Broken People Get Recycled

“Well, even if you don’t manage to sleep, just resting some will hopefully help,” Mike pointed out practically. “But… here, maybe this will improve things a bit - just breathe steadily for me…” He shifted carefully so he could reach April’s back and neck without jostling her too much, then began to gently massage and manipulate the pressure points there, trying to ease some of the tension out of April’s frame without aggravating her bruises. “Let me know how this feels, all right?” 

Even as he worked, Mike continued to listen warily for any stray sounds, and tried to plan their next move. Sooner or later they’d have to get going - they were still dangerously close to the Shredder’s territory, and a long way from safety. Neither of them were in any real shape to fight or to run, so if they encountered any Foot, they’d be in serious trouble.

The more he thought about it, the more Mike had to admit that he likely wouldn’t be able to get April home safely by himself - not without much more danger than he was willing to risk. 

Sooner or later, he’d have to call someone for help.

Damnit.

April did her best to breathe evenly as Mike’s fingertips explored her upper back. Turtle hands were big and blunt-fingered, but very far from inelegant; he’d sutured his own wound, after all. She trusted him implicitly to be careful.

Still, the fall had done a real number on her back, and Mike’s work wasn’t entirely painless, knotting her breath in her stomach a few times while he worked. As his thumb pressed into one particular point at her inner scapula, a cold, deep ache flared up her neck and into the base of her skull. She grit her teeth against it rather than telling Mike to stop; it was referred pain, not a clumsy prod at her bruised back, and that meant the longer she could bear it, the more good it would do.   

Once the dressing was taped into place as securely as they could manage, Mike rolled his shoulders and neck to ease some of the tension, then shifted around to lean back against the wall. He stretched his legs out before him and absently flexed his toes, trying to get his circulation going as April drank and settled at his right side. 

Her words made him frown slightly, and for a moment his expression was almost mutinous - but then he sighed, unable to reasonably argue with her logic. “All right, fine,” he conceded with a faint, lopsided smile. “Can’t really argue that you’ve sweated as much as I’ve bled, I guess.” He accepted the bottle and took a slow sip, then set it aside again, saving the remaining water for later. If ‘later’ also involved getting April to have another mouthful, well… that was a Future Them problem. 

“Now, c’mere. Time for you to take a well deserved nap with your favourite turtle pillow.” He winked and raised his arm in a silent invitation for April to lean against him. 

April’s shirt was so damp with sweat that she wondered if perhaps Mike did have an argument, after all, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Besides, they were in the sewers. Everything was damp, and in her experience it was best not to think too much about why.

She pressed her aching back flat to the wall at first, hoping the cold cement would offer some relief, but all it really did was make her shudder. So when Mike made his inevitable offer, she gently faceplanted into his shoulder, gingerly shielding her broken arm with the other.

April was so tired, but everything that hurt was shouting at her. Finding a comfortable position didn’t feel humanly possible right now.

Mike let out a silent breath of relief as April agreed to a break - her suspicious look was simply met with an innocent expression - then focused his attention back on working with her to finish and tie off the last suture. Once that was done, he let his arm flop back against the ground, absently flexing his hand to work the cramps out of his fingers and waiting for the pain in his side to die down a little. 

He still kept a concerned eye on April though, watching her rummage around to drag out a few more of their meagre supplies. The small roll of surgical tape was regarded dubiously for a moment before April made her request. “Can do,” Mike replied with a lazy thumbs-up. He braced himself with his arm, then slowly eased himself up into a sitting position, being careful not to strain his side too much.

Once he made it upright, he had to pause briefly and take a few steadying breaths, feeling momentarily light-headed. It passed quickly at least, and he offered April a lopsided smile. “The stitching job seems to be holding well enough, at least,” he commented lightly. “Probably gonna be easiest to just tape the dressing into place - I’m not planning on doing anything strenuous enough to dislodge it any time soon.” He held out his hand to help her unroll the surgical tape - he knew from experience how tricky it could be to manipulate it one-handed. 

April wordlessly took Mike’s lead - and his help - with the tape. Between them they tore off longish strips and cross-hatched the cheap field supply over the dressing, binding it to anything that would stick (turtle shell was not a great sticking surface for surgical tape, she already knew from long experience). It certainly wasn’t her prettiest handiwork, but she had long since stopped concerning herself with aesthetics. 

And there was no longer blood pumping out of the turtle’s side. That was really all that mattered.

When the job was done, she tossed what was left of the tape in the general direction of her bag. Then, and only then, did she finally reach for the water bottle. She rolled perhaps a third of what was left of the contents inside her dry mouth, and savoured the long swallow. If only there were painkillers to go down with it.

Raph couldn’t quite smile, but he couldn’t help softening at April’s teasing. “I guess,” he said, slightly grudging out of habit, but also doubting that he’d actually be able to rest well in Mike’s room. He looked up when she started asking him a question, but stilled at the sound of a knock.

