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Mikey knows Splinter wasn’t a good father.
He doesn’t know when he realized it - just that one day, he had thought it in passing and hadn’t bothered to argue with himself.
Splinter wasn’t a good father.
Sometimes he still tries to convince himself that that’s not the case, that Splinter’s good moments outweighed the bad, but it’s getting harder and harder with Raph and Leo flinching less if he gets too close and Donnie coming out of his lab more.
He wonders if he has any tells like that. They don’t seem to notice the change in themselves - or if they do, they keep quiet about it - maybe there’s something he does now that he didn’t before?
He tries to think about it as he makes dinner. Nothing comes to mind.
Leo brushes past him to get to the cups, walking funny, and Mikey silently wishes he would at least shower before sitting down to eat dinner. But then he thinks that’s exactly what Splinter would say, and he bites his tongue so hard it goes numb.
“Did you have fun?” The bell peppers crunch under his knife, being squashed by how much force he’s using. Leo flinches again. “With… whatever you were doing.”
“Yeah, I just went on a loop around chinatown. The Purple Dragon’s new leader had been making some bold moves recently, so I wanted to go check it out. I didn’t see anything though.” Mikey frowns at how quickly Leo answered, shoving the looks his brother and the new dude had traded the last time they fought to the back of his mind and trying to focus on his poor peppers.
He wasn’t stupid. Planning followed Leo wherever he went, like it was in his blood or something, and it was no different with the hookups he tried to hide. All of his overthinking just made it easier for Mikey to see through him.
Still, as upset and concerned as he was, he could see Leo stiffening. Days or weeks of avoidance usually followed the stiffening. Mikey needed to fix this.
“Nice, dude!” He complimented, preening internally when he saw Leo’s shoulders drop. “Oh, hey, did I tell you about the new Mecha Force spin-off I found? I was watching it today and…” his mouth trails on ahead of his mind, blabbering on to fill the silence of the kitchen. He finishes cutting up the peppers and drops them in the pan, just barely missing the small sigh from his older brother over the hissing of the food.
He’d… work on that later. Right now, he needed to make sure the onions didn’t burn.
Raph wanders into the kitchen just in time for Mikey to run out of things about the show to talk about. He grunts at Leo, pats Mikey on the shoulder, takes a seat, and promptly slams face-first into the table.
Other than a small jump, this pulls no reaction out of Leo and Mikey.
Even Donnie, who had only caught the aftermath as he walked in a split-second later, just thins his mouth and takes a seat on the other side of the table. Mikey wonders what happened between them between now and patrol.
He waits for just a moment longer before beginning to dish everything. This time, he doesn’t yelp when he burns his fingers. He’s getting better about that.
“Thank you,” Leo murmurs as he sets the plate down. Mikey tries not to think too hard about how Leo leaned away from him but had clearly just gotten back from fucking the Purple Dragons’ leader. Whatever. Raph nods to him, still facedown on the table. Donnie just glances warily at the plate - the portion Mikey had intentionally made larger because Donnie always left something on his plate, no matter how much he had - and then at his phone.
Perfect family dinner. As always.
He wonders if any of them have noticed each others’ problems like he has.
After the silence goes on for too long, Mikey sighs and takes a large gulp of his water. “So, I was telling Leo about this new Mecha Force spin-off I found. It’s not, like, anywhere close to the OG, but -”
Raph raises his head, squinting in the harsh kitchen lights, and Mikey makes a mental note to get a dimmer or change them or something later. “Wha’s it about?”
Perfect opening. He lets himself ramble about the plot and characters, and how it’s different from the original. Leo seems to still be listening, even though he heard it before, like a good big brother should. Donnie’s trying to pay attention, but he’s more focused on picking over his food than Mikey’s story. At least Raph is actively engaged and asking questions and stuff.
That’s all he really needs, anyway. One person to talk with him. Fill up the silence that burns if it sits too long. Silence that feels like it’s going to reach out long claws and dig into his skull and -
The fork in his hand is trembling. Or - he’s trembling. He sets the fork down.
“We could watch a few episodes tonight,” Leo suggests, pushing Donnie’s plate gently towards him without batting an eye. “If you’re okay with starting over.”
He nods so hard his neck turns warm and burns - whiplash, he thinks? It’s too familiar a feeling to care about the name - smiling wide. Anything to keep Donnie out of his lab and Raph hanging out with them. He’ll have to make sure there’s plenty of mindless snacks and soft blankets, but that’s okay. If the others agree, the biggest hurdle will have been crossed. "That would be so fun! We haven't hung out in forever!"
