I had this idea some time ago, since before Donatello found out that April's blood was one of the essential components to prepare the retromutagen; so have that in mind when you read.
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::::: BACK TO THE BASICS :::::
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How many times Donatello had warned his baby brother to stay away from his lab because he was afraid that Mikey could provoke an accident that might affect his health or even his life? It had been so many that he needed an executive secretary to keep track of them.
But despite the warnings of all, his father included, it seemed like Mikey was put on Earth just to be swayed by his insatiable curiosity. He, driven by his innocence and naivety, strongly believed that if he was given the opportunity, he could help his smartest brother to find out a cure for the mutagen.
Several times, as the weeks went by, Donatello stayed up following a lead that seemed to promise to give him, at last, a solution to the problem which had caused a lot of pain to the girl he liked so much, April.
The young genius was very excited because he thought that soon he would help the redhead girl to retrieve the father she had lost due to the strange alien substance. But he always found himself at a dead end and that filled him with frustration. Mikey was aware of it.
One particular day, when Mikey was in front of the T.V. watching the midnight horror movie, Donatello came out of his lab, the tiredness and hassle written all over his face. Without even saying Goodnight to his baby brother, Donatello locked himself in his room and soon after, he allowed himself to sink into his bed due to the fatigue.
Everyone in the lair was already asleep. That thought gave Mikey an idea. Without turning the T.V. off to make it appear that he was still watching it, he snuck out to the forbidden territory, his bro's lab.
A large table served Donatello as a small makeshift chemical lab; lots of flasks were on the table, all of them almost filled with substances of pretty colors. Only Mikey knew what prompted him to begin to mix a bit of the content of every flask into a big glass beaker.
The young turtle didn't rule out the content of none flask. The mixture of liquids he was preparing, included a squirt or droplets of every liquid he didn't recognize, but for him they were very attractive. He only stopped when the mixture began to steam a little, and then changed color, going from a sort of light green to a very bright orange.
"WOW! It's a pretty color! I'm sure I have created a new soft drink! I bet it has a great flavor!" Mikey muttered, relishing in the result. "I'm going to taste it." He thought.
The prankster grabbed the glass beaker to have a sip of his new 'soda' but he stopped right away at feeling that the glass beaker was a bit warm.
"Yuck! Warm soda tastes nasty! I will pour some of this in a glass and put it in the fridge. And tomorrow it will be fresh." After thinking, Mikey went to the kitchen, took a normal glass, and did it, but only half of the liquid was enough to fill the glass.
After putting the glass in the fridge, Mikey disposed of the rest of the mixture, dumping it in one of the sewer tunnels.
"That's it. Now nobody can copy my formula. My soft drink will be a sensation and I will be rich!" Mikey laughed as he made his way back home. When he got there, he turned off the T.V. and went to sleep.
The next morning, just after he woke up, he heard a yell from his brother in purple, "MICHELANGELO!" The young turtle got out of bed and went where his brother was.
"Geez, what made him notice I was there? I even threw away the glass beaker I used to prepare my soda."
"MIKEY! Why you have been playing in my lab!?" The young genius asked him very angry.
"Why do you think it was me!?" Mikey replied trying to defend himself.
"Because you are the only one who doesn't listen to reason or warning, you fool! Besides, all my flasks are graduated so I can say there is a lack of liquids! Right now you could be dead for being so reckless!"
"Don't be angry, Donnie..." Mikey muttered with a remorseful voice as an excuse. He noticed that his brother's anger was caused by fear that something bad could happen to him. "I just prepared a soda, don't worry."
Upon hearing the word "soda", drops of a cold sweat began to roll down from Donatello's forehead.
Donatello grabbed Mikey by his shoulders and shook him as he yelled at him, he was nearly hysterical: "YOU DIDN'T DRINK IT, DID YOU?"
"No! I didn't!" Mikey answered, rubbing his neck, he was a little upset about the stiff neck he got after his brother had shaken him. Donatello let out a sigh of relief.
"The soda was warm, so I put it in the fridge to cool it down," Mikey added, his brother's fears came back to him like a pack of hungry wolves.
"Why didn't you tell me that in the first place!?" Donatello yelled, pushing his baby brother aside and then running to the kitchen like a fast car. "You didn't ask me!" Mikey yelled.
Donatello ran as fast as a lightning across the living room where his big brothers were. Raphael was reading a magazine and Leonardo was sitting in front of the T.V. The young genius turtle began to look for the glass in the fridge, but all the containers inside it were full of food. The only liquids inside were two bottles of water and a milk carton.
During the frantic searching, Michelangelo was already by the side of his brother. "Where did you put it, Mikey!? I can't find it!"
Mikey frowned and took a look inside the fridge. "That's weird... I poured it in a glass that looked like the one that is on the dish rack..."
