Work Text
The Smoking Gun, Part Deux:
The Baron’s Game
by: AlienMadame22
Chapter 1: Shoot from the Hip
“Alright, are you ready to go?” Dr. Eva Riviera asked over the phone. She was waiting for her favorite patient in her sedan, ready to escort him on his first day of school.“Yup, nearly! I’ll be topside in a minute!” Michelangelo answered.He was shoving the brand-new books he’d had delivered into his bag and zipped it halfway up.Splinter hovered by his bedroom door. “Do you have your pencils? Your iPad thingy? Your snacks?”Mikey grabbed each item as he mentioned it, finding a place to shove them in his bag as he hefted it on his knee. “Thanks Pops! I got ‘em!” He had his phone pinned between his shoulder and ear.“Don’t forget your schedule!” The Doc reminded him from the phone.He grabbed it off the corner of his nightstand tucked it in his pocket. “Thanks Eva!”Mikey, like his brothers, already had a GED, but now it was time for a school he actually wanted to go to. The Philadelphia College of Baking, and he was enrolled into the French Pastry set of courses, which was one of the harder ones to do according to the website.He pulled on his uniform, a white t-shirt, black slacks and a chef’s jacket. He adjusted the little French flag on the collar. He posed proudly in the mirror.Splinter smiled proudly in return, taking several pictures on his older camera to capture the precious moment. “Oh, my baby Orange…I never thought I’d be able to see your first day of school. I never thought you’d go to school. But I have never been so happy to be wrong!” he reached up for a hug. “I hope you have a wonderful time.”Mikey gave him a hug, lifting him up and giving him a big squeeze. “I won’t let you down!”Leo popped his head in the door-frame. “Good luck, Miguel!”Raph popped in above him. “Make us proud, Big Man!”Donnie crawled up on top of Raph to say his piece too, “If you bring anything home, dibs on any and all chocolate.”Mikey smiled and got a big group hug from his family.April gave him a kiss on the head. “Do your best, remember to be chill, and try to find a buddy. A buddy can help you breeze through!”Casey gave him a squeeze as well, grasping his arm in a warrior’s handshake. “Annihilate your enemies and bake the best you can. Also…I enjoy gingersnaps and coconut haystacks, for future reference.”“Noted!” He chuckled. “Alright guys! Time to make history! First mutant turtle baker on earth!” He looked to Leo to provide a portal to the surface.“Are you forgetting something, bud?” Leo pointed.Mikey looked in the mirror.Ah. Right. That whole situation.He picked up the faintly glowing green cloaking brooch from the vanity and opened the chef’s jacket, pinning it to the t-shirt underneath for safe keeping.He tapped it and the form of a human overwrote his features with that of a young black high-school aged boy. He had short twists popping up loosely from an orange headband and his orange spots transformed into light vitiligo-like patches in the same shape. His human fingers clung together in sets of two, disguising his two large fingers on each hand. His face was still round and eyes bright blue.“I never get tired of how dang cute you look!” April ruffled his twisted locs.“Thanks April. Alright! I gotta get going!”Leo opened a portal and they all shouted well-wishes over each other as Mikey jumped through. He reappeared on the street behind Eva’s car. He hopped in the passenger side and spooked her.“Oh! There you are!” she grabbed her heart. “Could you portal IN FRONT of the car, for once?”“Leo can only predict where to drop us so much!” he shrugged, buckling up.While Eva was now very close to the family, she was still a military employee, and therefore did not get to know where they lived. It was part of their deal; the Department of Mystic and Mutant Management didn’t get to know their location as part of an extra layer of security and a degree of separation. She was fine with not knowing, as all the weirdness she now dealt with at the MMM was more than enough for her. Her life had 100% more strangeness since she’d met them, being hired on permanently to help various Yokai and Mutants get used to, or reintegrate into, human society.Mikey was still her favorite patient, though. She always had time for him. She was almost becoming like a mother figure to him, or rather, his ‘emotional support human’ as Donnie called her. He was very attached to her, as she was one of the first people to show him genuine compassion. Here she was, taking him to school even! Leo was going to portal him directly every day, when possible. But today, she was going with him to get him situated, something