When Mikey wakes up, he's terrified.

He doesn't understand why he is yet, but he can feel his terror all bottled up and ready to spill in a shrill scream. He decides that loud noises can wait until after he finds out why he's scared out of his shell. He doesn't think he wants the thing causing the fear to add more to the pile. Whatever it is.

It's unnerving, to wake up scared and not know why, so he looks up into the darkness and waits as the fear bleeds until it's all out of his chest and into the air.

Then he rolls over, pulling himself onto all fours like he's doing a push-up to see if anything hurts. There's a dull ache across his being, but there's nothing unusual about that, especially not after a big battle.

He sits up and blinks. They had been fighting Kraang, hadn't they?

He blinks again. They.

Who was with him?

He gets to his feet, shaky for a second before he manages to right himself. He scans the dark surroundings that are only lit by dots of lights here and there and then pats down his belt for his t-phone. It's dying, but the screen coming to life is welcome.

He hopes to find a light switch for the room and shines it around the area, coughing when he realizes that every breath tastes foul.

He makes a face and then shifts into a crouch, the dim light from his t-phone introducing him to the mess that is the room. There is splintered wood all around his position, and the darkness gives them life-like shadows. The shadow creatures seem to mock him and his futile attempt to remember where he was or how he ended up there.

There's no such thing as shadow creatures, you knucklehead!

He sticks out his tongue defiantly. "Raph's right. You're just in my head. Go back to being wood before I smash you to splinters."

The shadow creatures seem to merge into the background, and he smirks, rising back to his feet and covering his mouth with one hand to keep out the taste. He moves forward, and the area he has to work with shrinks as he passes through it. He counts his steps out loud to break the quiet, getting to seventeen before he hears movement.

He freezes, and the terror returns. "Bros?"

There is no response, and curiosity outweighs reason. "If this is a revenge prank cause I put alarms under your pillows, this is soooo not the time."

Silence is supreme, and Mikey decides to bring an end to its reign. "Dudes, seriously, you gotta admit that one was really good! How come it's my fault you guys always stay awake until you can't anymore? Not checking around your bed at night is just bad ninja-ing!"

For the tenth time, Ninja-ing isn't a word...

I don't know why you still try. He's never going to stop using it.

"Never ever." The smirk returns as he comes up beside a demolished crate, tapping the metal with his finger as he studies the pathway that looks blocked with what is left of the second floor and maybe even the roof.

That Kraang bomb had some serious firepower.

Donnie was right, as he usually was. They should have waited for their brothers and alerted them like they were supposed to do when they spotted the base housing the bomb, but Mikey didn't think.

Instead of waiting like all his older brothers wanted, Donnie was forced to follow him to watch his shell when he rushed in.

It seemed simple at the time. Go in, grab the bomb, and get out with it so they could rub it in Leo and Raph's faces.

He never would have imagined that the Kraang would decide to detonate it.

"MIKEY! DUCK AND COVER!"

"What about-?!"

"MICHAEL, NOW!"

Mikey knew that he only used that nickname when he was seriously upset, so he'd abandoned the Kraang that he was heading after and rolled behind a metal crate, just about to stand up and find his older brother's position when everything was consumed in a flash of white.

If it wasn't for his older brother's warning, he probably would have been blasted into a million little Mikey pieces. But what happened to Donnie?

He makes the choice to double back because he knows he's not going to get through that area without intense digging. Now that he recalls who to be looking for, he has to hold on to hope that Donnie is around there somewhere, not crushed under the warehouse.

"Donnie? Donnie!"

If I'm unconscious, what do you think that's going to do?

Use your head, bozo!

He begins to backtrack, but it's the three-fingered hand that becomes visible as he turns that stops him.

The rest of it is covered in warehouse rubble, and Mikey almost drops his t-phone when he sees what he immediately assumes to be a severed hand.

It takes a second for the horror to fade into the realization of the truth. Once it clicks, he hits his knees and sets the t-phone beside him, beginning a frantic dig that reveals that a long panel is trapping the scrawny shell on the ground.

