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Leo is already sitting at the kitchen table when Mikey bounces in to start breakfast, shoulders slumped, chin propped in one hand, some tinny, grating TikTok sound happening on his phone that he doesn’t really seem to be watching. Mikey pauses mid-bounce to assess the situation.
It’s never a great sign when Leo’s up this early, because in Mikey’s vast and storied experience, it generally means that Leo never went to sleep to begin with, but some sleepless nights are better than others.
From the way Leo rolls his head over to meet Mikey’s eyes instead of just ignoring him, this might be one of the better ones.
Mikey beams at him, testing the waters, and sure enough Leo’s knee-jerk reaction is to smile back. Okay, good, this day is totally salvageable! He had stuffed French toast on the brain when he woke up, but he’ll keep that in his back pocket. Protein is essential when certain parties decide to pull an all-nighter just for the love of the game.
So he chirps, “‘Morning, Lee! I’m craving oatmeal this morning. Please be on my team and convince Raphie it’s delicious actually so he doesn’t completely harsh my vibe. Name your price.”
Leo huffs, as much of a laugh as he’s willing to muster, but his smile inches wider. He says, “The last of Donnie’s cookie butter coffee creamer.”
Mikey presses his hand to his chest, his horror only half a joke. “Just say you want me dead.”
This time Leo’s laugh is almost a proper one. Mikey resumes bouncing into the kitchen, where he puts rolled oats and milk on the stove to simmer and starts whipping up the best scrambled eggs this town has ever seen.
When Donnie comes in, he pauses in the doorway, much like Mikey had. His eyes narrow slightly and he course-corrects, pulling the chair out across the table from his twin and dropping into it.
“Lesser twin,” he greets magnanimously.
“Ughh not you,” Leo replies. But he tellingly doesn’t budge when Donnie reaches over and swipes TikTok off his phone screen, thankfully muting the sound that had been looping for the last ten minutes. “I was watching that,” he lies.
“Too bad,” Donnie says. “Number?”
Mikey pauses his whisking and perks up, putting his best listening ears on. The number thing the twins do has always been a mystery to him. He thought he had it figured out once or twice, but either he was completely off the mark or they change the rules at random.
He’s asked about it before, because he’s incurably nosey—he comes by it honestly—but he always just gets a flagrant non-answer, like, “It’s the number of minutes left my unfortunate counterpart has to live before I hunt him for sport.” They’re literally the most annoying people on the planet to live with, and Mikey has not forgotten Bullhop. They’re definitely worse than him.
Leo makes a face. Which is either how he feels about the question, or the answer he’s come up with, or Donnie for presuming to ask in the first place. Then, too tired to put up the normal amount of fight, he folds and mutters, “Like, seven.”
Donnie squints at him a little more, before rolling his eyes and pushing up from the table.
“Surprising no one, I told you so,” he says, but Leo says it at the same time in a high-pitched mockery of his voice. Donnie scowls and announces, for probably the hundredth time in his life, “I should have absorbed you in the womb.”
And like every other time, Leo dissolves into a fit of giggles. Mission accomplished, or something, Donnie leaves him to it and joins Mikey in the kitchen.
“You didn’t share a womb,” Mikey says. “You didn’t have a womb. You had an egg. Two different eggs from two different turtles. You didn’t even hatch at the same time.”
Donnie is, in truth, several weeks older than Leo. Draxum had meticulously recorded everything regarding his experiments, including their hatching dates, and had rediscovered those old notes when he was moving boxes into his New York apartment. Mikey had been politely interested in what Barry was calling their ‘real’ birthdays but he, like his big brothers, wasn’t at all interested in changing the date that Splinter had picked out and that he’d already celebrated for thirteen years. And if being two obviously different species of turtles wasn’t enough to convince the twins to stop calling themselves that, then a difference of a month and a half certainly wasn’t going to.
The only thing that changed was that they no longer took turns being the older twin, now that they had this ironclad confirmation. Donnie had brightened with unholy glee, and Leo had given Draxum an evil look, as if he had done this on purpose just to ruin Leo’s life specifically.
“I would have found a way,” Donnie says solemnly.
He pours a cup of coffee, spoons in a little sugar, and adds the last splash of the creamer he stays ready to kill and die for on any occasion. Then he carries the mug over to the table and puts it by Leo’s elbow.
“If you waste this I’ll smother you in your sleep,” he says.
“Promises, promises,” Leo mumbles, and eagerly scoots the mug over to wrap both palms around it.