Splinter had trouble doing directly.Technically, Leo portaled him all the way to Philly. He was getting more focused with his odachi every day. Eva had to fly over from upstate New York to make this connection.The Hamatos lived under the East Village, in an abandoned bomb shelter with sewer access, underneath a broken-down church. Splinter actually used some connections to use his Lou Jitsu money to outright buy the property, and while it drained most of his finances, it ensured no one would come gentrifying and revealing their lair.Eva got to driving, and it wasn’t far. This was mostly for show, and for Mikey to observe the campus, to find a good place to portal in and show Leo where to cut to via some pictures.They pulled up to the tall building that housed the school, an old classic brownstone with elegant arched brick buttresses and modern architectural reliefs. The school was newer, but had received significant accolades recently and after thorough research, Mikey and Eva determined it was perfect for him. Apparently, they’d just moved into this building from another location.Mikey got out of the car before she even fully parked, so excited to see it.He rounded the corner, got a look at the front of the school building and froze.He recognized the building.It was one he’d set ablaze, in his former career as an explosive specialist assassin.More specifically, it was the last job he’d pulled for Bishop. The one he and Leo planted charges in, burning out a whole floor dedicated to some techy start-up business that had inflicted Bishop’s wrath upon themselves somehow. He didn’t even know why. Bishop just pointed and Mikey burned it.He took a step back, just as Eva caught up with him, stuffing her keys in her bag.“Hey, are you ready?!” She jazzily shook her shoulders.His eyes widened and he started to shake. “N-no…”“Michelangelo? Are you okay?” She noticed the signs, keeping her voice calm.“Eva…I…I torched this building.” he admitted softly, barely above a whisper. His voice was shaking.Her face contorted at the implications. “Oh no. Okay…Alright. We’re not going a step further until you tell me what you’re feeling.”He couldn’t take his eyes off it.She got between him and the building, and met his eyes, breaking his glassy gaze.“We’re getting out of here, Mike.” She gently took his arm and turned him around. He let her, she realized; because under ordinary circumstances, she knew there was nothing she could do to make him do anything. She walked him back to the car and had him sit down in the front seat. She turned the car around and faced the street, so he didn’t have to look at it.“Alright. Are you able to tell me what happened here?”He was quiet, then started to cry. “Me and Leo…this was our last official mission together. W-we did a controlled burn to toast a server farm. It took out the whole third floor! I was…the Emerald Bomber when I did it.”Dr. Riviera frowned. The Emerald Bomber was a maladaptive persona he wore when committing the horrible crimes Bishop assigned him. It was a way to pin the crimes on someone, something else, so Mikey didn’t have to bear the weight of his own guilt without totally cracking under it. There were other personas, like Dr. Swift, who ensured a swift minimum-pain kill to anyone Bishop said he wanted gone. He and his brothers were good at that, it seemed. They didn’t really want anyone to suffer when they were working for that monster.This building was a big fat reminder of it.And what was worse, she realized, was that this was a French cooking program.The Emerald Bomber was French. Fuck.This might be a minefield.“Okay. We can get through this. Mikey.” She held his hand in both of hers. “Answer yes or no please. Do you still want to go to this school?”He thought about it. “Yes.” It was the best fit for his knowledge level, offered a decent amount of sway to their graduates and offered what he really wanted to learn.“You don’t want to consider a different one?”“No.”“Okay.” she gulped. One wrong word from her and he might relapse. “Is the Emerald Bomber…awake?”“No!” He looked disgusted she would even ask that. “He’s gone! Ever since I figured out my fire-ninpo!”“Okay! Okay… Just checking!” she chuckled awkwardly. “What are you feeling right now? Fear?”“Yes.”“Guilt?”“Y-yes.” He started to tear up, pulling his knees to his chest.“It’s okay! Do you want some shell time?” she asked.Mikey wiped his eyes, “No, I can’t! We’re gonna be late! I don’t have time to deal with this!”