He sees their winces at the last part - something he had tacked on at the last moment - and pushes away the guilt that rises. Sugar is sweeter with a little bit of salt, and it's not like he lied or anything.
Raph doesn’t seem entirely convinced, though, so Mikey hums the theme song under his breath, kicks his legs for good measure, and makes the choice for him.
Donnie's throat works as he picks up a big forkful of tomato, and Mikey is so tempted to ask him if he hates the fruit, knowing full well he doesn't.
But that would be mean and spiteful. And Michaelangelo is not mean and spiteful.
But Donnie won’t eat and he worked hard on the food and he’s worried -
Raph nudges his foot under the table and Mikey realizes he’s been staring for too long. He takes a bite, and suddenly it doesn’t taste as good as it did before.
-
He ignores the slight tensing of Raph’s shoulders when he throws an arm around them. It’s easier, now, because the tensing had once been too-obvious flinching for a ninja, and Raph had made it very clear that those never happened. So Mikey got used to shutting up and staying quiet, for the both of them.
It’s not like getting mad at a man six feet under would help anyway.
They have the sort of relationship now where they can just watch a shitty gore movie in comfortable silence and completely understand each other. Itty bits of bloody brains and flesh will splatter across the screen, and Mikey will pass Raph the popcorn. Someone gets disemboweled, and Raph is opening a pack of sour patch kids for them both to share.
A year ago, this shit never would have flown with Splinter around. Despite him routinely sending them off to do just this (and have this done to them, should they “not be careful enough,”), these movies were always “much too violent.” Even when Sensei wasn’t around, or the others would sneak off and watch it themselves, they always excluded him because he was the baby .
Now, he thinks they just don’t care enough to stop him. Or they’ve seen his spotify playlists and youtube watch history. He doesn’t really care either way - he gets to cheer on some dude’s decapitation (is he a good guy? bad guy? who the fuck cares?) with his older brother, laughing at themselves when they flinch at the sound of the dojo door opening.
Sometimes it gets too much, though. Reminds them too much of what they’ve seen. Then they’ll usually sneak into Mikey’s room to watch classic chick flicks, which is almost a million times better than gore.
Mikey knows Raph definitely had a crush on Janis from Mean Girls, but he’d never tell anybody. Unless he needed blackmail, of course.
It gives him a chance to bond with his brother in a way that wasn’t really possible before, and isn’t that fucked up? Their dad had to fucking die for them to get close again. He wants to blame someone, but he doesn’t know who.
So he blames their dad. Because he’s dead, and he fucked up so many times already this one little thing can’t possibly add much more weight.
-
What if Splinter wasn’t a bad father?
Of course he thinks this when he’s playing video games. It’s an easy level, one he’s beaten before - perfect for letting his mind wander and “accepting any new thoughts that come to him,” or something. So fuck Leo, Mikey’s the new meditation master!
Anyway, meditationing aside, the thought doesn’t leave his head for the longest time. What if Splinter was good, and Mikey’s overreacting? What if everyone flinching is from fighting a literal war and several alien invasions and Splinter was only mean to him because he deserved it? What if -?
His character dies. Huh.
He presses restart before the feeling of claws on his chest and throat and legs and - can take over his mind again, and forces himself not to think about anything but the brightly-colored character making it through the lava swamp.
A bitchy little voice in his mind reminds him that Splinter gave him this game as a present.
-
Raph and him are watching another gore movie when Leo gets home way late.
They technically shouldn’t be awake, per the rules, but if Leo’s not here to enforce them, then what’s even the point of following them? That’s what Raph had said to convince him to watch the movie, anyway. Mikey was already sold on the idea of watching a movie instead of staring up at his dark ceiling for hours, willing his alarm clock to not go off in the morning. But, y'know. It doesn't hurt to know that he's wanted.
“What’re you two doing up?” Leo sounds soft, sleepy. Mikey wants to vomit.
Raph grunts at him and turns the volume up. Mikey decides he can’t go run off and vomit now, because he’s going to have to mediate another fucking fight.
Leo sighs over the volume of the movie - somehow older siblings are really good at that, Casey can do an amazing sigh and Mikey kinda wishes he was the oldest just so he could sigh like that - and taps his foot. “Raph, please don’t ignore me. You two should be asleep, you need the rest -”
“Why do you get to stay out, then, huh? Why do we have to fall in line like little soldiers but you’re above us?” Fucking damnit Raph. Mikey will admit he has a point, but sometimes it’s easier to just bite your tongue.
