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It begins, as a fair amount of their incidents do, because Leo couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Wait, no, that’s mean. It begins because of a lot of reasons, one of the main ones being that Leo couldn’t keep his hands to himself. There, better! Now Leo won’t be upset!
Or, hang on. It didn’t even begin with Leo, actually, technically it began with Donnie… Or, well, hang on. Let’s try this one last time.
Mikey’s not entirely sure when Donnie started getting into botany. His brother kept that part of himself closed off, away from prying eyes and ears, to the point where even Dr. Delicate Touch couldn’t tell when his interest in the hobby began. Mikey does, however, know when they found out about it.
It was only a few weeks after the Invasion, and Casey Junior was making smalltalk with the Hamatos in the recently remodeled living room slash game area space. Since he had literally nowhere else to go, the future boy was living with them until they could find something better suited for the boy. April lived on her university’s campus, and Cassandra’s apartment only had one bedroom, which left the spare room of the Lair (created originally for a visiting Piebald who insisted on having her own room and not just sleeping on the couch because that was “bad for her already bad back” or something, Mikey doesn’t really know, he was just glad that Donnie let him help decorate the guest room) as CJ’s last and only resort. Slowly but surely it turned into his own little room, though, as he started collecting more and more things and making his space truly his own.
Mikey and CJ meet up once a week on Thursdays for art therapy, so Mikey likes to think that these meetings are the reason CJ started feeling more and more at home in the Lair, but he knows that the opening and accepting arms of his family also has a lot to do with it. Leo’s constant jokes that made him feel a part of the family, Raph’s insistence on training whenever he finds CJ alone in the gym, even Donnie’s constant stream of questions about the future have been curbed to remind CJ of as little trauma as Donnie was able to! Mikey really loved his family sometimes.
Anyways, back to the smalltalk. CJ and Donnie were talking about something, Mikey happily adding his own input where he could. For the moment, he’s mostly content to just listen, but sometimes they’ll say something that he feels like he just HAS to say something about or else he’ll explode. Like, for example…
“- and your greenhouses were amazing! I don’t know what you did, but the food output was way better than anything anyone else was able to do-” CJ explains excitedly, flapping his hands with a shine in his eye. Donnie preens under the attention.
“Well of course. When it comes to botanical pursuits, I have found that no one even compares to-”
“YOU LIKE GARDENING?” Mikey interrupts with an excited squeal. He puts his hands on his cheeks and grins at his brother. “Oh mi gosh, why didn’t you say anything about this before? I’ve been wanting to get into gardening!” Ignoring the souring look on Donnie’s face, he pulls out a magazine and holds it up proudly. “Check it! 101 Ways to Start Your Personal Plant Paradise! That’s what I’m talking about, baby!”
Donnie gently pushes Mikey away from his face. Mikey didn’t even notice that he’d gotten that close. “Mm. Interesting, Angelo, but my interest in botany should not be summed up as simply as gardening. To put it plainly, I do a bit of everything. Genetic modification, competitive plant growing, and, yes, growing plants for entertainment.” Donnie shrugs. Mikey grins. CJ glances between the two.
“So I can help in your garden?” Mikey asks, bouncing on his toes.
“Absolutely not, Mikey, I have too many sensitive and fragile plants in there. They would wither if hands even slightly less capable than my own were to try to tend them.” Mikey pulls out his puppy dog eyes. Donnie glances to the side to avoid looking him in the eyes, before very quickly caving. “Fine.”
“Yay! Thank you Donnie, I love you!”
“I will give you a singular plant.”
“What? Boo!”
“Ah, but all great adventures start with the very first step, do they not? He says, hoping his brother will accept this,” Donnie says, hoping his brother will accept this.
Mikey stares.
Donnie sweats.
“Fine… But!! I want to include Leo and Raph in it, too! And CJ!”
“And me?” CJ asks dumbly, pointing to himself.
“Yeah! A family thing! We can all have our own little plant babies, wouldn’t that be great?”
“What about Master Splinter?” CJ asks.