“We’ve got all the time in the world! We can just say we got lost trying to find the building, or traffic was terrible, or we had the wrong room! You’ll be forgiven on the first day, mijo! I’ll make sure of it! Let’s take our time, okay?”Mikey nodded, “If you say so…ok.”He reached inside his shirt, tapped his brooch and his human illusion faded. Before her was the green painted box turtle she knew. He retracted his arms and head into his shell. He didn’t close the hinge, which meant he was okay to still talk.“Now, was anyone hurt in the fire?” she asked.“No. It was at night. Just property damage.”“Okay, see, that’s not so bad at all! Things can be replaced! They probably got a nice fat insurance pay out! And it looks like the building is all good again! They wouldn’t have moved a cooking school in if it weren’t!”He poked his head up a bit. “You think?”Eva smiled genuinely, “I do think! Life moves on from things like that, buddy! Clearly, this building has! It’s copacetic!”He exited his shell, feeling a bit better. “O-okay…Ok. I think I can do this!”She knew what always came next with Mikey. “Do you want a hug?”“Yes, please.” He reached for her. She pulled him in and gave strong rubs on his shell to help ground him. He chirped, going from a strained high pitched to a lower, more normal reverb, a good sign he was calming down.“It’s gonna be okay, bud. Do you want me to stay nearby?” she asked.“I don’t think all the other students will have their therapist standing by.” he said, a bit embarrassed.She accepted that. “Okay. Give me a call if you need me. I’ll be working on some paperwork in a café down the street.”They got out of the car, and he tapped his brooch, appearing human again.Little did he know, there was someone watching from the roof above. <> Dr. Riviera walked him to the office, where they gave him a map and she walked him to the door of his first class. It was on the first floor. Baking 101. He’d been paging through the books he was given, pre-studying the material, so he was sure he was going to ace this course.She gave him one last encouraging hug and waved goodbye. She never had any kids of her own, so this was a strange, new experience. She tried to keep a professional distance from her patients, but the circumstances around the turtles were a special case, and took up much of her time. This almost felt like dropping off her own kid at school. She chuckled to herself. What an odd experience.Mikey stepped into the classroom and paused. There were 8 science lab-like desks, with sinks built in on the sides, and room for 2 people each to sit on barstools behind them. Built into the back wall were 10 standard ovens in stacks of two. On the walls were large drop-dispensers filled with flour, sugar and other common bulk ingredients, which distributed their products by weight. There was a large walk-in fridge, with a glass door to make sure no foolish students got locked inside. There was a shelf crammed with cookbooks. There was a whiteboard with a recipe queued labeled “basic bread recipe.”There were already people in the classroom, and it seemed to be packed. There was one open spot left.In the back.He sighed. If he had his way, he’d be right up front, absorbing all this precious knowledge as intently as he could. But hopefully they didn’t have assigned seats.He paced quickly down the aisle and set his bag down next to an Indonesian girl with lilac colored hair. She looked fun…if not for the scowl on her face as he sat down next to her.“Hi, I’m Mikey.” He held out his hand.She looked at it and rolled her eyes. “Kendra.”“Are you excited!? I am so excited for this class! All the classes, really! I am so hyped to start baking!” he grinned brightly at her.She frowned at his enthusiasm. “Not at all. My stepmom made me come take this stupid course because I ‘need to act more feminine’ and my dad cosigned, telling me to ‘get a hobby that doesn’t involve computers.’” she growled under her breath, ready to snap her tablet in two.“Oh,” Mikey deflated a bit, “well, maybe you’ll learn to like it? ‘Baking is the science of cooking’, is what my brother Donnie always says.”“Your brother sounds like a dingdong.” She rolled her eyes and refocused on her phone.“Don’t listen to her!” said the student in front of him.There was a kindly looking Indian girl with a round face and bright eyes, turned around in her seat to face him. “I, too, am excited to be here!” she squealed, reaching out her palm to shake his hand.He took it and her palm was very cool to the touch. Too cold, actually. He registered it and gave her another once over.He spotted it.On her chef’s jacket was a green and gold brooch that had a light, hazy glow. He got tense, gulping.She was either a mutant or a yokai. Smart money was on yokai, as few mutants even knew about the brooches.