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“It’s okay, it’s okay…I’m going to fix this.”
Rain lashes from the sky with an untamed violence, bouncing off the ground and ricocheting against his scales. It’s cold, dribbling unpleasantly down his shell that he uses to shield the figure underneath him.
The weather almost erases the stains of anguish that mark the rooftop. Shurikens are dislodged from the ground and slump to the side, shedded scales and torn material from the dangerous fight now slipping through the streams of water and dripping off the roof they are stranded on. Still, as lightning blazes the sky in a brilliant white, the blood pooling underneath Donnie and his brother is bold against the black tarmac, its metallic scent choking all his senses.
“Just stay still, okay? I just need…” Donnie breaks off in a sob despite trying to fight it, turning away from the injured brother beside him. The genius is crouched over the other in a weak attempt to protect him from the rain. His purple mask has been discarded, used as a tourniquet to cut off the blood flow on his brother’s left arm.
A gentle touch grazes his leg. It is covered in grime, leaving a smear of blood on his scales, but Donnie leans towards it as more tears threaten to spill.
“Help is coming. I promise.” Donnie takes a deep breath and holds his brother’s remaining hand in his own. It weakly squeezes. Good.
Michelangelo smiles, he always smiles. Even when Donatello’s world is cracked and crumbling, Mikey will seal those fissures with his own empathy. It eases the pain, only slightly. Donnie tries to smile back, but it is watery and hopeless. His eyes travel back to the bleeding stump that was once his youngest brother’s left hand, echoing a future that he had begged to not occur, pleaded to stay completely separate to his own universe.
(It had been quick, in the blink of an eye. One moment, he is laughing with his brother as they fight the foot ninja. The next, Mikey’s anguished scream tears Donnie’s heart open, spinning towards his brother in time to see him collapse forward, clutching a severed arm.)
In each blink, in each breath, that doomed future he had visited lunges for him, twisting and clawing in his mind. It releases in another hitched sob, tightening his hold on Mikey to try and physically ground his spirit that flickers like a dying flame.
“I can fix this.” Donnie repeats. It is almost lost over the rumble of thunder. It’s a bitter lie. There is nothing he can do, not anymore. With little equipment and the vengeful weather, his last hope lies with the distress signal he had sent Leo and Raph.
He knows this. Mikey knows this too.
“Please.” He whispers as he stares into Michelangelo’s glazed eyes. His third eyelid has pulled back, the blue irises piercing into his deep brown. The youngest wheezes, weakly turning his head to look at his horrific injury, but Donnie cups his cheek to stop the movement.
“Don’t look.” He hushes. Mikey breathes, trembling and stuttered. His eyelids flicker closed, then open once more.
“You…okay?” It’s the first words he has spoken since the incident. Donnie wants to laugh because it isn’t even words about his own well-being. Fondness soars in his heart for a few moments before it is stamped out by a dread of losing such a light, and the darkness it will leave him in.
“Yeah…” Donnie sniffs. His thumb rubs his cheek. “I’m okay.”
“Good…” Mikey hums, eyes moving to look at the sky. Another fork of lightning illuminates above them. In its flash, Donnie sees Mikey’s soft smile.
“Help will come any minute.” Donnie reassures into the silence between them. His hands love to tighten the tourniquet again. Mikey’s body is cold against his, but that doesn’t stop the genius from pressing his hand against the youngest’s platsron.
“Then we can go back, and you can finish your game, and then - I’ll let you use the flamethrowers in my lab! You always ask so I figured it’s a good time for me to let you, as long as Leo doesn’t see or else he will tell Master Splinter, and confiscate my stuff. Maybe I’ll just lockdown my lab whilst we goof around, what do you think?”
Donnie talks quickly. His face crumples when Mikey doesn’t answer, only staring at him with an open fondness, almost a look of farewell. Donnie chirps, grief-stricken. Mikey cannot even answer such an instinctual call. His eyes are half-lidded, breaths weak and uneven, but that smile still stays stubborn on his beak. If anything, it only grows.
“We gave ‘em hell.” Mikey chuckles, strained. Donnie takes a moment to realise he refers to the fight that had occurred on these rooftops only an hour before. He smiles.
“Yeah. That we did.” Donnie doesn’t mention the rage that had burnt through him upon seeing his only little brother fall to the ground, nor the terror that had driven him to cut through Foot Ninja like they were only grass blades under his feet. The canvas of his massacre is still evident, limp bodies scattered around them lying still and cold.