“No!” Mikey and Donnie shout together. “No,” Mikey continues by himself, “Dad has… not got the best track record when it comes to plants.”
Donnie shudders. “So many dead succulents…”
CJ shrugs. “Thank you for the offer, Donnie, but I don’t know if it would be for me. Some of the plants that you kept in the greenhouses were…” CJ shudders. “Traumatizing.”
“You’ll be the best plant uncle, then! Hot soup!” Mikey cheers, throwing a fist up. Donnie weakly copies him.
“Hot soup,” he says in a monotone.
One week later, Donnie gathered his brothers in the living room.
“Gentlemen… and Leo.” Leo gives an appropriately offended look. “I have gathered you all here today to present you… with these.” From the cart he had pushed into the room, he pulls off a suspiciously lumpy blanket to reveal three small pots.
“Yay!” Mikey cheers. “Plants!”
“Plants?” Raph asks, scratching his cheek.
“Plants,” Donnie nods seriously. “Mikey, upon discovering my recent botanical pursuits, has proceeded to beg, prod, threaten, and blackmail me into agreeing to share my interests with you all. So if you have any grievances with this, direct them towards him and not me, thank you.”
“I gave him puppy dog eyes and he caved immediately,” Mikey explains proudly.
“Either way! Here are your spoils. Everyone gets one plant. Ask me for instructions on upkeep and care when you have free time. Nardo, you get the mammillaria hahniana, since not even you can kill a cactus.”
“I am offended by your nerdy plant words, but intrigued because cacti look awesome.” Leo picks his new plant up and holds it gently. “You are now my son. Your name shall be Spike.”
“Uh, gonna have to nix the name there, Leo, there’s already a Spike in our franchise and that could get confusing for our general audience,” Donnie chimes in.
“Your name shall be Thorn,” Leo takes in stride. “And you shall be cooler than the rest of your brothers.”
“Raph, you get the crassula ovata, something simple to take care of, yet can grow to great heights. I trust you will take great care of it.”
Raph takes his small charge in big, gentle hands. “Hello, sweetie,” he croons down at the succulent. “How do you like the name Sunray Charles, huh little guy? You like that, right? Oh yes you do!” He wiggles a finger under one of the leaves like he’s scratching a cat’s chin.
“As for you, Michael…” Donnie reaches for the last plant on the cart.
“I get the venus fly trap!?” Mikey squeals, grabbing his new baby immediately. “Ohmigosh, Donnie, thank you thankyouthankyou! This is so cool! I love you!” He jumps onto an unreciprocated hug with his brother, then quickly backs off to look at the little plant.
“Yes,” Donnie says. “The dionaea muscipula. Should be easy enough for you to keep track of.”
“Wait, how come Mikey gets a cooler plant than me?” Leo whines, suddenly a lot less enthused about Thorn the Cactus.
“Because he’s nicer to me.”
“Not true! Unfair!”
“Because it’s funnier this way.”
“Donnie!”
“Hey, what’s that?” Attention was turned to where Raph was pointing curiously. Perched innocently at the edge of the cart was a small glass vial filled with an ominous glowing purple liquid.
“Oh, that?” Donnie laughs it off, except he’s not very good at appearing nonchalant, and so was faced with three identically unamused and unconvinced faces. “It’s… Mimic Ooze that I created in my lab.” He doesn’t even try to lie.
“It’s WHAT?” Raph yelps frantically.
“Don’t worry, it’s untested!”
“Oh,” Raph sighs. “Well that’s a relief.”
“Raph, that’s worse,” Leo says. He squints at the vial and picks it up, bringing it up to the light for a better look.
“It’s from a different project, it’s unimportant, really, don’t even know how it got on my cart!” Donnie snatches it back with an arm from his battle shell, and it disappears into his shell along with the retracted limb. “Anyways, proceed with your plant caring duties. I shall be in my room doing nothing weird.” And then he left.
“So he’s definitely doing something weird, right?” Leo asks the room at large.
“Who cares, look at my baby!” Mikey holds his plant up like a proud parent. “I’m gonna call her… Nip.”
“Nip?” Raph asks, tilting his head.