Those words made Donatello's blood run cold, someone had drunk the liquid and had washed the glass.
Right at that moment Raphael got into the kitchen. "What are you two up to? Why are you running like crazy?"
Donatello didn't want to scare his brother so he asked him calmly: "Raph, ¿did you drink the liquid that was in this glass?"
"At first I thought I would do it, but when I realized it was orange soda I asked Leo if he wanted it, you know it's his favorite flavor..." Before Raphael could finish the explanation, his two brothers went pale, got out of the kitchen and went to the living room.
In front of the T.V., everything their big brother used to wear was lying on the floor. His knee pads, elbow pads, the bandages of his feet and hands, his belt, his katanas inside their scabbards and his bandana.
The three turtles were standing there like they were paralyzed looking at their big brother's belongings when all of a sudden they saw something that was moving under the fabric of Leo's bandana.
"What's that?" Mikey asked, gently lifting the bandana a little. Right under, a tiny turtle was trying to get out from under the fabric. Little Mikey picked the tiny turtle up very carefully and put it in the palm of his hand. Raphael and Donatello got closer, they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"I didn't know Leo had bought a pet..." Mikey said, earning a big knock on the head from Raphael.
"Of course not, silly!" Donatello yelled at him, taking the tiny turtle from the hand of his baby brother. "It is... Leo..." The smart turtle finally said, recognizing the shade of green of his big brother's skin. "Do you have any idea what this means. Mikey?
"Does it mean I won't make a fortune with my new soda?" He got another knock on the head from Raphael.
"It means you have found the retromutagen! Just you and your good luck could have accomplished this!" Donatello finished that sentence whispering it, without believing that just in one night his baby brother has found the remedy by sheer chance.
"Do you still have some of it, Mikey?" At hearing the question the prankster scratched his head, a clear sign that he didn't want to answer the question but he ended up answering: "No. I don't. I threw it away in the sewer system, I didn't want anybody to steal the formula of my new soda..." Third knock in the head from Raphael.
"Stop saying that word!" Donatello yelled once again, beginning to lose his temper. "The bad news is that Leo washed the glass after drinking the liquid... there is nothing left to analyze..." Donnie mentioned in despair.
"The lesson here is: don't be so clean," Mikey said, trying to be witty. This time a big smack on the head almost knocked him to the floor. "Stop hitting me, Raph!" The freckled turtle complained.
Donatello asked Raphael to take care of Leo, then he almost dragged Mikey to his lab.
In spite of the fact that Raphael hit Mikey every time he said a silly thing, he had limited himself to stare with a huge curiosity at the brother who had returned to his original form.
Neither Donatello nor Michelangelo had realized that their grumpy brother had remained silent during the whole time they were bickering. The tough turtle was a little confused when Donnie asked him to look after their tiny big brother.
As soon as Donatello got into his lab with Mikey, Raphael stared again at the little being that was in the palm of his hand. For just a second he felt that the tiny turtle was staring at him with curiosity too.
The small size and obvious fragility of Leo's original body, aroused a deep feeling of tenderness in the ninja in red like he had never felt before. The tiny eyes looking at him seemed to reflect admiration.
Gently, Raphael got close to the steps they used as seats and placed the tiny turtle on one of the cushions. As soon as he did it, the small turtle began to give off weird sounds, like he was complaining about the change of place.
Raphael was completely confused, he didn't know what to do, so he picked the tiny turtle up again and held him between his hands. When the small turtle felt that he was being picked up, he stopped complaining.
"Well, well... so you do like to be held by someone, don't you?" The ninja in red muttered as he smiled, he had discovered something he didn't know about his big brother. The corners of Raphael's lips got down as his smile disappeared to make way to an expression of amazement at seeing that the tiny Leo was rubbing his little face against one of Raphael's fingers like he was thanking him.
Raphael looked in all directions to make sure nobody was looking at him and when he was absolutely sure, he touched the tiny turtle's head with his lips giving him a soft kiss. Raphael laid down on one of the steps and found himself placing his small brother on one of his shoulders, just the way he used to do it with Spike.
Little Leo slowly walked over Raph's shoulder until he got to the space between the skin and the plastron of the tough turtle, just above his collarbone. Once there, the tiny turtle hid his limbs and head inside his shell and closed his eyes to take a nap. And then, suddenly, Raphael felt awfully happy seeing how his now small brother was showing him he was pretty comfortable being with him.
Meanwhile, in the lab...
"Please, Mikey, concentrate you have to remember the order in which you mixed the fluids..." Donatello begged his baby brother once again, patience and calmness lacing his voice.
"Let me think..." Mikey really was trying his best to remember the order he had added every liquid to the main container, but he couldn't and he began to get desperate.
