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angelmichelangelo · 10 months

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the dad diaries pt 2 for @turrondeluxe (based off this beautiful artwork)

you can also read this fic on ao3 here! along with the first chapter as well as to keep up to date with any future chapters !! enjoy <3

Michelangelo wakes up with an ache blossoming at the bottom of his skull.

He opens his eyes, light spilling into the room, it’s trapped behind his retinas, staying there like pin pricks that burn with each slow blink, he squeezes them shut again to stave off the hurt any more.

There’s an easy quietness that settles across his home like a calm ocean wave, and the humming ache that’s creeping across the top of his head seems to soften slightly.

And the wave comes and goes with a gentle lull, washing over him, he can feel his pulse softening in his ears, he rolls over, pressing his face into the pillow, until—

“Papa!”

Excitable, shrill voices carry throughout the hall, accompanied by the soft pitter patter of feet, Mikey peels back on eye just in time to watch his children tumble into the room.

“Papa, papa!” Moja is making a steady effort to clamber on up onto his bed, clutching bed sheets with a tight, determined fist as she pulls herself up. “It’s wakey wakey time!”

Mikey rolls over again, to properly face his children, all watching him with expecting eyes, Odyn is also making an attempt to climb on up, albeit, less graceful as his sister.

“Up, papa,” he demands with an audible pout once he’s recognised his failure. “I want up!”

Michelangelo groans softly, sitting up slowly so as to not jostle the child that’s already perched itself across his plastron, he rubs a heavy hand across the front of his face.

“Papa is awake now,” he tells him, his voice sliding out of him like gravel. “C’mon. We’ll have breakfast, hm?”

Odyn seems to be pleased enough with that response, forgoing his previous attempts to get on the bed he’s turning on his heel, his footsteps are heavy and fast as he runs back through the lair towards the kitchen.

He scoops Moja up in one arm, peeling back his moth bitten sheets with his free hand, careful of the remaining children at the edge of his bed as he swings his legs over.

Black spots dance around in the edges of his vision once he stands.

Moja, who is seemingly growing comfortable in his hold, is understandably taken aback when he quickly plonks her back down on the ground to grab at the sides of his throbbing head.

Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, dark shapes swirl around the backs of his eyelids, exploding like fireworks behind darkened vision, he feels his ears fill with a steady, faint ringing. And when he finally pries his hands away from his face, and the room slowly spills back into his vision, three of his children are watching him with curious eyes.

He manages to lift one side of his mouth into a very slight smile, for them only.

“Papa is tired,” he informs them gently. “Because papa is old, hm?”

And the self-inflicted jab is enough to quell any of their rising worry.

Yi snorts a laugh, as does Moja as she rushes forward to bury her face in his leg. Uno, however, is watching him rather cautiously.

“You’re a dinosaur, daddy,” Yi says between giggles. “You’re like the one in my book.”

Mikey hums; a while back he’d managed to find an old illustrated book, the pages waterlogged and some of the images bloated, but his daughter had studied it almost every night before bed, tracing a delicate and steady finger across each of the words that wasn’t already blotted by the weathered damage left to it, and Mikey had since spent every waking hour with her as she’d excitedly retold him every little fact that she had so far absorbed, even if Mikey had heard it a million times already.

He nudges her along as she starts rambling, and Moja is intently listening as they walk to the kitchen together but Uno…

Uno’s concerned gaze catches Mikey’s for a brief second before he’s pulling away, taking quick steps to reach his sisters before his father can say anything else.

---

Mikey struggles through breakfast. The four infant turtles babble away at each other, voices overlapping and Mikey grips his cereal spoon so hard he feels it press bluntly into the palm of his hands, no doubt leaving harsh indentations across his skin.

Even eating seems to make it worse, as he slowly moves his jaw in languid circles to chew his food, it’s like an explosion working its way up his skull each time.

He gets a quarter through his own bowl before he’s sharing it out amongst his children.

Odyn doesn’t question it, Moja and Yi are apprehensive at first but Uno is entirely hesitant.

“Are you not hungry, papa?” He asks once Mikey has scraped his share into his awaiting, empty bowl. He’s already up out of his seat and turning to start the dishes when he pauses.

He steadies himself on the edge of the counter with one hand.

“Eat,” Mikey tells him softly. “You wanna be big and strong like papa, no?”

And that usually works on all four of his children, but Uno doesn’t look entirely convinced as he shovels in the first spoonful of Cheerios.

