#Then again a lot of people say that the 2003 turtles look closer to 18 - 19 rather than 15 during the first five seasons lmao

[tmntkiseki]

Did not end up drawing Venus like I thought I would, but I did doodle Primavera AKA Prim-chan. (I do not talk about Venus's baby sister enough, haha.)

[remmushound]

Okay so I offered a headcanon about 2018 Mikey being a therapist for Clearly Clinically Depressed 2003 Mikey and here are the details:

the Rise kids see 03 Mikey in an obvious RSD episode where he's hiding his frustration and rage at himself, and the 03 brothers are oblivious because their Don didn't actually investigate it enough.

So Dr Feelings, with Dr Delicate Touch right behind, makes 03 Mikey do stim play with his art supplies.

The other Rise kids have a "conversation" with the others, with 03 Raph scoffing and 03 Leo rolling his eyes. Rise Raph not happy.

...

This isn’t based on personal experience LOL nope nah (I went from 03 Mikey to 18 Mikey)

“Hey hey hey hey guys look!” Mikey held his Nexus trophy in one hand while his other arm was wrapped around Leonardo holding his own trophy, “He won his world’s battle nexus! We’re trophy-twins!”

Leonardo smirked, eating up the attention just as much as Mikey was. “You hear that Donnie? He wants to be my twin!”

“Good.” Donatello groaned from where he sat with Donnie. “Maybe you’ll finally leave me alone.”

Leonardo shot forward and hugged Donatello’s shell, rubbing his cheek against Donatello’s and making the softshell groan his annoyance at the obnoxious loving. “I could never~”

“Get off me, Nardo.” Donatello growled and shoved Leonardo off of him and back to Mikey.

“My god there’s two of them now.” Leo shook his head as he looked over Leonardo and Mikey.

“How do you think I feel?” Raphael joked with a laugh, “I got three of them! Speaking of which, where’s Mikey?”

Raphael looked around and it didn't take him long to find the box turtle sneaking up on an unsuspecting orange cat.

“Come here kitty, I just wanna feel ya!”

“MIKEY LEAVE THAT POOR CAT ALONE!”

Michelangelo jumped on the cat as it woke up scrambling and held it tightly against his chest so he could pet it. “But it’s so soft!”

“You’re allergic to cats!”

Michelangelo was already sniffling, but didn't care. “It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

“Oh my God— Donnie, you leave that mutant’s things alone!”

Donatello had both arms full of various machines, and his spider arms held onto various more. “He said I could have em!”

“Actually, I asked you to please not take my things—“

“Shush, other me!” Donatello pressed a metal claw to Donnie’s lips to shush him.

“Donnie, you put that stuff back right now or so help me—“ Raphael glanced back to where Leonardo and Mikey had just been, but only found the latter. “Where’d Leo go?!”

Mikey shrugged.

“CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, LOSER!”

Leonardo blew a raspberry from where he hung upside down in a doorway, flipping off and landing on his feet while making a come-hither motion.

“I can—you know I can— I have bigger legs than you!” Raphael jumped forward and wrapped his arms around Leonardo, only for the slider to slip right through and jump up on his shoulder.

“And I’m a slider!” Leonardo jumped off and slid away before Raphael could catch him again, skidding toward Mikey and grabbing the box-turtle by the arm to use him as a body shield against Raphael.

“Leo— get your tail— out here— now!” Raphael tried to dance around Mikey’s shield unsuccessfully while making a grab for Leonardo.

“Hey— watch the trophy!” Mikey tried to protect his trophy from the struggling brothers. He yelped as Leonardo pushed him aside and made a dash for it, the Nexus trophy knocked out of his hands and clinking to the ground.

“Sorry!” Raphael called as he ran off after the difficult mutant.

Mikey scrambled to grab his trophy quickly off the ground and hold it protectively to his chest. “Careful! This is the nicest thing I own!”

“It’s just a trophy, Mike.” Raph laughed, still offering a hand to help Mikey to stand up. “It’s not that important.”

Mikey stuck out his tongue. “Dude, I won the shell freaking Battle Nexus!”

“So have hundreds of other creatures.” Donnie pointed out as he was starting to replace the stuff Donatello had taken, “There’s a new winner every three years.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Mikey looked down at his trophy and sniffled softly as he tried to buff out a scratch.

“It’s not that big of a deal, Mike.” Leo said, “We have bigger issues than a scratched trophy.”

Mikey hung his head and didn't speak again. Raphael caught Leonardo but before anything could happen, Leonardo pointed out the sad box turtle to Raphael and both stayed silently watching. Donatello snuck up beside them with the same thought on his mind that none of them needed to voice. Michelangelo was the first of them to notice and was already on his way over to the other mutant, taking Mikey by the arm and offering a wide smile.

