"That looks awesome!"

Raphael looks up from his drawing, meeting Annalise's cheerful blue eyes. She's decked out in skating gear, from her helmet down to her elbow and knee pads, and her skateboard rests at her feet, tilted against the skatepark's stone bench. The soothing drone of Michelangelo's wheels surrounds them.

Raphael glances down at his drawings. Five of the seven outfits are pretty much completed, four of those belonging to him and his brothers, the fifth belonging to Destiny. The last two belong to Sarina and Casey, although something about Sarina's white colour scheme isn't working and Raphael can't settle on the design itself for Casey. His body type is so different than the turtles and the girls.

"It's alright," he mumbles, sketching some blue highlights onto Leonardo's cyber-katanas. "I guess..."

"Just alright? Dude, I can't draw at all. You're bringing my vision to life!" she insists, scooting closer to him. "The helmets, the weapons, everything my mind could dream up is perfectly drawn here and...wow...it's so cool."

He grunts. "Yeah, it's not like it's easy," he mutters, reaching for a pencil. "Can't get this outfit to work around Destiny's wings."

Annalise frowns a little. "Well...how does she usually get her clothes on?"

Raphael pauses, thinking. Ever since her wings got big enough that slipping them through sliced holes wasn't plausible anymore, Destiny resorted to wearing two different types of shirts. One is anything with a low swooping back where the hem of the "neckline" rests beneath the stalks of her wings. She steps into those, tugging the shirt over her legs and hips, up to her torso. Raphael isn't sure of the details and he's not sure he wants to know.

Second, the more comfortable version she says, are these shirts where the back is mostly open save for cloth around the neck and waist that close via buttons or zippers. This lets her pull her clothes on from the front, fix them around her wings, then close them up. It leaves space for her wings to breathe and she doesn't have to go through any hassle. All she needs is for Sarina to zip (or button) her up if need be.

Instead of explaining all that to Annalise, he erases the back profile of Destiny's outfit and starts sketching something similar to the shirts he's seen her wear. Annalise observes.

"Are you always this...deadpan?" she asks.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he gets to his feet and heaves a rather wistful sigh. "Just...don't worry about me, shrimp," he mumbles.

He wanders off to one of the ramps, leaving Annalise feeling rather dejected. He settles against one of the railings and perches the sketchpad on his lap, although he doesn't start drawing. Instead, he tilts his head towards the darkened sky, face sagging with sorrow.

Michelangelo pulls Annalise away from Raphael when he skates up to her, all smiles. "Hey you," he greets.

"Hey to you too," she returns. Her smile falters as she again glances at Raphael. "Question...is Raph always like this? With everything?"

Michelangelo's smile also falls. He kicks his skateboard up into his hand and flops down next to her. She grips the edge of the bench and leans forward a little, watching and waiting, while he sighs.

"No...not really. He's kinda always been grumpy, but this attitude is maybe a month or two old," he admits, pressing his thumb against his palm. "Before that, he was more of a hothead, but he had this soft side and someone who made him really happy."

Annalise has the sneaking suspicion that the someone is a girl. She purses her lips, her heart aching with sympathy, and Michelangelo reflects the same feeling as he watches his brother.

"She was a mutant too?" she asks. She tries to imagine the kind of mutant that Raphael would be in to, imagining dragons and other turtles and maybe lizards or geckos.

"Nah, she's a human, actually," he admits. "She was...also a Purple Dragon."

Her eyes widen. "Seriously?"

He nods. "Yeah, but I think she was a good person. She just got stuck in a bad place." He swallows hard, moistening his lips. "But...Raph and her had a fight, she left, and they haven't talked since. He misses her."

"Can't he just tell her he's sorry?"

Again, Michelangelo's face flickers with a deeper sense of knowledge. "It's not that easy. Sorry doesn't cut it."

They fall silent. From his side of the skatepark, Raphael hunches forward and rests his head in his hands. Michelangelo rests his hand over Annalise's and dons a weak smile.

"Have you ever really messed up?" he asks. "Like, so bad that nothing could fix it?"