Mikey does not understand them at all sometimes. It’s like living with cryptids. But he knows what Donnie’s version of taking care of someone looks like.
When Raph comes in a few minutes later, it only takes one look at the dark circles under Leo’s eyes for him not to complain about a breakfast he really doesn’t like that much. Mikey makes him extra scrambled eggs as a thank you, with chives and sour cream, the way he likes best.
They each have their own version.
Mikey knows that there are certain things he gets away with that nobody else in the world ever could, just by virtue of being the baby of the family.
Sometimes this is extremely aggravating, because he is not a baby and he’s actually better than his brothers at a ton of things—cooking, cartwheels, juggling, fast-talking auctioneer impressions, and watercolor painting, just to name a few—but other times it’s kind of a relief to know there’s that safety net underneath him that will never shrink or get taken away. No matter how much he messes up, or doesn’t listen, or runs ahead without looking where he’s going, his siblings will always swoop in to get him out of trouble.
Leo will tease him mercilessly, and Donnie will complain about what he would rather be doing with his time, and Raph will lecture him within an inch of his life, but they’ll show up for him every time.
Especially Raph. He’s ridiculous about all three of his brothers, but Mikey most of all.
The twins don’t seem to mind this blatant favoritism, because they’re both guilty of the same thing. Mikey could commit capital murder right in front of their eyes and they would dispose of the body for him and then make him go on a slushie run as payback and call it fair. But also because Donnie has a Leo-shaped soft spot to match Raph’s Mikey-shaped one, even if he’s not as egregious about it as Raphael is.
Case in point, Donnie gives Mikey a very pointed, eyebrows raised, do-not-even-think-about-it look when he comes into the living room for movie night at a run, fully prepared to cannonball onto the sofa where Donnie’s sitting. Clearly he’s not in the mood for a cuddle, not even from his most adorable sibling. Mikey sulks about it, but flops into a beanbag instead.
Raph ducks through the doorway with bowls of popcorn and starts to distribute them, pausing when he’s left holding his bowl as well as Leo’s, the spicy chili pepper and lime flavored monstrosity that only Leo enjoys because there’s something deeply wrong with him.
“Where’s Blue?” he says, glancing around. He doesn’t wait for an answer, adding, “Raph’ll get him, don’t start the movie yet.”
“You’ve seen it a million times,” Mikey calls after him.
“Big words from someone who cried when he missed the beginning of UP last week,” Donnie says without looking up from his phone. Mikey cranes his neck around to level him with his most impressive glare.
“The beginning is the best part! It unpacks a beautiful love story in like eight minutes. Plus, joke’s on you, ‘cause I would have cried anyway.”
“Yes, the joke certainly is on me,” Donnie replies mildly.
“This bozo was gonna bedrot in his room instead of out here with the rest of us,” Raph tattles as he shepherds Leo into the den like the biggest, greenest, pointiest border collie in the whole continental U.S.
“I forgot it was movie night, so sue me,” Leo says, unicorn pillow pet tucked under his arm and enough of a whine in his voice to be annoying by design. But he skitters to the side with a surprised bark of laughter when Raph aims a poke at the ticklish spot between his carapace and plastron.
“Hurry uuuup,” Mikey demands impatiently, kicking his feet up and down, “we’ve literally been waiting for hours.”
“Three minutes,” Donnie corrects.
Donatello lifts his bowl up from where it was sitting next to him mere seconds before Leo executes a full-body flop on the sofa that would have sent it flying. He shoves his pillow pet onto Donnie’s lap and lays his head there without waiting for permission or approval, and Raph puts Leo’s bowl of popcorn on the floor in front of him where he can reach it if he lets his arm dangle.
Leo certainly doesn’t get the evil eye Mikey got a minute ago for attempting the same thing. Donnie just lowers his arm to rest on the curve of Leo’s carapace, scritching the scutes there idly.
But when Leo reaches over Raph’s shoulder for a piece of his prized cookies and cream popcorn, Raph pleasantly tells him that if he tries it he’ll lose the hand. And Mikey shuffles a little lower into his beanbag, smiling as he pops a few pieces of that very same cookies and cream popcorn into his mouth from his own bowl that Raph made just for him.
It all evens out, is the point he’s making.
Leo writhes beneath their hands with hysterical strength, his skin fever-hot to the touch. He’s making this guttural sound that’s closer to a howl than a scream, so loud and piercing that it must be hurting his throat to make it.
“Easy, Lee, it’s okay,” Mikey says, hating how his voice comes out all shaky. He has to lean all his weight across Leo’s legs to keep him from kicking and twisting free. If they let him go, he’ll hurt himself. He already managed to scratch his face, awful gouges that only barely missed his left eye.
