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You’ve been away for a long time — too long, you know this, and your guilt and your family’s anger about that has been established and fought over and dealt with, mostly — but you’re still intimately familiar with the signs of an impending major thunderstorm. Even high on the rooftops, the air is thick with humidity and heat, making you think of long days and nights in the jungle, where it often rained with an almost clockwork precision — torrential storms that lasted for twenty to thirty minutes in the early afternoon, breaking the sweltering humidity and providing at least some small measure of relief, only to repeat again the next day.
New York storms aren’t like that. This one definitely won’t be; the first clouds are starting to appear off in the distance, and while they don’t look threatening now, you know that within a matter of hours the sky will be filled with angry gray clouds and flashes of lightning. “Storm of the Summer,” you’ve been hearing in the television and radio warnings filtering up from the open apartment windows below you; it has the potential to cause serious subway and sewer flooding.
You finish your last kata on the top of this twenty-story high rise — an exercise to try and continue your readjustment back to New York’s noises and smells, which can still overwhelm you even seven months after your return — and head back toward the lair.
Raph’s already started the protocols when you return to the lair; two duffel bags of canned goods and another watertight bag bulging with some of the family’s treasures sit near the door, ready to grab at a moment’s notice. This lair had been selected partially because it was in a strategic location to avoid flash flooding, but you know from firsthand experience that that’s no guarantee.
Better safe than sorry — that you also know from painful experience because you’ve been sorry more than you’ve been safe, especially when it comes to the wellbeing of your family.
Not anymore. Never again.
“Good timing, Fearless,” Raph says, emerging from one of the back rooms with two sandbags slung over his shoulders. “Help me make a barrier outside the door. Donnie’s entire computer system got fried by that hurricane last year when water came in, and I don’t want a repeat of the two weeks that followed.”
“Let me guess — nonstop caffeine and not enough sleep?” you ask as you one of the bags from your brother, trying to keep your voice light despite the knife-like twist in your chest from the new knowledge of another threat to your brothers that came and went in the midst of those years you were gone.
So many times your family could have died, and you wouldn’t even have known.
“Turned up to maximum overdrive,” Raph replies, giving you an inscrutable look as he leads you out the entrance and to the right. “Not only did we end up having to eat ramen for a month before he was able to work again, but I had to get April to come down and stage an intervention so he could actually sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time. Mikey finally started swapping out half his coffee with decaf just to try and get him back down to reasonable levels. Still does it, actually; I don’t think Don’s ever noticed.”
“Where are they?” you ask, adding your bag to the two-foot wall Raph has already constructed.
“Splinter was already at April and Casey’s, so he’s just going to hunker down there,” he says. “Don and Mike made one last run to the dump to see if there was anything worth saving before the rain ruins it completely; I think they needed to get a few things for Mikey’s van, too. They should be back shortly.”
You nod and then spend the next half hour working in silence alongside your brother building the sandbag wall up to nearly five feet in height, moving some of the nicer furniture up to the upper levels, making sure the backup generator Donnie built years ago has enough fuel and is adequately protected from any possible water that could come in, and bringing all the mats and equipment from the dojo to higher ground.
It’s a surprisingly comfortable silence. Things with Raph are far better than they were when you first got home, in the days leading up to that great battle at Winters’ tower, but you and Raph still argue more often than not. Maybe you always will. In reality, you haven’t been able to fall into the same level of camaraderie with your brothers that you’d had growing up — you’re all too different, too changed by everything that has happened.
And while you still sometimes miss that easy brotherhood of your youth, in some ways, this is better. The clan was fractured — largely because of you, you know that, you will always know that, and it will haunt you forever — but nevertheless your brothers have chosen to let you back in, slowly but surely. You would’ve walked away if they’d asked it of you, no matter the fact that it would have killed you, but even at their angriest they wouldn’t send you away forever, even though they should have. They chose to stay a family, and that makes this bond something you’re determined to protect until your final breath.
You hear your brothers’ voices long before you see them, and both you and Raph are moving to meet them at the entrance — because you can both hear Don speaking in the humorous but strained tone he only gets when he’s trying to coax a brother through pain by distracting them, and you can hear the kind of laugh Mikey gives when he’s trying to convince someone that he’s fine, honestly, he’s fine.
A moment later, they appear; Mikey’s dragging a heavy bag behind him with one arm, and the other is slung around Don’s shoulders. Don’s clearly supporting a majority of Mikey’s weight, and the younger turtle is practically hopping on one leg, trying to avoid putting any weight on the other.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, heart rate picking up a little as you look your youngest brother and see no signs of blood, no obvious broken bones, or anything that would suggest something other than a serious internal injury.
