Work Text:
When Mikey arrived it was hours earlier than he’d told April to expect him. And to top it off he was floating, and Leo was completely surrounded by Donnie’s notes, his prosthetic arm removed and clutched between his knees as he poked at it with a screwdriver. But nevertheless Leo still whipped his head around to stare at Mikey the second Mikey crossed the threshold of his room.
“One of these days I’ll finally succeed in sneaking up on you,” Mikey said, and although he didn’t feel lighthearted he pushed as much playfulness into the words as he could muster.
But Leo didn’t respond. Instead he turned back to his arm, held the screwdriver in his mouth, and flipped through Donnie’s notes. Mikey waited as he read, placed the notes by his leg, and grabbed the screwdriver again. He went for a place just below the arm’s elbow. The arm shifted against his knees.
Mikey shot over to catch it.
“Here let me help.”
Leo’s blank expression cracked. The screwdriver shook in his hands. And his face. Despite the apocalypse, Mikey hadn’t seen anger like that on his face for years. The last time was after—
Mikey looked away, fixing his eyes on Leo’s sword. It’s formally red pommel now rewrapped to include purple.
“It’s not your fault.” Mikey said softly.
“I gave them the key,” Leo answered.
Mikey had a million counter arguments. Leo was a kid. It was more Hypno and his little worm friend’s fault for stealing it in the first place. It could have been any of them, in fact, all of them did accidentally give mystic metal to the Foot when they were trying to revive Shredder. And if their history with the Foot and the Shredder was anything to go by it wasn’t ‘if’ the Foot would get the key but ‘when’. And honestly if the Foot weren’t so obsessed with reviving ultimate evil, none of this would have happened. So really it was the Foot’s fault.
But Mikey knew from experience that none of them would make Leo stop blaming himself. No, all he could do was distract Leo from his self loathing.
And Mikey had one hell of a distraction.
“I figured out a new power.” Mikey said slowly, slowly daring to look at Leo again.
“Oh?” Leo didn’t put the screwdriver down, nor did he look up from his work.
“It’s kinda like the mystic gateway,” Mikey started, “But instead of opening a gateway to the Kraang prison dimension, it opens a gateway through time.”
Leo was looking at Mikey now. “How far through time?”
“I could open one to before the invasion began, before the key was stolen.”
“That’s amazing Mikey,” Leo said with a smile. The first smile Mikey had seen since they lost Donnie. “When can we go?”
“I could send you now.”
Leo dropped the screwdriver and gripped Mikey’s wrist in his hand.
“ Yes! Let’s—” The smile drained from his face. “You can send me , not us ?”
“I’m sorry Leo. This type of portal. It will take everything I’ve got.”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.” Leo’s voice cut like steel.
“What about Donnie and Raph?”
A tremor ran through Leo’s body, and cut Mikey’s heart in a way that steel couldn’t.
“They’re dead.” Leo said softly. “Because I messed up. And I’m not going to sacrifice my only living brother for my mistakes.
“You’re not sacrificing me.” Mikey argued “I’m sacrificing myself. And it’s not even permanent. You’ll have another me in the past. And Raph and Donnie.”
Leo pulled Mikey into a one armed hug. Hot tears dripped onto the skin on Mikey’s shoulder.
“But I won’t have you.” Leo’s voice wavered. “I can’t— Mikey I can’t do this without you.”
“Leo...”
“I’m sorry Mikey. But please, let me be selfish, just for a little bit. I can’t lose you too.”
“And I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose this world. I—” Mikey could feel Leo shake against him. The desperate grip clawing against his shell. “But the thing with time travel is that we’ve got time. I could open the time gateway to the day the key was stolen tonight just as well as I could do it in twenty years. Take the time you need. And then we will save the world.”
“Yes,” Leo said slowly. “We will save the world, together.”
“I know.”
“But Mikey, as long as I have breath within my lungs, blood within my body I won’t ask that of you.”
Mikey didn’t argue, he couldn’t. Leo’s determination was made of steel, so he just had to let Leo come to terms with it. To trust that Leo would eventually see the necessity of Mikey’s plan. And perhaps, a bit selfishly, he wanted more time with his family as well.
And to Mikey’s annoyance and relief, Leo never budged. He never brought it up. He fought hundreds of battles against impossible odds, and each time he came up with an even more impossible plan to pull through.
So when, ten years later, Leo asked for a time gateway. Mikey didn’t need to hear the rattle in his breathing to know things were bad.
Leo would never go through that gateway without his brother by his side. But Leo wasn’t alone. And in the seconds that their eyes locked they knew what they had to do. Work together, save the world, and give a kid the chance for a normal life.