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“Is the pizza here yet? ” Mikey whines.
Leo pats him on the head. “Donnie?”
“Five minutes, Michael,” Donnie says in the same monotone he’s been using for the last fifty times Mikey asked.
April hangs off of the railing, staring down at the city street below. The boys tend to get restless when they’re waiting for delivery, so rather than leave them to tear up her family’s living room, April’s dragged them to the apartment building roof to do some city stargazing— i.e. joking around and pushing each other and doing anything but stargazing, because there’s too much light pollution in New York to do any proper stargazing anyways.
“Hey, we could go chase down the delivery guy and make him go faster,” Leo offers. “We could shoot ‘em across the rooftops super fast.”
“That’s risky, ridiculous and impractical and I have no doubt we’ll be doing that some other time in the future when we order pizza again,” Donnie says. “We’re not doing that.”
"I dunno,” says Raph. “I kinda like his idea.”
“Or,” April says, “we could wait the five minutes—”
“Three minutes and forty-three seconds,” Donnie corrects. Yeowch, now Donnie’s getting impatient, too, April better hurry up.
“We could wait the three minutes and thirty-nine seconds—” she gets a small sense of satisfaction from the way Donnie quietly shuts his mouth, obviously not expecting her to subtract the correct time— “and just eat the snacks I brought while we wait.”
“Oh, thank God,” Leo mutters, “any longer and Mikey would have eaten us instead.”
“My mom hasn’t gone grocery shopping in a bit, so we’re a lil low on snacks, buuut…” She finds what she’s looking for with a little aha, and pulls out a king-size chocolate bar with a flourish. “Ta-da.”
Mikey’s eyes blow wide open. “April? April, what is that, ” he says fervently.
“Chocolate bar. Figured we could split it while we wait for the pizza,” April says. “Got it for free at school for getting all the homework quiz questions right.”
“The one we helped you with?” Leo says, giving the bar a cursory glance.
“I don’t think you helped much,” Raph says.
“Hey, I answered that one at the end.”
“Who cares who helped who?” Mikey’s eyes are shining. “Can we open it and try it? Now?”
“Sure.” April tosses him the bar, and Mikey immediately sets about flailing to tear it open— and failing, because this brand is kind of difficult to tear open, and Mikey only has three fingers on each hand.
“Jeez,” April says, watching the scene. “Is Mikey always this excited about candy or is that something I missed?”
“Mikey’s a foodie and we don’t get much variety back at the lair,” Raph says. “He gets excited over trying new foods. And I won’t lie, I’m pretty excited to try this, too. Never had it before.”
April feels all function grind to a halt. “Try… try a regular chocolate bar? This kind? The kind that’s like, everywhere? The generic kind? This kind?”
“You broke April, Raph,” Donnie says.
“Wait. Have you guys had chocolate before?” April asks. “Or, like, has it been offered to you? Ever?”
Utter silence. All four of the boys glance back and forth.
“Uh,” says Raph.
“Hmm,” says Leo.
“Maybe?” says Mikey.
“No clue,” says Donnie.
“Seriously? Never?”
All four shake their heads. “...Should we have?” Raph asks.
“Geez!” April shakes her head in a gesture much more sad than the ones she’d just been given. “Y’all are missing. Out.”
That’s when the thought occurs to her.
“Hold up,” she says, swipes the bar from Mikey, who’s still struggling with the wrapper, and holds it over her head.
“Aw whaaat,” Mikey whines. He’s still the smallest of all of them, and April, being as she is three years older, towers over him. She notes silently that she is very glad it’s not, say, Raph who’s trying to get it, because right now, with the height difference, keeping the chocolate from Mikey is easy as pie.
“Apriiil.” Mikey turns the saddest puppy dog eyes she’s ever seen on her, and April has to glance up and away to resist. (Don’t give in, April! Don’t give in!)
“That’s me,” she agrees instead. “One thing ‘fore I let y’all have this.”
“Something wrong, Apes?” Leo says.
“Sorta. If y’all have never had chocolate before… do you know if you guys… can have chocolate?” April questions. “Like, will it kill you?”
“Why would it kill us?” Raph says confusedly.
