelangelo asked one evening at the city junkyard, leaning against a broken down refrigerator. "I mean, we look pretty good and we don't have hair."

"Mikey, eitha help me wit dis damn thing or shut da hell up" Raphael growled as he pulled at an old pleather chair with a huge stain on one of the armrests. He and his two other brothers were scavenging for supplies they could fix up, requested by heir sensei.

"But Ra~aphie" the sea green mutant whined, "I don't wanna..."

"Michelangelo, get down here and help" Leonardo ordered the youngest as he liked through an assorted pile of cords and spare wire. Baby blue eyes glared at Leo as Mikey stuck his tongue out at his brother.

"Why da hell do we need anotha chair fer anyway?" Raph grunted as he rethought his grip on the furniture.

"Because" Donatello's voice sounded from another large pile, "You and Mikey abuse the one we have right now when you play video games and watch TV. Its better to have an extra at the ready when it finally gives than to wait until we're left without one."

Knowing that the battle had been lost, Raphael muttered to himself as he trudged over to the Shellraiser with the chair in tow. Mikey huffed as he fiddled with a broken antenna belonging to a smashed radio. He always needed to have some form of entertainment to occupy himself, and scavenging was not going to cut it. He gave a bored expression as he watched his brothers.

Leo was obviously looking for a certain kind of cord since he was spending a lot of time on a certain knot of them. Mikey didn't want to bother him because he knew Leo would suck him into helping him using his Fearless Leader powers.

Raph was focused on pushing the chair into the back of the Shellraiser; the orange-banded terripan loved his limbs too much to try and mess with him when he was handling heavy stuff.

All that left him was Donnie. Making a decision, Mikey leapt off the pile of junk he was sitting on and made his way over to the genius mutant. He could tell that his brother was sorting through what looked like smashed radio parts. As he got closer, he noticed that Donatello seemed to be fiddling with what looked like a small, plastic pencil box. Curiosity took over Mikey's mind and he spoke.

"Whatcha got there, Donnie?" he asked as he peered over the brainiac's shoulder, catching a glimpse of what appeared to be tapes before his brother reacted. He jumped with surprise and slammed the box shut before turning to glare toward his younger brother.

"Mikey! Would you please not do that?!" Donatello snapped as he gripped the container until his normally green knuckles turned white, "I could have been holding something we needed and you would have scared me into dropping it!"

"Uh huh, sure. So what's in the box?" the orange-banded brother questioned again, apparently unphased by Donnie's words.

"That is none of your business" the genius huffed as he turned away from him.

"Ooh! So its something secret?" Mikey interjected as he followed his brother, "What, you got your diary in there? Can I read it? Pretty please with hot chili peppers on top?!"

"No!" Don said firmly as he fought to keep the box out of Mikey's curious and destructive hands.

"Aw c'mon, Don, just one little peek?" Mikey continued as he reached over to touch the lid.

"Michelangelo, if you so much as even look at this box, I swear I will tie you down and force you to watch me disassemble your PS3!" Don threatened as he stepped away from his brother.

"What's going on?" Leonardo suddenly interjected, holding a pile of knotted cords and wires in his hands.

"Donnie's got a secret box and he won't let me see what's in it" Mikey announced as he pointed toward the bo-wielder. The leader in blue rose a brow at his youngest brother before turning to his second-youngest brother.

"Don?"

"He's meddling with my things again" he said somewhat nonchalantly, keeping the box held tight under his arm. Leo noticed just how tight Don was holding that box, but he held his tongue as he turned to his other brother.

"Michelangelo, leave Donatello alone. I'm still trying to untangle these" he said as he held up the knot of cables and wires, "and I could use your help."

"Aww c'mon, Leo!" whined the sea green mutant. The eldest simply rose a brow at him in a threatening manner that quickly took its desired effect upon the other. "...Dammit, fine!" Mikey huffed as he followed Leo, but not before looking over his shoulder to watch as Donnie hid the box inside a drawer to one of the broken dressers.

He was going to find out what the genius was hiding, one way or another.

It was around two o'clock in the morning when Mikey slipped out of bed and out of the Lair. The journey itself to the junkyard was uneventful, but finding exactly where Don had his the box was a whole other story. Mikey was having a hard time trying to remember exactly WHERE he and his brothers had been in the junkyard earlier, and none of his surroundings looked familiar in the slightest.

On more than one occasion, he questioned exactly WHY he cared so much about finding that pencil box as he searched through pile upon pile of junk.

"That's easy" he mumbled to himself, "because I HAVE to know. If Donnie-boy's hiding something, then I wanna know what." The sea green turtle knew that since Don was usually so open with his brothers, that whatever he was hiding must be very juicy. Especially since his brother went to such measures as to hide it OUTSIDE of his lab.

It had been about a half an hour now and Mikey still had no luck finding his prize. Try as he might, every garbage pile looked the same to him and he was getting confused and turned around at every turn.

"This bites" he grunted as he finally decided to rest against an old couch that had a couple of springs sticking out of the back. "Snooping shouldn't be THIS hard..." Unbeknownst to the mutant turtle, the junk that supported the broken furniture was giving out, and before Mikey could react, the couch slid off its perched and hurled both itself and the mutant down the mountain of trash. A loud crash sounded through the junkyard upon impact, followed by a pained groan as Mikey slowly pulled himself out of the debris.

"Man... I think I knocked my shell loose" he mumbled as he reached out to anchor himself as he got up. His eyes followed where his hand had held on, and was met with an old, broken down dresser. It took a moment for it to register in Mikey's brain, but once it did, an earsplitting grin spread across his lips. This was in fact the same dresser from earlier that same evening.

'Jackpot' thought Mikey as he silently congratulated himself. Quickly shaking off the pain from the fall, Michelangelo began to fumble through the drawers of the beaten up dresser, searching for the object of his desire. After almost ten minutes, thick digits finally brushed over plastic as Mikey searched the very bottom drawers. With an even bigger smile, Mikey grabbed the case and pulled it out, doing a celebratory fistpump.

Sitting down on an intact portion of the sofa, Mike sat the old pencil case on his lap and flipped open the lid before peering inside. What he saw confused him.

"Tapes?" he questioned. Indeed, the case contained at least five tapes, each one small and jet black. The only clue he had as to what was on them was the small bit of masking tape on them, each one having almost the exact same label: "For further research/Entry #1", "For further research/Entry #2", etc."

Mikey just didn't understand. He knew that some of Donnie's projects were somewhat questionable, but he had never gone to such lengths to keep them private as to hide them outside of the Lair. What could Don be hiding that he felt the need to be so secretive about it?

"Only one way to find out" Mikey concluded as he shut the case and stood up, a large grin on his face. "Tomorrow night, I'm having a private movie night~" he said in a singsong voice. And with that, Mikey leapt of the pile of junk and began the journey home.

"Seriously think I hurt my shell though..."