“Yeah! Because they, you know…” Mikey mimics a closing mouth. “Nip at bugs. I’m gonna take her on a walk!”
“What?” Leo asks. “What do you mean, a walk? They’re plants, they don’t move. Or, yours doesn’t, but maybe Thorn does. Can you move, buddy?” He looks at his cactus. It doesn’t move. “Yeah, they don’t move.”
“Nuh-uh! Venus fly traps move to close their mouths around their food! I read all about it in the gardening magazines!” Mikey argues. “And I just think natural sunlight would do wonders for Nip. She deserves it.”
“I’m pretty sure Donnie has those plant light things in his room, though,” Raph says.
“I don’t care, she’s getting natural sun. Imma be up on the surface if anyone needs me! Mikey out!” Mikey hustles into his room to grab his human disguise.
As soon as his face was hit by the first breeze of the surface, he took a deep breath. “Ah, smell that city smog, Nip? This is what being alive is all about. Natural sun, natural air. Eat up, baby!” He holds his plant up into the air to get better access to the sun, because that’s how the sun works, apparently. He holds her up for a moment, then pulls her back down closer to his chest and begins to walk. He keeps up a constant stream of conversation, having read in magazines that talking to plants helps them grow.
Now would be a good time to mention the thing about Draxum’s oozesquitos. There were hundreds of the things released two years ago, and even though the number has taken quite a substantial drop with the following attempts at recovering them, there were still a loose handful that managed to make themselves nuisances. There haven't been any mutations since a few months before the Invasion, though, so Mikey felt safe in letting his guard down.
This was a mistake.
Mikey doesn’t notice that Nip had started to close on their walk until he saw the final bite. Now, Mikey’s no genius like Donnie or strategist like Leo, but he’s pretty sure that the oozesquito green glow that nuzzles it’s way out of Nip’s closed mouth is a sure sign of something very bad having just happened.
“... Was than an oozesquito?” Mikey blanches. “I thought we got rid of all of those! Ack! Spit it out, spit it out!” He brought the plant back down, but could only watch in horror as the transformation already began. He just hoped whatever monster resulted from this would be at least easy enough to capture. He really didn’t want to have to hurt Nip in any way. Even if she was new, she was still family! … He also didn’t really want to explain to Donnie how his just gifted plant had already been ruined. Not that it was Mikey’s fault! It’s just that Donnie might not see it that way.
Nip began to grow, and twist, sprouting four stubby legs from her steam, a head mutating from her leaf and teeth, a tail forming from the roots of the plant as she pawed her way out of the pot’s planted dirt, and from the face sprouted… whiskers? Two wide black eyes blinked up at Mikey as the cat/venus fly trap hybrid began to make its first ever meow. Her body was a dark green, and felt more plant-like than skin-like. The outer teeth of the lead from the flytrap turned into kind of gross but kind of cute teeth in her mouth. Her underbelly faded into a dark red, and as Mikey lifted her little feet up, he felt toe beans. Tears sprang to his eyes. She was beautiful.
“Ohmigosh… There’s only one thing better than a plant!” Mikey tells his new pet. “A cat! Oh! Catnip! That’s perfect! Mwah!” He kisses the top of Catnip’s little head, and she meows again. “I’ve gotta tell everyone.”
Raph was not as excited as Mikey was, initially.
“Is it gonna fight us?” Raph asks, protectively holding Sunray Charles out of reach of the little critter.
“No! She’s a good girl! Would a bad girl do this?” Mikey lifts the cat up and, as if on command, she gives another little meow.
“Oh, he’s got a point, she’s very cute,” Raph begins to thaw.
“Seriously, how come Mikey gets all the cool things? First the fly trap and now a cat?” Leo whines. He was now wearing matching sunglasses with Thorn, and he had somehow scrounged up a tiny leather jacket to put around the cactus’ pot. Mikey was proud of his brother for this very cute and expressive creative outlet that he’d found in Thorn.
“Because I’m better,” Mikey chirps cutely. “Isn’t my baby just the cutest? Mwah!” He kisses her again on the side of her cheek, and she licks his cheek in return. “Ha! Ow. Your tongue is sharp.”
