Mikey is cleaning up some stuff before the trip, it's been 3 days since he decided that it's time to go home, he still thinks his brothers are not going to be happy to find out what actually happened to him, so he is almost certain that he will be kicked out, since he thinks he'll have to come back anyway, he doesn't even bother to put on his mask and gear, he really wanted to stay for more time but he kept this little play dead game for far too long now, so no time can go to waste, the guilt is too much for him to bear, so as soon as he gets it off his chest, the better.
As he finishes the task, he hears a knock on the door, it's Suzan, she knows her friend will be going away soon, so she wants to have a sleepover on his room with him and her sister since he'll be going away soon, she wants to enjoy the rest of his stay , he welcomes the sweet twins into his room, they set up a tent out of blankets and pillows where they all sleep as a group of friends, in the early morning, miss Barbara gently wakes up Michaelangelo and he slowly gets up to not awake the children, she helps him get to her car and activate the gemstone so he can remain unseen as a mutant and to not look suspicious.
They hop in the car at early morning and drive all way to New York, it was past noon when they arrived, they were greeted by a cloudy and dark gray sky, the city was quiet, and it seemed like it would rain soon, Barbara finds a good parking spot and pulls in, Mikey gets a chance to take off his gemstone and go home, but not before making sure miss Barb was ok, so he accompanied her to an affordable hotel nearby, she checked herself in for two days stay, nothing big just a simple room for her to stay, she doesn't know how things will turn out, and Mikey did say his family could probably kick him out or disown him out of rage, so she preferred to stick around for a bit before going home to see if everything would be ok, Mikey apologizes for making her go through all that trouble for him but she says she doesn't mind it.
Later that night, it was time for what could possibly be a goodbye, Michelangelo hugs Barbara and thanks her immensely for all her kindness and care, she also thanks him for all the help he gave her and her family and makes him promise to try and keep in touch with them.
"I'll try my best!"
He said.
Michelangelo then takes off the necklace and turns back into a mutant turtle, he opens the window and climbs onto it, he waves goodbye to his mother figure who waves back with the other hand resting on her chest right near her heart, tears soak both their eyes and Mikey leaves the building jumping to the next one, he runs around the city, making jumps and parkour around the buildings feeling the wind as it hits his body, the adrenaline flowing through his veins, the thrill to be home, all these emotions hit him like a thunder strike, he stops for a bit to take a breath and enjoys the break to think on what to do, Shoul he just go home and hopefully meet his brothers there? Should he look for them in the surface? Maybe a quick stop for food?
He starts to wonder around town again while he thinks about his next move, Until he comes around a very familiar location, a tumbled building, the very same one where all of this mess started, he slows down as he approaches the place with a feeling of pain in his heart, he remembers vividly the moment that this building fell on top of him, the feeling of being violently crushed, the pain, the terror, the despair, he remembers falling unconsious and fighting for his life the moment he opened his eyes, the fear was horrifying, but not of death, Michelangelo now understood.
He was never scared of dying, he was scared of what would cause it, pain, illness, fatal injuries, he was scared of getting hurt, in his eyes, death is a way to end to ones suffering, it puts an end to the pain, butbeing hurt is worse, when you're hurt, the pain remains until you're healed, even tho that's not always the case, maybe the injury wil still hurt forever but just not all the time, or the phisical pain will go away but the mental one will stay, maybe as PTSD or just straight up trauma, the point is, being hurt makes you feel pain, while death can end it as soon as it can, one thing usually leads to another, injuries, illnesses, sadness, all of them are hurtful pain that extend a person's suffering and to a degree, can kill them, THAT'S what Mikey is truly scared of.
And it's this fear that haunts him in the thoughts of meeting his brothers once again, he knows that if they don't react well, it will hurt him, he doesn't know how he would ever be able to bear such pain, it shakes him to his very core, being rejected and thrown away like a worn out rag by his own family, this will e a pain that in the best case scenario would just kill him from a heartbreak, these thoughts overwhelm him and he notices his hands are shaking, so he sits down and starts to silently ponder again about what to do about the situation for a good while, but little did he know that a little "birdie" would bring a solution for his problems and give the plan a little push in the right direction.
While this is going on, back in the turtle's lair, April was with Donnie on his lab, he barelly left that place ever since Mikey was gone, the girl was trying to get him to eat some food because he wasn't really eating that well, none of the brothers were in fact, she got frustraded with his unwillingness to cooperate and sat down on a chair near the table where she noticed a bunch of small cameras and robotic animal replicas, she tried to sparkle a conversation with the purple turtle by asking about these weird things, he doesn't say much, just that they are a pass time for him, making little cameras disguised as animals, it's an old scrapped idea for sneaky spy tech he still had notes about, so he decided to work on it, there's 2 cameras out there in NY connected to his computer, April was still looking around the table and coincidentally found said notes, they had a few sketches made with colorful pens and some side-notes about the project, it was called "Spy pets", quite a funny name.
April continues to look through the papers until she realizes something, the handwriting on those notes was different than Donnies, the letters were more round, kinda resembling cursive writing, upon noticing this small detail she checks them once again, the handwriting is not the only thing off about them, all the notes and sketches were made by pen, colorful one, and Donnie's note are always made by pencils and sometimes markers, the info was also scattered all around the paper, but Donnie always organizes this sort of stuff, this didn't made any sense, there was no way Donnie made these notes, and even if the idea was awesome it doesn't feel quite like something he would have came up with, and those note looked like they were made by a child... a kid.... April looks at the back of the paper and accidentally finds something, a note and a signature.
"A genius idea for my most genius brother. -Michelangelo H."
Oh... it all made sense now, those notes were from Mikey, she looked down at the bottom of the paper and saw a date, Mikey made and gave these notes to Don nearly 5 months ago, it was probally the last gift he ever gave to him, April put the papers back and placed her elbows on the table, she covered her eyes for a second and felt tears forming in her eyes, Donnie saw that and nervously walked over to her and offered a hug, she embraces her friend and they share a moment of silence, that didn't last long until a notification sound came oout of the computer, April looked at Donnie's computer screen to find a familiar figure standing near a very specific place, it was Mikey!!?! Her surprise surprised Donatello who immediatly looks at the screen too to find the reason of the sudden commotion, and when he sees what looks like his brother being spotted by his brand new cameras he is just blown away in confusion and shock.
Seeing her friend frozen in place, April screams for everyone to get in the lab saying it was an emergency, in less than 10 seconds, Raphael, Leonardo and Splinter all come rushing into the room asking what on earth is going on, she shows them the live recording of Michelangelo in the flesh standing around the top of a building, all of them have no idea what is going on but Raph steps foward slambing his fists on the table and demanding to know the location where this recording is being made, Donnie snaps out of his trance and immediatly tracks down the camera, Raphael doesn't think twice, he runs out of the lab, Leo gets a feeling of a sudden hit of adrenaline and follows his younger brother, Donnie knows exactly where they're going, so he grabs his staff and runs after his brothers along with April that despite the intensety of the situation is still the only one with the decency of informing their Sensei of what's going on and where they're going before saying goodbye, Splinter meanwhile is completally speechless and tremendously shocked, but in the back of his mind he's celebrating that his youngest son is alive and that in the end he was right on thinking he wasn't gone to begin with.
(I'm gonna leave this cliffhanger here because I can! mwuehehehehe)
YOU ARE READING
A gentle runaway
FanfictionMikey reaches his final straw and decides to scare everyone off by "disappearing" for a while, but he realizes something interesting (Main story finished)