Michelangelo suddenly gasps, his whole body shuddering. His head tilts back, throat visibly clenching as it tries to snatch the air he can no longer inhale.
“Mikey!” Donnie cries, louder than the rumbling thunder, as he circles his arms around his brother. All caution forgotten as he lifts his weakened brother off the cold ground and onto his lap.
“Mikey please…” Donnie begs because that’s all he can do now. Against a tide of despair he is only a pebble, helpless as he erodes under the cascading waves. “I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this please –“
“I think it’s time to go now.” Mikey murmurs. His eyes fix onto Donnie, filled with understanding. Donnie hates it. Hates how his brother isn’t selfish, even now as his curtain falls in his finale.
“No! Just – hold on – talk to me about something – I can’t –“
He can’t let go. Donnie presses Mikey close, burying his head against his neck. It should be Mikey who is crying, Mikey who is terrified, but a remorseful peace has settled in his brother’s soul. He does not fight anymore. Perhaps it is too exhausting against such an inevitability that is Death.
“Just don’t forget about me…when you go and do amazing things with that brain of yours…” Mikey is still smiling. Donnie sobs, holding him tighter. Mikey hangs limply from his arms.
“I can fix this.” He can’t fix this. “I’m going to fix this.”
Mikey’s body tenses as he struggles for breath again. He is cold. When did he get so cold?
“If it’s my final hour…”
“Mikey, don’t –“
“If I am forgotten…”
“You’re going to be fine, I promise it!” Donnie crumbles, laying Mikey back down on his lap as he bends over him. He doesn’t let Mikey finish his farewell because it’s not. He’s going to be fine, as soon as help arrives they can go back and treat his injuries, then Donnie can make him the coolest robot arm anyone has ever dreamed –
But Michelangelo knows the truth. Donatello, in denial, still knows the truth. Only one is going to walk away from this rooftop tonight, leaving behind the last spot of sun in the storm above them.
“I hope I made you smile.” Mikey whispers. Donnie looks down, and for a moment he is staring at the brother he remembers from their youth, only a child with a delicate naivety that is a treasure of childhood. Donnie weeps as Mikey speaks his final words, drawing the last of his strength to cup Donatello’s cheek.
“That’s all I ever wanted.”
It’s like the boom of thunder that follows his word is his final toll of the bell, for Michelangelo’s stare grows vacant, eyes slipping shut. Donnie thinks he screams, raw and abused, with enough force to tear his lungs. He also thinks he could have been completely silent, bowing over his youngest brother as the rain runs from his shell and onto the ground. He’s not sure. The world is loud. The world is quiet. His world had grown lonelier, darker, suffocating. He is left staring at the wound that is pulling Mikey’s final threads of life away, tears building in his eyes as he remembers the future he had vowed to stop – a vow he had failed. The wound is an echo, a weakening shadow staining his psyche.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…” Donatello wails into Mikey’s plastron, collapsed over the fallen one. With his eyelids becoming heavy and thoughts becoming sluggish in the cold air, the genius is ready to wait for him to slip away too and become lifeless beside his brother. It’s one of those thoughts which is brief, spontaneous and rightfully selfish, forged in the ruins of despair.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” Someone is pulling him back. How long has it been? Can’t be too long, it is still thundering around them.
“Don! Donnie!” It is Raph shaking him. He is bruised, a scratch slicing through his eye and tearing through his mask. It makes Donnie sick to the stomach.
“Donnie! Talk to me! Is Mike –“ Donnie can see the moment Raphael fractures, his gaze fixed on the figure behind them. Leonardo – had he arrived with Raph, does it even matter – is saying something.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry –“ Raph’s breath catches, Donnie can hear the pained whine from his throat, but his brother pulls him into a hug that shelters him from the torrent of rain. A treasured gesture, rare but craved. Donnie is helpless, unable to struggle against the strong arms that curl around him. It could be his legs folding, or Raph’s – but they both collapse to the ground. Raph tucks Donnie’s head safe in his plastron and for a moment the genius can pretend that they are kids again, huddled around an old television and witnessing their first movie. A place where Mikey is lying on top of his shell, his body vibrating with laughter that warms Donnie despite the winter freeze that had struck them all that year. Where destinies had not been drawn, where fear was an unknown threat, far beyond their imagining. Where they were safe and whole, unknowing of how they were eventually torn apart in each multiverse because they simply could not know peace in the future.