“Hi! Did your trophy get scratched?”

“Yeah.” Was all Mikey said, not looking at the smaller box turtle.

Michelangelo humphed and grabbed Mikey firmly by the hand to guide him away toward the bathroom while Mikey blindly followed without looking up from his trophy.

“That’s okay!” Michelangelo cast a furious look back at the other turtles before rounding the corner and disappearing. “We can fix it!

****

“See?” Michelangelo held the trophy up to Mikey, beaming at the newfound gleam on the surface, “No more scratch! Toothpaste takes it right out!”

“Thanks…” Mikey accepted the trophy, staring back at his reflection for a second before quickly looking away again and dropping the trophy into the sink.

Michelangelo frowned and stared at Mikey another moment before taking his hand and yanking him once more to guide him.

“Ah— hey little dude.” Mikey laughed weakly, “Where are we going?”

Michelangelo didn't answer. He stuck his tongue out in concentration and hummed loudly, looking around until he found the kitchen and continued to pull his new friend along. He grunted and shoved Mikey down into a chair.

“Stay!”

Michelangelo reached into his belt and pulled out several paint bottles and little baggies.

“Uh, okay?” Mikey huffed and rested his chin on his hand, “Whatever you say, little dude.”

Michelangelo hummed brightly as he inserted some paint into the bags, choosing the best and brightest colors he had and filling three bags full so he could use each and every color without the bags being too crowded. Then he rooted through the drawers until he founded just what he needed— tape!

“Here!” He taped the baggies to the table in front of Mikey so that the full beauty of their colors were showing. “Play with these while we talk!”

At first, Mikey stubbornly refused. Michelangelo didn't mind, and he only smiled when he saw Mikey starting to glance at the bright colors with a longing gaze in his eyes, though he had yet to start to play with them. Michelangelo decided to just give it some time.

“So.” Michelangelo sat in front of Mikey. “Tell me about your trophy. How’d you win it?”

“My brothers and I fought a whole bunch of other dudes in the Battle Nexus!”

“And you won?”

“Yeah! Out of thirty-two dudes and dudettes!”

“Really?” Michelangelo’s eyes went wide, “That’s a lot of people to beat.”

“Well I only fought four of them— half the guys would get eliminated every round, so it wasn’t really that difficult…”

“Still, out of all those people you made it to the end!”

“It was just a fluke— a lot of other stuff was going down and I just won by default…”

“Other stuff?”

“Yeah… Leo got poisoned and there was this whole usurper dude and a time vortex — it was weird, man.”

Michelangelo put his fingers to his lips. “I see.”

“I mean, it’s not like it was my fault!” Mikey hardly noticed how his hands automatically went to the paint bags and began to press them around, “And I won the other rounds fair and square, and beat Kluh in a rematch!”

“So you did earn the trophy.”

“So what if Splinter surrendered?! That was his choice! And so what if I tricked Raph— I still beat him!” His focus became more attached to the colors he was moving around.

Michelangelo leaned back and stuck his feet on the table as he relaxed.

“And I… I know I’m not as strong as Raph or as smart as Donnie or as bossy as Leo— so what?! I’m my own turtle!”

His features scrunched up as his teary eyes locked onto the table, the many colors that had once been separated now spiraling into one shape, mixed together and creating various new shades.

“You’re right!” Michelangelo quickly noticed the paints reaching the end of their usefulness and pulled out a small hunk of orange playdough to offer to the other box shell, who took it and started to mold it without stopping his rant.

“I’m Michelangelo Splinterson and I’m a party dude!” The playdough quickly started to take the shape of a cat, “And I like pizza, and I hate bullies! I know they don’t mean to be mean, but it still hurts!”

Michelangelo nodded along solemnly. “Have you told them that?”

“Well— no.” Mikey sighed and deflated, “And I don’t think I want to…”

“Is there a reason?” Michelangelo latched onto the opportunity and scooched closer to Mikey.

“Well, I’m the fun one.” Mikey’s molding of the clay slowed, “Nothing fun about complaining and yelling…”

Michelangelo experimented with a gentle touch to Mikey’s back before attempting a hug, which Mikey returned with a great force.

“You don’t have to be happy all the time.” Michelangelo said from his squished position, “I mean, you can’t be!”

“I’ve gone twenty years being happy! I— I can’t just suddenly be sad!”

“But… you weren’t all happy during that time. You can’t have been.”

Mikey looked away.

“There had to have been at least a few times you were angry or upset…”

“Well… before the rematch against Kohl I was kinda… scared. And… and I tried going to Master Splinter and Raph and Don about it, but they just… made fun of me. But I was really scared! They just didn't care…”

“So you’ve felt fear before— that’s different than happiness, isn’t it?”

“Way different.” Mikey laughed weakly, “And there was that time Donnie uh… double mutated and we didn't know what to do.”

