Chapter Text
C had a lot of different expectations for how things were about to go down as he begrudgingly trailed through the portal after the others.
None of these expectations were great. In fact, most of the expectations ended with him, much like the starry unrequited love interest of a certain apple seed adjacent protagonist, being taught a great deal from suffering.
(Raphael would much prefer a good joke book to Dickens, leaning more towards Carlin than Copperfield, but good old Leonardo could always be counted on to try and share the plot of whatever classic he was reading with the team. And Raphael would humour his friend, if only to avoid another Musketeers incident. Being a teenager mutant ninja turtle was ridiculous enough. Pretending to be French was a step too far, even if he'd looked pretty fresh in those boots.)
What he didn’t expect, however, was a good chunk of the Hotline's residents all gathered together and looking to be about five minutes away from a collective breakdown.
This couldn't mean anything good.
One turtle in particular immediately stood out to him, hands clenched into painful fists and eyes somewhere far away.
Oh no.
The last time C could remember Raph looking so shaken was after...
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no!
‘Please say no one has died in my absence,’ C began to internally pray. ‘If everyone's still alive, I'll be better. A better friend, a better ninja, a better person. I'll even stop confusing everyone with fourth wall breaks, no matter how funny Raph's face is when…’
Before C even had the time to finish up his plea to any deity who could spare him a minute, he was swept up in a bone crushing hug.
Raph's face wasn't at all funny at that moment.
“Fuck C, you had us all worried sick.” He sobbed.
Struck with the horrifying realisation that Raph was near bawling as he clutched C close, C didn't register any of the words that came from his mouth.
He did vaguely catch the word sick though and his heart began descending into his stomach, like a punctured turtle blimp falling from the sky.
Now C was really worried that something had gone wrong, and Watcher hadn't pulled through, or someone else had made an attempt on their life, or maybe a universe had entered into the beginning stages of a bad future timeline.
(After all the time he had just spent with his older counterpart, C had learned a lot about what a bad future timeline could look like. It wasn’t something that he'd wish upon anybody. Except maybe old Shredhead and Krang. Though, those two weirdos would probably see an apocalypse as a nice honeymoon spot.)
There really was no end to the list of things that could have gone wrong, even if time over here hadn't passed quite like it had for C.
Fate very rarely smiled on ninja turtles. When it did, it usually granted them a rictus thing, bristling with sharpened teeth.
Whether fate was smiling on them or not, someone usually ended up bleeding.
That someone was very rarely fate.
“C!”
Great. Now Big Red had joined in on the katame-waza that Raph seemed to be disguising as a hug, smushing C and Raph together in his tree trunk arms.
(C absolutely did not flinch at having the big guy's arms wrap around him unexpectedly, thank you very much.)
Being clutched between Raph and Big Red like a stuffed animal was more than a little embarrassing, (he could practically feel the very few cool points the other had assigned him during his time here being squeezed out of him), but it was a less pressing issue than trying to figure out what was going on.
As such, C needed to focus on getting to see the room, rather than wriggling completely free.
(Even though his breathing was becoming more and more of a struggle, which was obviously just because of the way he was being constricted, and nothing at all to do with just who was doing the constricting.)
He totally could get out of this hold, his counterparts were both strong, but C had more than a few ninja tricks up his cast, but the extra seconds he would have to dedicate to maneuvering out of the grip wouldn't be worth wasting to rescue his frankly already heavily damaged reputation.
(It wasn't like he was sacrificing his ability to breathe to be used like a comfort toy because it seemed like he had missed something really upsetting and his counterparts might just need something to hold onto at the minute, or any sentimental nonsense like that.)
C managed to squirm around just enough so that his head popped free, allowing him to both better see and hear what was happening outside of their huddle.
“See, I told you that you'd bring him back Donatello!”
“Hmph. Well, I suppose even a broken clock is right twice a day, so it stands to reason that even a guy like you can get things right every once in a while.”
“Oi, I'm right far more often than twice a day!”
Hold up, was that C's most ‘whack a guy first, ask him questions later’ inclined sibling having a semi-civilised conversation with his newest arch nemesis Night?
How much had C missed in the apparently short time he’d been gone?
Big Red shifted, his arm now much closer to C's throat.
Okay, never mind being emotional support. C needed to be free now.
“Hey, maybe you should put those two down now, big guy.”
Phew, Raphael had yet again come to his rescue.
C was not finding it even harder to breathe even as Big Red sheepishly lowered him and Raph until they were both standing on their own two feet.
No siree, C was A ok and totally over that supposedly traumatic experience.
That whole drowning fiasco a while back had not undone most of his hard work towards staying calm even when his ability to breathe was being threatened.
Nope, there was going to be no more panic attacks for C in the future!
He didn't need any mental health check ins or anything like that. C was 100% trauma free, there were no lingering consequences from anyone else's actions for him.
After all, he was just a silly little guy with silly little problems!
(He definitely hadn't been able to feel his pulse skyrocket at the knowledge that he'd, at least temporarily, been completely at Big Red's mercy for a second there. Maybe some other C would be scared of the BFS, Big Friendly Snapper, but not him. He was perfectly fine.)
“Sorry, I’m just so glad you’re ok C!” Big Red smiled at him toothily.
One huge arm was cupping the back of his head.
C had no idea how to respond to such painful sincerity from the Incredible Bulk, even if it was entirely in character from Big Red.
Mainly because C had no clue why such concern was being directed at him when it seemed like something awful had happened back here.
His stunned silence dragged on a moment too long.
Big Red's fang slipped back into his mouth, the hand on the back of his head appearing to be rubbing small soothing circles.
“I'm glad to have you back, big guy. You had everybody worried.”
His arm twitched as if to reach out and pat C on the back, but the movement was awkwardly aborted, with Big Red instead letting it drop to his side as he inched away from C.
Before C could decipher that whole exchange, he became aware of a different situation unfolding beside him.
Within just a few minutes, Raphael was making it painfully obvious what group he belonged to through body language alone.