Where Michelangelo has two arms and is wonderfully alive.
“No…” Leo’s moan somehow echoes over the thunder. Donnie presses closer into Raph’s plastron, murmuring his apologies again and again.
“I tried.” Donnie says. “I tried so hard – but – but it didn’t matter –“
“Not like this.” Raph is crying, his hot tears mixing with the rainwater. “Not like this.”
His voice is rageful, against the many things that had dared tell him that his little brother was getting pulled away from them. And yet, his hand is gentle as he squeezes Donnie tighter. A type of hug that is usually reserved for the youngest brother is now cast to him.
Silhouetted against the great strike of lighting in the sky, Leonardo stands with his heart in his hands. Michelangelo is cradled tenderly in arms that do not falter, do not tremble under his weight.
“We need to take him home.” Their older brother is steady, at least on the surface. There is a delicacy in his voice, however, as if he is dangerously tipping on a tightrope.
“Yeah. He’s getting cold, all out here.” Raph nods. It feels distant to Donnie, the touch that presses on his shoulder. His mind is elsewhere, repeating Mikey’s last words again in his head, his resigned and forgiving expression.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he can’t remember who is is apologising to. He wants his little brother.
Someone picks him up. His mind awakens slightly when he feels warm air against his scales, the rain finally stopping. They are in the battle shell, Mikey’s body carefully lying on the medical bed. In the full light, Donnie is all too aware of the ugly wound that is now the remains of Mikey’s left arm, and the others that surround it.
He must’ve been in so much pain. The warmth brings clarity back, the hibernation instinct pushing back in his mind. Awareness brings dreadful clarity, however, and Donnie wishes he had been left out in the storm. A fate fitting for him.
It’s sudden, but Donnie has the urge to be beside Mikey again. He scrambles out of Raph’s trembling grasp, hand latching onto the right arm of the younger turtle. Leonardo is already there, stroking Mikey’s head with eyes hollow and worn.
“Shit!” Raph lashes out with a fist against the metal wall of the vehicle. He punches hard enough for bones to crack, but the wail that emits from his mouth is not one of physical pain.
“I’m sorry –“
Leo hushes him with a hum. Donnie collapses against his side but doesn’t let go of the arm of his little brother. His mind is playing tricks, making him believe it is growing warmer again under his touch –
Warm?
Donnie’s startled gasp, upon feeling a sluggish pulse beat in Michelangelo’s wrist, is enough to snap his remaining brother’s attention to him in an instant. Tears group in the corners of his eyes again but it isn’t – this is impossible –
Unless –
“Donnie?”
“Get the first aid! Quickly!” Donnie shoots to his feet, his hands already pressing down against Mikey’s plastron. His mind is racing, hoping, praying – is it possible – but that would mean –
“Quick! He’s alive!”
“What?!” Raph yells. Leonardo sharply darts forward and rips the first aid cabinet open with rapid breaths.
“Donnie – what –“ but Donnie can’t answer, not yet, not until –
There. A flutter of movement, fragile like butterfly wings. Mikey’s whole body shudders, a breath passing his beak followed by weaker ones. Donnie screams, cries, yells – he isn’t sure how to describe the noise or what it means. Because Michelangelo – through the miracle of their own cold blood, is alive.
“Mikey!” Raph shouts, shooting forward. And then he’s crying, pressing his forehead against the younger’s. “Come on! Keep goin’, ya hear? You gotta keep on goin’!”
Leonardo looks dazed. He drops to his knees, eyes fixed on Mikey’s rising chest.
“Leo! The gauze!” The stump of Mikey’s arm is sluggishly bleeding more so than before. A life still in the balance, only one tether away from tugging away forever. “Raph! Step on it!”
Raph trips in his scramble to the driver’s seat whilst Leo is placing the oxygen mask over Michelangelo’s beak with extreme tenderness.
“Donnie…how…” they had all seen the way Mikey lay stiff and cold in the freezing rain. Donnie shakes his head, feeling it grow more clear by the second. He pushes the image away.
“Hibernation. The cold makes our blood slow…the blood flow…” Is all he offers as an explanation. Later he will elaborate, but now he is focused on putting Mikey back together so they can return to the peace they had taken for granted once more.
Donatello knows of a future where the world is dark and wrong, but this is not his. He has made a promise he vows to keep.
Donatello can fix this. And he will.