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tangledinink · 9 months

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At long last! A new chapter... Of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? Chapter 22 is here. The Hamato Family focuses on re-adjusting to everyday life until suddenly they're not. Read it on ao3 or below the cut!

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“Donniiiieee!” Leo whined loudly, “Tell your drone to quit ignoring me! I never get any footage out of these things!”

“Skill issue,” Donnie remarked, and Leo gave an affronted gasp.

“What!?”

“Yeah!” Mikey chirped, an absolutely shit-eating grin on his face as he joined them; hopping from his skateboard when he reached the top of the half-pipe, grabbing it in his arms and making a smooth transition to solid ground. Donnie’s drone, buzzing softly overhead, followed after him. It was filming all of them, but it did, admittedly, spend a great deal of time trailing Mikey like an excited puppy. “If you want drone time, then you should do more cool stuff. Like me,” he teased.

“I do plenty of cool stuff, thank you!” Leo huffed.

“Where?” Donnie questioned, and April snorted softly.

She had missed this.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause I’m the best skateboarder, cuh-learly,” Mikey declared happily, all but peacocking, plopping down next to his siblings where they were currently all perched atop of the half-pipe platform, taking a break and lounging in the sun like seals on a ocean rock.

Or maybe like turtles on a log?...

Raph hummed in response, wordlessly rolling over so that he could flop on top of his baby brother, effectively pinning Mikey to the ground. Mikey squealed, shrieking in protest, even though laughter colored his voice.

“Raph! You are crushing me! Get off!”

“Gotta eliminate the competition,” Raph replied calmly, grinning as he settled down on top of him. April snickered, leaning forward to rest her chin atop her knees.

“Guess that’s the danger of being the best,” she teased.

“Oh, how the mighty fall,” Donnie said, grinning widely. The drone happily recorded.

“I will bite you!” Mikey threatened.

“No you won’t,” Raph said. “‘Cause if you do, I’ll stop getting stuff off the top shelves for you.”

Mikey gasped loudly in offense. “I am still growing!!!”

“Better hurry up,” Donnie said.

“Ex-squeeze me!? You’re five-three!”

“And yet, I am still taller than you…”

The weather was finally starting to get nice out, April observed, and the skatepark that she and the boys frequented was filled with people taking advantage. The steady orchestra of wheels on pavement and excited shouts in the background provided a comforting soundtrack, playing nicely with the birdsong and the sounds of the city that filtered in from around them. Now that it was getting warmer again, the entire city seemed to be waking up. All of New York was flooded with joggers, with dogs on leashes going on walks, with cyclists and parents with strollers and even just people walking around and enjoying the nice weather. April swore it was like animals waking up after hibernation; poking their heads from their burrows at long last. People sat on milk crates on street corners and talked and laughed with one another, trading cigarettes and stories alike, and all the balconies and stoops in her neighborhood were suddenly occupied now that the temperatures were rising. Leaves were beginning to grow on the trees again, and this was something April had always loved, getting excited to see them each and every year. But they had never made her smile so much as they did this time around. Mikey had taken the time to inform her about eight times now that it was the exact same hue as her life color, and now every time she looked at them, she couldn’t help but grin.

Raph eventually let Mikey loose with enough complaining, and the five lingered for a bit longer up top, readjusting knee pads and rollerskate straps or guzzling water, filling the space with idle chatter as they did so, until Leo got to his feet, stretching his arms up above his head.

“You guys wanna do another run?”

“Nah,” April sighed. “You guys go. I gotta get heading to work soon.”

“Booooo,” Mikey complained. “No working. Quit your job! Rollerskate for money!” April scoffed.

“Right, well, if you find someplace that accepts drone footage of rollerskating as currency, you let me know!”

“The new job good?” Donnie questioned, raising a brow, and April nodded.

“Yeah! It’s pretty cool. I mean, my bosses are sort of weird, but in a chill way,” she hummed. “I mean, it’s retail, but the pay is pretty good, so I like it alright.”

Leo sighed dramatically. “Wow. I can’t believe you love money more than you love us,”

“You just say that ‘cause you’ve never had a job,” Raph scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“What about you?” April asked, glancing over at Raphael. “Going back to work soon?”

