And The Accelerated Healing Factor

"No," Mikey whispered. "I can't do that."

"You've done it before, you know," and April's hands in his were warm and velvety and small and so gentle.

"Those were…emergencies. I was forced to think too fast. There was blood. And…and we had to escape." His soft tenor rasp, with its rounded vowels and slight rising inflection, suddenly took on an edge that worried her.

"This is an emergency! A huge one!"

Beside them, Casey groaned, trying to sit up, and April turned to him, bending over his face. "Casey, you okay?"

"Ngh. I think so. Why's…is my leg broken?"

"You crashed doing a flip, dude," Mike told him, holding up Casey's broken skateboard.

"Oh, man, I love that board!" And Casey's voice was rough with exhaustion and pain. "Should prolly get to a hospital, right?"

"The problem is," April said, "is that your leg is so broken that if we don't fix it now, you'll have permanent damage. The ambulance won't come fast enough."

Casey stared at her, then at Michelangelo. "Hey, wait! Didn't you heal Leo? And Raph?"

Mikey opened his mouth to protest, but the slow agony in the boy's eyes, and the hope, finally spilled over and his empathic senses flooded. "'Kay, I'm gonna try to mend the bones. There's a bunch of little breaks and some big breaks, though…"

"But, you can fix it, right?" Oh, he wished Casey didn't sound so hopeful like that.

Mikey bit his lip and plastered on a big smile. "Do my best, dude!"

April glanced at him in relief.

He put both hands on Casey's bent and twisted right leg, one above the knee and one below. He could already feel the way the smaller bones floated, the way the nerves tingled, and knew that no ambulance medic would be able to do this. And this was his brother's best friend. Hell, this was his brother.

Closing his eyes, Michelangelo let his head drop down as the power sparked and the energy flowed immediately; he rarely had to pull at it lately. Touch a wound and the energy was there, waiting, needing only a conduit. That odd blue electromagnetic force crawled over his skin; he knew that to the others it looked like a glowing aura. He directed it down his arms, through his hands—

-Into the dermal layers, into the tissue, into the muscle, down to the bones. He grabbed as many smaller bones as he could, sharp edges and sheared ends, and the energy knew what to do, and so he turned his focus to the bigger breaks, the separations, the cracks, the fractures. There was so much damage. Blood cells rushed and gathered and swirled. He was pulled down and down, holding and holding while the power went to work, merging with cells and nerves to pull bone fragments together, bit by bit and shard by shard and edge by edge, and he was getting tired, but he couldn't leave, he needed to supply and maintain, and he pushed telepathy into it, the way he'd learned from their alien friend Sirra, encouraging the central nervous system to spark, encouraging the body's own release of neurotransmitters and chemicals. He stayed after the tiniest bit of bone was back in place, but as he watched the larger bones knit slowly so slowly, he felt the universe shudder and shake and he struggled to pull away…

And his own electricity burst into blue-white-purple and it was all he could see, and he was falling…

"-ily, I nev…wanted…all the way…"

"-ot your…fault, Casey…-ew what…was doing."

"…sure he'll be okay?"

Like static and sound, the voices and words slowly cleared until he was floating closer upward to what felt like a ceiling. Beyond it, the voices and words grew stronger.

"We didn't even need an ambulance! I mean, it was totally, totally insane! Little dude fixed up my leg like…wham!"

"I wouldn't say fixed up, Casey, and you really should go to a hospital just in case. I'm not a doctor, I keep telling everyone that."

Oh, Donnie sounded exhausted.

The grayness of the ceiling felt soft and comfortable, and Michelangelo was exhausted himself, and he settled back down, deeper into cotton-like whiteness.

He supposed time went by. When he was able to listen again, it was only his brothers and father. Feebly, he pushed at the ceiling and found it pliable, more like a quilt than hard material. He pushed and his fingers tore through, revealing a summer blue sky, the color of his eyes.

Michelangelo smiled.

He found his sense of physicality quickly, and made a humming sound deep in his throat.