“I mean, chocolate’s poisonous to some animals, and you guys have…” She gestures generally to the group. “...this whole situation going on.”
“What, the turtle thing? Uh.” Raph rubs at his temple thoughtfully. “Uh, you know what, I actually don’t know. Hey, Donnie?”
“Yeah?” Donnie says. He’s been largely glued to his phone the whole time Mikey was fumbling with the chocolate wrapper, and it’s no different now.
“April asked a question. Can we have chocolate?”
“Uh, I don’t think Dad said we couldn’t. He just gave us the usual no one but April sees you, be home before ten, and no cold soup rules, so—”
“No, not whether Dad said we could. Is chocolate gonna kill us?”
“I think I could whoop the chocolate’s butt if it wanted to kill us,” MIkey says decisively. “April, you should give it to me so I can prove it.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Leo says, looking amused. “Let me know when that is, exactly, so I can watch you do it.”
“Okay, look. So, y’all are, again, missing out when you say you’ve never had chocolate—”
“Yeah, so let us try so we can fix that!” Mikey makes another dive for the chocolate. April switches hands so all he does is crash to the floor.
“—and I’d love to give this to you guys— a life without chocolate is no life at all, and I mean no life at all. But I don’t wanna poison you guys by accident!” She shudders and plants a hand on Mikey’s face to keep him from reaching for the chocolate bar. “You want me to be the one to have to go tell Splints it was ‘cause of candy? ”
“Huh. Death by chocolate is a real thing?” Leo says. “Who would’ve thunk?”
Mikey unsticks his face from her hand. “Yeah, sounds like a cool way to go. Hup!” April dodges to the side, and Mikey’s flying leap hits an unsuspecting Donnie instead with an oof.
“Is chocolate poisonous to regular turtles?” Raph asks.
“It’s bad for dogs,” April points out.
“But is it bad for the Mad Dogs?” Raph mutters.
“Why would it be different if the dogs were mad— ooohhh, you meant us. I still think we can do better on the name,” says Leo.
“We’re not — rgh!” Donnie shoves Mikey off of him with a crash. “We’re not actual dogs.”
“You don’t know how we got mutated,” Leo says. “You don’t know.”
Donnie crosses his arms. “I’m fairly certain we’re not part dog.” He pauses. “Actually, wait, amend that. Maybe Raph is part dog.”
“Hey.”
“You named us the Mad Dogs, you eat weird stuff sometimes, you do that sad puppy-eye expression sometimes—”
“HEY.”
“Alright, look,” Leo says, completely ignoring them. “I vote it’s probably fine. Just because one animal that, mind you, isn’t a turtle can’t have chocolate doesn’t mean—”
“Cats can’t have it neither,” April says matter-of-factly.
Mikey pauses in his attempts to sneak towards the chocolate. “They can’t?”
“Yup,” April says proudly. Ah, never mind, he hasn’t paused, he’s just trying to get closer to sneakily reach up a hand and grab it when she’s not looking. She swats at his wandering fingers. “I learned it in school.”
“Is that what you learn in school? How to poison different animals?”
“Uh, sometimes.”
“Neat,” Mikey beams. “Now Raph knows what to do if another cat tries to kill him!”
“I can’t poison a cat,” Raph says miserably, earlier protests against Donnie forgotten. “They didn’t do nothing! S’not their fault they don’t like me, I’m just big an’ scary, that’s all.”
“Cats don’t like you?” Donnie says. "You know what that reminds me of?"
“Donnie, if you don’t cut it out with—”
“Just because two animals that, again, aren’t turtles,” Leo interrupts, looking bothered, “doesn’t mean—”
“Y’know what? I don’t think birds can either, now that I think about it,” April muses.
Leo inhales. “Just because three—”
“No, she’s got a point,” Donnie says. “If chocolate’s poisonous to some animals, it stands to reason it might be poisonous to turtles, too. And therefore us.”
“But it looks so goood, ” Mikey gripes. April notices he hasn’t taken his eyes off the chocolate bar, and switches hands again.
“We’re not letting anyone die of chocolate poisoning,” Raph decides. “Nobody’s trying that chocolate unless we know it won’t happen.”