He doesn't have to strain to move it, and it descends with a solid thud, giving Mikey a free hand to grab his t-phone again.

The light reveals that the arm leads to a shell that dawns a familiar ninja belt, and Mikey's heart skips a beat when he realizes that it's otherwise empty. His imagination of where the rest of the Donnie parts might be runs away with him before the shell itself seems to twitch, and he can't help the scream that fills the air as he drops the t-phone and scrambles away.

The shell seems to stir before more limbs pop out, and Mikey's eyes widen when his genius brother is extended on the ground, his head turning towards the glowing t-phone before he winces and turns to him. "M-Mikey?"

Mikey can only blink as he realizes that the shell must not have been as empty as the shadows led him to believe. Those sneaky, vengeful shadows.

Donnie lays his head back on the ground and covers his face with a hand as he groans. "Don't you ever shut up?"

That was his older brother, all right.

Mikey grins hard as he gets to his feet and moves to his older brother's side, dusting some smaller wood chunks off his shell. "Nope! Not my fault you had to go all head-less, limb-less zombie on me."

Donnie lifts the hand to squint at him. "I- what?"

Mikey thinks it's best not to elaborate, just this once. He gets to his feet and bounces on his heels, eager to get out of the death trap of a warehouse. "You okay, bro?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Just a pounding headache." Donnie snaps as he lowers the hand. "A little quiet would be nice."

Mikey knows the sass is his way of deflating any pain to make it tolerable, so he moves to his side and grabs his other arm, intending to pull him to his feet. "Quiet? Okay! I can do quiet. Maybe not silent, because you know, silence can be pretty deadl-"

He yanks him up, and Donnie shrieks in agony. The horrified youngest drops the limb as his older brother uses his other arm to curl it to his chest, sitting up and trembling. Mikey's hands are in the air, and his guilt is miles high. "I'm so sorry, D! I didn't know!"

"I didn't either. I didn't even feel anything until you pulled." His older brother speaks through gritted teeth, and it looks like his hand is tracing over his shoulder. "That could hint at a dislocation, added to the fact that it didn't enter my shell when I ducked-"

He sucks in a sharp breath. "Sewer apples. Sometimes, I hate being right."

Mikey focuses on his face and not the shoulder. "Dislocated? Like, not actually in your shoulder anymore? What level of bad is that?"

"The longer it takes for me to get the humerus popped into place, the worse level it'll be." Donnie slams a fist against his knee. "Where's Raph when you need him?"

"I can do it." Mikey's not actually sure he can, but his voice is confident, and he doesn't want his older brother to be in pain longer than he has to.

"Mikey..." Donnie's tone says he's finding a nice way to say no, but Mikey can hear the pain, which hardens his resolve. He smiles. Firm. In control. "I can do it. Just tell me how."

Mikey drops by his side and guesses that Donnie only relents because of how much pain he's in. "Fine. But it's going to be excruciatingly painful, so if I scream, don't you dare stop until it's back in place."

He doesn't like the sound of that at all, but he nods and listens to Donnie's careful instructions, knowing that messing up could mean something so much worse than leaving his arm as it is. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but he's seen their older brothers do it occasionally, so it can't be too hard, right?

When Donnie turns away, and his entire body stiffens, Mikey grabs his arm. "Fiiive... Fooour... Threee... two-"

Mikey sets it, and Donnie does scream, ripping his arm from his hand and trembling from head to toe. Mikey's absolutely certain that he never ever, ever wants to be put in a position where he has to do that again.

He smiles. Weak. Anxious. "How's it look, D?"

Shaky fingers examine the area, and Donnie breaths out. "Better. Thanks."

Mikey isn't sure he deserves any gratitude, but the weight on his chest lessens at the sound of it. His smile widens. Relieved. Shaky. "No prob. I told you that I could do it."

He tilts his head as he gives his older brother a breather. "How'd it happen?"