“So unfair,” Leo grouches, but he’s already scheming. Mikey can tell by the look on his face, but as long as it doesn’t involve Mikey or Catnip, Mikey’s fine with letting Leo do his own thing. He hasn’t been scheming much since the Invasion, so letting him have a small taste of normality in a scheme wouldn’t do anyone any harm. Or at least, Mikey hopes it wouldn’t. And if it does, then they can get through it together!
“I’m going to go buy cat supplies online now,” Mikey tells everyone, propping Catnip up onto his shoulders so his hands are free. She steadies herself, before draping around his neck more like a cat/plant necklace, letting her paws dangle loosely over his plastron. She starts purring, and Mikey positively melts as he walks out of the room.
As soon as Mikey’s out of ear shot, Leo turns to Raph.
“No,” Raph says.
“You don’t even know what I’m gonna say!” Leo whines.
“Whatever it is, I don’t think I’ll like it. I see it in your face.”
“Hmph. Fine. It’ll just be a me and Thorn thing, then.” Leo goes to pet Thorn, but gets a very painful handful of spikes instead. “Right, cactus. Forgot.” He settles for patting the pot gently instead.
“Don’t do anything inadvisable,” Raph warns.
“Inadvisable! Now that’s a big word. Where’d you learn that one, big brother?” Leo attempts to butter Raph up. And to Leo’s credit, it actually seems to be working.
“Oh! Thank you. I read it in a Jupiter Jim comic, Jupiter Jim and the Cosmic Sunblast Squad Returns Part Two.”
“Really? Haven’t read that one yet, tell me about it,” Leo schmoozes.
“Okay!” Raph agrees. Leo sneaks away to Donnie’s lab while Raph is distracted talking about his special interest.
When he comes back, Raph is still talking.
“- and then the Ray-Lons had this huge fight! And Jupiter Jim had to sneak away while they were fighting each other, and then-”
“Fascinating, keep going,” Leo encourages, pulling out a familiar purple vial previously seen on Donnie’s cart from earlier. Chekhov’s Vial coming back around. He pours some of the glowing goo onto Thorn, then pockets the vial again for safekeeping.
“- but that’s when the sharks from earlier come back and- WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!” Raph finally notices Leo’s back on his bullshit again.
“Nothing!” Leo innocently claims, batting his eyelashes at Raph, before turning back to Thorn, which began to shudder and begin its mutation. “Please be a dog, please be a dog, please be a-”
Thorn did not, in fact, turn into a dog. Thorn did, however, turn into a cactus bear beast taller and wider than even Raph. His head brushed up against the ceiling, and his body was covered in sharp looking spikes. He did not look anywhere as cute or cuddly as Catnip did. Leo’s excited face crumples.
“It seems I have made a severe and continuous lapse in judg- ACK!” Leo gets batted to one side by a huge spikey paw.
“Leo!” Raph summons his sai and catches Thorn’s next swing with his ninpo, about the same size as Thorn. He roars at Raph, and Raph roars back.
“BOYS! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT ROARING IN THE LIVING ROOM?” Splinter’s voice travels from his room.
“Sorry Dad!” Raph and Leo yell back, before scrambling to the side as Thorn attempts to barrel into them both.
“Okay, Leo, please tell me you didn’t use Donnie’s untested Mimic Ooze on Thorn. Please,” Raph begs as he trades blows with the beast. Leo laughs guiltily, before creating a portal to Donnie’s room and ducking his head in.
“Doooonnie, not that anyone did, but if someone were to, say, accidentally mutate one of the plants that you gave us into a big scary monster with your Mimic Ooze, how would you go about fixing that?”
Donnie stares at Leo blankly as Raph gets thrown through the portal, knocking Leo in as well. They both land flat on their backs on the soft shell’s floor.
“Somehow, you two find new ways to surprise and disappoint me,” Donnie sighs. “Hold it off, I’ll fix your mess. Again.” Leo and Raph pick themselves up and barrel out of Donnie’s door and into the living room again, only to meet an empty space.