Standing opposite one another, Raph and Raphael were like a weird game of spot the difference.
For whilst there were some very obvious discrepancies in their appearances, the duo's stances were identical.
Arms folded just a little bit under their chests, putting their hands closer to their sais should they need to grab them quickly. One hip slightly cocked, with their trademarked attitude. Heels subtly elevated so that their weight could rest on the balls of their feet. Chin raised, eyes steely.
Whilst it would never be his language of choice, C was fluent enough in fighting to know that his older counterparts were ready to fight if they needed to, although they were willing to give their opponent an opportunity to prove themselves trustworthy first.
“Who are you?”
Raph immediately proved C's reading of the situation to be accurate, eyeing up Raphael as he asked his question.
If Raph was on edge from something that had already happened, he might not be very welcoming to Raphael, and if he became hostile then this could potentially all go wrong.
C didn't want to risk a fight breaking out between the two. Firstly, because he wanted to hurry things up so that he could get someone to just tell him who was hurt and how bad it was. Secondly because he wouldn't like seeing either Raph or Raphael get hurt themselves.
He figured that this would probably all go a lot more smoothly if C made this first set of introductions.
“Raph, this is Raphael. He helped me out when I wound up in his world, and I ended up crashing at his place during my time there. Raphael, this is Raph. I've mentioned before that he's one of the leaders of the Hotline.”
C winced, as he suddenly realised that he'd definitely said some less than flattering things about Raph to his much older counterpart. He'd also told him good things about the guy, but he'd never really expected the two to meet.
He'd perhaps been a bit too biased in all of his discussions of the residents at the Hotline.
Ironically, he was now the one hoping that someone would give the Hotline guys a chance.
(It wouldn't be fair for him to ruin things if Raphael did end up liking everyone else, even if it turned out that he preferred all of them to C. Even if he'd subconsciously laid the groundwork to try and keep Raphael on his side by highlighting a lot of the negatives of the bunch, particularly their less direct counterparts.)
“Carl, you get to help name a new guy after all!”
A weirdly in sync cheer rose up from the Mikeys at this proclamation, who were apparently never beating the cult allegations if this behaviour was anything to go by, which brought C out of his thoughts.
The antics of the Michelangelos seemed to bring the rest of the room to life again, a flurry of activity spreading across the assembled turtles.
“Really glad you're alive dude!” Dr N yelled out, waving so enthusiastically that he almost elbowed several turtles at once in a move that would have been almost impressive if intentional and turned upon a group of enemies.
Several other turtles chorused out words to a similar effect before dispersing into different activities.
“The council must once more assemble! Come my brethren, we must complete the sacred naming ritual!” Mikey yelled.
His counterparts followed him out in true duckling, (Mikeling? Turtling?), fashion. Carl trailed after them, expression bemused but movements no less enthusiastic.
“Mikey, you guys don’t have to assemble so soon, at least let the new guy...! And they're gone.” Raph's yell trailing off as it became clear that the Mikeys were already far beyond listening, if not physically than definitely mentally.
(All except for, Michelangelo who was giving C extreme sad puppy dog eyes every time their gazes met.)
C, while mostly used to their antics at this point, was still left dumbfounded by the whirlwind otherwise known as the Michelangelos.
It was nice that they had bothered to check on him despite everything.
Though, he was also confused at why they were all leaving now, when nothing had been accomplished. Surely they had been gathered here for a reason?
C mentally rewound everything that had happened since he had stepped back into the Hotline. He'd been hugged by two of his counterparts. Night had said something to Donatello about knowing that they'd get C back. Dr N was happy he was alive…
Wait. There was no way.
Had everyone been waiting for him?
A guiltily pleased feeling curled up in his gut. Like a sleepy cat that had kept its claws out, the feeling warmed him, but his enjoyment of the situation did prick at his conscious.
(He shouldn't be so excited at the thought that he may have been the cause of such worry. Because, yeah, it would be nice knowing that people around here truly cared whether he lived or died. But, on the other hand, that meant he had unintentionally hurt even more people than he'd realised.)
A large hand landing on his head refocused him on his surroundings.
“I’m going to regret stepping through this portal, ain’t I kid?” Raphael bent down and whispered in his ear, grinning all the while.
Despite the fact that C still didn't know what had led to such a large gathering of turtles, and the fact that everything between himself and everyone else was all messed up, having Raphael at his back was a huge comfort.
“I hope that you get an even stupider nickname than me.”
“Harsh kid.” Raphael smirked, standing up and slinging his arm around C's shoulders.
A figurative weight lifted as the real weight of his counterpart's arm grounded him.
“Right everyone, settle down.” Leo’s authoritative voice cut across the rabble.
Efficient as ever, Leo made his way through the crowd, with almost everyone falling silent in his wake.
“First things first, we’re all glad that you're ok C.”
Leo’s openly relieved smile caused C's face to burn, even as his lips tipped up into a small smile. He half wanted to duck his head into his shell and never resurface, half wanted to bask in this genuine care from one of the turtles who had never seemed to have much time for him before.
(It really did seem like they'd all been hanging out in this room to make sure he came back.)
“Secondly, we seem to have a new visitor with us today. It's a pleasure to meet you. Are you planning to stick around, or are you just here to drop C off?”
Some of the shy happiness that had welled up with Leo's display of concern melted away as Leo spoke to Raphael over C's head. It didn't help that Leo was acting like a pre-school teacher, addressing Raphael much like a teacher would address a parent who was dropping their toddler off for the first time and might be anxious about how the kid would react.
C resented the implications of that on many levels. One, because he wasn't a child and two because, even though he would like Raphael to stick around, he wouldn't go to pieces without his alternate self.
“I might stick around for a little while, if you'll have me. It's been a while since I last met a group of alternate counterparts, present company excluded,” Raphael lightly squeezed C's shoulder. “Besides, my pal here said that you guys might be able to help track down my brother?”
“One of your brothers is missing?”