“I’m Sunita. I am taking this class to expand my horizons.” She beamed and took her hand back, tossing her hair with it gracefully.“Good for you…” Kendra grimaced.“I’ve never tried baking before! It’s not something we really do in my family. How about you?!” she asked Mikey.“Oh, I’ve made pizza dough from scratch! And I’ve been playing with sourdough starters, but they’re not really ready yet.”Sunita looked impressed. “Wow! I’ve never had sourdough before! Especially homemade! You must really like this stuff, huh?”Mikey decided Sunita was probably a good person, yokai or not. She probably was just a normal person interested in the course. He liked her better than Kendra so far. Michelangelo wished he could trade seats and sit next to her instead.“Yeah, I do. I used to watch Chef back at…at home cook all the time, it was fascinating!”Kendra looked up with a sly grin, “Chef, huh? You must be rich, then?”“Oh, uh, not really!” he thought of the way they were living now. Not exactly the high life, though they were being handsomely paid by the Hidden City Police Department for their aid in apprehending unique criminals and hunting down dangerous mutants. Not to mention they had a generous settlement from the US government as reparations for the way they were treated under Bishop's tender mercies.But they really didn’t need much now that they had Pops and the Hamato clan. They were otherwise poor, budgeting what they had to last a while, as they weren’t sure when their needed services might come to an end.“Well, why do you have a chef, then?”“Had. Um—” Mikey didn’t really know what to say. How does one tell a normal person that his brothers and he were raised in a compound where they were trained to be the private killers for a sociopathic government agent? And that the chef was executed for paying Mikey positive attention. “—we uh, were raised on base. A military base. The chef was really talented. I liked watching him work.”Kendra frowned. “Oh, what branch?”“Uh, air force.” he lied.“Hm, bougie.” She snorted. “I know what that’s like. My dad is a military tech supplier, so we stayed on bases often when I was growing up. Not so much anymore.” she shrugged.“Oh cool.”Sunita picked up on what he said earlier. “What do you mean ‘had’?”This was digging up some painful stuff for Mikey. But he was determined to be honest. Good people were honest and he had left the old life behind to become good.“He died. It was, uh, my fault.” He instantly regretted it as soon as the words left his lips. Why did he say that?! Eva was helping him be more open and honest with his feelings, but these two didn’t need to know that! Stupid!Kendra was interested again, her eyes widening with keen interest. “What?! Spill! What happened?”“Uhm-!”Sunita shot Kendra a dark look. “He doesn’t have to tell us anything! That sounds like it was traumatic.”“I know, that’s why I wanna know!” She had an impish look on her face.Before anything else could be said, the instructor walked in, calling everyone to order. Sunita turned around with a glare for Kendra and an apologetic glance for him.“Tell me later!” Kendra whispered harshly in his ear.He really didn’t want to. He reached into his pants pocket and gripped his phone. He was resisting the urge to run, but just barely.Mikey took deep breaths and let his leg jiggle out the nerves a bit.He tried to focus on the teacher.“My name is Gerard Mulberry. You may address me by either name.” He was a rotund gentleman with an intelligent, curious look about him. Mikey had known drill sergeants with tougher looks, but he was willing to give this man the same respect regardless.“Welcome to Baking 101. We’ll be looking at the building blocks of baking, how different ingredients in different amounts affect your end results, and hopefully have some fun along the way. After all, bread is life! It keeps us alive, the world’s oldest recipes are for bread, and it’s always there for us in the toughest of times.” he waxed poetically.Mikey remembered the first time Bishop allowed them to have bread. He had them on an all-vegetarian diet for the first year or so. That’s what most turtles ate, after all. At least until they learned softshell turtles and snappers were carnivorous too. They experimented on Mikey specifically, as his stomach was the most sensitive. Whatever he could eat, the others surely could as well. Something often bugged Mikey about the way Bishop had looked at him. He was smaller, younger, weaker than his brothers. Bishop had often treated him like he was…Disposable.Bishop had instructed Chef to make them little biscuits made of easily-digestible ingredients. Mikey had gobbled them