Mikey would’ve thought he would’ve learned that with all of Sensei’s nerve attacks. Raph’s hand still twitches every now and then from them.
Leo comes to stand by the side of the couch (fucking great ) so that he can see Raph’s face, rather than arguing with the back of his head. “I was on business. The Vipers’ leader is getting too bold, so I went to put them in their place. What’s your excuse?”
Mikey wonders how much of that is literal, considering the stench of sex in the air. He can’t believe Raph doesn’t notice it.
Probably ‘cause he’s never gotten laid, ha.
This situation is too serious for stupid jokes.
Still kinda funny though.
When he tunes back into the conversation, Raph and Leo are already hurling insults at each other. Seems he missed a part, oops! He can’t find it in him to care like he would a year ago, though. It’s not like Sensei’s here to yell at them, or drag Leo off into the dojo only to come for Raph an hour later. It’s not like he really has to stay awake, eyes wide, just in case something happens. Left to their own devices, the fights usually fizzle out pretty quickly.
They eventually get loud enough that they can’t even hear Donnie’s lab door slamming, and Mikey decides they probably won’t miss him if he leaves. So he heads to the kitchen to prepare a nice, comforting meal and ice packs for any wounded prides or faces after the fight.
Maybe, if he gets lucky, they’ll realize what bull-headed assholes they both are and just come talk it out with him as a mediator!
It’s doubtful.
He was right to prepare the food, though. Both of them eat in stony silence before thanking him - Raph with a kiss on the head and Leo with a small “thanks,” whispered from far enough away that Mikey almost couldn’t hear him - before stalking off to their rooms.
Mikey’s not hurt that Raph forgot about the movie. He’s not .
-
Getting Donnie to eat is like getting Casey to rub his two brain cells together to produce one coherent thought: it’s extremely hard.
He can make all of his favorite foods for a week, and Donnie will still eat half a plate and dump the rest of his onto Mikey’s food. He has this, like, hangup where he won’t eat a full plate of food for some reason. And it’s bugging the shit out of Mikey.
It probably stems back to Splinter. Because of course it fucking does. But Mikey can’t remember an exact point, or instance, that would’ve led to something like this. Like with Raph, he knows the hyper-aggressiveness and flinching and everything started around the time Splinter started truly smacking them around - coincidentally the same time they started forming opinions of their own. Donnie doesn’t have a set timeline like that. So. He doesn’t really know how to help, because he doesn’t know the root cause. Everything he does is like just plucking the leaves off a weed; keeps it from growing for a bit, but ultimately still not gonna do diddly-squat in the long run.
Putting extra food on his plate is something Mikey’s trying, now. That way, he’ll still eat as much as the rest of them, but he won’t think he is. He’s too busy on his phone to really notice, anyway.
Leo’s helping him in his… project?, too. They had both noticed Don’s eating habits were wack, so they’d been working on a way to nip the problem in the bud ever since. It's not going well.
So far, Leo thinks it might be the fluctuating amount of food they had when they were young. Donnie might've internalized that, somehow? Or it's a really fucked up eating disorder thing?
Either way, it's a bitch to beat, and Donnie's not giving them any help at all.
"Stop forcing food on me. I know what you're doing." Donnie pushes the plate away from him without even looking up from his phone, much to Leo's (and Mikey's secret) annoyance. "I come out to spend time with you three - not that I'm really benefiting from that. If I needed to eat I would be more than capable of making a meal myself."
Mikey wants to snap at him about how many times he's fucked up the kitchen, but the "need" stops him. "Want" isn't even really a thought in Donnie's mind anymore, and that's kinda concerning. Especially for Mikey, who pretty much eats all his emotions.
He shares a look with Leo - tries to, at least - and pouts. "You don't like the food?"
"I never said that -" Donnie starts.
Maybe this is manipulative, but it's for a good reason isn't it? "No, it's okay. I know you guys don't really like my food. I just worked really hard on this one so I thought - I'm sorry..."
Three bites have already been shoved past Donnie's beak by the time Mikey finishes talking. He's a pro by now.
Smiling, he bounces immediately back to talking about his day, not giving Donnie any time to realize what he had done or be pushed away by all the attention on him. Deflect deflect deflect, right? Just keep talking until they smile.