If the room hadn't already been quiet before, that question from Leo would have been enough to silence it.
“Yeah. Donatello went off a while back to help some other counterparts of ourselves. He never returned.”
C hated the far away look that stole over Raphael's face every time he discussed his missing sibling.
He also hated the horrified looks that he could see in his periphery from the turtles still in the room.
It was awful seeing so many eyes flicking towards the Donatello's in the room. Even more awful was how Raph's suddenly glassy eyes were firmly fixed on the ground.
“Ok. I know you're all probably going to hate me for this, guys. But… I think we need to have another group meeting.”
Leo’s statement was met with muffled groans from the assembled turtles.
“I know guys, I know. I'm not exactly looking forward to this either. It has to happen though, there is so much going on that we need to discuss. Plus, I’m going to need mission details from the away team, and me and Captain are going to have to register Raphael. C, we also have a lot of questions for you.”
C hated the return of the patented Leo the leader voice. Combined with the way Leo had literally and figuratively spoken over C's head before, it made him feel like a little kid in the principal’s office.
Even so, C couldn't exactly argue here.
Well, he could actually, C was notoriously good at arguing. He'd fully embraced the fact that he was a cantankerous chap, a belligerent boy, a quarrelsome… quadruplet? Eh, not quite accurate, but it would do.
Fans were never quite sure of their ages or relation anyway, even though they'd proven in some episodes that they had separate birthdays. C might as well take advantage of the confusion for the sake of keeping his alliterative gag up.
(It's not like their canon is ever kept consistent anyway.)
Regardless, the purring ball of warmth and shame that had first formed when seeing his brothers for the first time back in Raphael's world, and that had grown once realisation struck him of how the turtles who had gathered here had done so for him, wouldn't allow him to deflect like he normally would.
Contrary to popular belief, C did realise that not every situation called for a joke when other people were involved.
“I know.” He finally muttered.
Resigned though he may be, C was still not looking forward to the barrage of questions that would be coming his way.
He assumed that they would be heading to a meeting room now to get this over with, but a hiss from a distant corner of the room caught his attention before he could leave.
Von Ryan was trying to scramble his way over to C but, Don and Dee were valiantly holding him back.
“Why did you have a second portal key C? You must tell me your dark secrets!”
Wonderful, did everyone now know about his and DDs jaunts across dimensions?
Also, C was loath to ever agree with Leon, but the performance Von Ryan was putting on in the corner was strange enough that C had a feeling the guy was on to something when he suggested calling in an exorcist to deal with his twin.
(If C hadn't known that Von Ryan was a softshell, he'd be horrified at seeing a turtle bend his back like that. Knowing that Von Ryan was a softshell, C was still horrified, but he was less concerned that the guy might have actually snapped his spine to try and get to him. If he started speaking in tongues though, C was out of here.)
“Yeah, we need C to confess his sins, explain the extra key, apologise for making his friends think that he abandoned them, etc, etc. More importantly, I need C to cough up where he hid my clothes! That limited edition Sydney Allen T'shirt was a one of a kind, marked with dirt from her actually riding over it on her board. I even acquired it semi-legally using Von Ryan's bank account.”
As if summoned by C's thoughts like the devil he was, (because if Von Ryan was possessed then Leon was straight up demon spawn), the familiar blue narcissist leisurely pointed his sword at him from where he had appeared leaning casually against Big Red.
C was pretty sure that Leon's definition of legal in this case was not because the money was legally acquired, but because Von Ryan had been the one to commit the crime, so Leon could pretend to be morally above it all.
He was a real swell guy like that.
It brought C great joy to imagine that Leon would never find his tacky outfits ever again for as long as he lived. All's fair in hate and prank wars after all. Leon shouldn't have stolen C’s movie collection if he'd wanted to keep his atrocious clothing.
Honestly, C had been doing the world a favour by storing Leon's clothes away. He'd seen the montage, Leon couldn't always be trusted to make fashionable choices.
C had thought that the poser was still grounded after a previous prank retaliation had hit Raph instead of him.
How exactly the blue train wreck had found the patience to acquire so many marbles and elaborately set them up to work alongside a variety of other minor obstacles, all leading to his victim being encased in a giant, purple, glittery fly trap, C would never know.
It was more surprising that the guy had got the trap fully set up in time for any turtle to wander into it, though C supposed that he'd probably had help.
(Von Ryan needed to pick a gosh darn side already, he couldn’t just keep switching teams on a whim! Even though he was likely leaning in C's favour now as Leon had just shamelessly admitted to stealing from him to buy limited edition merch of that skater girl all of the Rise fellas were obsessed with.)
Or had that incident with Raph been last month? And by that he meant last month Hotline time, seeing as he had apparently been missing for a shorter period here than in Raphael's realm.
Time was all wonky in his head, what with him now knowing that he hadn’t been missing for all that long here.
Plus, well, with the way their universe fluctuated, C wasn’t all that good at keeping up with timelines to start with.
A new, dreadful thought dawned on him, one that really should have cropped up when he was joking to himself earlier about being a quadruplet.
Months for him had been around a week here.
Did that mean that C was technically older than Michelangelo now? Were he and Leonardo closer to the same age?
Maybe there could be benefits here.
He could tell them that he was no longer one of the youngest the next time Leonardo or Michelangelo tried the ‘I’m the big brother and I say go to bed speech’. Being an older sibling could have some perks, if he chose to bring up the fact that wasn’t one of the baby brothers any more.
Nah.
He wasn’t giving up his baby brother privileges that easily!
“Moving on from that not at all relevant interjection, we are at some point going to have to talk about the way that Double Dee and yourself were travelling around the multiverse. It poses a major security risk if someone or something else figures out how to exploit the system the way you have been.”
Don’s tired voice piped up from where he and Dee now both had Von Ryan in an arm lock.
“We will also need to figure out if, at any point, you breached the Principle Directive. The case with Raphael here can be forgiven if there was no choice, but if you meddled with any other worlds, more damage control might be needed.” Captain through in his two cents.
