Chapter Text
Raph was in his room just looking at the wall, a deep anger moving through his body. Mikey was gone, and there was noth’n he could do to get him back.
He wasn’t like Donnie or Leo–he couldn’t hack into security systems or put aside his own feelings for the good of the team.
Two sharp sounds clicked through the room. Raph did not respond, hoping whoever it was would just give up and go away. But of course–after a few silent heartbeats–Leo squeaked his door open and poked his head in. “come into the kitchen and eat something.”
Raph wanted to turn down the meal, but when he looked into Leo’s dulled eyes he couldn’t get himself to say no.
Leo brightened ever so little at Raph’s answer and said he was going to go get Don.
Raph begrudgingly got out of bed and dragged himself to the kitchen, Leo and Donnie appearing shortly after from the lab.
They all sat down in silence, they weren’t used to having to start conversations at dinner. Normally Mikey was the one who did that.
Looking down at the eggs on his plate nearly made him puke. Not because it was disgusting looking or anything. If anything, it was perfect. It was made just the way they all liked it–just the way Mikey knew they liked it.
They were scrambled eggs, an easy meal to make, but nobody could make them quite like Mikey could. Something about the tiny turtle making their food just made everything taste 100 times better.
The clinking of forks on plates was the only sound while they all enjoyed their last meal from Mikey.
The silence was broken when Leo coughed, gaining the two younger turtle’s attention. He looked at his two brothers before he started speaking. “I went through Mikey’s stuff. I think I might've found some clues as to where he went. Or at the very least some stuff you guys might want to see.”
Donnie and Raph didn’t spare any time, immediately getting up and speeding to Mikey’s room, Leo quick on their feet.
They came into the room to find it trashed, very clearly rummaged through for anything of use. There were papers and toys thrown across the room, the bed was moved from its placement and all his comics were flown across the desk.
The only thing in slight order were two piles of stuff that should've been considered trash, (seeing as it was all trash.)
Leo led them to a cleared our part on the floor and the three sat down. Leo grabbed some broken metal thing from one of the two piles and handed it to Donnie.
Raph recognized it from somewhere, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. Donnie, however, knew what it was straight away. “Is this his Dimension X air purifier?” he mumbled while turning the tech over and examining it closer.
“Did Mikey ever bring it to you to have you fix it for some reason?” Leo asked.
“No, I haven't even seen it since we all left that place last.” Donnie answered, his fingers slid over the dents and scratched in the metal, slowly making their way to the melted air tube “this is not my handiwork, but I think we all know that.”
“Why would he fix it on his own?” Raph butted in “he could have just brought it to you.”
Donnie slowly took the back off of the purifier and took out some sort of sphere thing. It was practically dripping a deep purple colour. “This doesn’t make sense..” Donnie mumbled, examining the thing even closer.
Leo leaned in to look closer, Raph mimicking the action on the other side of Donnie.
“Mind telling us what’s going on in that skull of y’ers or..?” Raph asked, his patience was draining.
“I-I’ll need to bring it to my lab to be sure first. Don’t worry about it” Donnie stumbled over his words. “It’s probably nothing. What else did you find?”
The two older turtles stared at Donnie for a beat before giving up and letting him change the subject. Leo grabbed a piece of paper out of the same pile as before, unfolding it to reveal a map.
The map was a world map. It had X marks on it.
Bingo
Raph snatched the paper from Leo and looked over it. The X marks seemed to be placed at random, there was no particular place that had more marks than another. There were easily over 400 places marked. Though it was a broad lead, it is definitely still a lead.
“I don’t know if the map is connected to…where he could be or not, but if it is then it will help out a lot.” Leo said, looking back down at the pile that he had grabbed the map out of and grabbing another paper. He unfolded it and looked over it before giving it to Donnie. “And he had a bunch of papers with all these weird markings on them. It could just be Mikey being weird, but I didn't want to write off something that could be important.”
While Donnie was looking at the paper Leo grabbed a handful of other papers that were exactly the same and handed them to him too.