"A Kraang snuck up behind me while I was trying to deactivate the bomb." Donnie mutters indignantly. "Those brain-dead aliens weren't able to add the mutagenic components, so they decided to blow all evidence of the place and us with it."

"Rude." Mikey huffs empathetically. A thought occurs to him. "How come we're not gooey globs of mutant all over the place?"

Donnie shoots him a look for the blatant question, and Mikey returns it with a curious stare. His older brother turns thoughtful. "The containers are probably built to withstand all kinds of blasts and explosions. We should count ourselves lucky. We'd be fried turtles otherwise."

"Better than turtle goop." Mikey replies as he gets to his feet. Donnie nods absently, and his good hand reaches into his belt, only for his eyes to widen before he quickens his search. "Oh, for the love of- no t-phone. Must have lost it during the fight. That's just my luck tonight."

He sounds exhausted and on the edge of his rope. Mikey wonders if the night's really been all that bad.

Sure, Donnie wasn't very happy about the team pairing during the training session or the B-team loss or how Leo and Raph wouldn't stop dropping reminders of their win all night- and maybe it was partly Mikey's fault for accidentally interrupting that Kraang message and making them have to separate and search for the bomb- and then they got into that crazy battle, which may or may not have also been kinda his fault- and then with the bomb explosion, and the warehouse closing them in, and his dislocated arm-

Okay. So maybe Donnie did have some good reasons to be stressed.

It's a good thing reassuring stressed older bros was his specialty. Mikey swipes his t-phone from the ground and grins. Excited. Proud. "I gotchya dude!"

Donnie winces at his raised voice, and Mikey goes to emergency contacts to dial the top one. Raph's face glares back at him as it rings. When he picks up, Mikey has no trouble imagining that his older brother currently dawns the scowl in the picture.

His voice is as cheery as he can make it. "Heeeey, Raph!"

"Mikey! Where the heck are you two!? You were supposed to be back an hour ago!"

Raph sounds like he's about to blow a gasket, and that's how Mikey knows that he's worried. He chuckles and rubs the back of his neck. "Missed you too, bro! Being unconscious kinda destroys the whole 'watching the clock' thing."

"Unconscious!? Mikey, what did you do!?"

Mikey wonders why nobody ever asks, "what did Donnie do?" whenever they get into trouble like this. Sure, it was technically his fault, but that didn't mean it was always his fault. It's not like he wants these things to happen.

Mikey puffs his cheeks in indignation but skips to the important part. "Nothing! We were doing what Leo said, and we found the bomb, but it kinda blew up an-"

"IT WHAT!?"

"Blew up." Mikey supplies helpfully. "And it trashed the warehouse and we're kinda trapped inside."

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO CALL!"

Mikey has to move the t-phone away from his head to prevent losing his hearing. He waits for a second in case his older brother is about to scream something else, but he cautiously pulls it back when he doesn't.

He listens to what sounds like a scuffle and then a muffled command, followed by his eldest brother's voice. "Mikey. Where are you? Is Donnie with you?"

"Yep! Got him right her-"

Mikey stiffens when he turns to his older brother and finds him lying limp on his carapace, eyes shut and body still. He thinks Leo's saying something, but he's busy making his way to his immediate older brother's side, putting a hand on his plastron and looking him over, finding that all the blood seems to have drained from his face. "Donnie? Donnie?!"

Donnie barely stirs, and Mikey hears Leo grow louder. "Mikey!"

He raises the t-phone and tries to keep the panic from his voice. "He passed out!"

"What? Why?" Leo's tone is a stern calm. "Is he hurt?"

"He was fine! I-I mean- he messed up his arm and he said he had a headache, but he was fine-" Mikey tries to get him upright in the hopes of waking him. His hand cups the back of Donnie's head, and he freezes.

With new creeping horror, he pulls back a shaky hand to check the sticky substance, and he can barely make out the rusty red tint. He doesn't know much about doctoring, but he knows that heads are absolutely not supposed to bleed.

"No, no, no, no-"

Then, just as Mikey's sure he's reached the peak of his panic, the t-phone screen turns black, and the line goes dead.