up and then had to sit and be observed for a day by the white coats in the labs. When it was successful, they were allowed better meals. But it was obvious that he was the test subject because he didn’t want to risk his more capable brothers.The first time Mikey tasted real bread –a dinner roll, fresh from the oven from Chef— it was life changing. It’s when he knew he wanted to do what Chef did, and despite the Chef’s protests, he continued to try and shadow him. It wasn’t until a dietary punishment from Bishop for Mikey’s mistake, that Chef warmed up and accepted Mikey. He finally broke down and started teaching Mikey in his own grumpy way. In secret, of course.And then Bishop caught him teaching him and was enraged. Mikey never saw Chef again.Mikey gulped and tried to refocus.“—so, I think you’ll agree that while we’re starting from the bottom, these building blocks will allow you to have a creative and illustrious career in the culinary arts.” Mr. Mulberry finished up. “So, let’s get started!”Everyone started to move, and Mikey looked around, panicked. What had he said?! What were they doing?! He hadn’t paid attention!“Wait, what’re we doing?! I was in a flashback!” he whispered to Sunita.“We’re making the recipe on the board. Get your supplies!” she answered back, quickly moving past him to grab hers.He hopped off his stool and looked up to the list of tools and ingredients on the board. He stood behind the crowd of students impatiently, hopping up to see the tools quickly disappearing.He nervously grabbed what he needed and got in line to measure out his ingredients by weight from the dispensers. He got them all on a tray and carried them carefully to his station.Mikey gulped as the professor threw up the recipe steps on the projector screen while explaining why they were important and why even the number of stirs mattered.Mikey was about to get started when he looked at his hands. The way his human fingers clung together, betraying the turtle finger shape underneath. He gulped.Right. He needed to wash his hands. He turned to the sink and blasted the water as hot as it would go. It didn’t feel hot enough, he waited, touching a finger through the stream periodically to test it. Still not hot enough. Heavy steam was rising from the sink.‘SALMONELLA! TURTLES CARRY SALMONELLA! HOW COULD YOU ALLOW HIM IN HERE!? YOU COULD’VE POISONED THE WHOLE BASE!’Michelangelo squinted at the memory, shook it away and squirted a ton of soap on his hands, scrubbing halfway up his wrists. He pulled his sleeves up and scrubbed up to his elbows.
What if it’s not enough? What if the disguise brooch is preventing the germs from dying? What if it glitches, or fails, or I poison someone?
Kendra snarled, shaking him from his thoughts as he methodically washed over and over: “Mike! Geez louise! I can feel the heat from here! How can you stand that!?”“S-sorry!” He turned off the faucet and dried off with the nearby paper towels. His hands were radiating heat.He started to follow the directions. Mix flour, salt, and yeast with water in the proper amounts. Stir it up, let it rise covered. Easy enough.He looked to his nearby students to see what they were doing. Kendra dug her hands in and started mixing with her hands. Sunita seemed to be using a spatula. Another fellow used a whisk and found that his mixture ended up inside the wires of the whisk and tried shaking it out without much luck.Mikey decided to use a spatula and stir it up like Sunita. But it was getting rather clumpy. It didn’t look like the pictures on the slideshow up front.Mr. Mulberry came around to critique their processes.“Young man, it would do much better to take the hands-on approach like your desk mate. Only the tender ministrations of human hands can bring this dough to life.” he said dramatically, which he followed with a quick jolly wink and chuckle. “Fun fact! The first yeasts were derived from human hands! These naturally occurring cultures provided the necessary lift to early forms of bread. Then we found them in the waste products when making early beers and ales.”Mikey looked at his hands and gulped. He had to do as directed. He hoped it was enough, or that the cloaking brooch would protect anyone who was gonna eat this loaf.He dove in and felt it squish between his fingers and saw it start to come together.“You need a smidge more water there, uh Mr.—?" He implied the need for a name.“Michelangelo Hamato. Mikey works for short.”“Mr. Hamato. Here—” he used a measuring cup to splash in about a tablespoon of water.