“I vote Leo tries it to see if it happens,” Donnie says, completely ignoring him, and shoves Leo forward.
“What,” Leo squawks. “No, you try it!”
“Gosh. Darn. You know, I really wish I could, but sadly, no one here knows how to write a lab report, save for yours truly, me, so I must stay back and record for the sake of science .” Donnie drops the play-acting. “Besides, you said it’s probably fine.”
“I meant probably. Probably!”
“We’ll miss you dearly, o beloved brother o mine,” Donnie says flatly. He’s already filming. “Your sacrifice shan’t be forgotten.”
“You know who should be the sacrifice that isn’t me?” Leo says in lieu of arguing.
“I’ll do it!” Mikey whoops in the background.
“Raph should. He eats weird stuff all the time and he’s fine. ”
“What animal starts with a D and ends with a G,” Donnie whispers.
“Donatellog,” Leo says. Donnie kicks him in the shin.
“DONNIE,” Raph says, seemingly far less irritated by the actual teasing and more irritated by Donnie’s attempts to send his twin brother to an early death. “NOT HELPING.”
Donnie sighs and straightens. “You’re right, you’re right. It’s ruining my video.” He takes a step back. “Carry on, Leon.”
Leo tries to shove Raph forward to the chocolate the way Donnie did earlier. It’s comically ineffectual, and results in Leo losing his balance, windmilling, and falling flat on his face when all Raph does is move slightly to the left. Of his own volition.
April makes a note to ask Donnie for that video later.
“I might eat weird stuff but I don’t eat poison,” Raph says, clearly distressed. “No one’s eating poison! We’re not eating the poison!”
“We don’t know it’s poison!” Mikey has joined Leo in trying to push Raph towards April (and the chocolate). Even with both of them combined, he doesn’t move.
“Yaay,” Donnie says, still filming. “Go Mikey, go Leo, wooow, you can do it, insert encouraging remark here, yaay.”
“Donnie!” says April, exasperated.
Raph turns to her. “April. Can’t you just ask the intranet if turtles can have chocolate?”
“The in-ter-net, not intranet,” Donnie protests.
April decides to intervene before he starts arguing further. “Oh, yeah! I’ve got my phone, lemme Google it.”
All four turtles, sibling squabbles put on a temporary hold, crowd into April’s space to stare at her little phone as she types in can turtles eat chocolate.
“Uh,” she says, skimming through the first article that comes up. “‘Absolutely not.’ Says it’ll give you too much calcium and phos— plos— phreposterous, got it.”
“Phosphorus.” Donnie pats her on the head only slightly condescendingly. “But you came close.”
“That’s what I said,” April mutters crossly. “And remind me, who pronounces basketball like bas-kay-ball all the time—”
“Yeah, but we’re not all turtle,” Mikey says hopefully, hanging off April’s shoulder. “You gotta be more specific. Try ‘can mutant turtle humans have chocolate—’”
“That’s not gonna be on there,” April says, but dutifully types it in anyways.
“Heey, you misspelled ‘turtle,’” Leo says. “Turtlr.”
“That’s a website,” Mikey says.
“I’m not done, Leo.” She leaves in the misspelling to spite him.
“Whatsit say?” Mikey asks pleadingly.
“Uh. First result, answer forum. ‘Is it true that chocolate is toxic to most of animals in the world?’ No the, that’s how it’s written.” She squints. “I can’t read this, this is like, college level. Donnie, you do it.”
Donnie takes her phone from her. “Theobromine poisoning is an overdosage reaction to the xanthine alkaloid theobromine, found in chocolate. Median lethal doses of theobromine have—”
“UUUGH,” complains Leo. “Abridged version, please, thank you.”
Donnie shoots him a dirty look before turning back to the phone and skimming through the article at record speeds. “Humans,” he drawls, “can metabolize— digest, Nardo, I swear— chemicals in chocolate better than most animals can. That’s all it says.”
“Why?”
“Who cares? That didn’t answer the question,” Raph says. “Does our human side mean we’ll be fine if we eat it or does the turtle side mean we’ll die of… uh. Donnie?”
“We’re already dying of Donnie,” Leo says.