His heart gave a leap when he saw Shadow but he didn’t move, watching her talk to April. He wished he could ask her to stay but he didn’t have the right to…but then she hesitated, looking back at him, and he couldn’t ignore the tiny spark of hope. “He’s - yeah, Klunk’s fine, but…” He swallowed. “I don’t mind if you - I mean, you can stay if you want to.”

Shadow instantly beamed, but she still cast a cautious look at her mother before letting herself get too excited. 

“If Uncle Raph’s okay with it,” April nodded, much to her daughter’s delight; at this point, fighting Shadow’s interest in her uncle would only do more harm than good. If Raph opted not to stay for long, at least the girl would have been able to spend some time with him before he disappeared again . . . even if it meant dealing with the emotional fallout afterwards. “I’ll leave you in charge of taking care of him for me, okay?”

Shadow accepted this onerous duty with a giddy smile and another salute. As she started to make her way over to the bed, April turned back to Raph one last time.

“If you need anything at all, Raph, just ask. Shadow will know where to find it on the base,” she reassured him, then grinned and ruffled the girl’s hair when she darted past. “Whether she’s supposed to know or not.”

“I’m resourceful,” Shadow explained, patting her hair back down with great dignity. She hopped up on the bed, and her small hands made a beeline for the lump of fur between her and Raph. “Aww. Klunky’s so happy! Listen to him purr. Hey, stinky-kitty, did you miss me? Does Uncle Raphie give good pets?”

April gave Raph a little farewell wave, and left him in the indelicate but affectionate hands of her daughter.

After the short walk back to her own quarters, she slipped quietly inside her room, on the off-chance Mike had nodded off in the meantime.

“Alas, poor Becky and her lack of courage,” Mike intoned solemnly. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” He let out a wry huff of amusement. “Not that she would’ve gained anything anyway, so maybe it was just as well.” 

He blinked slightly as the flashlight clicked back on, then waited for April’s guiding hand to settle back along his own. He could tell how badly she was flagging just from the way her hand trembled against his, how carefully she was moving, how ragged her breathing was getting. But he also knew that she wouldn’t be convinced stop to rest until she was satisfied that his injury had been tended as well as they could manage out here. She could be just as stubborn as he was. Once that was done, though… 

April’s breathy laugh made him grin lopsidedly. “Oh man, if you seriously suggest that to Beckett, I won’t have to worry about her killing me - she’s gonna be too busy chewing you out,” he teased. “Not to mention nobody would ever be game enough to approach her anyway, and I’d hate to lose my occasional little doses of ego boosting.”

He paused briefly, not bothering to suppress the grimace caused by the needle piercing his flesh again as April guided his suturing. “Speaking of ego though… I dunno about you, rebel leader, but once we’re done patching me up…” He paused again to take a slow, careful breath. “I hate to admit it, but I think I’m gonna need a bit of a break,” he said with deliberately calculated reluctance. “Should probably take a few minutes to catch my breath properly. And you should at least drink some of the water.” He tilted his head towards the half-full water bottle resting nearby. “Don’t need you dehydrating on top of everything else.” The best way to get April to rest, at least for a little while, was to convince her that he needed the break.

Poor Becky and her cohorts in unrequited affection, indeed. It was almost a shame; Mike’s mind was made up on these propositions, and she respected that, but April still couldn’t help imagining how adorable it would be for him to be besotted with a cute partner. He had so much love to give, after all . . . but perhaps that was the blocker. Far too much love for him to pick just one person to dote on. 

Beckett would definitely be a bigger blocker, that was for sure. April grinned weakly as that joke landed perfectly with Mike - she valued her life and livelihood too much to ever ask the taciturn commando for real. 

As they finished up the last of his stitches, Mike suggested a break. He sounded genuine enough, but the tilt of April’s eyebrows was all suspicion; Mike never stopped until he dropped, which meant he was either really hurting, or he had an ulterior motive. Either way, it wouldn’t change the outcome.

"Well, good," she agreed quietly. "Because once you're patched up, I need one, too. Not stopping until then, for anything."

April would go for the water after they were done. It was less a matter of being stubborn, and more the knowledge that the next time she stopped would be the last until she had rested a while. The urgency and momentum of the operation was all that was keeping her going. The shock of her fall had long since worn-off, and her arm was a gravity well of agony that kept sucking at her concentration.

So she pressed on with helping him tie off the last suture, which was painstaking enough between the two of them, and then scrambled around for the supplies to dress the awkwardly-positioned wound. Keeping the dressing in place was the real problem. She didn’t have enough bandaging to wrap Mike’s entire waist, but she did have one small roll of surgical tape that might do the job if she wound it all the way around him. The only other alternative was to stick it liberally to his plastron and carapace and hope the whole thing held.

Raph listened in silence as April answered him. If anyone else had tried to give him advice, he would have angrily tuned them out. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear how Mike felt. But he couldn’t be mad at April. So when he spoke, instead of sounding gruff, he just sounded tired. “Seems to me he said about enough when we ran into each other. But I’ll think about it.”

He glanced up when she leaned in to pet Klunk - the orange cat’s purring doubled in volume, and he began kneading his paws against Raph’s leg - and he was nearly overwhelmed with the impulse to lean into her the way he’d done before. But he didn’t. He sat in silence and just stared at Klunk, wondering why she even still cared.