“Uh oh,” Raph says as Donnie begins to speedrun an anti-Mimic Ooze in the background.
This is about the time a scream echoes from the kitchen. Leo and Raph take one glance at each other before sprinting off to meet it.
“Mikey! Are you okay?” Leo says, kicking the kitchen door open, holding his swords out defensively.
“Ahhhh! Look how cute my baby is!” Mikey squeals, taking pictures of Catnip, who was posing cutely in her former pot. Leo lowers his swords and Raph groans in annoyance.
“Okay, but if Thorn’s not here, then where did he-”
“GREAT GALILEO, IT GOT IN MY LAB!”
“There it is,” Leo says miserably, before portaling all three brothers into Donnie’s lab. The scene upon arrival was one of carnage. Lab equipment was thrown everywhere, samples were broken and scattered across the ground, and one of the overhead fluorescent light bulbs went out. The most pressing part of the scene was Thorn, though, who had a funky hammer-thing in his mouth and was shaking it back and forth viciously.
“Does the lab not always look like this?” Leo jokes, but Raph and Donnie just glare at him. Mikey, who has no idea what is happening, just blinks, pulling Catnip close to his chest in fear.
Donnie grabs the other end of the funky hammer-thing and tries, unsuccessfully, to win a game of tug-of-war with Thorn. “Hold him down, I perfected my anti-Mimic Ooze, or AMooze, copyright pending, while you two were being useless, but I need this to finish the- why does Mikey have a cat?”
“Her name is Catnip and she is perfect,” Mikey says with sass. He sets her down on the nearest desk, kisses the top of her little head, and summons his weapon to wrap completely around Thorn. The creature, now occupied by this, thrashes out with its claws and loosens its jaw’s grip on the funky hammer-thing. Donnie yanks it out and dexterously taps at a few buttons on the device, which changes shape into more of an injector looking thing, and inserts a small vial of clear liquid into it. Raph and Leo join in to hold the cactus down while Donnie approaches its skin with the device.
In true Donnie fashion, however, he pauses before inserting it. “I didn’t have time to engineer the AMooze (patent pending) to be purple instead of transparent, so-”
“JUST DO IT ALREADY!” his brothers yell in unison, struggling to keep Thorn down.
“Alright, alright, just letting you know that it would’ve been more to my aesthetic had I had more time.” Donnie pushes the Anti-Mimic Ooze into Thorn. A moment passes, before he shrinks back down into his original cactus form, pot and all. Mikey releases his ninpo and picks Catnip back up again.
“Let this serve as a lesson, Leon, to never mess with my things,” Donnie lectures.
“Or maybe it’s a lesson to you not to make Ooze in the first place!” Leo diverts blame back onto Donnie.
“It’s a lesson for both of you, now appreciate my new cat,” Mikey interrupts before the argument can really get going, pushing Catnip into Donnie and Leo’s faces.
“Whatever,” Leo sighs as he gently pets the top of the cat’s head to hear her purr. “Maybe this is a sign I’m just not ready for the responsibility of a plant.”
“Leo, it was a cactus,” Donnie deadpans.
“Everyone has different levels of responsibility they’re ready for,” Mikey admonishes Donnie. “And if Leo can’t handle a cactus, that’s his own thing.”
“Can I have Thorn, then?” Raph asks.
“Go for it, buddy,” Leo says.
“Yes! Sunray Charles gets a brother.” Raph grins as he scoops the plant-then-beast-now-plant-again off of the floor.
“Just don’t overwater it,” Donnie advises.
“And give it lots of sun!” Mikey adds.
“And absolutely no Ooze,” Leo jokes, shuddering at the thought.
Mikey smiles at his brothers, and pulls Catnip back up onto his shoulders. Even if this incident was a little scary, it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Not together as a family. Despite the trouble it caused, he can’t say that he’d rather Leo have been more responsible about Thorn and the Mimic-Ooze. He’s just glad things are finally getting back to normal after the Invasion.
He glances at Leo one last time before tucking Catnip onto his shoulders so she could perch like a parrot. Yeah, he doesn’t regret this incident at all.