Donnie elbows him hard in the plastron. “Phosphorous, theobromine, and calcium, because we might not digest it, it’ll build up in our brains, and then we all die,” he says over the sounds of Leo’s choking.
“What he said,” Raph says. “So, since we don’t know if it’s poison, here’s an idea. We could just not try it and stay on the safe side?”
Leo recovers remarkably quickly to talk back. “Raph, Raph, my beloved brother. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Raph turns to April. “April?” he pleads.
“I do really wanna see you guys try chocolate for the first time,” April admits. “I just wanted to know if it was definitely poison or not before I gave it to you.” Raph droops.
“I wanna try it!”
Raph rubs his face again. “We know, Mikey.”
“I’ll do it for free.”
“We know, Mikey."
"Poison or not."
"Hey, why don’t we just ask Pops,” Raph suggests, having given up on reasoning with his littlest brother.
“Splints?” April asks dubiously.
“He’s probably been a mutant for longer’n us, right? He probably knows.”
“We ask Dad and he’s gonna eat it himself,” Mikey groans. “I don’t wanna do that.”
“Hey, guys?” Donnie looks up from April’s phone. “So, I did some looking, and all the elements that are gonna be the most harmful to us can be found in dairy and soda.”
April raises an eyebrow. “And?”
“You know, dairy? Like cheese. Which we eat on pizza. Usually with soda. Like, every day.”
A beat.
“OH MY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE OF PIZZA POISONING, ” wails Mikey.
“NOBODY’S DYING, MIKEY! NOBODY’S DYING!” shouts Raph. “IS SOMEONE DYING?!”
“HEY COOL I WANNA START YELLING TOO,” cheers Leo.
“IF YOU GUYS GET MY MOM A NOISE COMPLAINT I SWEAR I’M GONNA—” shrieks April.
“NO! No.” Donnie reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, seemingly remembers he doesn’t have a nose, and puts his hand down. “No! What I mean is that if we haven’t died of poisoning already then we’re probably not gonna die of eating something with the poison now. So it’s probably fine, alright?”
“You haven’t stopped filming, Donnie,” April points out skeptically.
“What? That doesn’t mean anything, I record everything. I can’t stop until I’ve gotten a sufficiently dramatic moment. Like us finally cracking open that chocolate bar, chop chop, April, let’s go.”
April glances at him.
"What? I'm getting hungry, and I want to try it, too."
April glances at Raph.
“You’re sure it probably maybe won’t poison us,” Raph says.
“If the pizza didn’t kill us this probably won’t,” confirms Donnie.
“Sure, I guess,” April says, to a background of Mikey’s raucous cheering. She tears open the wrapper, snaps the bar into five conveniently equal sections, and hands each turtle their portion.
There’s a pause as April watches them eat.
“April,” Mikey says, having already swallowed half of his in the half a second it took April to blink. “April, this is really good.”
The rest of them nod enthusiastically with varying responses of Thanks April and Holy shit April and You owe the swear jar when we get back, Leo.
April, for her part, just bites into her own portion and grins, feeling warm. Yup. Definitely asking Donnie for that video. "Told ya."
“Alright!” Donnie says, clapping his hands. “Now we just wait six to eight hours and see if we all drop dead.”
“If I drop dead I’m haunting you for the rest of your life, April!” Leo says cheerfully. Raph cuffs him across the head.
“Sixty-eight hours?” yelps Mikey.
“Six to eight hours,” Donnie corrects. “Six. To. Eight.”
April nods solemnly and pats Leo on the shoulder. “They’ll never find your bodies,” she promises.
Leo snorts. “Dad’ll find you and kick your ass.”
“Swear jar,” Raph says, narrowing his eyes.
“He wouldn’t hurt me, I’m his favorite child,” April grins.
“That’s not true,” Mikey frowns.
“Noise of outrage,” hisses Donnie.
“Oi,” says Raph.
“Yeah, you're probably right, good point,” says Leo.
April ignores them. “Do you guys want to go back in and do a movie marathon for six to eight hours? Pizza’s probably here by now.”
Mikey finishes the rest of his chocolate in one go. “I wanna watch Jitsu for Justice,” he says immediately.
“Sick. Meet you there,” April tells him, and heads for the stairwell.