Raph’s face absolutely lit up at the question, grinning big and giving a determined nod. “Yep! Next class is tomorrow!” He reported proudly. “Can’t leave my kids hangin’ for too long.”

“I’ll bet you any amount of money that that Penelope kid will yell at you for being gone for so long,” April said with a grin, and Raph laughed.

“Yeah. Probably.”

---

“Okay, deep breath in.”

Mikey agreeably inhaled, allowing oxygen to sweep inside of his lungs, feeling his chest swell up to accommodate the load.

“... And deep breath out.”

And he exhaled, slowly blowing all of the air back out, feeling his own breath tickle the edge of his lips as he went.

“... Dad?”

“Yes, my son?”

“Meditation is… really… boring.”

His dad laughed out loud, cracking open his eyes to glance over at his youngest son. “I cannot even disagree with you, Orange. I used to hate it when I was younger,” he confessed. “There were always just so many other things I’d rather be doing!”

“I don’t like it!” Mikey whined, flopping over onto his back, letting all his limbs splay out. “I thought it’d be like yoga! I like yoga! But you just sit in this one! Where’s the fun in that!?”

“I know, I know,” their dad hummed, waving a hand. “But it is an excellent tool for control and focus. And you are the one who asked me to teach you in the first place!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it’d be so lameeeeee,” Mikey whined, rolling over onto his side with a pout.

“Suck it up,” Dad hummed in reply, leaning over to nudge his shoulder slightly. “Come on, up. Five more minutes and we’ll be done.”

“Five minutes!?” Mikey wailed. “That’s so long!”

“It’s not that long,” his dad assured. “You will be fine. And this is the best method I know to keep your ninpo in check, Michelangelo. If you want to control your mystic powers, you’re going to have to focus and control your thoughts and emotions first.”

Mikey wrinkled his nose a bit, slowly sitting up and pursing his lips to form a pout.

That had never been a strength of his.

“Mikey.”

The sharpness of his teacher’s voice shocked Mikey back into reality, his head bobbing in surprise as he turned to glance over at her, leaning over his desk. When had she gotten here…?

“Have you finished your work yet?”

“Uhmmmm…” Mikey paused for a moment, glancing down at the math problems on his desk, clutching at his pencil a bit nervously. She had said to do the first two pages, and he had been going to, honestly! And he had done a few, but then the next one he didn’t know how to do on his own--

“Then why are you drawing?” She pressed, narrowing her eyes, and Mikey shrank a bit, his hands instinctively and self-consciously moving to cover up the little doodles that had begun to take over the margins and free space of the paper. All the little lightning bolts and shooting stars and cartoon unicorns and superheroes that he had been so happy about just a few minutes ago suddenly made his blood feel like ice.

“I dunno how to do these ones…” He defended weakly, his stomach flip-flopping as his eyes darted downwards, his fingers wiggling anxiously.

“We’ve talked about this, Michelangelo. If you need help, then you need to raise your hand and ask me to help you, not doodle,” she chided, her tone insistent, matter-of-fact. Mikey wanted to tell her that she had already been working with one of his classmates when he realized he needed help, and that he had intended to wait for her to be done so he could ask her about the math problems without interrupting, cause he knew she didn’t like it when he interrupted, but then he had gotten bored waiting and started drawing instead, and then he had forgot…

But somehow he didn’t think it would help.

He shrank under her eyes, his lower lip wobbling.

“Okay,” he mumbled, his voice very small, and she sighed with such an air of absolute exasperation that it sent hot, salty tears spilling unbidden over his lower lashes. He didn’t mean to! He was trying so hard not to cry, but she just…! It had just been an accident, but she just seemed so disappointed with him! She seemed so angry!

And now he was crying in class and he could feel his classmates looking at him out of the corners of their eyes. His face burned bright as he scrunched himself up into a teeny little ball, his chin tucked down to his chest to hide.

His teacher stood up straight again, and it felt suddenly like she was looming over him. “When you’re finished crying, call me over and I’ll help you with your work,” she told him, and Mikey shivered from the coldness of it. He had never been so ashamed to cry before. “And if I see any more drawings, I’m throwing them in the trash. Do you understand me?”

Mikey had hiccuped, just a tiny bit, without meaning to, and nodded.