Raph peeled his eyes away from the map and to the much-smaller pile, and couldn't help but notice that it was pretty much gone now, besides one thing.
A cigarette.
Huh.
That wasn’t right. Why did Mikey have that? If there was one thing Raph knew Mikey hated, it would be smokes.
So why did he have one?
“I don’t know, that's what I'm confused about too.” Leo cut into Raph’s thoughts.
Oh, he didn't realise he said that out loud, talk about embarrassing.
“Maybe he just thought it looked cool and didn’t realise what it was..” Leo thought out loud.
“Sounds ‘bout right.” Raph decided. More or less agreeing to ease his own nerves.
Donnie suddenly hopped off the ground and started his way to the exit, only freezing when he got to the door to turn around. “I’m going to my lab to try and figure this stuff out.” he explained before disappearing down the hall before anyone could respond and leaving Raph with Leo.
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Donnie sprinted down the hall and into his lab, holding the air purifier and the papers in his arms. Something wasn't right, and he didn't like what all the evidence was hinting towards.
He threw the papers across a random desk and brought the air purifier to his main desk, immediately taking the back of it apart again and grabbing the modified filter from inside.
He had modified the filters for the dimension X atmosphere and made it as durable as possible. They were supposed to last at least a year without needing to be replaced, especially with the kraang tech he had put into them.
This filter looked long due for a replacement –not even mentioning the rest of the purifier’s box and tube.
Donnie got up and ran to the other side of the room, his ‘kraang tech’ area. He rummaged through a few drawers before finally finding what he was looking for.
He grabbed his own purifier and ran it back to his desk, quickly disassembling it.
What he found was a perfectly white filter, not a single flaw.
Side by side with Mikey’s filter, the purple looked almost black. Damn.
So one of three things happened to make the filter look like that.
- Mikey was playing ‘Take Apart’ and accidentally spilled something inside.
- His was a faulty filter and it didn't work very well
Donnie looked at the shells of the filters, he looked at the botched fixes on Mikey’s air tube and the makeshift bandages over the metal of the box.
He didn't like this last option at all.
- Mikey was in that place a lot longer than he had let on.
Even thinking about that last option made Donnie feel sick to his stomach, but evidence doesn’t lie.
Donnie rolled his chair to the papers he had thrown down and spread them apart from each other. If there was one thing that Donnie could tell from the papers immediately, it was that the writing was intentional, every mark was made to be there.
What threw him off was the lack of pattern. It was clear that these papers meant something. But the lack of a single repeating pattern or line made it harder to believe that was the answer.
Maybe they’re drawings? Mikey had always been an artist.
But these are far from his usual pop art.
It’s got no bright colours or big bubble text.
This has sharp lines and harsh shapes.
And it looks oddly familiar..but he could brush that off as him imagining things.
Donnie rested his hand on his cheek and stared at a few of the papers, still looking for at least one repetition of a symbol.
But of course there was nothing.
So he sat in silence. The room was illuminated by nothing more than a laptop screen—still playing the security footage—and a desk lamp.
This wasn’t how their story was supposed to go.
———————
Raph and Leo stared at the doorway for a few seconds, still in shock of how fast Donnie had jumped out of the room.
Eventually the two locked eyes before silently agreeing that was Raphs cue to leave too.
The red wearing turtle got up, knees popping, and left the room with the map in hand.
As soon as he knew he was out of Leo’s sight he ran to his room.
His room was covered with geography maps, whether they be of the ocean or some rural city that probably nobody knew about.
He never had considered this a useful hobby that he would’ve actually been able to put to use. Besides, Donnie was always smart enough to figure out where they were supposed to be.
But they had never dealt with a map like this, normally there would be instructions and it would be of a building or maybe a small town. That was easy as cake.
However a whole world map was much, much more complicated. Especially with no clear point chosen as to where they should go.
There were no clear instructions, it’s almost like Mikey himself didn’t know where he was going to go.