Ah. So some words had already been shared, and Raph's tone told April everything she needed to know about how that had gone. But if he was still thinking about it, that was some progress, at least. 

Raph was always short on words and big on silences, but if you spent enough time with him you learned to read the nuance in the latter. As he stared down at Klunk, April was fairly sure she was dealing with a Troubled rather than Angry silence, but she was also out of practice. It was difficult to tell if she’d overstayed her welcome.

She gave Klunk one last set of heavily-appreciated back scratches and left the cat to Raph's tender ministrations, shuffling off the edge of the bed. She didn't leave his personal space immediately, though; she lingered instead to reach for the shoulder of his good arm and give it an affectionate squeeze.

"All right. I should probably let you get some rest, Raphie-turtle," she smiled, soft but mischievous as she mirrored his cute nickname for Klunk. “Do you want me to-”

A couple of soft taps at the door interrupted her. April called the visitor in, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see her daughter peering through the open door. Shadow stepped quickly inside, throwing a salute. 

“Is everything okay, sweetie?”

Shadow cringed so hard she practically imploded. "Mo- Commander! I saluted, that means I’m on official resistance business, you can't call me that! Uggghhh."

“Oh! My bad, my bad.” She bit back the laugh that tried to fight its way out of her throat and did her best to keep a neutral face, sparing her daughter’s dignity. “Report, private!”

The girl sighed, casting a long-suffering look at her uncle before giving her very grudging, yet clearly rehearsed response. "General Michelangelo is ready for mission debriefing and has requested your presence ASAP."

Given the state of him, April was astonished Mike was still awake at all. Perhaps that was why he wanted to talk to her now, so he could remedy that quickly. “Understood. At ease, soldier. Unless . . . there’s something else?” 

raphaelredbrother​:

Raph couldn’t help an involuntary snort of laughter a the description of Shadow’s one-sided rivalry. “Well if it’ll take some of the wind out of her sails, you can let her know Ty ain’t really all that tall to begin with.” 

Klunk licked his hand and leaned into his touch. Raph huffed a little and scritched under his chin before moving to Klunk’s favorite spot in front of his ears. But when April mentioned being happy to see him, the motion of his hand slowed and he felt the faint smile fade from his face. He hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling. His expression shifted to its habitual glower. “Don’t think you can speak for Mike, there,” he said brusquely. “’Happy’ ain’t how I’d describe it.” Klunk let out an indignant mrowp and butted his head insistently against the hand that had fallen still. “Damn it, you dumb cat, what the shell do you want?” he growled. But he resumed his gentle scritching even as he glared at the floor.

Shadow’s childish giggles coaxed a chuckle of his own out of Mike, as they usually did. He let her wriggle free, but not without ruffling her hair affectionately on her way out. “Perhaps, perhaps,” Mike drawled, “but you should check anyway. Just in case.” 

He grinned at the kiss on the cheek and booped her nose in response, then nodded solemnly in response to her finger-wagging. “Yes sir, ma’am, sir! I promise I’ll rest - I won’t move an inch!” His smile remained in place as he watched Shadow slip out of the room, but once the door clicked shut behind her, the smile faded. Mike breathed out a heavy sigh and let himself sink deeper into the worn couch, his eyes sliding closed. The painkillers had taken the edge off, but his head still throbbed dully, and he wearily rubbed his hand over his face before letting his arm drop back to settle in his lap.

He was so tired, but his own whirling thoughts and the welter of emotions dredged up by Raph’s presence on the base -  plus the fact that he still needed to report to April - kept him from succumbing to sleep. 

April swallowed a pang of grief in miniature when the smile left Raph's face. She'd seen more of him in the past hour than she had for years, and even then, any fleeting trace of genuine happiness on his face was a rarity worth mourning.

These awkward conversations were difficult to navigate. Words she meant as positive encouragement could all too easily be taken as coercion by the brooding turtle, and there was nothing more likely to drive him away altogether. In her unfortunate experience, if you were going to say anything at all about the family breakdown, it was better to simply be honest. 

"I think that's a little unfair to Mike," she responded softly. "Things are more complicated between you two than 'happy' and 'unhappy', aren’t they? You're right, though - I won't speak for him, so I guess if you really want to know how he feels, you’ll just have to ask him."

Of course, even if Raph plucked up the courage to do that, April wasn’t so sure Mike would open up to him. Not immediately, anyway; broken trust took time and effort to repair. But persistence could pay off, as Klunk was helpfully demonstrating. April reached over to double up the scritches.

---

In spite of her initial enthusiasm, Shadow found herself dragging her feet on the way to Uncle Mikey’s old room. That didn’t really make any sense. She wanted to see Uncle Raph again, a lot.

