Chapter Text
This is real.
The realization crashes into him like a freight train as he watches Raph rush down the stairs to go help Donnie. To go save Donnie. From what Mikey did.
The world falls into reality around him like a tsunami, as though earplugs have been ripped from his head, sleep torn from his mind. This is real. Everything is real, from Raph’s hands cradling him to Donnie’s body on the ground to the fact that he left him there to the knife in Leo’s wrist to Splinter’s corpse to the all-consuming anger to the misery of his brothers to-
He flinches as a hand settles on his shoulder, jerking over to find worried, curious eyes staring into him. He has looked into these eyes a thousand times, has been held by this very gaze his entire life.
But now, there are no words to accompany it. There is no inquiry into if he is alright, no gears turning quickly behind them to figure out what’s wrong. They don’t dance around him, taking in every little thing that could be contributing to Mikey’s distress - they just stare, fixated, on him, waiting for him to give the answer, to show the wound voluntarily.
Before him, it is and isn’t his brother, and it lands like stones in his gut that this too is real. Leo has a permenant injury. He has lost the brother he knew and all the hopes he had for their future together forever.
Of course. Why would Donnie give up if he saw a sliver of a way that it could be solved? Donnie’s Leo’s brother too, he would’ve cut his own heart out of his chest if it meant saving Leo. He did all that he could do - he returned Leo to them alive.
But Mikey had always been more heart than brains. He believed in Santa the longest, believed in miracles the longest.
He sobs. Leo keens in response, because that is all he can say now. This is all he has left.
Still, familiar arms wrap around his shell, pulling him to Leo’s chest. The bandage around his wrist scratches against his shutes, because Leo had tried to kill himself. Leo had been so convinced that they didn’t want him in this form that he’d tried to kill himself.
Mikey had spent so much time searching for a cure to his own grief that he forgot that Leo was the one dealing with it. He had spent so much time doing nothing but drilling it into Leo’s skull that he did not want this new version of him. They had spent so much time doing nothing but drilling it into Leo’s skull that they did not want this version of him.
Leo had tried to kill himself. He had thought it better for them if he was dead. He had almost lost him on top of losing who he used to be. He had almost lost, forever, hearing his heartbeat as he lay against his chest, feeling his hand petting his head, seeing his eyes light up with joy or look at him with love, having his smell fill his nose.
Gently, he pulls away from the hug, fighting to swallow back his tears. He has to say this. He has to.
He forces himself to focus on Leo’s eyes - concerned and afraid - as he cups his head in his hands. “I love you.”
He inhales shakily, watching as confusion and then forlorn acceptance stirs in Leo’s eyes, pulling his gaze away to look melancholically at the floor. “Not just-not just the old you though” He specifies hurriedly.
Leo’s eyes jerk up like he’s just told him grass isn’t green. Mikey’s heart wails in his chest. “I love this you, too, I love-” He chokes on his own tears, forces them back, and keeps going, finding strength in the way Leo fixates on him with a kind of hope he hasn’t seen in months, “I love you much you care for Dove, and I love the little noises you make when you’re curious or pleased or, or, y’know. They’re like birdsong, and-and we don’t get to hear a lot of that in the sewers. It’s nice.”
He inhales, and it’s a little steadier this time. Leo is looking at him like he’s hanging on to every single word, but more than that, he looks… okay. He doesn’t look upset, he doesn’t look scared, he doesn’t look downtrodden. Mikey wouldn’t go as far as saying that he looks happy but he looks, for the first time in months, like he isn’t miserable.
He’s the one who’s injured, whose pride was lost on the battlefield forever, but even though he’s not cured, even though Mikey hasn’t yet taught him how to read again, he’s okay. He’s okay with it because Mikey loves him.
Because their strength had never lied in their prowess on the battlefield. It had never lied in ninjitsu, or meditation, or anything like that. All of that was merely an offset of their core strength, feathers on the body of the bird of their love.
Mikey had forgotten. They had all forgotten.
“You’re nice. I love you, and that’s a promise.”
At his words, Leo’s eyes soften around the sides, a smile curving at the edges of his lips as a new expression settles on his face.
Oh. That’s what has made the way Leo looks at them so unrecognizable. It’s not that his injury left them emptier, but that for this whole time he had been looking at them like he didn’t recognize them - and why would he? Mikey doesn’t recognize them either - or himself.
But now, his gaze has changed back to the way he used to look at him. At last, he recognizes him, and it strikes Mikey that for once, he isn’t angry.
He isn’t sitting across from his brother, in rehabilation for an injury. He isn’t looking at his brother, broken and in need of repair. He’s just looking at his brother, and his brother is looking back at him.
They’re going to be okay. The knowledge comes not from his head but from his soul, unable to be doubted. They’re all going to be okay. They have each other.
For the first time in months, Mikey smiles from the heart, and for the first time in months as well, Leo returns it.
Mikey stands up, pulling Leo along with him. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. I have to go apologize to Donnie.”