It’s some kind of curse, not something they can fix without the specific counter that Donnie and April have gone after. Raph and Mikey were left behind to hold Leo down and soothe him, respectively.
Mikey doesn’t know how well he’s doing. Raph, at least, has his hands planted on Leo’s arms and he isn’t going anywhere. He isn’t letting his little brother go anywhere, either.
“He shouldn’t’a touched the stupid thing,” Raph grits out, worry making him harsh, “those yokai were practically danglin’ it in our faces, they knew this would happen, they wanted us to touch it. Leo should’a known better.”
When papa made Leo the leader, none of them took it very well. Leo took it maybe worst of all. He followed Splinter into his room when they got home, slamming the door behind him, and had an argument about it that lasted nearly half an hour. An argument he didn’t win, if the furious way he stormed out was any indication.
Raphael was totally wrong-footed by what probably feels like an abrupt demotion that came right after leading his family to a historic victory. He still hasn’t gotten his balance back even now, whole weeks later. He doesn’t understand why he lost the role that’s always been his, but he’s Splinter’s most obedient son. Aside from a few initial, bewildered questions—and it hurts Mikey’s heart to remember how hurt Raph had looked, asking Splinter “but why?”—he just lifted his chin and accepted it.
Leo would sooner face god and walk backwards into hell than just accept anything. He’s dug in, refusing to budge—like he only has to out-stubborn all the rest of them for Splinter to see that it’s not working and change his mind. Raph keeps trying to pass him the baton, and Leo keeps hiding his hands behind his back, as if he’s a little kid refusing to take the bug he knows his sibling is trying to give him.
Mikey keeps hoping that things will shake out and go back to normal, but it keeps not happening. Leo and Raph sort of started out on the same side, mutual confusion and shared frustration, but now they’re drifting to opposite sides of the argument. They’ve started fighting more.
“But you like making plans,” Mikey said one night, trying to figure it out. “You’d always get so annoyed when Raph would just bust in. You don’t always care about the actual missions, but you have fun planning them. What’s different?”
Leo had shrugged one shoulder, expression unreadable behind the smirk he’d taken to wearing like armor. He said, “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” like he knew it would tick Mikey off enough that he’d huff and leave Leo alone.
“He did know better,” Mikey tells Raph, eyes stinging. “He grabbed it ‘cause I was about to. I was literally reaching for it. I don’t know how he knew this was gonna happen. I don’t know why he didn’t just tell you that.”
He’s not sure if Raph can hear him over Leo’s shrieking. He’s not brave enough to look up at him and check. But Raph doesn’t say anything else about it, and the next time he speaks it’s a choked-up rumble of, “It’s gonna be okay, Fearless. We got you, big man. Raph’s got you.”
Leo stops screaming and starts sobbing instead. It’s not any easier to listen to. Mikey can’t remember the last time he’s heard Leo cry.
The infirmary door flies open and Donnie and April rush into the room at a dead sprint. Donnie’s hands are clutched around a jar with a glass stopper in the top, keeping the shimmering opaque liquid inside from spilling out. April climbs onto the bed to lift Leo’s head onto her knees and Donnie unstops the jar and holds the rim to his twin’s mouth.
“Here, Nardo,” he whispers, all laser-focus, “here, drink, it’ll make you feel better.”
Some of it spills down Leo’s chin, and Raph jerks forward nervously like he’s worried he’ll choke, but as soon as it hits Leo’s tongue it seems to go to work. His whole body relaxes all at once, all the resistance gone. Mikey tentatively lets go, leaning back and wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand, watching avidly to make sure it’s okay now.
It seems to be. Leo’s breath is still hitching, there are still tears rolling down the sides of his face, but it seems to be leftovers. April makes a wounded tsking sound at the scratches on Leo’s face and eases his head back down so she can hop off the bed and find something to clean them with.
Donnie sits on the edge of the cot, one hand on Leo’s plastron as it rises and falls, the other clutching the empty glass jar in a white-knuckled grip.
“Is that it?” Raph asks, visibly anxious. “Is that all he needs?”
“That’s it,” Donnie replies robotically. His eyes don’t budge from Leo’s flushed, bleeding face. “I am certain they did not lie to me. I was very convincing.”
“He made four grown witches and one little one cry,” April interjects from the medical cabinet she’s rifling through on the other side of the room.
