Chapter Text
A delicate hitch of the breath, as if ice had crept down into Leonardo’s ribcage in jagged chunks like a glacier fissuring as it slid into the ocean.
A strangled noise filled with bone-crushing, earth-shattering rage with agony inlaid underneath slipped from the back of Raphael’s throat. Mangled and broken like a shattered bone.
Donatello remained carefully still from his end of the line, the silence feeling like it was bursts of static crawling up the back of his shell. The one who normally shattered the silence wasn’t here, he couldn’t reach him.
Michelangelo was missing.
Every passing second his brothers said nothing was another moment that Donatello felt dread slither in his gut as if it was sour milk. He struggled not to feel sick once again, breathing carefully through his nose- not realizing his lungs were burning from subconsciously holding his breath.
Finally, the silence that built up like a massive, jagged mountain range that shoved up between them broke, and for the first time in years, Donatello heard his immediate older brother’s voice. Though it did not bring him relief, it brought with it a strange sense of gravitas that left him feeling like his plastron was buckling under some sort of invisible pressure that was building up in his chest. It wasn’t a relief because it was wrong. It wasn’t Raphael who was supposed to break the awkwardness between them, it was supposed to be Mikey.
Michelangelo was missing.
“What the hell do you mean, Don? I thought he was with you?” Raphael seethed over the line.
Though the ice to Raphael’s flame was the oldest, butting in with his own gritted words of frosty ire. “-And what do you mean, Raphael? You were supposed to be with them.”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit, Fearless. You were the one that left first. You started it-“
Donatello felt like it was that moment in the kitchen all over again. With two brothers who were trying to rip each other apart no matter what the cost. He remembers that moment in a foggy sort of daze, and only then did he truly recognize that it had been Michelangelo to break it up. Logically Donatello had understood, but it didn’t sink into him now. The realization was something startling, and he wasn’t sure why.
The youngest of them had somehow known what would get through to all of them. Knew the instinct bred into them, born of thousands of sparring sessions together. He had known. Wasn’t Michelangelo supposed to be the unobservant one?
The thought was startling, and it felt like Donatello was missing something…something important like he was close to a conclusion, but he couldn’t grasp it just yet. He hated the feeling. It went against Donatello’s very nature. He liked to have and to hold evidence that brought him to a conclusion, facts and data soothed him. The not knowing…it killed him. Then again, perhaps he should be kinder to himself, it was nearly impossible to have a coherent thought over the raised voices coming from the speaker of his phone. That and his frantic rabbit-paced heartbeat in his chest. All because…
Mikey was missing.
“We shouldn’t be arguing, not if Michelangelo is in trouble…when I last saw him, he was still staying in the Lair.” The moment the words escaped, the fact that the line went dead silent on both sides should have made him realize that he had opened the floodgates to hell.
There was a growl, and he was surprised that it came from Leo and not Raph. It was so uncharacteristic of the normally levelheaded leader, though…he hadn’t been that way for quite some time, had he? They had all changed…didn’t they? “You are implying that you haven’t spoken to him since then. How long ago was that?”
“Like you have room to talk.” Donatello scoffed, he was getting defensive, he knew it consciously, but he was never the type to just lose an argument. He could never just let something go. Donatello had to systematically destroy the opposition’s side with facts and logic. Even if the one on the other side were his brothers. “I’ve been…busy. It’s not like he ever called or messaged either, neither did you two.”
Though niggling in the back of his mind were the doubts, they crept in suddenly. Though Donatello realized they were always there, lurking under the surface like a creature in a dark bog. It didn’t rise to the occasion until the moment when everything was too much until he was frantically packing his belongings in a suitcase while talking to two brothers who felt like strangers instead of the comforting family that he had grown up with.
He couldn’t focus on that now.
Michelangelo was missing.
“It’s not the same! Okay- it’s different. I…” Raphael tried to protect his vulnerable underbelly and defend his actions.
Donatello wasn’t relenting, as he pinched the phone between his head and shoulder while shoving his books into his suitcase. In the background, he heard April doing much the same. She was disappointed with him, and could barely look at him. Ever since they left, she had been trying to urge him to go home, to check on his brothers. To bridge the gap.
He didn’t though…
Because normally it was Michelangelo who did that.
For years he had waited for that message to pop up, or for the call to come through. A ‘Hey bro, how is college treating ya? Got any good pizza places there?’ or a stupid cat meme that Michelangelo loved to send. Though he didn’t. So, he waited and waited.
He waited and the day never came to be.
Deep down, Donatello knows he is partially to blame. Perhaps not fully, as he does still hold accountability to the others, but he should have known, shouldn’t he? Michelangelo couldn’t be alone, that wasn’t in his nature. He was the sun, wanting to give life and vitality to plants under his care.
Though thankfully, Michelangelo was inevitable. The sun would always shine, no matter what landscape devoid of life it shone upon.