“My damn thigh cramped up again, and I can’t get it to stop,” Mikey hisses, letting the bag go to grab at his leg. Next to you, Raph’s shoulders relax as he and Don exchange tired but knowing looks, and you frown at the knowledge you’re missing something again.
Mikey notices the look on your face and tries to grin reassuringly. If you were anyone but a brother, maybe you would’ve bought it, but you see the strain in the lines of his face and the way his eyes don’t light up like when he genuinely smiles. “Don’t worry, Leo, it’ll be fine — it always is. Just need a little time and some muscle relaxants or something. It’s fine.”
“Do you still have some of that herbal paste that Master Splinter always used on our sore muscles when we were training as kids?” you ask Don.
Don gives you a long, long look; of all your brothers, he’s the one who’s been the most skeptical of you since your return. His relationship with Raph had been strained, too, though that seems to be rebounding a little faster, thankfully. You keep your face neutral as you look back at him.
“No,” he says finally, “but April brought down a jar of Tiger Balm once, which should be in the first aid kit.”
You nod and hold out one arm slightly. “If you want, Mikey, I might be able to massage it out,” you offer. “I kinda had to learn how — I got a lot of muscle cramps the first year I was… well, let’s just say constant training in the high heat doesn’t do your muscles any favors.”
Mikey looks at Don and Raph for the briefest of moments before he shrugs and tugs his arm out of Don’s grasp. “Worth a shot — show me what you’ve got, bro,” he says easily, limping over to lean against you.
“Raph, go grab the balm out of the first aid kit, and then I could use a hand if you’re free — I want to move all my hard drives to the upper levels and unplug everything from the walls,” Don says, picking up the bag Mikey had dropped. “It’ll be a pain, but it’s better than having to rewire everything.”
“You got it,” Raph replies, following Don and leaving you and Mikey standing in the doorway.
“Can you make it upstairs to your room or do you want to go to the couch?” you ask.
“Couch,” Mikey says immediately, which is a worrying sign. Mikey isn’t as stubborn as Raph when it comes to admitting his injuries, but, like his brothers, he’s never been one to admit readily to any kind of weakness. “Definitely the couch.”
As the two of you make your way over to the old and sagging couch that you and Raph hadn’t bothered trying to move to higher ground, you study your brother out of the corner of your eye. It’s strange to see Michelangelo, who usually moves with such easy natural grace, struggle to even take a step. And it sets off every one of your older brother protect-protect senses when his face twists in pain, or when he lets out a low hiss after having to hop over one of his skateboards lying abandoned on the floor.
But judging by your brothers’ reactions, this is something that happens on a fairly regular basis. That’s a very troubling thought; it takes a traumatic injury for that kind of recurring pain.
“Where does it hurt the worst?” you ask as you ease Mikey down onto the couch.
“You mean besides everywhere?” Mikey quips through clenched teeth as he rubs his thigh. He huffs a sigh and forces his body to relax a little. “Back of the leg.”
“Okay,” you say. “Lie down on your stomach, then, that’ll make this a little easier.” At the sound of Raph’s sharp whistle, you hold up your hand and snatch the pot of Tiger Balm he tosses you without even looking.
Mikey lets out a genuine laugh. “Leo, tell the truth — you’re a Jedi, right?” he asks as he stretches out on the couch.
“These are not the droids you’re looking for,” you reply, perching on the edge of the couch and unscrewing the cap on the jar; the sharp smell of Tiger Balm immediately fills the air. “Sorry, little brother, this is probably going to hurt a lot at first.”
“No pain, no gain,” Mikey mutters, folding his arms on the cushions and burying his face into his forearms.
You wince in sympathy as you eye Mikey’s leg; you can actually see the muscle knot that’s causing him so much pain, and though you hate to be the source of more, you know from experience that the harder you massage at first, the quicker the knot dissolves.
Mikey’s entire body stiffens up at the first touch, and though he keeps silent, you can see his shoulders shaking with the effort to keep in the whimpers of pain. You almost ask if you should stop, but if Mikey wanted you to stop, he would’ve told you that already.
Still, you can’t bear to see him in pain that you’ve caused, so you close your eyes and focus on the task at hand. Mike’s leg muscles are a veritable mess of knots and twisted tissue, and it takes a solid five minutes of massaging the balm into the leg before you even begin to feel a hint of tension easing out. Your mind drifts back to those first weeks of training in the jungle, of the first time your muscles locked up so bad that it was hours before you could move and you thought more than once in that time that you would die there from the sheer magnitude of the pain. You think of the way you learned to massage that stiffness away for those days that hydration and nutrition weren’t enough to keep your muscles from seizing; of the way you learned to push and pull and twist the muscles just so.