But what if he wasn’t there? Or what if this time was the last time she saw him again for a long time? The worry was enough to put the brakes on her youthful enthusiasm.

raphaelredbrother​:

Raph managed a hint of a smile in response to April’s comment about putting Shadow in a stasis bubble, but it didn’t last. He’d known Shadow would grow, of course he had, but actually seeing her…

He wanted to see her again, to talk to her, but he knew he had no right to ask. He was all too aware that he was one of the things April hadn’t been able to control, and one of the people she’d had to do without.  “Yeah, well…” he rumbled. “Guess kids’ll grow whether you want ‘em to or not. Look at what happened to Ty. ‘Course the way she’s going she’ll probably be taller than he is in a year.” And he probably wouldn’t be there to see it. That hurt.

He fell silent and looked away, but as he turned his head his eyes fell on Klunk. The orange cat was still staring at him, which was a bit disconcerting. But then Klunk made another mrrrp noise under his breath, stood, stretched, and moved forward to butt his head against Raph’s hand, leaning forward with a deep-throated purr as Raph hesitantly reached out to scritch behind his ears. “Hey, klunky-cat,” he said quietly.

Mike gave Shadow an apologetic little smile at her disgruntlement. He was all too aware of her disdain for busywork. “I know you do, kiddo,” he replied gently. “I wouldn’t trust my precious ninja kitty’s well-being with anyone else, you know that, right?” Klunk was as much a part of the family as April or Shadow, in Mike’s mind, but the old cat wasn’t getting any younger… 

As Shadow flopped, ever so carefully, onto his plastron to hug him, Mike wrapped his own arm around her and squeezed her firmly, letting his cheek rest against the top of her head. He put all his affection and gratitude into the hug - and if he held on a little longer and a little tighter than usual, well, who could blame him, with the day he’d had and his estranged brother only a room away? At least his arm hadn’t been injured enough to interfere with said hug, for once. 

Shadow’s quiet question prompted Mike to give her another little squeeze. “Of course Klunk remembers him,” he reassured her. “My clever ninja kitty wouldn’t forget a family member.” He smiled a little wistfully against the top of Shadow’s head. “Klunk used to jump up onto Raph’s shell whenever he was doing push-ups, and chew on his mask tails. Drove Raph nuts.” He let out a little huff of wry amusement. “Maybe you should be checking to make sure Klunk isn’t harassing Raph too much!”

April covered her eyes and mock-groaned at Raph’s comparison to Tyler. “Please, god, don’t tell her that,” she chuckled. “She’s already decided Ty is her rival, with or without his participation. If she gets taller than him, she’s going to be incredibly obnoxious about it, mark my words.”

When Klunk stirred she was tempted, as always, to give the cat a few scritches of her own. But it seemed inappropriate to intrude on this little reunion, so she kept her hands to herself for now, clasped warmly in her lap as she indulged instead in the novelty of watching Raphael . . . well, exist in her line of sight, but especially being soft and gentle with the old feline.

“Seems like Klunk’s just as happy to see you as the rest of us,” April smiled.

---

Uncle Mikey might only have one arm, but being squished between it and his solid plastron was always the safest feeling in the whole world. Shadow laughed as he reminisced about Raph’s kitten-plagued workouts, still young enough for the sound to be an infectious, childish giggle. Of course, poor Klunk was a little too grey and tired for jumping up and down on things relentlessly now, including Uncle Raph - more often than not the lazy cat would simply wait for her to pick him up and move him to the level he wanted to go with a whole lot of meowing in between - but she didn’t like to think about that too much.

“I think Uncle Raphie can handle him,” Shadow grinned, and carefully wriggled her way out of Mikey’s affectionate grasp. It would have been very easy to stay there all day, but she had been given a job to do. Certainly it was that, and not an anxious desire to make sure Raph was still on the base or anything. 

As April sagged against him, Mike let himself finally start to relax a little, though he still kept his arm around her waist for the moment. “At least you acknowledge the perfection of my ass,” he murmured with increasing amusement as the absurdity of the situation gradually sunk in and his indignation began to fade. “Along with at least… shell, were we up to eleven or twelve propositions now? I’ve lost track. Wait, would Becky count? I’m not sure if Becky would count.” 

He gave April’s waist a final gentle squeeze before letting go and fumbling around to find the tweezers again. “Damnit, where the– aha, there you are, you li’l shit.” He maneuvered the tweezers around in his fingers until he was gripping them properly, then hesitated before trying to grasp the suture needle again. “Um… you’ll probably have to turn the torch back on now. Let’s just hope those jerks don’t come back this way again once they lose the trail at the next main intersection… man, I’m glad that worked though, even if only temporarily.” He let out a short huff of wry laughter. “I make excellent bait even when I’m not actually there.”

"Oh, she counts," April smiled thinly, going through the stiff, mechanical motions of flicking the safety back on her handgun and returning it to her waistband. "Just because she never plucked up the courage to ask me directly, doesn't mean I couldn’t tell she wanted to.”

She fished around for the flashlight, fingernails scraping against concrete before she managed to get hold of it and switch it on. After such a near miss, leaving it pointing upright again made her nervous, but there was no way to hold it and guide Mike’s hand through the remaining few stitches at the same time. She was flagging, she knew; the urge to stop and rest and close her eyes for a while clamped down on her like a vicious dog’s jaws, dragging her towards the inevitable, but once the suturing was done she still needed to dress the wound . . .