C just about managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the accusation that he would deliberately interfere with another world unless it was an emergency, the nerdy reference from Captain, and the even nerdier way Leo muttered Prime Directive under his breath.
(Why Leo even tried to correct Captain at this point was beyond C. It was very evident that the ‘12 universe had gone the tongue in cheek bootleg route to avoid copyright issues.)
C wondered if there was any way to pretend that he'd suffered amnesia to get out of that tough conversation.
It wouldn't be the first time his memory had been tampered with after all, so it would be a semi-believable excuse.
“Before we move into setting stories straight, someone needs to check the kid's arm. It hasn't healed in the six or so months that he’s been with me.”
Gee, thanks for throwing him under the bus, Raphael.
As if things weren't chaotic enough already. The guy really had to stop blurting out how long C had been missing for, it was going to hurt the others' brains.
“Six months?” Raph's jaw dropped.
C didn't understand why Raph looked so horrified. He'd never cared about C before.
Also, why did Raph now have a dog on his shoulders?
(And why was the dog kinda familiar.)
“Yeah. One of your guys, think it was Sprinkles, said our universe hadn't been synced up to yours, so time in my dimension moved faster than this one.” Raphael continued.
“Fuck C, we didn’t...”
“It's fine. It's not like I expected you to find me anyways.” C huffed.
He didn’t intend for that to come out as bitterly as it did. Even though he didn't know why they were all pretending to care now, the way they all flinched didn't make C feel good.
(He still did not like the hopeful feeling welling up at the thought that they may actually secretly like him.)
“Oh shit, I didn’t mess your arm up when I tried to fix it right? Fuck, I knew I should have called someone else.” Night mumbled.
“It was patched up just fine, kid. It managed to survive a fall into the Hudson and didn’t budge out of place as far as I could tell.” Raphael sent a reassuring smile to Night.
C didn’t know if that fact was actually true, seeing as he was unconscious for a week after he made a splash dropping into Raphael's world. Either way, he wasn’t quite sure why Raphael had jumped to comfort Night of all people. You know, the guy that caused this entire mess in the first place.
Not that C was jealous at all.
That burning in his chest was just heartburn.
(Oh no, was this how Scarlet had felt whenever DD had picked C over him?)
“Ok, first thing on the agenda is taking C to med bay. Then, if you're up to it, I’ll need that mission report from all of you.” Leo stated, cutting Raphael off before he could continue sucking up to Night for whatever reason.
Shuffling feet dragged C's attention from Raphael.
Red had drifted up to stand beside him, one hand idly twirling a sai.
“I, um, I need to speak to you as well at some point C...”
There was an insecure lilt to Red's tone that, along with the sai based amateur majorette audition, immediately set C on edge.
Why would Red need to speak to him? Red barely ever interacted with him during good times, and right now was far from a good time.
And then C spotted Dee in the corner. No longer holding back Von Ryan, (who was now being held aloft by Big Red), Dee was instead rolling his eyes at Red, who was plastered to his side.
But if Red was over there with Dee, then who was…
C felt all colour drain from his face.
A second Red, a second Red?!
It couldn’t be, he hadn’t been seen since...
It couldn’t...
But it obviously was. The dog on Raph's head was familiar, because it was Chompy. And the variant clinging to Dee had to be the original Red, for obvious reasons.
Which could only mean that Scarlet wanted to talk.
Should C accept his fate as it was, or try to at least go down swinging?
Surely the only reason Scarlet could possibly be here was to finish the job Big Red had started.
Deep down, C knew that if Scarlet really did want to kill him, the rest of the Hotline likely wouldn't have let him in. Even if C wasn't their favourite person in the world, none of them were awful enough to sacrifice him like that.
But this rational side was swamped by the panicked thoughts of how C was yet again going to be hurt by one of his counterparts, when he hadn't even healed from the last time.
“C, you need to breathe!” Raphael called out from somewhere beyond the mire C had found himself stuck in.
Man, Raphael must be getting real tired of C’s fainting routine. It must be getting boring for the audience as well now.
Sorry folks, your regularly scheduled fun has been postponed because C has yet again lost the ability to breathe.
Ironic, huh, as a turtle you'd think he’d be better at preserving oxygen, right?
(He was starting to question if the authors of this fic had done any research on turtles before saddling him with the fate of swooning more than a Victorian maiden.)
“What’s wrong with him!” A vaguely mutant turtle shaped blob hollered.
Oh, this was so much worse than passing out in front of just Raphael. How could he allow himself to lose it like this in front of half of the Hotline, all because he was terrified of Scarlet.
Breathing should be easy, right? Just a deep breath in, a deep breath out, in, out, in, out, don't shake it all about unless you want to collapse.
He was starting to think that he should have stayed at the bar. The brief validating realisation that other people at the Hotline cared about him wasn't enough to overcome this humiliation, nor the potential trap he'd just walked into.
“Oi, stop freaking out! I just need to have a word with you!” Scarlet yelled.
“You're not helping Scarlet!”
“I'm trying to! How was I supposed to know that he'd lose it just by seeing me?!”
“Dude, if you had put literally one second into thinking this over you could have predicted that his reaction to you was never going to be positive.”
The increasing noise around him wasn't helping C to calm down.
Beak wrinkling, he folded in on himself, trying to physically hold himself together.
He needed to get his act together.
Just think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts!
As everything started to fade to black like a true corny cartoon moment, there was a moment where C could have sworn that he could see not one but two concerned Dees looming over him.
“So, any immediate suggestions for a nickname for the new guy?” Mikey asked, chowing down on a bag of chips with the kind of ferocity that would usually suggest someone hadn’t eaten in a week.
Which Carl knew wasn't the case, seeing as he had watched the guy hoover a slice of pizza just a few minutes ago. It was kinda of impressive, even by Carl's own standards.
After Mikey had declared that a naming session was needed, Carl had followed behind the rest of his counterparts, with no real clue of what was going on.
