Chapter Text
It had been a couple of weeks now. It was weird. Really weird.
As much as Donnie hated to admit it, he’d gotten used to the apartment. He’d gotten used to how close everything was, and how being there was as close to having normal lives as they’d really get in that regard.
But he was still so, so glad that they weren’t there anymore. For a variety of reasons really, but of course one of the main ones was the fact that he had his own room again. Though, of course, Leo would break in to sleep on the floor more times than he would get it to himself.
At this point they should just get bunk beds.
But another thing he liked about the new lair was that they could just dip out in the middle of the afternoon to go sit on top of a building and stare across the city. He didn’t have to worry about anyone realizing he was just straight up disappearing. For all they knew, he was somewhere else in the super huge subway system.
Well, except for Leo of course. It seemed like Leo could just sense everything his twin was up to. Sometimes it was comforting, and sometimes it was the exact opposite. Like right now.
“Do you think we’d survive jumping off of the building from this height?”
Donnie slowly turned to stare at his brother, “okay, one, what the hell? Also, two, didn’t you try that already?”
Leo rolled his eyes, “I didn’t jump off the building, I was thrown off of it, and Big Mama’s hotel is a lot taller than this building so I think my chances would be better.” He turned back to staring over the ledge, “also I was just curious how durable our shells are. I think that the average 12 year old would have just died if they were thrown off of a roof, but I was just left with chronic back pain.”
“You say that as if it’s not a whole issue on its own,” Donnie crossed his arms, “considering the fact that your shell already apparently has internal damage, I wouldn’t recommend jumping off of the roof.”
“Well obviously I wouldn’t actually jump off of the roof,” Leo said, “it was a hypothetical. Y’know, one of those thoughts you get when you’re looking down from a tall height or when you have something sharp in your hand.”
Donnie scrunched up their beak, his sharpie eyebrows narrowing, “your brain works in weird ways, ‘Nardo.”
Leo snorted out a quick laugh, leaning to the side so he could flick his brother at the end of his snoot, “you’re one to talk, Don-tron.”
Dona suppressed their own laugh, instead opting to fix the adjustment of his glasses against his face and turn back to the city-scape. He stared across at the bright, flashing lights (and incredibly loud noises) of New York, still not able to shake one specific thing that seemed to be bugging him.
“I feel like we’re missing something–” he finally said out loud, “were we supposed to be doing something right now? It’s really bugging me and I don’t know what it is.”
Leo seemed to be deep in thought for a few moments, “not anything that I can think of.. Unless it’s just slipped my mind.” he blinked a couple of times before letting out a frustrated exhale, “well now you’ve got me worried about this too!”
Before they were able to come to any sort of conclusion, they were interrupted by a very prominent whooshing sound, followed almost immediately by the sound of metal clashing against metal. One blink later, and Mikey was stumbling onto the roof with them.
“Oh hey Mikey!” Leo waved, “come here to watch the city with us?”
“Also by the way Angelo,” Donnie pointed out, “your foot’s on fire.”
Mikey, who was in the middle of answering Leo’s question, immediately looked down at their foot, which was in fact housing a small flame. The source of the flame was likely from their odd method of getting on top of the roof, as the unraveled kusari-fundo would lead Donnie to believe.
The box turtle immediately let out an alarmed squeal, shaking their foot until the flame had been extinguished. Though Mikey seemed – at least relatively – flame-proof, Donnie still presumed it probably would not be fun to be on fire.
In an uncontrolled setting anyway. Being on fire would probably be super fun with the right parameters involved.
On top of a random roof was not the right parameters.
Once the fire was out, Mikey looked back up at the other two, “okay, I think it’s fine now.”
“Alright, well that’s good to know,” Leo started, “anyway, back to my question, whatcha doin’ up here Miguel?”
Mikey gestured behind themself at the direction they’d normally head to get to the lair or the garage, “Raph sent me. Since we, y’know, were supposed to start training a while ago?”
Donnie blinked, sharing a quick glance with Leo. “Oh, so that’s what it was..”
“I only had a vague idea of where you guys would have gone,” Mikey continued, “I knew you must have been up here somewhere but I wasn’t sure exactly where, so I’ve been looking for a while.”
Donnie hissed inwardly through his teeth, “do you think it’s too late to head back now and hope that she isn’t too mad? I mean.. If we rush there–”
Leo looked up at the sky. From where they were, they could see that the sun was already starting to set, when they’d agreed to training around noon. He clicked his tongue, “uhhh no, probably not.”