Mike remained frozen in place as April curled against him, a small warm patch against his plastron, yet so distressingly frail compared to his armoured bulk. He curled his arm around the back of her waist as best he could as she drew her gun and braced herself against his carapace - whether it was more for her comfort or his, he wasn’t sure, and not willing to try and figure it out. He was stiff and cold from lying in one place against the cement floor for so long, and unsure how steady he’d be right now if he had to move quickly. But there was no doubt in his mind that he’d do whatever was necessary to keep April safe and get her home. If that meant acting as both support and barricade and taking shots meant for her on his scarred, weathered shell, well…

It wouldn’t be the first time. Nor would it be the last.

The footsteps came to a halt, and the reflected radiance shifted and brightened somewhat, as though the beams of light were being swept around the main junction. There was a pause, then a voice spoke, echoing oddly through the tunnels.

“There’s a side passage here. Think they might’ve gone down this way?”

A brief pause, then a snort. “Not a chance. No way that fat-arsed turtle freak would’ve been able to squeeze through those bars.” 

Mike sucked in a silent breath, his already-tense frame suddenly tensing even further in frankly ridiculous indignation. 

“Yeah, I suppose you have a point.” 

More heavy footsteps. “Come on, the blood trail continues down this way.”

A tired sigh. “At least we made ‘em bleed.” 

“Nowhere near as much as I’d like, but at this point I’ll take whatever we can get.”  The footsteps gradually faded as they continued onwards down the main tunnel, taking the reflected glow of their flashlights with them. 

Beneath April, Mike was still practically vibrating with indignation. “I am not a fat-arse,” he muttered darkly, glowering in the general direction of the offending Foot as though he was trying to pierce the cement walls and drop the soldier with the intensity of his glare. “It’s all shell. My arse is perfection.”

April’s chest threatened to buck with a burst of ill-timed laughter, and she bit her lip hard to keep it trapped inside. Aside from the fact that it would give away their position, it was mean and she felt bad, given how angrily Mike tensed up beneath her, but it was just so . . . absurd. 

Her planet was being ruled by an alien dictator and somehow she was the leader of the human resistance in NYC and her family was largely a collection of eclectic mutants she ran into by chance one day and she and Mike were wounded and on the cusp of a potentially fatal firefight except the enemy was making fat jokes and her entire life was so incredibly absurd, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about it. And right now, she could afford to do neither.

So she held her breath until the voices receded and her heart rate began to drop, and the distant lights faded, plunging them back into the gloom. Only then did she sag against Mikey, smiling tiredly at his dark grumblings.

Mike grinned at April’s snort, then rolled his eyes with a theatrical groan. “I’ll let you know once I can think of something suitable that rhymes with nightmare,” he deadpanned as he gripped the tweezers that April pressed into his fingers. “Frightscare doesn’t quite cut it.”

With April’s hand guiding his own, Mike was able to start making progress on stitching up the gash in his side. He paused often, partly for his own sake when the pain got too much or his arm needed a break; and partly for April’s, especially whenever he felt the tremors in her guiding hand start to increase. Bit by bit, they made slow but steady progress in closing the wound.

There were only a few more stitches to go when Mike suddenly paused again, his brow furrowing. “Wait,” he breathed, listening intently, straining to hear past the ever-present trickle and flow of water. He thought he’d heard something, faint and distant, echoing through the sewer…

He abruptly let go of the tweezers, letting them rest on his side with the needle still halfway through his flesh as he reached for the torch to turn it off. Only the dim light filtering in from the grille overhead provided shape to the shadows. Mike lay frozen in place, every muscle tense.

In the distance, multiple heavy, booted footsteps could be faintly heard tromping down the main tunnel, the sound echoing and distorted, but gradually getting clearer. And closer.

Although April spoke a few words here and there, the suturing work would have progressed well enough without them. She couldn’t say exactly when this natural rhythm between herself and Michelangelo had formed. Sometimes it felt like it had always been there, a silent harmony singing through them whenever they were turned to the same purpose, but . . . it had only really blossomed to this intensity after everything else around them had begun to burn.

The wound was almost a tight seam of flesh when Mike called a pause and killed the light, but she didn’t question it; even if there had been a good reason not to trust his honed senses, the absence of any terrible jokes would have convinced her to pay attention. April fell immediately still, curled against the swell of his carapace. Listening. Noise carried strangely down in the sewer, travelling on murky waterways and echoing through the long lonely tunnels, but there was no mistaking the sound of footsteps - or their direction of travel.

In rushed the fear, fetid and primordial, an old friend in tight corners. It had grown and evolved with her over the years since the very first time she had run for her life from Stockman’s mouser lab. Self-preservation had taken several long, slow steps back, and the faces of those who desperately needed her to make it home in one piece flashed up front. Rebels, civilians, the scattered fragments of her family . . . Shadow.

Her little girl, already down one parent, one grandpa rat and one uncle (or three, to all intents and purposes). April could never let it become the whole set. She reached stiffly behind her back and retrieved her handgun.