To be honest, he had been selfishly glad to escape from that situation back with everyone else.
Ever since he had stepped into the Hotline, things had been so crazy and chaotic.
Sure, most of his life had been crazy and chaotic, sometimes he even revelled in it, but even his infamous positive energy had been taking a beating lately.
Even though he and his family had made some headway in addressing their issues, there was still a lot of hurt to unpack between them all.
But, with everything else that had been going on, Carl hadn't had a chance to truly sit down and unpack his own thoughts and feelings.
He'd always taken pride in his ability to be aware of not only his own emotional state, but also that of his brothers. In a family with such a severe lack of emotional intelligence, Carl had practically been a genius at reading people.
As such, Carl hadn't exactly tried to keep himself in the dark around how he was coping with the events of the past few years.
But, being here, with everything bubbling up at once, even Carl had been shocked by some personal revelations.
Sure, he'd known that he was sad and lonely, and angry at his brothers. But he hadn't realised that part of that anger was at how they were treating themselves, as well as how they were treating each other.
And that wasn't even his biggest self realisation.
Because when his brothers had complained about their dad, when Master Splinter himself had apologised for failing them, something inside Carl had shifted.
That new thought had been contained straight away. They'd finally been making some progress. Carl hadn't wanted to disrupt it.
Because Carl was angry at their dad too. Really angry. And not just for all the recent stuff.
It seemed stupid, to only now be figuring something out that Night and Watcher had pieced together a while ago. It was especially annoying seeing as he genuinely was the most emotionally aware of the bunch.
He loved his father deeply, and he knew that he had done his best for them considering the fact that he was a rat that had been turned partially human and ended up raising four mutant toddlers with no support or experience.
Somewhere along the line, their dad had made some mistakes, the consequences of which had played a massive part in everything that had gone wrong these past few years.
Grappling with these thoughts, whilst trying to keep the mood up as everyone had been worried about the away team and C, had been draining.
Being around his other selves meant that he could relax a little, let his mask slip.
After all, he was fairly certain that if there was anyone in the multiverse who could understand that even he occasionally needed to recharge his positivity, it would be alternative versions of himself.
He was also still reeling slightly at the fact that the multiverse was real. It was so awesome, like something right out of one of his comics.
Or the Star Trek mirror verse! Damn, now he was kinda hoping to find a version of himself rocking a sweet goatee, though preferably without the murderous vibes of Mirror Spock.
He bet if any turtle could rock facial hair, or hair of any kind, it would be a Michelangelo. They just had that sort of energy, the kind that said, ‘I can rock a cool ‘do, or a beard, or even a handlebar moustache.’
Man, it really was such a privilege, yet such a burden, to be such a style icon, but he and his Michelangelo brethren bore it well.
Speaking of his counterparts, it seemed as if they hadn't managed to settle on a name even whilst Carl had been lost in his own head.
“I vote Old Man!”
Dr N was cackling as he spun around and around in his chair. Carl prayed he didn’t puke.
That would not be pretty seeing as Carl was sure that the guy had been downing a mix of edible glitter and sherbet since they entered the room, with some lucky Charms marshmallows thrown in for good measure.
(Or maybe that would make the vomit prettier, seeing as it would be all artificial colouring, sparkles, and rainbows. Maybe that could be an experiment for another time.)
“No, no, it has to be more nuanced than that! Each nickname needs a little flavour to it. How about Gramps, or Jii chan if we're feeling extra fancy?” Sundae put in his two cents.
“Guys, you're going to give him a complex if you focus too much on the age thing. Besides, what if we get another older Raph? We can't have Old, old, man Raph now can we? Big Red and Even Bigger Red can be confusing enough.” Michael weighed in.
What had Carl gotten himself into here?
An untrained eye might think that his counterparts were just goofing around, but Carl could tell that, despite the jokes and light hearted attitudes, this was something that the others were taking incredibly seriously.
It was easy enough to understand why giving everyone a nickname was important. In a place filled with multiple turtles bearing the same four names, it would be impossible to tell who was being addressed at any given moment of they had no way to differentiate.
What he didn't get was why exactly his counterparts were so insistent on coming up with the name instead of letting people choose for themselves.
“We’ve used up all our best material, why do turtles have to keep showing up!” Dr N whined.
Momentarily halting his spinning, he stopped whining long enough to devour some of the snacks in front of him.
“Comedian senior is also an option...” Mikey trailed off, contemplating this option with a finger tapping his chin.
“I mean, I guess, but C hates the name Comedian. The last thing we need to be doing right now is upsetting him further.”
Carl supposed that it was good that the resident therapist was here to vet the name choices.
At least, that's what he supposed Michael's role was here.
“Michael is here for sensitivity purposes. Some of the nickname suggestions got a little wild in the early days.” Sundae whispered to him.
Maybe they really could read each other's minds, seeing as Sundae had just answered his unspoken question.
Carl concentrated hard, trying to send a psychic suggestion to get Sundae to pass him the dip with his potential new mind powers.
Regrettably it didn’t work and he was forced to grab it himself.
“We can’t make anything permanent until MC Mike gets here anyway.” Mikey tossed out.
Carl had no idea who that particular variant was.
“Who's Mc Mike?” Carl looked to Sundae for guidance.
“Oh, he’s one of the Bay verse guys.”
Carl blinked at him blankly.
“You know, Big P and EBR’s brother.”
“Don’t they all have Big in their names?”
“Nope we were big hah, ‘big’ on themes for a hot minute. Then the novelty wore off. Plus, some of the themes were pretty bad. They were gonna call me Chucks and Sprinkles Bo to give us all a weapons theme, can you believe it?”
Carl very much could believe it. In fact, he didn’t actually think that Chucks was that bad. They could definitely bank that one for any other new Mikeys that might show up. Bo on the other hand…
Carl must have been pulling some sort of face at that idea as Sundae laughed.
