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The hour was late and Donnie was just about to finish his shift and log off from all the computers shining an almost blinding light into his face when he heard the squealing of untended-to tires and the opening of a heavy car door, and he smiled sleepily to himself as he heard his brother’s heavy footsteps approach the lair.
When the lair door finally opened, Don turned around in his seat to watch Mikey enter their home, his head hung low, most of the giant fake body still wrapped around his torso and the large, cartoonish head held loosely in his hand. “Hey, Cowabunga Carl,” Donnie greeted with a smile and Mikey moaned. “You’re home late.”
Groaning, Mikey tossed the head to the side and collapsed on the floor, his head pillowed on the cool tiles and concrete. “I know. I’ve wanted nothing more than to take a nap for about a day now. Please tell me you’ve got dinner sorted out?”
“Dinner?” Donnie snorted as he stood from his chair, stretching for the first time in a while, and helped a very reluctant Mikey up off the dirty floor. “It’s basically breakfast at this point for both of us, but yeah, I’ve got stuff. Go get changed and I’ll have it ready by the time you get back.”
“Thank god,” Mikey murmured as he cracked his back and made his way towards his room. Over his shoulder, he called to Donnie, “You have no idea how long I’ve been looking forward to having real, actual food and not just the canned crap that Raph eats when he’s bored.”
Chuckling, Donnie watched Mikey go before making his way into their measly kitchen and pulled out the pizza’s from the warming compartment in on the oven that Donnie had finally figured out how to work and a large bottle of iced soft-drink for them both to share. There were a couple more in the fridge for when Raph and Master Splinter finally decided to show, because Donnie wasn’t a complete asshole, but Mikey was a growing boy who needed to eat and who hated cold pizza. Bringing them to the couch, Donnie hummed under his breath as he gathered blankets, dragged the coffee table closer and turned the TV on to one of Mikey’s favourite channels before sitting down with his own pizza on his lap to wait.
Eventually, Don heard Mikey’s heavy footsteps approach from behind him and he sniffed at the air for a moment as if the smell of the warm pizza had led him out of his room like a trail to the couch. “Dude, no way,” Mikey’s tired voice exclaimed with glee. “You brought pizza? Real, actual pizza pie? I’m not dreaming, am I? Please tell me I’m not dreaming.”
“It’s not a dream,” Donnie laughed as his brother leapt over the back of the couch in the way he used to but hadn’t done in a very long time, “I brought your favourite too. Every cheese, meat and sauce they had on the menu.”
Mikey’s eyes were wide as he opened the lid of the pizza box presented to him. “Man, I’m so hungry.” He exclaimed as he removed a large slice from the box. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favourite brother Donnie? Because you totally are. How did you know that this was exactly what I needed?”
Shrugging, Don took a bite of his own pizza and swallowed it before answering, “I was watching the cameras from your gig on my break,” Mikey made a muffled explanation of reproach with a large mouthful of food working between his teeth. “Oh, don’t be such a worry-wart. Sometimes I check in, sometimes I don’t. If the place you’re at has security cameras, I usually watch for a minute or two. Today looked brutal- I thought you only catered to kid’s parties?
“I do,” Mikey moaned, slapping a greasy hand across his face like a damsel in distress. “It was supposed to be a surprise party for a ‘Little Johnny’, but nobody told me that ‘Little Johnny’ was a 19-year-old terror who probably pulled the wings off of butterflies as a child.” He reached down and rubbed at his leg, coating it in a thin, greasy layer of pizza sauce. “I think even my bruises have bruises.”
“I don’t know what teenager would want some random guy dressed up in a giant turtle at their birthday party. Sounds like a bummer to me,” Donnie frowned, “Your wrist looks a little swollen. I can take a look at it if you want?”
A piece of pizza halfway towards his mouth, the cheesy tip bending under the stress of gravity, Mikey looked at his brother out the corner of his eye. “Does it mean that I have to stop eating?”
Rolling his eyes, Donnie placed his pizza box on the coffee table before standing and marching towards the kitchen, where he pulled open the freezer, removed a bright-blue icepack and shut the door with his hip. Re-entering the living room, Don threw the icepack at Mikey’s head, who easily caught it in a lazy hand. “Leave that on it for a few minutes. When you take it off, I’ll see if the swelling's gone down and wrap it up if I have to. Any other injuries I should know about?”