It was hard to hear anything over the fresh pounding of her heart; it wouldn’t have surprised her if Mike could feel the pulse through his thick shell as she pressed even closer, borrowing one of its sloping planes of scutes as an armrest. Not her steadiest aim, but with the extra support she could at least train the muzzle of the handgun on the cramped entrance tunnel.

“The most gentlemanly of gentlemen,” Mike agreed sagely with a little nod of his head, though he was careful to keep the rest of him still beneath April’s hand. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

The wash of cool saline over his side sent a ripple of chill through him and made him shiver briefly before he steadied himself again. His brow furrowed in concern as he watched April struggle with the needle, her breathing ragged and her whole body tense. He did his best to keep himself relaxed and still beneath the sharp pain flaring in his side as April tried to push the needle through, struggling against his thick skin while only having the use of her off hand.

He was about to speak up when the needle suddenly punched through and April sat back with a gasp, even as Mike suppressed a wince. The sting of the needle was almost a relief compared to the previous pressure on his injury, and he barely noticed her weight as she braced herself against the edge of his plastron.  

Mike took another careful, steadying breath as April spoke, then offered her a lopsided smile. “Not worried about pretty,” he replied lightly as he set the torch down, the butt resting against the ground and the light pointing up to the ceiling. “I think, though, that it might be easier on you if I take over the actual stitching, and you just… point me in the right direction. Heh, point. Needlepoint.” He let out a light huff of irreverent amusement, then cleared his throat and continued. “I can’t really see that area properly myself, but with you steering, we should manage just fine.” He winked at her as he reached out to gently take the needle from her fingers. “Teamwork makes the dream work.” 

It was so cheesy that April snorted. Apparently the quality of Mike’s jokes had an inverse relationship to the amount of blood that he lost.

“So what makes the nightmare work?” she murmured airily, although naturally she didn’t expect an answer. If there was one, maybe they could have ended Ch’rell’s occupation long ago, and she certainly wasn’t going to come up with the solution in her current state; switching roles with Mikey hadn’t even occurred to her. 

It stung that she couldn’t do this, couldn’t do this one thing for him, but April had never been one to let her pride stand in the way of doing the right - or best - thing. Besides . . . if Mike’s suggestion hadn’t been an option, if she had to do it herself, then she would have made it work, no matter how long it took. She had enough faith in herself to believe that.

April pressed the tweezers holding the needle into Mike’s grip, not letting go until she was sure he had them, then covered his hand with her own.

“Mmm, true, true,” Mike agreed with a considering hum. “It would be a shame for them to undo all your hard work here, after all. They’d never risk your righteous wrath like that. They’ll probably just kill me with kindness instead - plausible deniability, then.” Even as he waffled, he was still keeping an eye on April - he would never be able to not keep an eye on her - and his brow furrowed slightly as he noticed her already sweating. 

He thought for a moment, then as April sat back briefly after using one of the cleansing wipes - and boy, didn’t that sting - he cleared his throat. “Hold on a sec, lemme reposition…” He carefully lay down on his right side, levelling his left side out with the edge of his plastron as a convenient resting and brace point for April. His upper arm rested against the cold, gritty pavement as he continued to hold the torch up to illuminate the laceration. He breathed carefully, and focused on suppressing the trembling of his hand as best he could. “There, that should make things a bit easier for you.” 

There was a fresh nick in the edge of his weathered plastron that lined up with the slice, and a matching thin score line along the inner curve of his shell. It was a good bet that his carapace had prevented the strike from going any deeper than it had. A modicum of good fortune in the midst of their otherwise unfortunate circumstances. 

“Always such a gentleman,” April said with a weary smile as Mike shuffled into a more accommodating position. It was an awkward one for him, his side undulating under her hand on the tight wave of every careful breath. “Hope you’re ready.”

She dumped the entire little squeeze-bottle of saline over the open wound first - just in case - then flipped open the suturing kit and fished out the biggest, sturdiest hook of a needle she could find. 

Mutant turtle skin was dense. She lacked a second hand to hold the split flesh steady beneath the carving point of the needle, and her arm trembled with the effort of trying to achieve that first puncture. Mikey’s new position helped, but she still had to lean forward over the wound and with each passing second of effort the pain in her neck and back burgeoned closer to an inferno. Every breath and pulse of her heartbeat roared too loud in her ears.

Maybe she just . . . couldn’t do it. Wasn’t strong enough, couldn’t tolerate the pain for long enough. But then what? Give up? Let him bleed out while she sat here and cried about it?

No. Not happening.

Resistance beneath the needle gave out suddenly and it plunged into flesh. Perhaps it found the right angle to get between the scales, or maybe her persistence finally paid off. Either way she straightened up again with a small gasp, desperate for relief from the fire in her back. 

She accidentally planted the heel of her hand against the edge of Mike’s plastron for support and left a bloody smear there. Cleaning blood out of scutes was a pain. She'd had to help with that so often that she wondered if perhaps the warm yellow of the turtles’ plastrons wasn't just a little bit warmer now, stained imperceptibly over the years by all that russet.