“Yeah, Sprinks went on a whole rant about how the name could be associated with B.O and how he didn't want people to think he stank. He went off on such a long tangent that even our counterparts couldn't keep up, and they gave in in the end.”
That was also very believable, Watcher's ability to rant when something did truly annoy him was pretty legendary, so it stood to reason that a counterpart that was apparently even closer to him than most, would have a similar talent.
“Heh, Swords totally lost a bet with me on how long Sprinkles could rant for, which is how he got stuck with being Swords despite also protesting having a weapon name. Remind me to show you the footage later, I'm sure Don has it recorded on vhs somewhere. Anyway, the others later discovered the culinary delight that is my genius big bro's sprinkle pizza, so he ended up with Sprinkles. And then I got Sundae because I'm sunny, I'm sweet, and you can't have a Sundae without Sprinkles. Well, you can, but what would be the point. Sai also lost a bet to me, and after drunkenly confessing the story of how he swore to Master Splinter that he could get his weapon back after losing it saving April, Sai Boy absolutely had to become his name. So I guess we all ended up with a theme anyway seeing as we now all begin with S, huh… and I'm rambling, aren't I? I’ll shut up now, you get the picture.” he chuckled nervously.
“It's cool man. Though, speaking of names, I don't think I've been told what the Leonardo of the, was it Bay verse boys you called them, goes by.”
“I knew I missed something! Their Leo's name is...”
Sundae was cut off by the arrival of a giant turtle.
“Yo yo party people! Mc Mike is in the house!”
“Yay, Mc, you made it!”
Dr N whooped, clambering over the table they were all sitting at and scaling the giant like he was a weird retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk were Jack was a mutant ninja turtle with an orange bandana, and the beanstalk was also a mutant ninja turtle with an orange bandana, but also somehow the giant and…
Maybe he should drop this thought process now before he had to start assigning other people roles like the mother, the cow, and the magic beans.
(That could be saved for later when he had access to pens and paper to write his vision down.)
The new guy didn't seem to care about being used as a turtle shaped ladder, putting up no protest at having Dr N sit smugly on his shoulders.
Wait, just how high was this room's ceiling? Carl was pretty sure it wasn't all that far away when he had entered the room, but now there was a comfortable amount of space between Dr N's head and the roof, even with the mini mountain under him giving him a boost.
As Carl didn't question this oddity out loud, the conversation was flowing on without him.
“Eyy, you guys know I wouldn’t miss a brainstorming sesh for anything. Espesh one with a new guy!”
“Dude, have you had another growth spurt? I swear every time I see you, you're a foot taller!”
Mikey had also bounced over to Mc Mike, and was using the tried and true method of demonstrating the guy's supposed growth spurt by measuring where his own head now approximately reached against the other with his hand.
It had taken longer than Carl had expected for the conversation to almost completely derail. He was proud of them all, even more so seeing as this was a reasonable topic switch, what with this guy just showing up now.
His counterparts were all now going off on a tangent trying to guess how tall Mc Mike now was, all shouting excitedly over each other.
Except for Sundae, who once again leaned in close to mutter some necessary info to him.
“As a heads up, Mc Mike is only 17 and, according to the ‘87 bunch, is from a blockbuster style film series aiming to go beyond the usual cartoons, whatever that means. The guy is built like a Michael Bay pet project, as are the others, hence why they're called the Bayverse boys. He also hasn’t quite learnt to control his chaos yet, so get ready for some potentially questionable jokes!”
Carl was starting to think that they just needed to give him an ear piece at this point so that people could keep dropping tidbits of each other's lore to him every now and again until he was caught up on everything relevant.
Maybe he should have read that welcome to the Hotline pamphlet more thoroughly to see if in ear fact assistance was an option.
Also, what had Sundae meant by saying that Mc Mike needed to control his chaos. Every single Mikey here, including Sundae and Carl, were chaos gremlins. Damn it, that was practically their brand at this point from what he could tell!
Mikey drifted back to his seat, evidently bored of trying to figure out if Mc Mike had actually grown or not. A sharp rap on the table brought everyone's attention back to him.
Carl had already figured that Mikey was a sort of de facto leader for the Mikeys, seeing as his bros all had important roles within the Hotline, but it was still startling to see a serious expression appear on his face out of nowhere, even more so for something as unserious as picking a nickname for a dude who might not even be sticking around.
“The gang’s all here now, right? We aren't waiting on any other late comers?” Mikey asked the room at large.
Carl hadn’t known that there was a guest list for this gathering. He'd assumed that it was just going to be all of his counterparts who had already been in this lair. The appearance of Mc Mike had already caught him off guard, but clearly the others had been anticipating his arrival.
He supposed it was possible that some other counterparts could have been called in at the same time that Mc Mike was contacted.
“Nah, everyone that was available is here now. I sure hope that you all remembered to sign in this time.” Michael shot a pointed look at the giant alongside that already pointed statement.
How was the youngest amongst them somehow also the most mature?
“You need to get Big Red to tell you the library story before you start thinking that Michael is any more mature than the rest of us.” Sundae grinned at him.
And Carl was back to thinking that Sundae could read minds and was just being a jerk by not passing the dip earlier.
Or Sundae was just good at reading Carl's face, seeing as they were apparently even more closely connected than other counterparts.
The Donnies had said something about Carl's universe being a spin off of Sundae's and Mikey's somehow, but he tuned it out pretty quickly.
(Not just because of his notoriously poor attention span, but because his family was actively imploding around him and he'd had a few concerns that were much bigger than figuring out where his universe fit into the wider scheme of things. Like, you know, trying to figure out how to fit the pieces of his life back together.)
Carl would rather sacrifice the possibility of one of his counterparts having telepathy as a mystic power in order to not suspect another version of himself of being a dip hoarding jerk.
“Any ideas on what we should call this new Raphael, big guy?” Mikey rocked casually back on his chair as he addressed Mc Mike.
Who immediately barked out a laugh.
“Dude, I haven’t even met the guy yet. I’m just here for the good company and free snacks!”