(He ignored the logic that not even the sun shone forever, that it was a star and stars succumbed to destroying themselves or imploding in a gravitational collapse. Michelangelo had to keep shining… because that is who he was.)
“You were supposed to stay with them- I trusted you all to stick together. To take care of each other—”
“What about you? Huh? What made you think that Don or Mike would be fine if you just up and left? What about me? You know I’m not a leader!”
“Michelangelo is missing.” Donatello heard his voice barely over the static in his head. “I tried reaching him on his T-Phone twenty-six times this morning, and all the calls went straight through to voicemail. The sixteen messages I sent are still as of now unread.” He hated how apathetic his voice sounded. As if he was simply stating simple facts that were fundamental and had no greater meaning or emotion to them other than that they were simply true. Though at the same time, the youngest of the three could not let even a single sliver of emotion past the dam he built up, or risk the collapse of his carefully cultivated subdued mask. He couldn’t be emotional, not right now. It wasn’t useful to the situation, he had to be more logical than that.
So, like everything else, like all the other grief he had- he bottled up the panic currently racing through his veins. “I’m currently leaving, it will take me three days to get to the Lair. When will the rest of you be able to get there? We need to coordinate our search.”
“I’ll be there around the same time…I—was already taking a ship home already before…before…” Leonardo’s voice sounds a bit choked up, rougher in a way that couldn’t be chalked up to the old damage to his vocal cords. It was something deeper, something rawer and more vulnerable than old wounds.
Because Michelangelo Hamato was missing. The youngest brother, the sunlight in the storm clouds, the rainbow after the thunderstorm—he was gone.
None of them knew if the sun was still shining.
None of them knew if Mikey was alive.
--But Michelangelo had to be alive, he had to keep shining. Donatello felt it deep in his bones, felt it bubbling in his marrow, felt it roiling in his gut—Mikey had to be alive.
The broken family couldn’t take the loss of the sun too; if they did—they would grow even colder than their already icy exchanges, the icy whispered accusations. The blame they tossed at one another like sharp steel blades in the dark. It was better to blame each other than potentially take it upon themselves, to admit it might have been their fault that a star had died without them noticing—without them being any the wiser. Donatello couldn’t admit it to himself, because if he did even think that it was his fault for even a moment—if he acknowledged the fact that he had never picked up the phone…then he’d spiral.
He couldn’t do that right now.
Not when his only younger brother was missing.
It didn’t feel real, it felt like it was all some strange sort of nightmare.
As he had been lost in his thoughts, he’d missed Leonardo and Raphael’s slowly rising voices.
“Why didn’t you stay? You were supposed to stay. You were supposed to take care of them—they needed you.” Leonardo’s anger, once again the liquid nitrogen to Raphael’s fire. When the two collided it was always something horrible. Donatello hadn’t been used to it in a while. When was the last time he’d heard his brothers argue?
Donatello remembered at the same time a migraine began to build behind his temples. The kitchen, right before Leonardo left them. Right before everything else fell apart and crumbled into dust.
“Stop…” Donatello whispered.
Raphael either didn’t hear him or didn’t care as his voice came sharply from across the phone. “Right back at it, nearly four years and you’re already back to throwing blame. You can’t admit you were wrong, can you? Perfect Fearless who can never do anything wrong—you left too. You left first, without saying a damn thing. You only left a fucking note and gave the bare minimum effort.” The fiery brother snapped back in response.
“Stop,” Donatello whispered hoarsely. This wasn’t helping, it was only breaking them apart again. Shattering already broken bonds.
Finally hearing him, Donatello’s immediate older brother turned on him next. His tone hissed with venom. “—and you. You have some fucking nerve. You left too—”
“We all left,” Donatello responded hoarsely. “Stop it. Just stop—this isn’t going to help if Mikey is d—”
“Don’t. Finish. That. Sentence.” Raphael snarled something feral.
There was a long bout of silence over the line. Raphael may have stopped Donatello from uttering the word verbally, but it was still on their minds anyway. What if Michelangelo…the youngest, the impending sun on the horizon… if he was gone? Forever?
It would be all their fault.
“Three days.” Donatello reiterated. “April and I will be there in three days.”
It wasn’t subtle, but it did go unspoken, instead, Donatello carried it in his tone.
‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’
They could rip out each other’s throats later, but right now they needed to be coordinated. They needed to find their brother.
-- because Michelangelo was missing.
There was a brief understanding that settled between all of them. Acknowledgment without saying anything, but the silence spoke volumes enough.
“Like I said…I was already on a ship back. I’ll be around three days as well.” Leonardo responded.
Raphael snarled, making a noise of annoyance. “I’ll have some trouble getting back over the border but…fuck it. Casey and I’ll find a way. Three days.”
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
Four thousand three hundred and twenty minutes.
Two hundred fifty-nine thousand two hundred seconds.