His throat felt all achy and swollen up as he laid his head down in his arms, blinking past tears and sniffling softly, trying desperately to push everything back down and dismiss them. This wasn’t even the first time this had happened…! He was pretty much convinced by now that Mrs. Stephanidis must hate him with all the trouble he was always getting into. She was always upset with him. She was always sighing like that every time they talked… and he was trying, honest, he was! He didn’t mean to get distracted and end up doing something else when they were in class, it just…

Happened.

It was so hard to just sit still and listen and not do anything else. His fingers always wanted to move! So did his feet and his tongue! And he could keep some of them down, but he could never quite manage to keep them all in check all at the same time, despite his best efforts. He’d stay in his seat and be still, but then he’d get in trouble for chatting with his desk-neighbor, which he could never quite understand, because why was he in trouble for talking with his friend? Was it bad? He didn’t get it. He’d keep his hands still, not letting them wander off and do anything else, and he’d remain quiet in class, but then he’d spot something out the window and before he knew it he’d be out of his seat and peering out the window, belatedly finding some excuse to be up when he was confronted. And even when he could keep his mouth quiet and his bottom firmly in his chair…

Well, he’d find himself here.

There were just so many things all the time that he wanted to be doing! Like drawing little superheroes. Or debating with Madison about how high horses could jump. Or finding out how many erasers he could stack on top of one another (twelve), or teaching his deskmates how to say “butt” in Japanese (now the entire first grade knew how), or discovering what happened if you put your finger in the pencil sharpener, (it hurt, and you had to go the nurse to get a bandaid.)

It wasn’t like he didn’t like math and reading and all that stuff. It was just…

So slow sometimes.

As he ruminated on this all, he was slowly able to fight off some of the earlier sorrow, muscling all the wobbly little sobs back inside of his head once he put every bit of strength he had into it. It was exhausting, but it was worth it. He wanted Mrs. Stephanidis to like him. He wanted to be a good student! A good kid! He wanted to do his math and learn how…! He eventually picked his head back up, refocusing on the worksheets in front of him, now with a few wet spots.

He wiped at his cheeks, taking a few long, shaking breaths as he glanced over at his teacher across the room, wandering about and looking over other kids shoulders, occasionally making comments or remarks to his classmates. He supposed he could raise his hand and ask her to come and help him, but…

The idea made his throat puff up again. If he had her come help him, he’d have to raise his hand, and then everyone would look at him again. And, maybe even worse, then she would come over, and he’d have to talk with her again, and…

He hesitated, fear prickling up his spine, his sneakers nudging anxiously at the tile floor at the thought. Well. She would surely wander her way back over to his desk eventually…

Mikey sniffled softly, wiping at his nose with the backs of his sleeve. Maybe he just wasn’t trying hard enough before. Maybe he could figure this stuff out on his own, and he just hadn’t worked long enough on it…

His eyes wandered to the first problem, his pencil lingering over the surface of the paper, repeatedly leaving small, nervous marks and nicks in the surface of the paper as his hand squirmed and trembled. He had gone over some of this with Donnie before, so he probably knew how to do it, right? He just hadn’t tried hard enough to remember…

Very slowly, he tried to pick his way through the problem, his face scrunched up with concentration. Okay, so if it was six, plus nine, then it was like… if he had nine… he just had to count six more times higher, right? But wait, did he start from nine, or from ten? Was the rule different when you got into double digits?...

He hesitantly wrote out numbers on the sheet, his handwriting having morphed from his usual big, loopy letters and numbers to become itty bitty, tiny script, all scrunched together and small, like it wanted to curl up and hide just like he did. And he wasn’t sure if he was doing it right, but at least he was doing it, right? It was better to do it this way, wasn’t it…? He frowned, chewing at his eraser, digging his teeth into the surface.

He ground himself to a halt when he approached the subtraction problems, squirming anxiously in his seat. He knew Donnie taught him this, too, but he really didn’t remember how to do these ones. He knew he had to do it backwards, kinda, but he didn’t remember how it worked, or what the first step was.

His pencil twitched absently as he dug around in the back of his mind, searching desperately for anything helpful. He sketched repeatedly over the same lines he had already drawn earlier-- digging into the little canals and divots that the lead had carved into the soft surface of the paper, dragging it back and forth. Just an absent motion while he tried to think.