In truth, he kinda wishes the attention were on Donnie again. He misses his older brother, even though he's not hiding in his lab as much anymore. Now that they don't really have patrol anymore, it seems the only time they get to spend together is when the three of them are watching a movie or some other group activity.
One Mikey always initiates.
It's fine, though. It's whatever. They're all busy with their own things, their own lives.
Speaking of, he doesn't know the last time he hung out with Mondo. He should do that soon, if nothing super duper major pops up for his family. Which is unlikely, but Mikey always has prided himself on his optimism.
Until then, he'll focus on his brothers.
Like he always does, because despite them thinking the opposite, they'd probably die without him. He tries not to let the weight of that crush him.
-
He tries really, really hard to be there for his family. Because family is important, family is your lifeblood and the very air you breathe, family is everything .
Even though Splinter was the one who originally forced the mindset on him, he sticks by it just the same. His family has been through too much for far too long to not be each other's life support or something. If he didn't have them, he probably wouldn't be long for this world.
So he tries super hard to make sure it stays that way. But fuck, sometimes it's hard.
Like now. When he's screaming at Leo and probably crying but he's, like, totally disconnected from his body so he's not really sure anymore, whoops.
Leo bites back something harsh that makes his heart all twist up and his veins turn to ice, but he doesn't want to remember it so he won't think about it. He shoots back something almost as nasty, anyway, so. It's fair.
Raph's still in his room, probably still playing his drums like he was at the start of this argument. Mikey's kinda happy for that, because it means he doesn't have to hear his little brother sound so much like him at his worst that even Donnie can't tell the difference as he walks into the kitchen.
"Raph, Leo." He greets, still not looking up from whatever he's typing on his phone. "Please move your argument somewhere else, some of us want -"
It goes eerily silent in the kitchen, and Donnie looks up into Mikey's eyes.
Who's definitely not crying right now, what are you even talking about, aha?
"I'm going out," Leo bites, and Mikey can already feel regret bubbling in his veins but he's just so stressed and angry that it tumbles out anyway -
"Have fun abandoning us again for a quick fuck!"
Leo stops. And then punches a wall.
"What the fuck -"
"What the hell is happening here?"
"Oh my god, Leo, I didn't mean -"
"Leo what the fuck -"
There are so many voices and oh my god what did he just say ? and everyone's talking but no one's listening and this is all his fault -!
He wants to run, but then he'd be a huge hypocrite and they've all run from their problems enough times to know what a stupid idea it is, so he can't really do that but Leo is looking at him like that all broken and sad like Mikey had shattered his heart and stabbed him with the pieces and oh, god, what if he did? What if -?
The old kitchen chair looks really comfortable right now, so he plops down in it and pretends he can't feel Splinter's claws wrapping around his throat, choking him out for daring to stay up late and question Leo when he left the dojo -
Why was he in the dojo so late?
"Why were you in the dojo so late?" He asks, because he has no fucking filter ever , and he's lucky that Leo's still here because otherwise it would look like he had lost his marbles. "When - when i was staying up late and caught you, what… ?"
Leo might not even remember. Splinter had sent him away before deciding to go fucking crazy, because of course he did, and of course Leo would leave because -
Well, after a while, you gotta protect yourself. It's not worth for sticking up for others when it just makes both of your punishments worse. And that fact makes him so guilty he doesn't want to eat for a week.
Hey, maybe Donnie -?
"What do you mean, Mikey?" Leo asks, and Mikey knows he forgot (or is pretending to, at least. Mikey doesn't blame him - he wishes he could do the same.)
"Never mind," he hisses. "Just. Never-fucking-mind. Sorry I said that."
He leaves before Leo can acknowledge the apology. Hypocrisy be damned.
-
They make up later. They always do.
It's a little more complicated, because apparently Leo hadn't known that Mikey knew about all his… "meetings." But they get past that because of course they do, they always do.
It still fucked Leo up a little, which Mikey feels insanely guilty for. He's back to flinching a lot, which isn't great. Once, Mikey had tried to surprise hug him, and Leo had pushed him off and ran to his room.
It's fine, though. Mikey can just fix it again, like he always does! Like he's been doing for the past six months! Like he's been getting Raph talking again, like he's been getting Donnie eating, like he's been getting them all out of the house and hanging out together again, just so they can pantomime a family for a couple hours.
He can fix it! He knows he can!
Looking into the mirror, he thinks he can see his "tell" for the first time.
But denial has always been a part of him, hasn't it?