---

Mikey doesn’t often have the best memory, not these days at least. Most of it is like wading through thick jungle just to reach something . There’s big chunks of it he’s certain are lost in the thick forever, never to be found and he’s long since made his peace with that.

But he’s able to make out bits and pieces through the vines, little moments he’s able to grasp onto, reaching out before it turns to mist beneath his grasp.

“Let’s see…” Donatello’s voice floated into the room. The click of the flashlight seemed to echo throughout his aching skull. Light is trapped behind his eyes in an instant, and Michelangelo knows his initial reaction is to pull away, but everything is slow and foggy, like his brain was sitting in stodgy molasses, so he blinks once, little pin pricks of white splattered across his vision.

Donatello clicks the flashlight a second time, his face half obscured by the dancing visions before that start to fade. His face is creased with worry.

“Oh Mikey,” he says, voice full of that softness that is reserved for little brothers only. “You definitely have a concussion.”

And it feels like it should be evident in the way his entire face and head aches. Like a burning hurt, a bonfire lit up at the base of his skull, it should be obvious to him but in this moment, it just isn’t.

Donatello’s light comes back across the front of his face, flickering from eye to eye. There’s still creases of concern etched between his brow bone and the downward curve of his mouth.

“I’m going to have to keep you under observation,” Donnie tells him slowly. “Okay?”

Mikey isn’t sure if he hums or nods or even gives any indication of a confirmation of his statement. His brain is positively swimming right now. There’s an ache at his jaw that he’s sure is the beginning of a rather gnarly bruise.

Donnie clicks his tongue against his teeth, and Mikey isn’t sure if it’s just a Donnie-click or just baser instincts coming into play, Mikey wishes he had the energy to click back.

“I truly don’t know how out of all of us you are the one who gets the most blunt head trauma related injuries all the time.” His voice trails off with steady fast worry creeping around his words. His throat bobs and Mikey knows that despite all of his brother's natural tendencies to be a bit of a worrywort at the worst of times, Donnie really was starting to grow scared for his well being.

And it was true. Mikey did have a problem with landing head first or redirecting his head in the way of danger in the middle of fights. How many times had he socked himself in the head with his own chucks? If he was anything but a mutant turtle, there’d be no doubt his family would have shipped him off to the nearest hospital with an instant demand that he get in one of those big, metal tube things to have a proper look at all the damage done to his poor, aching head.

Donnie is putting away his equipment now. He fiddles with the wrappings on his hands, only pausing to look up when he tells him.

“While I know it’s difficult during a fight, I truly recommend trying not to let them near your head, Mike.” He takes a breath, expertly masking the way it quivers just in the slightest.

“These types of injuries,” he says, rather gravely. “They make themselves known in the long run. So if we ever get to grow older,” he says. “It could get so much worse, mikan.”

Donnie’s voice comes muffled in the jungle again, lost behind miles and miles of vine and fog and mist, and Mikey squeezes his eyes shut in a desperate bid to hold onto his brother's face and voice, even when it was tinged with hurt and concern. It was something.

But he peels his eyes open and Donatello is no longer standing above him with his flashlight and his friendly, warm honey coloured eyes.

Instead it is Uno who is peering over his snout, his eyes a darker shade than his uncles, still traces of the same kind of worry evident there.

“Papa?” He says in a small voice. “Papa?” He tries again.

Mikey shifts. An hour ago he’d left his children in the den with a collection of old coloring books and salvaged pencils and an old VHS tape in the TV recorder. An hour ago he’d hauled himself to bed, trying to calm his throbbing brain with a blanket. But that was an hour ago and the pain was still lingering. The pain hadn’t left and Donnie was right.

All those silly blows to the head that sixteen year old him thought were nothing were now plaguing him. Haunting him.

Hot, burning tears burn behind his eyes. Squeezing them away seems to hurt just as much, but he hates to let his children see him cry like this.

Then, there’s a small, warm hand on the end of his beak. It touches there tentatively, in the same way Mikey does to his children when they are unwell or sad, there’s a sudden spill of warmth in his chest to know his son had recognised the gesture as was now trying to return it in his papa’s moment of need.

He crouches down to meet Mikey’s eyeline. “Should I tell the others it’s a Quiet Day today?” He asks, his voice still thick with that babyish fat that is too stubborn to shift just yet.

More warmth floods him, coming up through him in the way of more tears. He sniffs. Quiet Days were the days when their papa wasn’t well, when he was sad, when something reminded him of his old family perhaps a little too harshly. The days when his children would be soft and gentle with him in the ways that he should be with them instead.