And he hadn’t realized Mrs. Stephanidis had come back. But the absolutely outraged gasp that clued him in made him jump, and his blood ran cold as he immediately froze, dropping the pencil like it had burned him.

“Michelangelo!”

“I wasn’t--” He tried desperately to explain himself, panic flaring through his chest.

“What did I just tell you?!”

“But I--”

Mikey realized quickly that she wasn’t interested in listening to him as she snatched the worksheets from his desk, his pencil knocked aside with the movement and rolling off his desk. Mikey resisted the urge to grab for them, remaining absolutely still in his seat. All the hard work he had just done to chase the tears away was instantly undone as he watched her march over to the trash can by the door.

She tore the papers in half the long way, right down the middle. And then she rotated them so she could do it again, ripping them the opposite direction, like a cross. Like a great big “X.” Pulled apart into four separate pieces. And then the scraps went fluttering into the black bin.

She went to her desk. She picked up a new set of worksheets, clean and fresh. She returned to Mikey’s desk, laying them down neatly where his previous work had once been. She picked his pencil up off the floor for him and leaned back over the desk.

“Okay. Now show me which problems you didn’t understand.”

Yeah. Dad hadn’t been too happy about that one.

He had started seeing his therapist, Cat, a little after that, and that had helped a lot. And then when he was seven, he started taking meds, and that helped a lot, too. It certainly wasn’t a magic band-aid. Things still… sucked sometimes.

And he still wasn’t the best at. You know. Focusing.

… But he couldn’t just let it keep getting the better of him.

Not if it was going to hurt his family.

Mikey took in a long, deep breath, sitting back upright again, scooting forward so he could copy his Dad’s posture once more, his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees.

“Okay. I’m ready.”

---

It was just as he had suspected.

Penelope was pissed.

It had been endearing, quite frankly, how worked up she was. They all were-- Raphael had been nearly ambushed when he showed up at class, all five of his students throwing themselves at him and clinging to him as soon as they got the chance.

“Where were you?!” Penelope had demanded. “You were gone for forever!!! You’re supposed to teach us, remember!? We have a standing appointment!!!”

And Raph had laughed despite himself, wondering where she had heard that term, unable to keep himself from smiling even as they scolded him. He had already known he had missed them over the past month. But he hadn’t had the chance to actually feel it until just then. It was almost enough to make him tear up, emotion building up in the back of his throat, but he smoothed it back out, keeping himself steady. He didn’t even mind how much his cheeks hurt, because god.

He had missed this so much.

“Sorry, kiddo, my bad,” he told them. “Raph missed you guys, too. But I had to go take care of my family for a little while.”

“Why?” Penelope had demanded.

“Are they okay?” Another child had questioned, looking up at him with these huge, concerned eyes.

“It’s a real long story,” he had told them with a sigh and a lop-sided grin. “But don’t worry. Everyone is okay now.”

“Did something bad happen?” One of his students had asked.

“Did you protect them?” Said another, and Raph had chuckled.

“Nah,” he told them. “We all protected each other.”

Even thinking about it now, now that he was back in his own room in his own house, he couldn’t help but smile a little bit. He thought that there was a fifty-fifty chance he may grow to regret it, but he had even given in and done two ‘Ferry’ laps around the pool at the end of the lesson. Come on-- how could he not?

A knock on his door drew him from the memory, and he lifted his head slightly, his eyes darting over to meet the sound.

“Yeah?”

He was, admittedly, a little surprised when Leo made his way into the room with him, closing the door behind him. Not that he was unwelcome.

“Hey,” Leo greeted.

“Hey,” Raph echoed, raising a brow slightly, already wondering what it was that had brought his little brother here. He wasn’t just here to hang out or avoid doing homework-- he could already tell. He knew his brothers better than that. “What’s up?”

Leo had hesitated a second, wrinkling his nose. “Can you help me with something?”

What kind of a question is that?

“Yeah, a’course. What’s up?”

Leo had frowned, plopping down on Raph’s bed, and Raph took notice of the little black pouch he had brought with him for the first time.

“Okay, look. Can you just help me with my T-shot? Please?”