“Oh, shouldn’t we measure that first?”Mr. Mulberry shrugged, “Some things need to be eyeballed. Baking is an exact science, but there are some days where the rules and recipes refuse to behave. Whether it’s the weather and the humidity or maybe just a bad baking day, it happens. We follow the best we can and improvise where we need to.”Mikey nodded and felt his dough become much smoother. The professor moved on and Mikey kept kneading, eventually turning it out onto the cutting board. He squished and turned it, pushing deeply and pulling back. Fold, turn, squish again. Rinse, repeat. Don’t over-work it. Just until it springs back. They let the dough rise in greased bowls and listened to a lecture in the meantime on how different ingredients affected the base recipe. Then they punched down their doughs and let them rise again. That was rather fun! As they waited, they studied a slideshow on the different variations on this recipe from around the world and how they affect the final product.When it came time to bake, they were instructed to slit the tops of their loaves in a way that was representative of themselves. Most people did an artistic slit pattern, or their initials. Mikey took his sharp razor and cut his signature smiley face into the top of his loaf. Crossed out eyes and a crooked toothy smile. His dough rose well, and he was relieved. He’d done this before, but it was still nerve wracking.They loaded them onto a tray and the professor slid them into the ovens. Everyone paced about and worked on a quiz of the day’s instructions while they waited. They had to recall and write out the whole of the recipe from memory with as many details as possible.When the bell dinged, everyone was tense to see how they did.Mr. Mulberry pulled out the racks to varying degrees of bread shapes. Some were flat as a pancake, some rose far too high.Michelangelo was relieved to see that his was plump and round, and gently crisp around the top where he made the cuts. He gently pushed on its crust, and it crackled softly under his finger, still warm. The most heavenly smell was all around them. He felt peace in his heart as he took it in with a big sigh.He thought of the first family dinner he’d had with his real father, Splinter, and the rest of his family. He had made homemade pizza for the first time, with a store-bought dough ball. But he’d been allowed to go nuts and put whatever he’d wanted on there. He’d made a supreme, and alongside him, Cassandra made a lasagna. They’d worked together to make a true family dinner for their clan on their first night together.Pizza dough had sort of the same scent, buried under the scent of the toppings. When you got to the crust, you could smell it stronger. Here in this class, it was like a warm blanket surrounding him.Maybe this was going to be okay! His next class was ChocolatesMikey went to the next floor up, with Sunita and Kendra on his heels. Clearly they were taking the same set of courses. They entered a room with more stoves at the desktops but loaded to the nines with pans and shelves full of packages of baking chocolate, ready to be smelted into grand confections.He sat down closer to the front this time and Sunita came to sit beside him instead of Kendra, who parked herself behind him.Mikey washed up again, a bit less nervous.“Man, you can probably chill with that.” Kendra said. “I doubt there’s a germ left anywhere on your person at this point.”“Can’t be too careful.” he muttered shyly.She scoffed and he could sense as she rolled her eyes.A willowy, stern woman introduced herself as Madame Ballenger, a French chocolatier. She was all sharp edges from her glasses to her stiff shoulder-pads to the straight lines of her skirt and pointed shoes. She wore all black, with silver jewelry. She seemed to be a no-nonsense type, and Mikey felt his neck start to tense as he sat up rigidly straight. He felt echoes of Bishop in this woman’s demeanor and he tried to shake it off.“You won’t be working with ANY product until you memorize the steps to tempering the chocolate. That includes the temperatures, the coloration, the bubbling, and what happens with the more common baking additives. I will NOT have waste in MY classroom.” she said mirthlessly. “You will have to answer all questions correctly on a quiz, at a rate of 100%, in order to even put your hands on the product.”
‘-Execute the criminal, Michael. If you don’t, he’ll be a source of waste in the system. Feeding off taxpayer dollars…-’
The memory struck him like a slap. His hands shook as they rested on the tabletop. It was like he had tunnel vision and he could see Bishop’s shadow eking out from behind Madame B. He couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Stop shaking. STOP SHAKING.