Sounds ceased. Both his hands were being held, and another hand was on his forehead. He pushed that gray ceiling open even wider, tearing like paper, more blue glistening.

"Come on," he heard Leonardo, "time to wake up, bro."

He managed to open his eyes to a full body ache, a feeling of shattered joints and scattered muscle burning. He grunted.

He guessed his brothers knew what noises meant, because Donatello, gripping his other hand, said, "You've been unconscious for just over a day. April made Casey go to the hospital. He's got a leg brace now. You worked so hard you seized a few times in a row, terrified those two. But Casey's gonna be fine."

Mikey smiled and hummed again. Oh gods, he hurt all over. What the hell?

Splinter stroked his forehead and cheek again, and looked into his eyes, and Mikey found an alarming sadness there. His own eyes widened. Uh oh. Now his telepathy was flaring, seeking, but he'd made it stay down enough to never go into his family's underthoughts without permission. He felt himself starting to scan surface thoughts and pulled back. No, he wanted them to tell him.

Donnie must have sensed it, through their link. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. "Okay," he muttered. "So…remember when you were recovering from the big coma and we had you in physical therapy? And I was worried that you'd develop fibromyalgia?"

Michelangelo found his throat, let out a weak cough, and said, "Donnie…"

His brother just looked at him with such a helpless, tired stare that Michelangelo tried to reach out and hug him, realized he couldn't really move, and also realized that the telekinesis was doing it for him. Don stiffened as Mike wrapped invisible arms around him. Mikey quickly let go. He cleared his throat and whispered, "Hey, I can live with chronic pain and fatigue, y'know."

Donatello blinked, and his family all just stared at him.

"Uh," Raph said, "you know it's more than that, yeah?"

"Well, yeah, duh." Mikey smiled. "But if you guys haven't noticed, the psionics have gotten a lot stronger and also a lot more stable. So even with an invisible chronic illness I think I'll manage."

Leonardo was frowning. "What about on patrols, Mikey? What if you become fatigued?"

"Mike shrugged. "Again, that's what the psionics are for."

Raphael sounded angrier than usual. "It was the psionics that did this in the first place!"

"Heh. Yeah. Brain injuries are so weird." He hadn't intended to say it like that, but when they all froze, he realized that perhaps referring to psionics as a brain injury was not quite the best tactic. But it was the closest analogy he could come up with.

His life had already changed forever, what was a few more rattling changes? That was what ninjitsu was about, after all. Adjusting to changes and using that adjustment as a weapon. Besides, there were plenty of legends of shinobi and great masters who were able to concentrate their own pain outward, into an enemy. He could train with Splinter and Leo, he could work with it.

"Bros, relax," he said, and coughed again. "Seriously. I swear I will make this work. After all, it's not like I lost an arm or something."

And Donnie cupped his face and brought their foreheads together. "Gods, you had better not. Sometimes I have nightmares!"

Michelangelo smiled a happy, if weak, genuine grin. "Just get online and help me look up fibromyalgia treatments. I'll take tea and vitamins every day. I'll take even more therapy if I have to. Just promise you won't get too sad and mushy."

Donatello smiled back. "Right now, Mikey, I reserve the right to feel as sad and mushy as I want, and you're going to put up with it until I say you're free to leave the infirmary."

"I'm super totally okay with that, then."

Leo brought an electrolyte drink, and Raphael brought comic books, and Splinter brewed a special tea for pain relief and muscle relaxation, and Mikey made a promise to use his healing energy wisely. And when Michelangelo fell asleep again, he was faintly aware of beds and cots being pushed against his bed, and then his brothers were pressed against him, arms wrapping around him, and he felt his father kiss his forehead, and as he sunk into thick cotton-soft sleep he felt his own power rush through him like a cool breeze, soothing his very own sore muscles and screaming nerves as best it could for its own sake, and Mikey told his newborn personal telekinetic healing factor that that was just fine.

(Author's Note: It's nothing like, say, X-Men, or Heroes. It's going to be as basic and minor as I can make it, since a psionic's ability to heal himself usually comes at the cost of his stamina, etc. Nobody said having cool powers was free of side effects!)