epilogue.

His 'chucks feel too heavy in his hands anymore. They don't fit like they used to.

"Sorry," he says every time he falters, every time Splinter draws him to one side of the dojo, always staring at the worn mats beneath their feet than daring to meet his father's worried eyes. "I can't."

He used to be able to do this without thinking, it came to him so naturally. He could goof off and play while his siblings worked and trained, and still keep up with them at the end of the day. But now, his muscles go taut and his vision tunnels when one of his brother picks up a sai or a sword or a staff. Now, he freezes when they face him across the mat, and he tries to make himself move, tries to lift his hands, to give what they expect from him -

but he can't.

Once it was for real. Once he tried to kill them. With blades and blunt force trauma, unfeeling and unforgiving, like an attack dog let off the chain. Raph will always have a scar, no matter it how it may fade with time and stretch with his skin as he grows.

Mikey feels sick every time he sees that scar. What if he - again? What if a friendly spar devolves into an ugly struggle? What if he hurts someone, what if -

His father's hand finds a home on the crown of his head, smoothing over the puckered scars there. "You have been at this long enough," he says, with something in his tone riding the line between sympathy and bone-deep sorrow. "As Donatello has said, countless times - you must rest, Michelangelo. Be still for a change."

He feels distinctly like a failure as he's ushered out of the dojo. His brothers don't keep up the pretense of training without him. They don't let him out of their sight very much anymore, and for all that they'd probably be better off without him around, Mikey doesn't like to be left alone.

Leo makes the executive decision to take the team out on patrol for the first time in a handful of days, watching his youngest brother with cool blue eyes, and all of the protests that bubbled up to Mikey's lips slip out of reach.

"It'll be okay," Donnie offers gently, with a friendly shoulder bump that shouldn't have made him want to cry.

So he slides the nunchaku into his belt. The familiar weight of them is uncomfortable against his hips, and he does his best to act like his skin's not crawling as he pulls his mask up from where it usually hangs limp around his neck. The companionable silence weighs on his shoulders like weighted armor. Is there something he should be doing? Saying? Does he even fit here, between them, anymore?

"Leo," Raph says suddenly, eyes sharp and gemstone green in the nighttime gloom. They flock to him and follow his pointed stare down to a busy street corner, where more than a few Dragons are making trouble for what looks like the drivers of an armored car with a bank logo stamped on its side.

Mikey's stomach is in knots. He can feel Donnie watching him, knows the seconds Leo takes to think it over aren't seconds he would have taken to think it over before, but in the end he comes to a decision no one else is privy to and says, "Let's go."

He doesn't want this. Pressed shell to shell to shell with his brothers, nunchaku raised in hands that don't shake, he doesn't want this. He's too close, much too close - if something happened - if he lost it, went off the deep end, gave himself over too much to the sinister shadow of the Shredder's teachings that sometimes eclipse the lessons he learned from his own father - he has nightmares about that, he'll always have nightmares about that -

His hands don't shake but his heart is quaking as he faces a stranger with a dragon tattoo. It's too easy to fall back into this rhythm, too easy, he's afraid he'll be able to start but he won't be able to stop. But there's no way to explain to the man bearing down on him with a crowbar, no time to do anything but let himself react.

The man goes down with a heady thud seconds later, and another takes his place. Mikey fights with his heart in his throat, conscious of every move he makes, and then - as the arc of a tornado kick is curving towards a Dragon's head - someone else is shoved into his path, the Dragon knocked out of the way and Raphael staggering into his place, and -

Mikey moves. As easy as breathing, as automatic as any blink, reflex takes over and he moves, turning the kick into a neat flip over Raph's head that does nothing more than ruffle the long tattered tails of his red mask, the most effortless move he's made in months. Lands on the shoulders of Raph's assailant and bears him to the ground, before the man can so much as take another step in his brother's direction.

And Raph only shoots him a quick, flashbang grin, there and gone in an instant before he's whirling back into the battle. Like it wasn't anything remarkable, like he believes with all his heart in the brother that so thoroughly betrayed them all, like of course Mikey was there to have his back.

And when they win - because of course they win - the small-time victory is something elated and ridiculous. They whoop and cheer like it was a big deal and not some back alley brawl, and they're all looking at Mikey with bright, vicious pride in their jewel-colored eyes. Mikey is strung along by the swell of their joy and can't help thinking,

Okay. Maybe it's okay.

Because his brothers are all right next to him, whole and unburdened by him and laughing, Mikey laughs, too, for the first time in what feels like years - even though his crooked mask feels too tight and his nunchucks still feel too heavy in his hands and the sound comes out of him like someone reached past his ribs and wrenched it out.

He laughs and laughs, and doesn't realize there are tears on his face until Don reaches over to rub them away, but it's okay.

He's okay.