mikan mischief !

// 1 //

hello !! this is just a small collection of agere one-shots i have !! i'm trying my best to piece them together into a cohesive story, but some may just be snapshots of little life haha

(also pss pss for anyone who doesn't know mikans r a type of orange !!)

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It's a quiet day in the lair. His brothers are all out, on patrol or with their friends or whatever else they had planned, and while normally Mikey would feel bummed and a bit more than left out, now he's super excited! He's all alone!

And alone time is perfect for regressing.

He had started a while ago, but if he's being honest he did it all his life - he just didn't know what it was until now! Now that he does, slipping to the safe headspace of a little kiddo was his go-to for comfort, security, or stress relief. It's hard to do with three really overprotective brothers who probably (totally) wouldn't get it, of course, but he's been cut a little slack because of his already childish persona. It saved him from a few close-calls.

Anyway, none of that really matters now. Because now he gets to regress all he wants! And watch movies in the pit! He's gonna have so much fun .

Mikey drags his box of little stuff down into the pit, pushing the bean bag so that it lines up perfectly with the front of the couch and pulling out some of his blankets and stuffies to line up neatly along the sides. They're going to get knocked over at some point, either from him happy-wiggling or playing with them, but that's okay! He's supposed to make messes. That's the whole point! Carefully, oh-so-carefully, he nudges himself into the space he had carved out for himself in the sea of stuffed animals, apologizing profusely if he accidentally sat on one. Finally, he's in the middle, and he turns on the TV with a small squeal.

It's not long before he finds himself slipping small - really small, actually, too small to play stuffies - so he takes his pacifier out as delicately as he can with his clumsy baby-hands and sits back, flapping his hands without fear of judgment. He feels super nice right now! Super relaxed, and happy, and small, and comfortable, and -

"Mikey?"

Mikey whips around to stare at Raph, not even registering the stuff around him and paci in his mouth in favor of the absolute fear coursing through his veins. He keeps flopping between being pulled out of his headspace and sinking deeper, so much so that he just ends up staring at his brother with tears welling in his eyes.

Raph takes a couple slow steps closer, looking around at all of the stuffed animals, blankets, and the rest of the stuff in Mikey's littlespace box. His gaze lingers on the pacifier, and he looks like he's about to yell in disgust until he sees the tears in his baby brother's eyes. "Mikey? The hell you doin' man?" Despite the harsh words, he says it softly. Almost kindly, but Mikey's not stupid enough to fall for that. Raph takes another step, picking up a stuffed animal, and Mikey flinches and spits out the pacifier. "Woah, Mike, I'm not mad. Just... what is all this stuff?"

"'M little," Mikey mumbles, like that makes any sense. He's - god, he's so stupid! He shouldn't have done this in the open - no, he shouldn't've done this at all, it was weird and gross and wrong! He starts crying, too much confusion and fear and pain building up from flopping headspaces and being afraid and tired, so tired, and he's still little!

Raph, of course, immediately starts panicking. "Wait, I'm not - I'm not hurting you, hold on! Mikey, please, I..." He picks up a stuffed animal and shoves it into Mikey's face, only making him cry harder. " Shit! Uh... what do you want? I'll - I'll buy you that game you want, huh? I can - god, Mikey, please just stop crying -!" Mikey tries, he really does, but trying to suppress the tears only makes them seem to come faster, so he buries his face in his blanket and makes grabby hands at Raph. "What - what does that mean? I - do you want a hug? " Mikey nods and practically tackles Raph, smushing his face into his older brother's plastron. Maybe Raph scared him, but he's also his older brother! He's way better at comforting than scaring.

Raph jolts at the newfound armload of turtle, pausing for a minute to just process what happened. He's more than frazzled - after finding his brother watching kids' shows and using a pacifier (aren't those bad for your teeth?), said brother immediately bawling at the sight of him, and then tackling him into a hug, he doesn't know what to do with himself. So he just holds Mikey tight, rocking them slightly, and hoping whatever this episode is passes quickly because he is way out of his depth here. "So... that's what you wanted?" he tries, letting out a relieved breath when Mikey doesn't cry again. "A hug?"

"Y'h" Mikey mumbles. He squeezes tighter and rubs his snotty face all over Raph's chest, which the older turtle cannot resist letting out a long, disgusted screech at, and giggles. "Jus' a hug. Thanks."

"Sure thing," Raph replies, patting his brother's shell awkwardly and wondering just when his life became so weird . "Um... so what was with the pacifier?"

Mikey jolts, but Raph, who had been expecting it, holds him tight and shushes him. He's not mad, really. Or disgusted, either. Whatever he had been doing, it clearly made him happy by the blissed-out smile on his face, and he feels bad that he made his brother so scared to tell anyone that he started crying when he was caught. Maybe Raph from years ago would have been mad or grossed out. Now he just wants his brother to be happy after the hell they've been through. He just... doesn't understand. What the hell was he doing with a pacifier?

Mikey stays silent for another minute, and Raph taps his cheek to get his attention. "Oh! Um... It's - it's called age regression. Or littlespace. Um... It's kinda weird, I -" Mikey pulls his head away again, heart sinking when he realized Raph allowed him to do so, only to spike painfully when he saw Raph's hands were full while looking it up. Raph catches him watching and mutters a soft "shut up," before clicking onto the first link, scanning through the article before turning back to him.

"So you, uh, turn into a kid?" Raph asks. There's a bit of judgment in his voice, but hey, it's Raph. Mikey would be more scared if there wasn't. At least now that he's mostly out of headspace he can explain without sobbing.

"Kinda. It's, like, a coping mechanism. To deal with stress and other stuff you go back to a time when you didn't have to deal with that stuff!" Mikey bites his lip, glaring at Raph when he swats at Mikey's mouth to get him to stop. "So, like, because everything has been - so much recently, um... it's helped. To stop caring about everything for a bit. Just letting myself chillax with some TV and snacks instead of, y'know, alien invasions."

Raph stares at him for a second, but it's not a mean stare. Just a confused one. And then he looks around at the stuff spread around them, squeezes Mikey even tighter to his plastron, and seems to come to some kind of realization. "Okay," he says, breaking the brief silence. "But now that I know, you can't do it alone."

"What!?"

"Ah ah ah! Raph bops Mikey on the snout with his finger - less like a boop and more like he's trying to push his head back from his nose alone - and silences him. "If you think like a kid, ya' could get hurt! I'm not gonna let my baby brother get into somethin' he shouldn't."

Mikey stares. And stares and stares and stares because wow did that make him feel cared for. It sends a warm tingly feeling all through him, and he smiles blindingly bright and tugs the two of them back onto his bean bag. "Okay!" he chirps, already turning on the TV. "That means you have to watch Octonauts with me!"

Raph doesn't look like he regrets the decision at all. It feels like warm fuzzy balloons are popping in Mikey's tummy when he realizes that.

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HWHAHS this was really rushed but that is ok !! i just had to get the Big Reveal slash Exposition over so i can start posting all of the little moments !! i will update soon bless