Raph blinked in surprise.

“Oh,” he said. “I mean. Yeah, sure. I can try. You haven’t done ‘em yet…?” Leo’s appointment had only been a few days ago, but still. He had been so excited for this!

“I’ve been making Dad do them,” Leo confessed, scrunching up his nose. “But I wanna be able to do them myself! And I can, I know how, I just--”

He cut out, squeezing his eyes shut for a second.

“This is so fucking stupid. Can you just-- count me down?”

Was that all? Raph just barely breathed out an amused little huff, though he didn’t dare laugh at his younger brother’s request, biting it back.

“Yeah, dude. No problem.”

“It’s just-- it psyches me out,” Leo muttered, curled up on the foot of his brother’s bed, beginning to unpack the kit he had brought with him with determined but still unpracticed hands.

“That’s fine,”

“It’s so dumb. I’ve done way scarier stuff than this. It doesn’t even really hurt that bad,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, but I do most of the scary stuff you do, too, and I’m still freaked out by puppets,” Raph countered, shrugging a bit. He hated to bring it up, and if anyone besides him said it, he’d smack them, but… sometimes you gotta make sacrifices for your family. “So I kinda think it probably doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Leo sighed, biting the tip of his tongue as he fiddled with the syringe, occasionally stopping, stumbling, and starting again. Raph waited patiently. It wasn’t like he had any idea how to do any of this stuff, anyway, so he didn’t have much room to judge. He watched silently as his brother tore open an alcohol pad to wipe down his own thigh, scrunching his pajama shorts up ever-so-slightly to give himself more room.

“You ready?” Raph asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Alright. I’ll count down from three.”

“Okay.”

“Three.”

“Mmmm…”

“Two.”

Leo adjusted his grip on the needle slightly.

“One.”

There was just the second of delay, Leo’s hand hoovering for just a second, like he was still thinking about backing down.

But just for a second.

He hissed a bit at the sting, but about three seconds later, it was done, the needle capped again and ready to be disposed of, and everything was finished.

“All good?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Raph said, turning in his chair to face his desk again. And he meant it. He liked doing this kind of thing. He liked it when his brothers could come to him, when his family could rely on him-- he liked feeling needed like this. He was sure that Mikey would psychoanalyze the shit out of this, but he really did want to protect them. He wanted to be the one who kept them safe. Even when it was difficult.

And when it was easy, too. Just like this.

“”S not like I was really doin’ homework, anyway,” Raph added in with a chuckle, glancing over his shoulder at Leo again.

Leo made a face at the thought of homework, no doubt having his own, but he laughed a little, too.

“You want me to count you in tomorrow, too?” Raph asked, keeping his tone as casual as he possibly could, turning his head back to face the desk again as he spoke, leaving the other to consider the offer without eyes on him. And he could tell that Leo was thinking about it for a while, waffling for a moment before he answered.

“... Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

---

“Dad, is this a touch screen?”

“No, it is not, so do not touch it.”

“DAD! Dad, look! There’s a dog over there!!!”

“Yes, Mikey, I see it.”

“Can I go--”

“No. Stay here with me.”

“Dad! Look! I can see the security guys!”

“Yes, and they are all very busy doing their jobs, so we probably should not distract them by screaming and pointing--”

“Do they have guns!?”

Their father sighed very deeply, not looking up from his current task, rummaging through his bag.

“No, they--”

“Do they have katanas?”

“Why would they have katanas?”

“‘Cause they’re cool,” Leo said, “I wanted to bring mine! This is sooo not fair”

“Well, you’re not old enough to compete in that event yet, so you’ll have to suck it up,” Dad replied. “And you do not have to worry about what weapons the security does or does not have, because you would not break any rules and give them any reason to use any of them. Right, Blue?”

“Right!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!!! I’m for sure sure!”

“So if I go through your backpack right now, I will not find any cans of Jupiter Jim Comet Cola in there? Because I specifically told you not to bring any?”

Leo scowled.

“Go throw it out.”

“What!? But it’s limited edition!!!”

“Then you should have left it at home like I told you. Go.”

“I’ll drink it so fast--”

“Leonardo.”

Leo groaned loudly, flinging his head back dramatically as he slunk off towards the nearby trash can.

