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It’s been thirty years, and yet Michelangelo still finds himself falling into the same holding patterns. He finds himself turning instinctively to the warm presence at his back. He can’t help it, really; there’s been a hole there for so long, and now, miraculously, Don somehow still fits it. Not just fits it but fills it. A deep wound left to fester, suddenly and inexplicably turned to scar without infection. It’s-
“A miracle,” April says, faintly. “There’s no other explanation. Just--a miracle.”
They’re waiting for Raph and Leo to arrive (separately, of course) while Don interrogates Angel about resources and supplies and whatever else. Don is sketching out some huge, vague-sounding master plan, taking enough guts to make the late Casey Jones proud. Mikey thinks absently that Leatherhead would be useful for it, if he hadn’t been taken about a decade back.
April, though, can’t seem to tear her eyes from the miracle. “He’s so young.”
Mikey turns his head away, refocusing on the map of the city on the table. “Sixteen.”
“Oh,” She says, but they both know she wasn’t talking about age. Don’s half a head shorter now than Mikey, but he still has that gentleness to him, that light in his eyes of either wisdom or curiosity or hope that Mikey has never been able to define in words. Mikey remembers thinking that his passion could set the stars into motion, at age sixteen. What a time.
Now is probably the right time for a confession, though.
“I took him to see Master Splinter,” Mikey says gruffly. “Thought it might help.”
April blinks in surprise and not a small amount of concern. “Help with what, exactly? Shocking him into thinking the worst of our world? It’s a wonder he still thinks we have a chance as it is!”
“I just-” Mikey doesn’t know how to explain his thought process, even to himself. “Just wanted to see if he was real, or not.”
April takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I know what you were doing, and I can’t say I blame you, but Mike--he clearly didn’t leave anywhere. Certainly not on purpose. Don’t hold on to blame where there is none. You know that.”
“I know.”
April doesn’t know that Mikey stopped blaming Donnie for anything the moment he took him to Master Splinter’s grave. His brother’s anguish immediately echoed in his own soul and wiped away every trace of bitterness and all thirty years of festering abandonment. It may have hollowed out his own grief, but then again Don had always been a bit too good at taking things onto his own shoulders.
Maybe it should frighten Mikey, the way he had automatically fallen back into the habit of looking to Donatello when things went sideways and he couldn’t see any way forward. Mikey had given Don a problem and this time it was the wreck of the whole world they knew, and Don being Don had simply grabbed his tools and started to hammer it back into place.
It was just the way things were. The natural order of the universe. The way everything should be.
-
Mikey had thought he had given up being an optimist a long time ago, but somehow Don’s simple existence has forced him back here again. The thinking goes that if Don can come back, anything is possible, up to and including the defeat of the Shredder. Currently, the running miracle to beat is not in fact Don’s return but four turtles in the same room coexisting peacefully.
It’s not laughter and jokes, but it is quiet conversation, and the best Mikey could have hoped for. Leo’s shoulders have slumped in weary relaxation rather than defeat. Raph’s smile isn’t bloodied or enraged. April watches quietly, eyes sparkling.
At one point, April praises him for supporting her for years and helping with the resistance. For once Mikey doesn’t scoff and think about how inadequate he feels, but puffs out his chest and absorbs it.
“Well, I am the best at raising morale! Raph and Leo’s faces were just a bit too ugly for that.” He grins.
Raph and Leo immediately burst into mock-offended argument, but Don smiles softly and tells him, “There you are.”
Mikey can’t keep the pride off his face. It feels too good to be true, tonight, like the world is falling back into orbit. They--the four of them--always felt like something meant to last. It was their family, their home, theirs. Being whole never felt more undeserved, more unearned, or more unconditional. It’s as easy as breathing but even harder than struggling for air. It should be and isn’t, it was and never more is.
(Or maybe Mikey should leave the poetry to Raph. Oh well.)
And late that night, as Mikey turns to sleep, in the darkness a pair of hands gently grasp his own one.
“Hey, Mike?” Don whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Love you,” he yawns.
Michelangelo squeezes his hand and tries to forget being seventeen and angry, twenty four and desolate, thirty one and terrified, and lost the whole unending time. Now he wants to be an invincible, unstoppable sixteen and the guardian of his brothers’ love. He thinks he would do anything to never let go of their hands. Shell, he might even rather take another thirty years of abandonment.
“Love you too,” he tells this phantom of his memories. It’s not a ghost, though. Their hands are never warm.
-
The world keeps turning, holding orbit even when the Karai-bot spears him through the chest.
It hurts. Mikey yells the only thing he thinks of that might make it better.
“Donnie!”
The orbit grinds down and narrows until it’s just him and the stab of metal and then it’s yanked out. He screams again and the red and white is blinding, everywhere, with no escape.
“Mikey! NO!”
His eyes swivel around desperately, and then--there! Don is fighting through the bots towards him. He’s coming. Mikey knows that it’s going be okay.
He can’t really…hold on…not much longer…
“No, no, no, Mikey-”
In the last seconds of his life, Mikey turns towards Donatello. He reaches out, but what he really wants is to see his brother one last time before-
The seconds catch up to him and the pattern holds, but his brother grabs his hand. Michelangelo does not die alone.
He never would.
END