Raph was hoping that Mikey at least knew where he was going to go.
God, why does Mikey have to be so dumb?!
Raph hunched over the paper, eyes scanning it for one inconsistency.
And he found one.
Mikey had marked places that were relatively forested.
No place that he had pinned down was near big cities or towns.
Great. Now Raph could be positive that Mikey was in a dark, cold, lonely forest. How wonderful .
Well, thinking back to when they lived in April’s barnhouse, Mikey had been quick to connect with the nearby wildlife and was pretty much always off wandering the woods there.
There was no possible way they could go through all of those forests on Mikey’s map and still find him though.
The chance of finding someone lost in one forest was already close to none, especially without dogs sniffing them out.
What’s the point?
Raph groaned and slapped his hands over his face before slumping down and putting his head in his arms.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.
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Leo watched silently as Donnie zoomed out of the room, and soon after he made eye contact with Raph.
Leo understood Raph wanted to leave too, probably so he could look over the map alone.
Raph had always tried to pretend like he didn’t have any talent in geography, but everyone knew he was the best with it. That’s why Leo gave him the map.
Raph got up and walked out of the room, as soon as he was out of the doorway Leo could hear the pitter patter of his feet on the floor as he sprinted off to his own room.
That left Leo all alone.
Again .
Leo looked back down to the piles he had.
Well, pile. The other one was just a cigarette, so that probably didn't count.
He started rummaging through the sentimentals, even if he had already looked over everything.
God. This was Mikey’s sickest joke yet.
He picked up a polaroid—Leo had gotten him a polaroid camera a few years back, he had been obsessed with taking pictures ever since—the film consists of Ice Cream Kitty and Donnie playing Uno together. The funny part was that Donnie was losing.
Leo huffed out a dry laugh before setting the photo down and moving on to the next.
It was a picture of Raph and Leo in the dojo sparring, Leo didn’t remember this one getting taken. Mikey must’ve been hiding so he could ‘get the most authentic shot’.
The next photo was April, Raph, Donnie and Leo all in a circle. They had just gotten April's mom out of the basement in that picture. They had all decided to ignore Mikey after he had started yelling and screaming his head off.
Honestly Leo felt bad for having to do that, but mikey was making a very serious accusation, he was going on about April’s mom being a fake and saying she was a kraang.
Well..he was right, but at the time he had seemed like a total ass for even thinking that.
How had Mikey known?
Nevermind. Leo set the picture down and picked up another. This one was of Master Splinter. He was eating a cheesecicle on the couch. Splinter never watched the TV, so that one was a rare sight.
Next was a picture of Leatherhead and Mondo, they were at some skate park, in the back you could see Casey standing with a bord at the top of a ramp.
Mikey hadn't ever told him about going out with the three, wonder why.
Leo sat the picture down and got up with a groan. His bones popping at the movement.
He may as well call around and see if anyones seen Mikey recently. But he was quickly losing any minuscule hope he had in finding Mikey.
Leo whipped out his T-phone and dialled April.
And then Mondo.
And Leatherhead..
Renet…
Mr. Murakami…
Nobody knew.
Nobody had seen their baby.
Not like Leo expected them to know where he was, but the hope was still there.
Emotions suddenly hit Leo like a train, Mikey really wasn’t coming back, was he?
Leo was angry. He was angry and sad and confused and upset. He was mad at Splinter for not caring and he was mad at Mikey for leaving. But most of all, he was mad at himself for not realising Mikey was planning to leave. Maybe if he had paid more attention to Mikey he could’ve prevented this.
So much for being the leader, he can’t even make sure his teammates are doing okay.
Wiping the tears from his face (when did he start crying?) Leo took a deep breath and left Mikey’s room.
He needs to stay strong.
If he stays strong, maybe they won't leave too.
Leo covered his face with a hand and sighed, closing the door to his room.
He slid down the door and rested his head on his knees, letting out a sniffle.
This isn’t how their book was supposed to be written.