This had been about the energy pretty much all day.

“What kind of cameras are those?”

“Purple, I have absolutely no idea.”

“Can I--”

“Whatever it is, no,” Dad said, finally fishing their boarding passes from his bag. “Alright, come on, let’s go. That way, to the security check-- the blue sign over there.”

“I wanna hold my own ticket!” Leo demanded.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not!?”

“You will lose it. Come on. Let’s go.”

“No I wouldn’t! I swear!”

“Well, we will never know,” Dad said. “Come on, or we will be late and miss our flight. Move. Shoo,” he insisted, nudging at the nearest child’s ankle slightly with his foot, as if to herd them. Mikey gave a short squeal in response, hopping away and giggling as he took off in a jog towards the blue TSA sign. He bobbed and weaved past all the hoards of people and their suitcases, his backpack bouncing about with each step.

Raph frowned a bit, hurrying his pace so he could catch up with Mikey, sticking close by his side. There were a ton of people here. What if he got lost or something? Then they’d definitely miss their flight. He picked up the pace slightly so he could catch up.

“Mikey,” he called, reaching out towards him and wriggling his fingers. “Hold hands?”

“Okay,” Mikey agreed easily, happily reaching over to grab Raph’s hand in his own, and Raph breathed out a very quiet sigh in relief. Mikey was always willing to hold hands when he asked. At least this way, he knew he wasn’t gonna get lost.

The five of them slowly snaked their way through the long, roped-off security lines, their father following after them, occasionally saying things like, ‘stop unhooking the lanes,’ or ‘do NOT touch the AED machine,’ or ‘Orange, get off the floor.’ Raph and Mikey took turns seeing who could walk on their hands the longest, and they only fell a few times, with their father grumbling at them to cut it out each time he caught them by their legs and prevented them from crashing into any fellow travelers, which they of course ignored. Eventually, they shuffled their way through the entire process, having all the boarding passes and documents checked by the security man up front, and then passing through the physical security check as well. Dad grumbled about how much more complicated flying had gotten since he had last done it, forbade Leo and Mikey from climbing up onto the conveyor belt for the X-Ray machine, and had, one by one, coaxed them all through the entire process until they were on the other side.

“Dad, can I have one of those?” Donnie questioned, pointing back at the equipment at the checkpoint.

“Ask me again when we get back home,” Dad said, letting out a long breath.

The rest of the process was actually pretty easy. They eventually made their way over to their gate, their dad sat them all down and put on a Jupiter Jim movie for them to watch together, and they waited until it was time for boarding. And the entire day had been very chaotic so far, with Raphael’s anxiety spiking and waning throughout it all in frantic little bursts, but now, it didn’t really seem so bad.

It wasn’t until they actually started to board the plane that some of the fear started to come back.

He and his siblings were arguing about who would get to sit in the window seat, their Dad hoisting carry-ons up into the overheads, when Raph kind of glanced outside through said window and came to the startling realization that they were on a plane.

And it was huge.

And it was gonna go up in the air. With them in it.

His carefully calculated talking points about how he was the oldest, and therefore, he should get the window seat sort of died in his throat, and he swallowed hard, balling his hands up into little fists.

They had never flown in a plane before.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yes, Red…?”

“Are we… Are we, uhm…” He kind of broke off, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. The air in here was so stale.

Their dad paused, glancing down at him for a moment, quickly finishing his task before kneeling down next to Raph, seeming unconcerned about the other people trying to walk down the aisle.

“What’s wrong, Red?”

“Is it…” He hesitated a little. “Are you sure planes are safe?”

“Yes, my son. I am sure planes are safe.”

“Oh,” he said, biting the insides of his cheeks. “And it’s not gonna be… I mean. Nothin’ bad is gonna happen?”

“I’m sure,” Dad assured. “It will be fine, Raph. I have flown many, many times before, and nothing bad has ever happened yet. At least nothing worse than my bag getting lost,” he said, chuckling a bit, and Raph wrinkled up his nose slightly. (Wait, what if their bags got lost? It had a bunch of their stuff for the tournament they were going to! They needed that stuff…!)

“Here,” Dad said, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing it slightly. “How about you sit here next to me? So if anything happens, I can explain it to you?”