He continued chuckling even as he scarfed down one slice of pizza while passing another up to Dr N who had yet to leave his perch.
“Ugh, why is this so difficult this time? We're going to have to start using comic book characters at this rate. Does he look like a Batman to you?”
Dr N looked oddly defeated, wilting on Mc Mike's shoulder. Even his pizza slice was drooping.
(Though that could also be due to the sheer amount of toppings loaded onto it. The slice of ‘za at that point was covered in so many things that it could be offered to one of the Raph's as a new weight for their workout regime. A weight that would also double as a mid-rep snack.)
“Hey, if anyone was gonna be called Batman, it would have been my big bro. He has the whole dark and broody thing going on, plus he can do a mean impression of the gravelly voice.” Mc Mike blurted out.
“Excuse me, but who else here has a brother who was an actual vigilante? Night can be Batman and I’ll be Robin.” Carl decided it was his turn to contribute.
No offense, but there was no way that this new guy was cool enough to be Batman.
“Hey, my bro was a vigilante too for a hot min. Maybe we could share the name? One of our bros could be Bat and the other Man. Then we can be Rob and In” Sundae giggled.
“Nope, Night has to be Batman. We could change his name when I’m less annoyed by the fact that the cool new vigilante I followed turned out to be my idiot older brother, and that said older brother let me fan boy about him without ever once thinking of telling me it was him! I haven’t even had the chance to properly mock him for it as a good baby brother should! He definitely deserves to get his ego deflated by me, seeing as he absolutely used the fact that I thought Nightwatcher was cool to stoke it in the first place.”
“You, uh, good there Carl?”
“I’m doing great!”
He added a thumbs up to his peppy response in the hopes that it would reassure Mikey.
“Look, no one can be Batman anyway. It'll be confusing and piss off...”
“But come on dudes, what other names are there? Odin? Thor, specifically the Marvel cinematic universe one? Cable, the man out of time? Because that’s a mouthful that will confuse everybody! Especially those who don't even have those specific comics or films! Maybe we should just make a poll or something.” Mikey groaned, slipping down further in his seat.
“Orrrr, we could just ask him what he wants to be called?” Carl proposed.
“No!! That defeats the whole purpose of the Council of Mikeys!” Dr N yelled.
Clearly this was a scandalous suggestion for some reason, as Dr N almost toppled off of Mc Mikey with what seemed to be nothing more than the sheer force of his own outrage.
Though, as Carl glanced around the room, he realised that a lot of his other counterparts also looked similarly horrified at the idea that they could just allow the new guy to decide for himself what he would like to be called. Even Sundae, who had been serving pretty well as his guide for this interaction, was giving him a capital L Look.
In fact, the only one that didn't look like Carl had just pronounced that he actually hated pizza and would rather just drink Master Splinter's get well teas for every meal, was Michael.
His littlest counterpart was somehow now wearing a brown turtle neck, (hah, a turtle neck on a turtle's neck, Carl would have to remember to use that one later, he was sure the guys would love it), and round glasses.
Carl wasn't sure if he should first question where Michael has gotten those objects from, and when he had gotten changed into this little outfit, or if he should question exactly what the guy was furiously scribbling into the notebook he had also apparently summoned.
What was Carl missing here around the importance of them being the ones to give nicknames? Why did it matter so much to most of his counterparts, but not to Michael?
And then his own thought from earlier zoomed back to the forefront of his mind.
Mikey was the only one of his siblings who didn't seem to have some official, important roles in the Hotline. Raph and Don were the ones running the show, and Leo was keeping track of the paperwork.
Sure, he was unofficially in charge of the Mikeys as a group, but he would still defer to the others for actual Hotline matters as far as Carl could tell.
The only other Mikey who seemed to have any sort of job around here was Michael, who seemed to have a real passion for his whole therapist gig.
As far as Carl knew, none of his counterparts had any kind of responsibility within the Hotline.
He knew most of the Raphs had shifts monitoring the lines. The Leos were still in charge of running things in their own worlds. And the Donnies… well, they handled pretty much everything else.
Had no one thought to ask if they would like to help run things? He knew his own brothers could have a low opinion of his attention span and ability to take things seriously, but would it expand far enough that none of his counterparts were trusted with something like this?
Was that why thy were clinging so tightly to the job of coming up with nicknames?
That couldn't be right. Surely they were all some of the more emotionally in tune members of the bunch, why weren't they being relied on more.
“Guys, you know you can help in other ways, right? This isn’t the only way you can contribute to the hotline?”
It appeared Michael agreed with him.
“It kinda is dude. Don has the whole Dr, mechanic, engineer, genius thing going on, Leo does the admin, and Raph keeps the others in check. We don’t really do much else besides sometimes lightening the mood.”
Carl had somehow found himself in his second group therapy session in a matter of hours.
Funny how a turtle could go his entire life without getting any therapy, and then end up getting bombarded by it in such a small amount of time.
Though, he supposed that was what the Hotline was set up for. Even if it was meant to be geared more towards helping the Donnies than anyone else.
“Anyway enough analysing our issues we still need name ideas people!” Mikey said a false cheer in his tone.
There was a brief moment of silence, which was unsettling from a group that had previously been so rambunctious.
Carl wasn't sure if it was his place to chime in about how it didn't seem fair that his counterparts weren't being relied on. He was still technically one of the new guys, and so he wasn't the most knowledgeable about the systems that were in place here.
He also didn't have a good name suggestion.
“I’ve got nothing dude.” Dr N threw his hands up.
“Me neither.” Sundae groaned.
“We're getting nowhere guys!”
Thankfully, it seemed like they were moving on from the downer that the discussion had become.
(They were the party turtles after all, they couldn't stay down in the dumps for too long!)
The rest of the discussion turned into a hyperactive mess of them all shouting out random names for the new turtle, interjected with snack runs and an impromptu gaming session.
Mikey assured them all that they were definitely researching names by immersing themselves in pop culture, not just goofing around.