Gradually the stiffness eases out of Mikey’s leg, though there’s still significantly sized knot that just won’t seem to dissipate. You lean a little weight into your shoulder and press down on the knot with your thumb, keeping constant pressure. There’s a circle of skin there that feels odd yet strangely familiar, and it takes a long moment for you to place what it is.
Scar tissue.
You barely notice the gasp Mikey releases as the pressure on the knot suddenly disappears because you’re too busy staring at the twisted, misshapen scar on your brother’s leg. Blood is pounding in your ears, and you have to swallow a couple of times to keep the bile down, because you know a gunshot wound when you see one.
And this isn’t just a gunshot wound — it’s a gunshot wound that looks like it was close to the femoral artery, and dangerously so. It’s a gunshot wound in your baby brother’s leg.
Mikey keeps his head buried in his arms and his voice soft as he says, “Let it go, Leo.”
A strangled sound escapes your throat. “Let it — Mikey, what happened?”
Mikey laughs a little, but there’s absolutely no humor in the sound. “I was stupid and got into gunfight — didn’t even bring a knife to it. Or any weapons, really.”
You swallow once, twice, trying to find words amidst the wild churn of emotions in your gut. “Mikey—”
“Let it go, Leo,” Mikey repeats, firmer this time as he turns his head just enough to be able to glare out of one eye at you. “It’s been hard enough trying to convince Raph and Don it wasn’t their fault, either, and they were at least in the same city, so don’t make me have to convince you, either.”
“Why would they think it’s their fault?”
Mikey huffs a sigh as his eye slides shut. “I was only there because my van broke down and I was walking home. I’d — Raph had said he’d take a look at it before I left, but he didn’t, and Don was so busy that I didn’t even try to bother him. And when it happened I went to Casey’s first because — well, never mind. Point is that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was my fault, but it’s fine now. So don’t go giving yourself a guilt trip over it.”
“But if I hadn’t left—”
Mikey actually props himself up on his elbows and twists his head around to give you the full force of his glare. Clearly he’s been taking lessons in the look from Splinter. Or maybe April. “Yes, a lot of things would be different if you hadn’t left. But what happened happened and we can’t change it now. So let. It. Go.”
You tilt your head a little as you study your baby brother. You’ve all grown up a lot in these last few years, but it’s moments like this that remind you that Mikey’s probably grown up the most. “Still,” you say finally. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, Mikey.”
Mikey shrugs and smiles as he flops back down so he’s laying flat on his stomach again. “Don’t tell Don this because he’ll freak out about me lying to him, but this is the best my leg has felt in a really long time. So you and your Jedi powers are making up for it. And… it’s also okay because you’re here now,” he says, with a kind of quiet incredulity that suggests it’s still a novel thing for him to say. “So just… do that. Stay, I mean. I need you to stay.”
“I can do that,” you reply without a moment’s hesitation, and you’re pretty sure you’ve never been more honest in your life. “Just promise me you won’t get in the way of any more bullets.”
“No problemo,” he says emphatically. “One-and-done for me, I’m a one-bullet-wound-in-the-body kind of guy, and I definitely do not care for a repeat performance.”
You and Mikey both jump when a towel-wrapped heating pad suddenly lands with a soft smack across the back of Mikey’s leg. “Saved a bunch of kids’ lives, though,” Don says, voice soft but void of all emotion as he adjusts the pack so it rests directly on the scar, hiding it from sight. “Found a couple posts on social media that were going viral the next day, talking about a mysterious stranger who leapt down and stopped a mugging and got shot at and disappeared again, all without emerging from the shadows.”
“Like a superhero,” Raph adds gruffly, leaning against the back of the couch with his arms folded.
Mikey laughs, twisting his head to glance up at Raph. “Still need to come up with my superhero name. Turtle Titan sounds pretty cool, right?”
“Keep trying, Turtle Twerp,” Raph replies, tugging at Mikey’s mask tails.
“I don’t know — I think it’s pretty catchy,” Don says, the hint of a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
That, of course, sets them off in an old but familiar round of “Best Superhero Names,” and as they joke and laugh, you’re nearly overwhelmed by affection and love because you’re so glad to be home.
You’ve been away for a long time. The city still doesn’t feel right sometimes, the burden of leadership is often heavy on your shoulders, and things aren’t as easy with your brothers as they once were.
But they’re here. You’re here. You’re home to stay.
And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.