Sunita noticed and gently set her hand on his, giving it a little squeeze. Her hand was cool and squishy soft. The alternative sensory input made him blink and shake out of his stupor.“You ok?” she mouthed.He nodded, biting his lip. He didn’t want to miss more valuable knowledge.“Yeah! I’ll be fine.” he signed casually back, mouthing back.She looked unconvinced.Madame B gave them an overview of how chocolate was tempered, then dove into each step, in depth. In DEEP DEPTH. Mikey was taking notes furiously, trying to keep up. He was going to ace that quiz!Sunita seemed to be following along as well, squinting at the board and writing like the wind in a script he’d never seen before. It flowed and spun like the most drawn-out cursive he’d ever seen. He remembered that some folks wrote in a kind of shorthand and Sunita seemed to be one of them. But he couldn’t make out any of the letters. It was more…rune like. If she was a yokai, then it would make sense that she’d have another language she writes in.He eyed Kendra from behind and she wasn’t even taking notes! She was scrolling on her phone! He huffed in annoyance. Didn’t she know how privileged she was to take this class!? He decided to ignore her, he didn’t need her as a distraction. Ignore her. Ignore the creeping sensation in his shell.They went for over an hour, with Madame B enthusiastically going over each step with helpful acronyms, memory tools and a demanding level of detail to recall. He did his best to engage with the material, but the way she taught it was so clinical!The class ended and lunch was upon them. They headed to a small cafeteria on the first floor, and it was just how Mikey imagined it in his dreams of going to high school! He ran to grab a tray and got in line, excited to try anything and everything.He got a plate of lasagna, a turkey and cheese sandwich, a fruit cocktail cup, and he gasped. They had the little milks! They were so cute he was gonna spaz! He got two. One to drink, and one to show his brothers that they were real and adorable! He got a soda as well, and strutted up to check out, excited.Now, where to sit!?He saw Kendra at one table waving him over. He didn’t see Sunita in the room, so he decided to take a chance on her. Unbeknownst to him, two pairs of eyes watched him from a ceiling vent.Mikey sat down across from her, “Whooo! What a day and we’re already halfway through!”“Mmm-hmm.” She ignored his comment, “Look, you gotta give me the scoop. What happened with that air force chef?”
Again?!
“I don’t want to talk about it.” he said firmly.“How does a kid get someone killed? I gotta know! I won’t stop asking until you tell me!” she said in a singsong fashion, but he could tell she meant it.Mikey glowered at her, “Fine. I’m a science experiment that was under heavy guard and observation. The chef got too attached, showed me too much kindness and made the project boss angry. He sent Chef away and he’s most likely dead, as my existence was beyond top secret.”She stared at him, agog, then blinked and scoffed. “Yeah right, and I’m Princess Buttercup. What’s the real story?”“That is the real story.” he said flatly.She expected him to budge, to quirk a smile, to let her in on the joke.He didn’t.She decided to humor him. “Well, if you’re an experiment, then what was the point of it? What did they make you into?”“A super soldier. I ran missions for the last 5 years, been through training since I was five years old. I’ve killed people, Kendra. I don’t like thinking about it, now that I’m out. But you been pressing my buttons all day.”She got a bit tense, thinking he was either delusional or putting her on with the most method acting she’d ever witnessed.She scoffed. “I don’t believe you, edgelord.”He reached over and put a hand around her plastic glass of water. It started to boil rapidly, steaming off and the plastic started to warp and melt. He squashed it in his hand and wiped it off on the side of her tray.She was agog, eyes wide and pupils small in fear. “So, Kendra. We can be friends. Or, we can be at odds. I would rather not, because I just told you my secret and I would like some friends.” he said stiffly, using the voice he formally reserved for when he rarely worked interrogations with Leo. He wondered if one could take the agent out of the field, but could you take the agent out of the mutant man?“H-how did you do that?”“I’m… pyrokinetic,” he lied. It was just his ninpo, which was close enough. But she didn’t need to know about that.She gulped, taking this in. “So why are you…HERE? Of all places?!” She was starting to raise her voice and he shot her a harsh look to settle down before she attracted attention. “Why aren’t you, I don’t know, fighting secret wars all over the world? Being a secret military asset?”