“Nah man,” Mikey said around a mouthful of food. “Nothing a whole pizza can’t fix.”
“I’ve never been able to understand how you can fit it all inside you,” Donnie laughed as he placed his own mostly full box back onto his lap. “Like, where does it go? Do you even have a stomach or is it just a never-ending well? Do you even know what it’s like to be full?”
Snorting, Mikey snatched the remote off the arm of his chair before Donnie could reach for it and turned the volume up on the cartoon. “It’s my superpower bro. You’re super smart. Raph sleeps all day and is so quiet you never see him. Sensei can always sense when a fight is about to break out.” He slapped his stomach. “I never get full.”
“Yeah, but you also let little kids and the occasional teenager beat you up while wearing a cartoon replica of yourself, so not that super,” Donnie said, reopening his pizza box. “But speaking of Raph, have you heard from him lately?”
“Nah,” Mikey shook his head as he took hold of the large bottle of soft-drink, unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. “He’s always either sleeping, drinking with Casey at his place or running around on rooftops getting himself hurt.” He gave Donnie a sideways look. “Is it true that you had to pull something out of him? I wasn’t here and Raph went to bed before I could ask but April told me about it after.”
Don busied himself by chewing on his piece of pizza as he mused it over. “Yeah,” he said once he’d swallowed. “Some sort of hook. Don’t ask me how he got it- I was barely able to keep him around long enough to put him back together before he ran off to hide again, so I wasn’t exactly able to ask him where he went.”
“That must have felt good,” Mike observed. “You haven’t had to stitch us up in a long time, not since Leo left. There had to have been some part of you that missed it, considering how long it’s been since any of us actually needed your help with any kind of injury.”
“I guess I did,” Donnie eventually admitted. “Having to keep the four of us alive every night, plus April and Casey became such a large part of my daily routine that now that it’s gone, everything is just a little bit different. So, even though it was terrible that Raph got hurt but at the same time I’m kind of glad it happened.”
Humming in acknowledgement, Mikey stared at the bright colours dancing across the TV screen before he tentatively broached the subject, voice barely loud enough to be heard over the show. “Do you ever miss it?”
Donnie looked over at him quizzically. “Miss what, Mikey?”
Waving his hand vaguely, Mikey seemed to sink further into the couch until it looked like the cushions were trying to swallow him, the full weight of the day pushing him back and making him smaller. “You know,” he began quietly. “Leo’s super-strict routines, being forced to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn, being trained to the limit and then being knocked on our shells when Leo and Raph beat us in a one-on-one.” He paused then and his words turned into something reverent, like speaking about something holy. “Leaping across rooftops under the cover of darkness with the wind in your face. Kicking bad-guy butt. Helping stray cats out of trees. Saving people when they’re being robbed in an alley with a gun to their head.” He barely turned his head to glance at his brother. “Do you miss it?”
For a few, long moments, Donnie was utterly silent as he contemplated. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Yeah, I really do. I never thought I would but when something has been a huge part of your life for so long it’s hard to just… lose it. Forget all about it.”
“Sometimes I see the Nightwatcher on TV,” Mikey filled in the space between the ads, “And I can’t look away but I’m just so jealous, because that’s but I’m supposed to be doing, it’s what I was born to do, but instead I’m dressing up in a giant foam turtle suit while this new guy gets to jump around the city as if he owns it.”
There was a faint shifting from the other room, the creaking of stressed pipes and the scuffling of heavy, calloused feet against concrete, but Don didn’t pay it any mind, not even the expelling of a shaky breath through a nose as if someone was trying to stay quiet. It was probably Raph, trying to hop from room to room without being noticed.
In the silence that followed, Don glanced over at his brother as he looked forlornly at the passing images on the TV screen, his hand resting limply in the greasy remains of the pizza box. “What’s stopping us?” Donnie asked suddenly. “Why can’t we just go back to the way things used to be? Nobody’s stopping us. Yeah, Raph might be a little hard to convince but even if it’s just you and me, there’s gotta be something we can figure out.”
But Mikey was shaking his head, not even bothering to hide the sad, disappointed look on his face. “You know we can’t do that, Donnie. Not without the others. We need a leader and no offence, but you’re too kind to be the sort of leader we need. We need someone like Leo, but there isn’t anyone like Leo. Even if we manage to rope in April and Casey, they can’t be with us every night, especially now that Aprils got her antique's store up and running. We’re better off just continuing with what we’re doing until Leo gets back.”