His breath hitches and it sends a wave of aching through his skull.

“Yeah,” he croaks. His voice doesn’t even sound like his own. “Thanks kiddo.”

He’s able to reach a single finger out to trace along his own beak.

Uno smiles. It’s all Mikey really needs.

He stands on wobbly feet before he’s toddling back towards the doorway, he disappears behind it entirely before he’s quickly backtracking himself, poking a curious head around the frame, fingers curling protectively around the wood, he says in a whisper,

“Okay.” He’s so sincere when he says it. “Love you, papa.”

And Mikey remembers the days with Splinter would be full of cold, or the days his heart was brimming with unspoken, deep hurt and those days spent when he’d watch his strong, incredible father falter, how alien it was as a child. How strange it was to parent them instead. How he needed it, like Mikey needed it now.

“Love you too, honey,” he tells him. He manages to lift his head a little. “I’ll be with you guys in a bit alright?”

Uno lingers at the door a moment longer.

“Okay,” he says with a rush of air, before he’s trotting off, no doubt to go gather up his siblings and inform them of their papa’s current condition.

And there isn’t a day when Mikey gets these monstrous headaches where he’s wishing for Donnie’s gentle hands to trail over the top of his head. Or for one of Leo’s sweet smelling teas that seemed to cure everything (because it wasn’t the tea itself, it was all in the way his brother would make it). Or when Raph would be gentle with him, talking in a hushed voice, trying to keep him occupied as well as comfortable.

He misses it so. It was perhaps the only good thing to come out of those horrid, long, painful days that plagued him.

But he wakes a few hours later. The lair is quiet and still and for a fleeting moment, panic burns through him like ice in his veins. But he can sense his children one room over, well behaved and still, they’re talking amongst themselves in small, careful voices. There’s also the aroma of noodles that lingers in the air, perhaps an hour old.

He shifts, feeling something soft press against his cheek, he peels his eyes open to see its Odyn’s stuffed toy nuzzled into him.

There’s also Yi’s dinosaur book and a drawing that he can recognise as Moja’s. All the evidence of his children here, in their best attempt to make him feel better, was from the perspective of a child, the best way to make him feel better. He curls a hand around the small stuffed toy. He traces a finger over the drawing and the edges of his daughter's book, the bumps along the spine so familiar already. Then there’s the sound of shuffling feet, and Mikey is able to lift his gaze upwards, his eyes feeling like rocks rolling around in his skull, there in the doorway stands a rather cautious looking Uno, clutching a very overfilled bowl of what he assumes is noodle soup. Uno takes a few careful steps forward, broth laps at the edges of the bowl, tracing down the sides in thick blobs, Mikey slowly pulls himself, careful not to jolt his son from his steady concentration. He pauses, looking up, his face breaks into a grin. “You’re awake,” he says with a breath, like it was all relief spilling from him at once. Like there was some underlying worry that he wouldn’t perhaps wake again. “I made you something to eat,” he tells him, presenting him with the bowl. “Cos you gave us your breakfast already, you’re probably something hungry, hm papa?” Mikey hums a short laugh, he slowly pulls himself to his feet, gathering up all the gifts in the crook of his arm with a kind of practice that only comes with being a single parent to four rambunctious children that leave a tornado of mess behind them in every room they whirl through, he stops in front of Uno, bending down to kiss the top of his head. “You’re a good boy, Uno,” he tells him. He then takes the bowl of noodle soup in his other hand and nods towards the door. “Go join the others,” he instructs him. He can hear the TV still running, no doubt the rest of his children in a turtle pile, glued to the screen with their bellies full. “Thank you for helping papa today. I feel loads better.” Uno’s little face is beaming, so pleased himself he rocks back and forth, twice, on his feet like his body just can’t handle holding all that excitable energy. So he rushes forward, perhaps a little too quickly because Mikey had to steady himself from spilling lukewarm noodle broth over his son’s head. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, papa,” he tells him in a muffled, quiet voice. “I hate it when you’re sick.” Mikey hums, only wishing he had more arms to spare just to wrap around his child, though, he’s sure he’ll compensate for it later on, when he’s pulled into that inevitably awaiting turtle pile.

“Me too,” he tells him gently. “But I got the best cure for it right here.”

#tmnt idw #tmnt the lost ronin #tmnt peepaw and babies au #peepaw and babies au #tmnt the dad diaries #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt fanfic #tmnt fic #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt mikey

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