“I dunno about everything… but pretty damn close,” Mike conceded with a huff that was almost a laugh. He continued to keep a close eye on April as she forced herself to relax and braced herself on his kneepad - he wanted to reach out and steady her, help her tighten the knot of her sling, but had to satisfy himself with continuing to apply pressure on his own injury. 

As April turned her attention to him, then reproachfully breathed out his name - his full name - he ducked his head sheepishly and carefully shuffled a little closer to put his side more easily within her reach. “In my defense,” he started with a lopsided quirk of his mouth, “I honestly didn’t think it was all that bad. I mean, I’ve had worse, and it wasn’t actively interfering with my ability to fight or do anything else, and we had to find somewhere to hide first, so it’s not like we could really have done much about it earlier anyway…” He trailed off and cleared his throat as he realised he was beginning to ramble. Not the best of signs. 

April began fumbling with the first aid kit, drawing out what she’d need to hopefully patch him up. Once she was ready, Mike let go of the bandage - it remained stuck to his side for now, at least - and ineffectually wiped his bloodied hand off on his thigh with a grimace before fishing the torch out of his belt. He moved the stump of his arm out of the way and held the torch to let the light illuminate his side, so that April could get a better look at the gash.

“April… I’m gonna get judged,” Mike bemoaned theatrically to distract himself as she began examining the wound. “I’m gonna get judged by your daughter and she’s gonna be disappointed at me for not keeping you safe and letting you get hurt.” He blinked as another thought occurred to him, then let out an even more exaggerated groan. “Oh shell, never mind Shadow - Angel and Beckett are gonna straight up eviscerate me. I’m a doomed turtle. I’m gonna hafta go into hiding - even more into hiding than we already are, I mean. Maybe witness protection.”

Yep. Definitely rambling. Damnit.

April was tempted to place her fingers over Mike’s beak to still the meandering words coming out of it, but the only hand she had free was now bloodied from exploring beneath the wet bandage. Besides, so long as he was talking, he was breathing, and that was a good enough reason to let him ramble.

She could see much better in the light of the repositioned flashlight, but it also did a great job of highlighting how much work she needed to do. Buried in that awkward niche of skin between plastron and carapace, the laceration was a few inches too long for her liking, and surprisingly neat. Maybe that was why blood had no problem weeping past those smooth edges.

April assembled her small army of first aid supplies, lips moving silently as she recounted what she needed; saline wash and wound cleansers, gauze, the tiny suturing kit. Given where they’d been walking, she wouldn’t take any chances with even a mutant’s tough immune system. Between fingertips and teeth she tore open a pack of cleansing wipes, and set to work prepping the wound as best she could for stitches. She wasn’t even at the hard part yet, but she was sweating through the discomfort in seconds.

It had to be done, though. No other option. That always made things very simple. 

“Uh huh, super great,” Mike commented dryly, his brow furrowing in concern as he focused his attention on April instead of their surroundings. The way her voice caught and jittered as she started gingerly easing her arm into the makeshift sling sent tight threads of tension stringing through Mike’s core, and he couldn’t resist the urge to shuffle a little closer. He wanted so badly to help April, to shield her from pain and help tend her wounds - but he only had the one hand, and it was currently occupied, and once again he just wasn’t enough by himself–

Mike cut that train of thought off before it could travel too far down well-worn paths of misery and sorrow. He gave his head a slight shake as he forcibly redirected his attention to his side, trying to figure out if it had stopped bleeding yet. Reaching around the breadth of his plastron to put pressure on the gash in his side was difficult - and painful - and despite his best efforts, the bandage in his hand didn’t cover the wound entirely. 

Now that he was paying attention to it, he could feel that dampness had seeped through the layers of cloth, warm and sticky. He gritted his teeth and pressed harder, weathering the fresh lance of pain with just a thin hiss of breath through his teeth. Perhaps the injury was deeper than he’d initially thought - now that he was no longer moving and the adrenaline had faded, he was starting to notice just how drained and shaky he was feeling. Super great, indeed.

The mention of Don, combined with April’s breathy, desperate laugh, made Mike blink and look back at April, concern for the rebel leader warring with the familiar melancholic fondness for his long-lost brother. “He just wanted the naming rights so I wouldn’t name things instead,” he commented with a wry quirk of his mouth, even as he edged a little closer to April again, his worry plain and clear in his eyes. “Which was entirely unfair because the names he came up with weren’t any better than the ones I did. Definitely stuck to a distinctly terrapin theme, that’s for sure.” Please let me help you before I lose my mind here.

“Of c-course he did,” April shuddered between quick breaths. “That theme represented everything he loved, right?” 

Only as she eased the arm’s weight fully into the sling did she realise how badly she’d frozen up around it; from shoulder to hip, her entire right side was an interlocked mass of tight, quaking muscle. April forced them all to relax one by one, exhaling shakily through each painful gush of released tension.

Her good arm reached reflexively for support and brushed the battered metal of Mike’s kneepad - when had he gotten so close? She gratefully leaned on it for a second, but the immediacy of his presence reminded her there was still work to do, no matter how powerful the lethargy pressing in on her might be.