“Yeah. Yeah, alright,” Donnie conceded, subconsciously deflating back against his chair, excitement abandoned. “But we can still train, right? There’s nothing stopping us from sparing- we don’t need a leader to tell us how to hit each other,”
Mikey snorted, but there was a new spark of light in his eyes that Donnie hadn’t seen in a very long time. “Yeah, sure, training sounds good. But you do know that in order to train, you’ll have to take time off, right? There’s nothing you can do during your 10minute break.”
“Yeah, I can take time off,” Don rolled his eyes but a smile was pulling the corners of his lips upwards. “Do you think you can miss a day of getting your ass beat by little kids in sequins and confetti?”
“Dude, you have no idea how desperate I am for that,” Mikey held his fist out for his brother to bump, which Donnie did gladly.
They fell back into a companionable silence, watching the overly-joyous cartoons on the screen when a form appeared over the back of the couch, his own pizza box balanced precariously on one hand, looking between his brothers and the TV and back again with a raised brow. “What are you two numb-nuts doing?” there was something soft and uncharacteristic in his voice and when Donnie glanced up at him, there was an expression on his face that he couldn’t identify.
Mikey tilted his head over the back of the couch and looked at him upside-down. “Watching TV and eating delicious pizza.”
“Right,” Raph sounded unimpressed. “Is there a reason while I’ve had to fish my pizza out of the fridge while you guys are eating the fresh deluxe stuff?”
Frowning, Donnie peered up at him, but at a quick glance, it was obvious he was joking. “You’re never around so how the hell am I supposed to time when the pizza arrives and when you finally come out of your dark, depressing man cave? Besides, we have a microwave for a reason. If you don’t want to use it let me know so I can stop repairing it every time it breaks.”
“Very funny, smart ass,” Raph hit Don lightly on the head with his full pizza box. “What were you two chatterboxes gossiping about? Sounds like you were having a good time. I haven’t heard either of you talk that much in ages.”
Beaming, Mikey placed his empty box on the coffee table and leapt up so that he was facing Raph with his hands gripping the edge of the couch. “The Nightwatcher! He’s doing all the things we used to do like this city belongs to him, so Don and I were just talking about getting back into training so we can show him who’s boss. You in?”
“Nah,” Raph shook his head. “I’m busy. Got more important stuff do to than helping you wacko’s pick a fight with someone for no good reason.”
“Busy doing what?” Donnie retorted- Raph’s words had struck a nerve. “Have you finally added something new to your constant everyday list of eating, sleeping, drinking and just being a general nuisance? And who are you to comment on picking unnecessary fights?”
Sighing, Raph shook his head and took a step back in surrender. Donnie blinked in surprise- it wasn’t like Raph to back down from a fight. “All I’m saying is that the Nightwatcher is doing good for this place, almost more than we ever did. This city doesn’t need us anymore, but at least we know that there’s someone out there taking care of our home and keeping its people safe. Just stay out of his way and let him do his job.” Before he retreated back into the shadows, pizza box in hand, he called out over his shoulder, “And Mikey, get yourself the hell to bed. You look like you’re about to pass out in what’s left of the snacks.”
Donnie glanced over at him, but Mikey waved him off with a careless gesture with a limp hand. “I’m fine,” he yawned, “Not even tired yet.”
“Well, you should be,” Don said gently and watched as his brother’s eyes began to flutter shut. “If I had to put up with being beaten to a pulp but a bunch of kids and sometimes teenagers every day without being able to defend myself, then I’d be exhausted too,” he leant in closer and Mikey shivered at the gentle contact. “You know, all this will still be here when you wake up. I’ll still be here. And then in the morning, we can have our first training session and it’ll just be like old times. How does that sound?”
Mikey seemed to mull it over for a moment before he eventually nodded. “Alright, yeah. That sounds good.” Standing from the couch, Mikey stretched his arms above his head, muscles loosening and bones creaking, before trudging off with heavy feet towards his room. “Goodnight Donnie.”
“Night Mikey.”
And then Don was left alone in the lounge room, cartoonish colours dancing across his skin like his own private showing of the Southern Lights, and with a contented smile on his face and a warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest, he picked up his favourite battered book sitting on the arm of the couch that he was most of the way through, opened up to the page marked by a dirty and grainy polaroid of all his brothers and waited eagerly for sleep to claim him.