He tapped his fingers together, “I don’t think we’re gonna have enough time to get good training in by the time we get back— so who’s up for not going home just to get scolded? We could put it off for a while, it’s not like it’s killing anyone.”
That didn’t convince Donnie in the slightest, “I don’t think that’s exactly a good idea. I mean, you know how passionate Raph gets about making sure we’re prepared for things.”
“Buuuut,” Mikey countered, “Leo is right that we won’t have enough time to actually train well. So if we stay out now, we can just tell Raph that we’ll train extra later. That should fix things, right?”
Leo snapped his fingers, “I like how you think, Mikey!”
Donnie looked between the two a couple times, before eventually getting out a deep breath and surrendering.
Let’s just hope we don’t get into too much trouble for this.
———
To be completely honest, Mikey preferred this to training anyway.
What was really the point of it all? What was training really doing for them? Just making sure they knew what they were doing? They were already sure of that!
They’d managed to take down an entire demon suit of armor with minimal training, and nothing they’d faced since then had even come close. Not that that was a bad thing, Mikey honestly would have liked to not have to fight anything after that, but when your standards for fights are that high everything else seems much easier.
It’s not like they’d have to fight anything like that again, right? And Mikey had already mastered their mystics as far as they were concerned. What could be better than being able to throw whatever you wanted around? Especially when that “whatever” includes yourself? They found it hard to believe that they really needed much training in order to do that.
With all of those factors combined, Mikey never really looked forward to training. Having another excuse to just not do it was better. Even if it did make Raph a little mad, they were sure that she would get over it eventually.
Watching the sunlight dim around them as they stared across the city was much better in comparison.
Was New York really the best place for this? No, not at all. In fact, within the general area it was probably one of the worst. But watching as the light of the sun slowly got replaced by the colorful lights of the city was still pretty in its own right.
“We should have ordered pizza or something for this,” they finally spoke. “I feel like that would be awesome.”
“It is awesome, actually,” Donnie agreed, “and maybe we should. I’m gonna see if I can get Shelldon to bring some.”
Leo chuckled, “you’re gonna ‘see if you can get him to’?”
Donnie shrugged, “I can’t make Shelldon do anything. I can ask him to, but he’s decided that with a new upgrade comes a ‘rebellious’ phase.”
Mikey couldn’t help but laugh at that, “oh, so like you?”
“Rebellious teenager’s robot son becomes a rebellious teenager,” Leo elbowed Donnie in the side, “who woulda thought?”
Donnie looked up from whatever he was typing on the screen in his arm to glare at the both of them, “keep that up and I don’t order the pizza.”
Leo made a short humming noise, “y’know what, toss out whatever pizzas you were going to order and order a hundred and twenty five instead! I think I’m gonna go for your record.”
Mikey watched as Donnie’s eyes grew wide for a split moment before narrowing again, “you can’t, that just isn’t possible.”
Leo smirked, “I can, and I WILL! Order those pizzas and then we’ll see who's right!” He turned to Mikey, “I think we need this challenged with an unbiased view around.”
“Well–” Mikey drew the sound out, “I wouldn’t exactly say unbiased, but probably less biased than Shelldon. I definitely want to see you try and break Donnie’s stack record!”
Leo turned to Donnie, “see Tello? Now You HAVE to do it! You can’t let Mikey down, right?”
The two of them looked at Donnie with their best attempts at puppy eyes, and clearly they managed to work because within moments Donnie sighed in defeat and began typing on the screen again.
Mikey turned to Leo and they shared a victorious high-five.
“One final crucial step for this challenge to begin,” Leo stood up, stretching himself for a second, “race you two to the Brooklyn Bridge!”
He immediately ran off without giving the two a second to process what he’d just said.
“Hey!” Mikey called out, immediately giving chase, “that’s not fair!”
Once Donnie finally finished the order, Mikey could hear him rushing to catch up to the two of them. Without any warning, Leo ripped a portal into the air with his sword and jumped into it with a playful “byeee!”
“Good to know mystics is on the table,” Mikey said, grabbing the handle of their kusari-fundo, “that certainly changes things.”
If they tried, they could get there before Leo. As long as he didn’t cheat and portal right to the bridge.
But even if he did cheat, Mikey knew this was what they’d been wanting. Chaos without danger, the fun of getting to hang out with their family without all of the worrying..
And yeah, getting to swing through the air some more was a nice bonus.
But even without that, they couldn’t help but smile to themself.
Yeah.. things were okay for now. They were okay for now.
They just hoped that “now” would last a little bit longer than a couple of airborne moments.
THE End
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