"I don't know! I can't remember! I'm so sorry Donnie!" Mikey exclaimed, feeling very guilty. Donatello gave up the idea that his baby brother could remember everything he had done, so he got close to him, gave him a big hug and said: "Don't worry Mikey, at least now I know which substances you used and the quantity. It will take me some time to find the right order, but you have helped me to make considerable progress."
"Why don't you put them all together at the same time and that's it?" Mikey asked him, feeling calmer.
"Sometimes the chemical reactions are very specific and require a precise order to work properly, Mikey. That's why I can't mix them in a random order. But don't worry, now, the most important is to get Leo back to his original form; well... you know what I mean."
"Is it going to take a long time?" The younger turtle asked.
"A day or two, I just have to calculate the precise dose for the exact change. The first time, we were lucky little brother. A coincidence made it possible. Thanks to our individual genes, the time and the amount of mutagen to which we were exposed, our qualities and defects became more notorious resulting in what we are today. I hope Leonardo can get back all his memories and experiences or he will have to begin from the start, already being a teenager. Mikey didn't like that possibility at all, if that happened, they would have to get by without a leader for a while.
To keep his baby brother away from the sad thoughts, the smarter turtle told him: "You go and see how Leo is doing, help Raph to take care of him." Swiftly, the smile came back to Mikey's face.
"I'm gonna be the best brother to Leo now that he has become so tiny!"
Raphael couldn't take his eyes off his now tiny 'big brother'. Leonardo, at that moment, had little in common with old Spike, but the ninja in red perfectly knew that the feeling inside his heart was different from the attachment to a pet. Even though Leonardo had come back to his essential form, the brotherly love of him to his big brother was still the same.
For a second, Raphael thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad his brother could remain in that form... at least for a while. Maybe the others hadn't realized, but with all the problems The Kraang and Shredder were causing, Leonardo, little by little spent more and more time at his father's side to hone his abilities and, very subtly, he was beginning to stop doing the fun stuff he was used to do.
Clearly, Raphael had heard the potent exclamation of happiness from his baby brother and quickly took the tiny turtle that was resting over his body and placed him on the nearest cushion. He grabbed a magazine and pretended he was reading it.
As soon as the little turtle felt he had been moved away from his comfy place, began to complain again. The first thing Mikey heard as he approached the place his brother in red was resting, were the faint sounds coming from his tiny big brother.
"Poor Leo, what did you do to him, Raphael? Why is he crying?" Mikey asked a bit annoyed upon noticing the well played indifference of the ninja in red after hearing the complaints of the tiny turtle.
"I didn't do anything to him, knucklehead! He was already making noises since you left... maybe he is hungry!" Raphael yelled at his baby brother so he won't notice his nervousness.
Gently, Mikey picked Leo up and directly went to the kitchen to give his big brother something to eat. Halfway he noticed the tiny turtle was rubbing his small face against one of his fingers. Michelangelo's simple and loving heart made him let out a sigh of tenderness. For the first time, since the incident, he was happy because of what had happened.
Mikey put the small turtle on the hard surface of concrete they used as a table in the kitchen and began to cock breakfast. He never thought that his brother in that state couldn't reason as before; besides, the prankster hadn't become aware that his tiny big brother couldn't stay still. It was a dangerous combination.
Little Leo began to walk and Mikey didn't notice, wrapped up in keeping an eye on what he had on the stove. A brief second after Leo had reached the edge of the surface used as a table, the sound of a body crashing against the "table" was heard, it really scared Mikey.
The freckled turtle immediately turned around to find out what had happened. As he turned around, Raphael got up off the floor with Leo in one of his hands, giving the prankster a furious look.
"Leo almost falls to the floor, you big fool! Weren't you keeping an eye on him?" The tough turtle scolded his baby brother, putting the little one he had just saved on the table once again. "If I wouldn't have come to have breakfast, he would have gotten hurt!"
"Are you nuts, Raph? You are talking about Leo! He is a great ninja!" Mikey replied, not realizing he was being a fool and he emphasized his words with a huge silly smile.
"HE WAS! Now he is a normal turtle." Raphael yelled at him, not being able to believe that Mikey didn't understand the serious situation.
"That's not true! Maybe he is tiny, but Leo hasn't ceased being who he is..." Mikey exclaimed, reminding once again the fears his mind had given birth after his smarter brother has mentioned him his own fears. "I'm going to show you that Leo is still the same!" Mikey assured him, leaving the kitchen and heading to his room. At that time the smarter turtle also came to have breakfast too.
"Where did Mikey go?" Donatello asked Raphael as he took a seat beside his brother. But first he turned the stove off; Mikey had forgotten it was on.
"He went to his room yelling; somehow he is convinced Leo is still the same." Raphael replied as he looked at the small turtle that was in his hand, he understood the feelings of his baby brother. It seemed that Donatello drew all the attention of the tiny turtle because since he got to the kitchen, Leonardo was staring at him intently.
To be continued…