“They’re lucky that’s all I did,” he says. “They hired those yokai to steal a cursed item specifically so they could hire us to get it back. Because of a grudge they have against me for something that happened almost a year ago.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have done it,” April replies smartly. “I smashed a bunch of their stuff with my bat while we were there, it felt like the right move,” she reports to Raph, who just puts his face in his hands for a little bit.
“Good,” Mikey blurts meanly, sounding nasally to his own ears.
He’ll never forget Leo screaming like that. He’ll never stop thinking how it should have been him who was hurting, and how the only reason it wasn’t is because of his brother who was always looking farther ahead than everybody else. Who didn’t want to lead them, who was determined to make his family think he was a failure, but wouldn’t keep up the act if it meant they’d get hurt.
He’s glad Donnie menaced the people responsible. He will be entirely unsurprised if he ever finds out that that’s not the only thing Donnie did to them.
Leo’s eyes blink open, all glassy and out of focus. Donnie leans in so he doesn’t have to look very far for him.
“Dumdum,” he says, in a voice that’s so warm it seems impossible that it belongs to him. Even April slows what she’s doing, listening closely.
“Dondon,” Leo replies. His tone would be sardonic if there was room in it for anything but that breathless relief from pain.
“You know that if you ever knowingly pick up a cursed item again I’m going to sell you for parts, correct?”
Leo’s next exhale is weighted, as if it’s trying to be a laugh. “Promises.”
“What’s your number?”
“One,” is the immediate reply. “Solid one.”
Donnie finally smiles at him, relieved. April comes over with an armful of supplies that she’d probably screwed up Leo’s organizational system rummaging around for, but since it’s her, he’ll let it slide.
Before Raph surrenders his spot so they can get to work on Leo’s scratches, he leans down and kisses Leo’s forehead, rumbling all deep in his chest the way he used to do when they were all much smaller turtles. And some small thread of tension that Mikey hadn’t noticed was still there disappears from Leo’s body like it floated away on a breeze.
“Love you too Raphie,” he mumbles, blinking wetly.
“Can you stop talking for three seconds so we can get this done?” Donnie gripes at him, even though April is having no issues dabbing at Leo’s face with the disinfectant wipes. “I know that’ll be a new record for you.”
“I know that’ll be a new record for you,” Leo mimics, laughably bad. April snorts, and then starts giggling when Donnie looks deeply offended by them both.
Raph comes around to stand by Mikey, putting an arm around his shoulders and hugging him into his side. Mikey lets himself be held, feeling like an exposed nerve, and a little bit like he needs his biggest brother’s arm around him exactly like this or he’ll shake apart into a thousand pieces.
“It’s not your fault,” Raph tells him quietly. “Donnie said it, those—people planned for this to happen. They wanted to hurt him. They’re the ones that we can blame, okay?”
“Okay,” Mikey mumbles, not a hundred percent sure he means it, but knowing in his heart that Raph’s right. “I wish Leo had just told us not to touch it.”
“He may have only had a hunch,” Raph says fairly. “Sometimes it’s hard for him to explain himself when he’s only working off his intuition. He doesn’t think we’ll trust him unless he has something more to offer.” Raph hesitates, and then takes a deep breath, and his voice is softer when he adds, “He’s been tryin’ to tell me somethin’ for weeks. Raph hasn’t been listening.”
Mikey bonks his head against Raph’s plastron, and then decides that isn’t enough affection, and wraps his arms around his big brother as far as they’ll go. The quiet rumble in Raph’s chest kicks up a notch, and Mikey absorbs it the way his little box turtle cousins bask in sunlight down by the Hudson.
You don’t have to understand someone a hundred percent of the time to love them completely. It’s enough, he thinks, that you’re just willing to try.
“Raph thought higher numbers were better,” Raphael says abruptly. “But Donnie was happy with Leo’s answer, so I guess one is good, too?”
“I have no idea,” Mikey says. “They’re really weird. Let’s make up our own number thing to mess with them, why haven’t we done that yet?”
“You know that we can hear you,” Leo says in a croaky voice, barely able to raise it enough to make his point.
Raph scoffs, but it’s a playful sound. “Didn’t Dee tell you not to talk?”
“Oh, please, like that was ever gonna stick,” April says.
Mikey sniffs one more time, and rubs his face again, but he feels better. He stays where he’s at, burrowed stubbornly against Raph’s side, because he knows Raph won’t budge until he’s certain Mikey doesn’t need him anymore. And it’s not selfish of him to monopolize his big brother, because Leo has their other big brother’s undivided attention.
They’re both being held. The shape of it is different, but not entirely. It’s actually almost exactly the same.