“Okay,” April ground out, tightening the knot of her sling with a tug from her teeth. “Your turn.”

At first she couldn’t understand how the fabric pressed to his side could be that dark. She blinked a few times, hoping to blame fatigue, or the dull, slanting light coming from the nearby grille, or the shadow of his hand, or something else more innocuous, because he’d said it was nothing but of course when it came to these things he was a gigantic liar.

“Hey, my street cred is important,” Mike protested with mock-dignity before letting out a soft huff of amusement. “And man, why is it that whenever someone asks me to keep talking, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of anything to say?” He hummed thoughtfully for a long moment, taking the time to look around their current hidey-hole more closely. He made a mental note of the grille overhead and the three other tunnels leading off in different directions - the tunnels gave them multiple escape routes, but also meant that enemies could potentially approach them from multiple directions at once. Not the worst situation, but not the best either. 

“At least we achieved what we came for before the good ol’ Turtle Luck kicked in,” he murmured eventually, keeping his voice low so he could still listen for the sound of anyone or anything approaching. Now that he was no longer moving, and the adrenaline was fading, he was starting to feel the cold seeping in, chilling him to the bone. Blood loss probably wasn’t helping that any either, and he suppressed a slight shiver. “Wonder how long it’ll take ‘em to replace the data you wiped. And fix the damage we did on the way out.” 

He hummed again, squinting up at the grille overhead, trying to figure out if it led out to street level, or just a higher level of tunnel - or the interior of a building. He couldn’t see much from this angle though, and now that he was sitting, the thought of getting up again any time soon was less than appealing. April’s comment about origami made him blink and look back to her, noting the creases lining her brow and the tension in her shoulders. “Ah… maybe you should’ve applied pressure and I should’ve knotted your sling there,” Mike commented with distinct sheepishness. “No points to either of us for allocation of tasks, here. Good work, us.” 

Mike spoke the truth; sometimes the most effective way to shut him up was to tell him to keep talking. Fortunately he had some good commentary to help her pass the time. 

“Hey, we’re doing great,” April mumbled, awkwardly scrubbing her damp forehead against one shoulder, and then wincing when the motion sent a bolt of pain through her neck. Whoops . . . So focused on the arm, she had momentarily forgotten that pretty much every square inch of her had taken some kind of pummelling from the metal staircase.

Being able to forget it at all was probably a luxury that wouldn’t last very long. She made the most of it, carefully looping the sling over her head in as close to proper form as she could manage.

“There’s no way they’re coming back from that quickly,” she said firmly, although she did pause what she was doing in a moment of panic to check that the flash drive in her sealed pants pocket was still there, and not in a dozen crushed pieces. “I wiped that data s-six ways from Sunday, hit it with a -”

April sucked in a sharp inhalation. The world had flashed a little bit white when she touched her broken arm. She couldn’t help but glance at it after that, which was a mistake; maybe the bone wasn’t jutting out at gory right angles or anything, but the limb was waxen and not-quite-right and somehow it didn’t feel like it belonged to her anymore.

“We’ll definitely deserve a nice long sleep-in after this,” Mike commented wryly, even as he kept a close eye on April and her movements, trying to gauge just how bad her arm - and the rest of her - was. “Maybe even breakfast in bed if we’re lucky.” He didn’t miss how she avoided looking at her broken arm, or how the trembling of her hand was carefully suppressed - but he said nothing about it. Given the situation, there wasn’t really anything to say. He couldn’t really call her out on it when he was doing the same.

As the water bottle was rolled his way, he scooped it up and eased himself down to sit cross-legged on the floor with a little sigh of relief. Once settled, he got the lid off, then gulped down half of the water in short order, leaving the other half for April. He set the bottle aside within easy reach and accepted the bandage with a soft huff of dry amusement. “Yes sir, ma’am, sir,” he teased even as he followed her orders and pressed the bandage against the gash in his side, holding it in place with firm pressure and ignoring the resulting pain. “If I passed out from blood loss now, you’d never let me live it down. I’d lose all my street cred, become the laughingstock of the Resistance. And not in a good way, either.” 

“Uh huh,” April said dryly, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Your street cred is absolutely the thing that I’m worried about right now. Just keep talking a little so I know you didn’t pass out - gotta concentrate for a minute.”

Mike only had one hand and it was preoccupied with plugging the hole in his side. That left April to somehow rig up a sling between five shaky fingers and maybe her teeth, if desperate. The floor of the little drainage shaft they’d hidden in wasn’t exactly clean, so she did her best to spread the triangular bandage on her lap (not much cleaner) and make her best guess at how much slack she’d need. No way in hell would she be able to secure it while it was on her; she’d just have to tie it off in advance, get it over her head somehow and hope for the best.

The creases of her brow deepened and beaded with cold sweat as she worked. She struggled to tease the folded fabric into a knot with awkward manipulations of her fingers and a quiet slew of frustrated curses under her breath. 

A savage cramp had started to seize her hand by the time she defeated it. April had to sit back and take a breather before the next phase, shaking out her fingers.