But they were totally just goofing off.
And, for the moment, Carl thought they all deserved to have a moment of fun, without being haunted by the mess surrounding them, and without having to think of ways to make everyone else take them seriously.
He hadn’t had this much fun in ages.
So, revealing his presence with no real warning or explanation to the guy he’d spent a while both low and high key threatening was not Scarlet’s brightest decision, sue him.
Scarlet had never exactly been known for his brains, had he?
It was mildly annoying that the one time he approached the guy with good intentions, everything went to shit.
He'd just wanted to give C Double Dee’s message as quickly as possible so that he could go and find the nearest punching bag.
As much as Captain had tried to comfort him, he wasn’t Scarlet’s brother. As wholehearted as the attempt had been, Scarlet was even more muddled after the chat than he had been before it.
As if watching DD's decline hadn't been bad enough by itself, Scarlet was now being haunted by the ghosts of his other relationships as well.
Scarlet couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually spoken to his own big brother. It had been even longer since a conversation between them had been civil.
Things had been so complicated between them all since they lost DD.
Because he knew everyone in his world blamed him for twin’s death. And they were right to hate him for it.
If he'd just been kinder, just fucking listened to some of DD's nerdy rants about science, math, and how this time he was totally going to impress April and convince her to go out with him.
Heh. Wasn't that whole thing with April such a twisted knot of hurt and shame.
Because, Scarlet had truthfully wanted to help his brother. But he, and everyone else, had known that things would never work out between DD and a human girl. Scarlet had just been the only one willing to consistently take the tough love approach.
He'd thought it would help. DD needed a wake up call, and Scarlet had always excelled at being cruel to be kind.
At least, he'd thought he had been. Turns out, he had pushed too hard and too often, trampling his little brother's feelings entirely.
Wasn't that just the story of Scarlet's fucking life? Never being able to know when he was taking things too far, never being able to pull himself back before landing the finishing blow.
(He hated to admit it, but he and his youngest brother had similar issues with not being able to hold off on picking at a scab.)
Maybe if Scarlet had stopped making fun of DD's efforts for five seconds, he could have seen the issues lying beneath DD's desperate attempts to gain the girl's approval.
Maybe he'd have seen how his methods were exacerbating things further. He'd been looking to ruthlessly treat the symptoms without even considering the underlying cause.
(As if Scarlet needed any more proof that he would make a pretty shitty medic.)
He wondered if his brother had still had a crush on the red head before he died, or if that was yet another broken dream.
Scarlet couldn’t remember the last time DD had mentioned her to him but, then again, he couldn’t exactly recall the last time he’d had a decent conversation with his bro about anything. Nevermind a sensitive topic that DD would justifiably suspect that Scarlet would ridicule him for bringing up.
Would DD be mad if he found out that she’d ended up dating Casey after all?
Though, Scarlet didn’t know if the two were still together. Hell, they could be married for all he knew.
Everyone had gradually stopped visiting once the lair started to noticeably decay.
Then his brother had started the initial talks about how it was too dangerous to stay, and that they didn't need the lair to be a family.
On and on and on they'd all drone, trying to get him to stop his endeavour in fixing his brother's pride and joy.
And every time would descend into an argument, culminating in the final fights when his remaining brothers had declared that the lair was too cold for them to tolerate.
Which was something Scarlet still thought they were just being big babies about.
The lair was mostly fine!
Sure, in winter he’d have to huddle in the van with Chompy for warmth as he was way more adapt at fixing the van's mechanics then whatever the fuck was making the lair shut down.
A bonus to hanging around Sai and Raph was that he'd picked up quite a few vehicle maintenance tips over time.
(And, if one evening he ended up sobbing alone after successfully repairing part of the van, because he had actually enjoyed it, which meant that if had just taken DD up on his offer to teach him then they could have spent far more time together, that was nobody's business but his own.)
It was a small price to pay to keep living in the place they’d called home their entire lives. His brothers were just being wimps.
Scarlet recognised that he was probably not going to help the situation if he started getting himself worked up.
It was time for him to start channelling his positive energy, or whatever bullshit Michael had printed on those intro to therapy pamphlets.
(Why he’d snagged a pamphlet earlier that day before he'd gone to grab his cereal, Scarlet didn't know. After all he was going to leave after this whole fiasco was over, so he wouldn't have an opportunity to actually go to one of Michael's sessions, right?)
“That’s it kid, deep breaths.”
Instead of allowing himself to fall back into his thoughts, Scarlet instead focused on the newest Raphael, who was trying his best to get C to inhale.
He knew he hadn’t been around for a while but, well, he didn't think C had been this skittish before, had he?
Scarlet had threatened him loads, (something that, looking back, he wasn't exactly proud of anymore), and he'd never frightened the guy enough that he’d been left fighting for breath.
Since when had any of the ‘87 been capable of having panic attacks?
He was 99% sure the brats operated on a strict ‘repress everything and make it into a joke’ system, the kind of shit Mikeys usually lived for.
So why did it seem like C was edging towards a full blown panic attack just because Scarlet had mentioned that he needed to speak to him?
His counterpart still made no sense at all.
Big Red had choked the dude out and smashed his friend into pieces, yet C still hung around him.
Wasn't it strange that the giant was free to carry the kid on his shoulders after practically killing him, but oh, if Scarlet dares to speak one word to him then it causes a massive freakout.
(Now that he thought about it, why did they keep letting Big Red babysit the immortal toddlers after that whole fiasco? Surely an apology wasn't enough to justify the trust that was placed in him.)
Scarlet watched on with morbid fascination as C finally managed to regain the ability to breathe. All you could hear in the room was C's ragged inhales and Raphael’s calm assurances.
For a split second, C's watery eyes landed on Scarlet. There was an audible hitch to his newly recovered breathing, and C immediately glanced away.
Scarlet couldn't lie to himself any longer. C had every right to be scared of him, had every right to hate him.
He’d majorly fucked up.
Again, story of his fucking life.