Raph’s eyes widened a bit, his head immediately turning to glance over at his siblings.

“But what about--”

“They will be right there the entire time. You’ll be able to see them and talk to them the whole flight if you want,” Dad assured quickly. “And so will I. Just in case. Does that sound okay?”

Raph chewed quietly at his knuckle, considering this for a second before he nodded.

“Okay. Good. Here, sit down,” he bade, getting the two of them settled in their seats to clear up the aisle, giving a quick order to the other three to ‘sort it out.’ It took five games of rock-paper-scissors, but eventually, the others figured out what order they were sitting in. (Mikey in the window seat, Leo in the middle, and Donnie in the aisle.)

“Are you excited to go to the competition, Red?” Dad asked, settling down easily in his seat. Raph breathed in deeply, hesitating a second before he nodded.

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty exciting, going to the National Tournament for the first time,” Dad continued. “I am looking forward to watching you four kick everyone else’s butt when we get there.”

“Mmm-hmmm…”

“And for you to see Colorado. I have never been there before, but I heard it’s very nice.”

“You haven’t?”

“No, not yet. So it will be new for me, too,” Dad said with a nod. “But I’m sure it will be lovely. I’m quite looking forward to it.”

Raph blinked thoughtfully, his shoulders slowly untensing a bit as they discussed.

“I thought you said you used to fly everywhere,” he challenged, and his dad laughed.

“I did! Just not to Colorado.”

“Well then that’s not everywhere, though!”

“Fair enough,” he chuckled. “But I have flown to many places. I enjoy flying. It’s relaxing. A good chance to catch up on my beauty sleep!” He laughed.

“It is?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Dad confirmed with a hum. “When we are taking off, the plane will go very fast so it can get up into the air. It is like, uh… A roller coaster. But in reverse order,” he explained. “And then once we are in the air, we just go straight in the direction we want to go, and it’s very calm. So I like it.”

A reverse roller-coaster?

Raph blinked in surprise, leaning over slightly as he considered this. Well, he did like roller coasters.

“How high are we gonna go?”

---

It’s really true what they say. You never really appreciate something until it’s taken from you. Absence and hearts growing fonder and all that. And really, they hadn’t been separated for very long-- no more than a few days.

But god, had Donnie missed his lab.

His dad had only kept him from the space for a few days before he was granted re-access, though only after a long discussion and several promises not to try to perform any more blood work on himself. And Donnie had relented, though perhaps a bit reluctantly. It was an interesting project, but he supposed he would have to put it on hold for the time being.

(Also, Dad had confiscated all his syringes.)

Besides, it wasn’t as though he didn’t have about half a dozen other fascinating things that he could throw himself into right now. He had a hard time picking one thing to focus on right now, quite frankly, with so many different things calling for his attention now that he finally had the energy to offer it.

The one thing that called the loudest, however, currently sat in his gloved hand-- held up closer to the light beneath several magnifying lenses.

He really had no idea what this little pink crystal that he had stolen from Draxum’s lab did. But if it came from him, he had a feeling it must be important. He was still in the early data collection stage, but already all the readings he had picked up were, quite frankly, baffling in the very best of ways, and he was already certain of one thing.

It wasn’t any kind of mineral that had been documented in human records before.

(Even just thinking that made him shiver with goosebumps. This was totally uncharted territory! Research that no one in documented modern science had done before! And here he was, holding this little stone in his hands, his own two hands, preparing to dive into unknown and crack open its secrets and lay them out and untangle them--)

“Dude!”

Donnie startled slightly, his head bobbing about to glance over at the entrance of his lab.

“Quit putting your phone on silent, it’s annoying,” Leo huffed. “Do you have any idea how many stairs are in between you and the kitchen?”

Donnie blinked slowly beneath his goggles. “... What?”

“We tried calling you!” Mikey added, poking his head into the lab as well. “Dinner is ready!!! Come on!”

Donnie floundered for a moment, looking sadly back at his research. “But I--”

“Family dinner. That I made myself. For my whole family to enjoy,” Mikey added in swiftly, batting his eyelashes. “Together.”

Right. Donnie sighed softly, reluctantly setting the crystal down, stripping himself of his safety gear and getting to his feet. It wasn’t like he didn’t appreciate the new emphasis on sit-down family dinners that they had recently developed…

But dang it, did it have to be at the expense of scientific advancement!?