“Double mutated?”

“He was mutated again and turned into a gross monster and we couldn’t figure out how to turn him back because we couldn’t read his notes.”

“And that made you feel sad and scared?”

“Yeah…”

Michelangelo hugged Mikey again the minute he felt the box turtle slipping into guilt again. “Hey, that’s okay! It’s okay to be sad when something like that happens! I get scared too when Donnie gets hurt.”

“Your Donnie got hurt?”

“Well, he’s really soft.” Michelangelo giggled, trying to encourage a smile back into his friend, “So he gets cut easy— that’s why he wears that cool shell thing!”

“Radical!” Mikey smiled.

“And whenever he’s not wearing his armor I get suuuuuper scared that he might get hurt. But he’s always okay after, and then I feel better. But that doesn’t mean I never felt sad. I feel sad lots of times. And sympathetic and mad and scared and ambitious and all these other things! And you do too, you just don’t want to admit it.”

Mikey gave a nervous laugh as a darker green blush crept into his face. “I… I guess. I just wish my brothers would understand that.”

“Well, they can’t understand if you don’t tell them how you feel.” Michelangelo said softly.

“Oh… uh…” The anxiety returned fast, “I don’t think…”

“You don’t have to tell them now— you’re still upset! You don’t even have to tell them today or tomorrow or this week— just when you feel comfortable. So when something like this happens again, they know what you’re going through, and they can help you.” Michelangelo put his hand on Mikey’s, “Trust me: they’re your brothers, and they love you.”

Mikey gave a raspy churr before grabbing Michelangelo and pulling him into a hug. “Thank you for listening, little buddy!”

****

“Hey!” Raphael didn't mean to be so loud, but his voice echoed like thunder off the wall. The three box turtles looked at him with bewildered expressions and Raphael quickly waved them over. “A chat, please.”

Donatello and Leonardo loomed at Raphael’s side like two angels on his shoulders, except judging by their expressions they were both demons.

“Yeah?” Raph huffed as he and his brothers took a similar stance, except with Leo in the center and him at the shoulder.

“Did you not see what just happened?” Leonardo leaned on Raphael’s shoulder and motioned to where Michelangelo and Mikey had disappeared to. “What you just did?”

“We didn't do nothin’!” Raph snarled, pointing a finger at Leonardo, “Yous made him drop his trophy.”

“And you criticized him for getting upset over it.” Raphael said quickly in his brothers defense, “What Leo did was an accident, what you guys did wasn’t.”

“So? It’s just a dumb trophy.”

“Raphael.” Leo warned gently to his brother before finally getting a word in, “Mikey is fine— he’s probably off skating with your Mikey right now.”

“Actually, statistics indicate that even if they are off skating right now that doesn’t mean everything's fine. Studies show that physical activity can help manage meltdowns if handled correctly—“

“Meltdowns?” Raph interrupted Donatello, “That ain’t no meltdown. That’s my baby brother getting upset that his toy was scratched.”

Leonardo gasped dramatically. “Exsqueeze me?! A trophy is not a toy! It’s a declaration of how awesome we are!” Leonardo held out his Nexus trophy for the box turtles to see.

“So you just wear that around everywhere you go?”

“Uh— duh! Gives me bragging rights! And if I ever meet a cute boy or hot girl, I have a conversation starter~” He waved the medal mockingly.

“Not helping Leo.” Raphael said gently, looking to the younger turtle before going back to their counterparts, “It doesn’t matter if it’s not a big deal to you— it clearly was a big deal to him. You should apologize for making him feel upset. It’s the brotherly thing to do.”

“Um… in my humble opinion, mister snapper Raph, I don’t really think I did anything wrong…” Donnie said softly.

Raphael offered a gentle smile and kneeled to Donnie’s level. “That’s alright— you won’t always recognize when your words hurt someone, but if they did you should still apologize. Make sense?”

Donnie nodded and smiled in turn. “Makes sense.”

“What about the rest of you?” Raphael looked around to adress the rest of the box turtles.

“I ain’t apologizing.” Raph stuck up his nose stubbornly.

“I just don’t see why I should.” Leo said, not nearly as agressively.

“But… you’ll apologize?” Raphael appealed to Donnie.

“Uh… y-yeah, I will when I see him next.” Donnie agreed.

“Good fella.” Raphael gave him a head pat out of habit.

“Uh… thanks.” Donnie flushed and looked away to hide his embarrassed look.

“I still say you were major jerks,” Leonardo pointed his odachi at Raph and Leo.

“But we can’t force you to apologize.” Raphael finished with a sigh.

“I probably could, but that might be crossing the lines between what is classified as ethical and what might put me on the same wavelength as Draxum or Sergei Briuk-honenko and his dog experiments.”