She shrugs. "Nothing really horrible. I mean, when I was in kindergarten, I stole my friend's packet of Spiderman gummies instead of asking and she told me she hated me. I don't think we made up." She laughs, the sound void of humour. "You?"

He lets out the same kind of laugh. "All the time, dudette. I'm basically the idiot of my family."

She frowns. "You're not an idiot, Mikey."

He stares at his feet. "Thanks, but...you don't know how many times I've screwed up," he says. "Like...you know how I said Donnie spilled brain juice on himself? I spilled it on him. And if I hadn't annoyed Raph this other time, he wouldn't have taken mutagen to his room and his pet turtle wouldn't have gotten mutated—"

"Mikey, calm down..."

"And another time I put mutagen on my skin because I wanted to be bigger and all it did was give me acne and then Donnie showed me the warning labels—"

Annalise hugs his arm, resting her head on her shoulder, and he shuts up. "Mikey, those were accidents. I'm sure you made it okay in the end," she says.

He purses his lips and sniffles once. "But..."

"I don't know you very well yet, but I know that you helped save me and New York from the Kraang," she whispers, intertwining their hands. "I don't think an idiot could do that."

He manages a weak smile and rubs his eye. "I...I guess I was pretty cool in Dimension X..."

"And, from what I've seen, you're really good at reading emotions. You knew I was sad in my video, you know how Raph is feeling right now." She perks up a little, reaching out to lovingly poke his cheek. "You've just got different strengths!"

His gaze skims over every part of his face before his sorrow melts into a tiny, fond smile. "Hey," he says, clearing his throat. "Just wondering, are you like this with every fan you meet?" She tilts her head a little and he adds, "I mean, with being nice and encouraging."

She shrugs. "I haven't had the chance to meet many fans, but...I'd want to be myself with them."

"Oh, gotcha! I just wanted to ask because, y'know, I want to know the real you. I like YouTube you but the real you is even better, I think."

His words feel like a punch to the gut and a warm hug around her heart at the same time, resulting in a strange cacophony of emotion. Her entire body floods with heat and she inhales hard, throat tightening. It's such a simple thing and yet she's starved herself of genuine interactions with others for so long that now, it's like finding water in the desert.

"Mikey, I'm...I don't know how to say this, but I'm..." She purses her lips, just about to bite before she stops herself. "I'm afraid."

His expression hardens. "Of what? I'll protect you, whatever it is. Just say that word," he says.

"It's not like that," she says, holding up her hand. "I'm afraid that I've spent so much time trying to be this likeable person online that I've lost...myself. I want to make people happy but...I don't know..." Her shoulders slump. "I think I've been forgetting to make myself happy, forgetting to spend time with real people, my real friends, and, a-and..." She sniffs hard again and wipes at her eyes. "I don't want to be fake, Mikey. I couldn't even talk about Circa with my real friends because I was too afraid of what they would think. I—"

She stops as his hands cup her face and angles her head to look at him. His gaze is sincere, burning into her as their eyes lock. "Annalise, it's okay to be afraid," he says. "My dad always tells me that fear is just another opportunity to be brave." A soft smile and his thumb caresses her cheek. "Realizing that maybe you were wrong...I think that's the first step towards making things better, right?"

She hardly moves a muscle, focused on watching him as his words soothe her pounding heart. She reaches up and grasps his hands, holding them against her face, and her eyes close. She wants to memorize these little details, the gentle touch of his large, strange hands and the way he smiles at her like she's the most important thing in his life. She wants to remember every freckle, all the little spots dotting his shoulders and cheeks, the colour of his eyes...

"Hey, lovebirds, we need to get home!" Raphael shouts.

The two jump apart, regaining the distance that they closed between them. Raphael stands before them with his arms crossed, a stony expression hardening his face. He snorts a little, jerking his head to the side and starting to walk.

Michelangelo blushes and gets to his feet, as does Annalise. They pick up their skateboards, tucking them under their arms and dashing after Raphael. As they go, they sneak a couple glances at one another, small smiles on their faces.