“I’m coming. Put the eyes away, Michael,” he muttered, making his way across the lab to join them at the door. Mikey just grinned in response, seemingly perfectly pleased with himself as he spun around to begin making his way back down the stairs. Donnie, admittedly, smiled the tiniest bit.

Fine, fine. He supposed that the crystal would still be there when he got back.

The kitchen was already bustling by the time they all re-joined the fray, with Dad and Raph finishing up setting the table, which was already filled to the brim with Mikey’s cooking. Luckily, with the size of their family and the size of the appetites in it, there was never any concern about overabundance.

“‘S April coming?” He questioned, easily joining the organized chaos, slipping neatly into the familiar thick of it. He rapidly took inventory of the scene and moved by instinct to fill in any gaps, reaching into the cupboard to grab glasses for the table before fetching the Brita filter from the fridge. The rest of the family moved around him seamlessly, darting around and between one another as all the last-minute meal prep was completed.

“Yeah, she should be here in a few minutes. She said she was on her way,” Raph reported, tossing a stray backpack left on the back of a kitchen chair into the living room, letting it bounce off the couch and onto the floor to be fetched later.

“Guys, where’re the salad tongs? I can’t find them!” Mikey complained, shuffling through drawers.

“Mikey, no one except for you ever uses those,” Donnie scoffed in response, raising a brow. “They’re wherever you put them last.”

“But I can’t find them!”

“Did you check the dishwasher?” Raph questioned.

“Yeah!”

“Did you check all the cabinets?”

“... No.”

“... Do you want me to check the top ones?”

Mikey scowled.

“Yeah,” he muttered. And Raph grinned, but he didn’t say anything further, reaching up to the upper cupboards inaccessible to the rest of his family, beginning to search.

“Are they still in the fridge?” Leo questioned, raising a brow.

“Why would they be in the fridge?” Raph questioned.

“‘Cause Mikey was using them for those chocolate-strawberry-nachos he made the other day, and there’s still leftovers in the fridge.”

Mikey gasped, his face lighting up as he darted across the room.

“Oh, yeah--!”

“It’s a miracle we are able to keep track of anything in this house,” Dad scoffed softly, though he seemed more amused than anything, shaking his head as he dried a last-minute addition to the dishware lineup, dinner plate in one hand and hand towel in the other.

“That’s an understatement,” Donnie sighed.

“APRILLLL O’NEIL!!!”

Donnie would admit it. He had missed her dramatic entrances. He smiled a bit as his sister flung the front door open, bursting into the Hamato Household, grinning wide despite looking just a tiny bit frazzled. He suspected she had rushed her way over here-- she was still wearing her work uniform.

“Sorry I’m late,” April laughed, kicking the door shut behind her as she made her way into the kitchen. “This guy got one of the kiddie sandals stuck on his foot and I had to--”

Donnie was sure that whatever April was about to say would have been a good story. He would have been interested in hearing it. But he didn’t get the chance.

The sound of a ceramic plate shattering on the tile floor brought all conversation to a shrieking, shuddering halt.

---

Raphael’s conversation with his Dad, which had been going on for several minutes now, discussing the longest flight their father had ever been on, was cut off when he suddenly felt the entire plane jolt beneath him. His eyes widened as they began to taxi forward.

“We’re moving!”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Dad confirmed, steady and calm, leaning back to rest his head against the seat. “We’re going to the end of the runway, so the plane can get a running start and go fast enough to take off.”

Raph gaped slightly, glancing across the aisle to look over at his siblings-- and they were all wriggling with anticipation, too, straining to try to crowd around Mikey’s little window and see outside. Raph shifted a bit, glancing in the opposite direction, and realized that he could kind of see the window a little bit, too. He could see the world begin to shift around them. And Raph tensed a little bit, because he knew that things were about to start happening.

His dad shifted ever so slightly, moving to casually lay his hand on the armrest between them, and Raph immediately took the unspoken invitation and grabbed it. He could hear his own heartbeat.

“Here we go,” Dad hummed softly, and Raph nodded a tiny bit, biting the insides of his cheeks.

It was starting.

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