It felt like forever and yet simultaneously like no time at all. Donatello felt the duality of time in that moment, not enough, and yet there was too much.
“I’ll meet you,” Donatello says, his voice coming out even-tempered despite everything. Somehow, he managed to keep tight enough control that his voice does not wobble, though his lips do purse in a tight line. “Stay in touch.”
Don’t leave again.
I need you.
Mikey needs you.
He needs us.
Those are the unspoken words he wants to say, but he doesn’t, because they had nonverbally all agreed for the moment to not rekindle the sparks that threatened to explode. It’s like they were in a room filled with toxic gas and all of them held a match, just waiting to see who would strike it against the stone first.
For Michelangelo’s sake, they remained at a standstill.
Just because it was calm did not mean things were at peace. There was too much hurt, too far of a gaping chasm between them.
“Yeah. I’ll be there.” Raphael says and hangs up without another word. His portion of the call disconnects and there is a space, leaving only Leonardo and Donatello on call with one another.
Donatello needed to triple-check. He had to make sure…He needed to know Leo was coming back. “You’re…” He couldn’t force the words out, as if the dam that all of his emotions had built up behind also clogged the words from escaping his throat.
Leonardo seemed to understand. Seemed to read the silence between his words, the hitch to his breath, the stammer on his tongue. “I’m coming back, Donnie.” He says simply.
He doesn’t apologize for leaving, he doesn’t offer any excuses or explanations, and his oldest brother is just as heavily reserved as ever.
It felt that without Michelangelo to act as a buffer between them, none of them knew how to interact with one another. Had it always been that way? Or had the years of being estranged from one another truly taken their toll?
“….Okay.” Donatello breathes. “Okay.” He repeats, a bit more firmly. More insistently. As if he’s trying to convince himself of the truth of the fact. Though Donatello had a difficult time believing in things he couldn’t see for himself, he was a man of science—not of faith.
Right now he had to have faith that his brothers were coming home.
That the sun was still shining somewhere in New York and hadn’t completely died out.
That there was still hope left to cross the chasms they had dug out with years of silence and neglect. Of the screamed words echoing from old fights and the faint pang of wistful longing and nostalgia for the way that things used to be, back when the world was still just the sewers, they called home, and they still had a full family.
Things had never been perfect, but things had surely been better than this. Yet those days are so faintly remembered they are like old blurry sepia-tone portraits with bleeding edges and water damage. It’s so hard to remember what the feeling of a whole and hale family used to feel like when they had been severed from one another for so long.
It’s as if they amputated themselves—Donatello was the head, the mind that tried to cut off connection as if it could think easier. Raphael the hands which were bruised and bloody from where they had broken and bled from wounded knuckles, crescent shapes dug into the palms from clenching into fists so tightly. Leonardo the legs, were rooted and grounded but when he moved it shook everything else. Normally so reliable and yet when he left only the hard ground was there to meet them. Then…Michelangelo…. The torso. The chest to which all the major organs were. The lungs to breathe, and the heart of it all.
They were disjointed now, hunks of useless flesh that had been cut apart in such a grim macabre fashion. It only made Donatello wonder if they would ever be something resembling something healthy again or if they stitched each other back together it would be like Frankenstein’s monster. Something ugly and horrific.
Only time will tell.
Three days.
Three days that felt so long but so short. Three days, three sunrises in which Donatello wasn’t sure the sun even still existed.
“I’m packed,” April said as she stopped by Donatello’s door. Her face set into a hard thin line, her blue eyes determined but also filled with a sense of faint urgency brought on by panic. Donatello felt it too, though he was muted. Still locked behind the dam. The water raged though, slamming against the barriers he’d erected to keep his composure. He needed to just keep his composure….
Donatello hadn’t realized he’d been clenching his T-Phone tightly in his hand, his arm trembling. “I’ll…Let you go, Leo. I need to get on the road.” He stated. Donatello’s voice didn’t even sound like his own. It felt as if he was a puppet or a mouthpiece for something else. Someone was moving their hand and Donatello’s mouth was moving along.
“Okay,” Leonardo repeated what Donatello had muttered earlier. Echoing Donatello’s uncertainty. Leonardo wasn’t supposed to sound uncertain though, he wasn’t supposed to act as if he was trying to convince himself that everything was fine. He’s supposed to be self-assured, he’s supposed to be the one giving orders and saying everything will be okay.
Though they don’t know that. They can’t possibly know that. They don’t know where Michelangelo is.
Michelangelo is missing.
Oh, Kami how Donatello hates those words together in that sentence, strung together in that way. Though it constantly repeats in his head like a broken record, no matter how hard he tries to stop it, he can’t. He wants to throw up again. He wants to wake up from this nightmare filled with strangers and cold spaces.
He hangs up the phone without another word, and even though the call is disconnected, Donatello can still practically feel Leonardo’s silence.
Three days.
Michelangelo is missing.