“Because what I went through was child abuse and I was liberated from that life and now I get to follow my dream.” He crossed his arms and stared her down.She looked flabbergasted, “To be a baker?! That’s such a waste of talent!”Mikey was disgusted, “Talent for what?! To hurt people? To start fires where there ought not to be any!?” He could almost feel the fire still burning up on the third floor. The damage he caused. He didn’t know if he could face it. “I don’t want to do that anymore, Kendra. I’m trying to be a normal person!” he whispered harshly.She scoffed, “Why bother being normal when you can be exemplary? Look at me, the best hacker of my generation and I’m being held back by my parents when I could be out there, making money, making a name for myself! But I’m stuck here, making desserts!”Mikey scoffed back at her audacity, leaning back. “You aren’t the best hacker of our generation.”Her frowned escalated to a glower, “What did you say?”“You’ve got nothing on Othello Von Ryan.”His brother’s online moniker was whispered by a special few, as he operated usually without a trace. If he did leave evidence behind, it was usually a teasing calling card to goad his fellow hackers.Her eyes widened. “How do you know that name?!” she hissed.“‘Othello’ is my big brother. And he’s the best there is.” He ate a scoop of lasagna confidently.She suddenly didn’t let her face betray her any longer. She wore her mouth in a thin line, her face neutral. Kendra merely stood up, took her tray and left. “Excuse me. We’ll talk later.” She was about to walk away, then added quickly with more than a dose of fear, “I, uh, won’t say anything.”Mikey groaned as he watched her scurry away. Day one and he already outed himself. Sort of. Bishop would’ve sent him to solitary for a week for that! He took a deep breath. He’d have to trust her word. He didn’t like that. He decided that he’d have to tell his brothers and just figure it out from there.He ate his lunch, less enthused about the lasagna now. <> The next class was Cake Decorating. Mikey regained his hype and went to slide in early to the class. He patted the lab table excitedly as Sunita came back and sat next to him.“I wonder where Kendra went…” she noted as the bell rung.There was one seat open now and Mikey stared at it, a nervous feeling in his gut. Everything about her behavior was giving him red flags. She hadn’t responded like a normal human after his display of power. She wasn’t super intimidated. Didn’t she say her father worked in tech weaponry? Oh man, maybe he really screwed up!The teacher, a plump woman with a matronly, hippie vibe came in and immediately encouraged them to make mistakes. After that, they could focus on perfection! He missed her name.She went through the basic piping tips, what they did and the neat tricks you could do with them. They each got a sheet of wax paper over a plate and set up their own bags of colored icing. Mikey went for the lemon-yellow. They had to draw lines and arcs with their chosen tips.Then they worked on buttercream florals. It was honestly helping him to relax. It was rather soothing to pump the icing into slightly imperfect yellow roses. But he saw what the teacher meant. His rose looked more real with imperfections than it did if it was perfect.Sunita was working with blue buttercream and she hummed along. “Hey, want to trade one?” she asked.“Aren’t they all the same plain vanilla flavor?” Mikey asked.“Well, yeah;” she shrugged, “but different colored roses mean different things in the language of flowers.”Mikey’s eyes widened, “Flowers can talk?”She giggled, “No, -well, maybe!?- I don’t know. But giving someone a certain flower comes with a message. Different colors of roses specifically have special meanings too. Yellow is friendship.” She pointed to his.Mikey grinned. Using a pallet knife to scoop one of his up, he set it carefully on her plate. “Then I give this to thee, dear friend!” he bowed his arms dramatically to her.She giggled, and did the same for him. “And I give you the gift of the blue rose! The flower of mystery!” she said with spooky finger waggles.They laughed together and used a fork to eat each other’s hard work, clinking them together to create a greenish smush on their not-yet-dry roses. It was pure sugary delight.“Want to trade phone numbers?” she asked, pulling out her cell.“Sure!” he pulled out his and they dialed theirs into each other’s phone.He noticed she didn’t have any contacts except for her father and a pizza place. Odd…“Hey, I know this place! Run of the Mill Pizza!” he beamed. “They’re great!”Sunita’s eyes sparkled with realization. “Wait, you know Run of the Mill?! That means that you’re-!” she looked around and pointed to her brooch furtively.Mikey nodded. He pulled his out from under his chef’s coat, then let it slip back in. “Yeah!” He tensed a bit, wondering how she’d react.She beamed, “Oh thank goodness! Its nice to know I’m not the only one here!”Mikey’s heart sighed in relief. “Me too! Do you wanna hang out tomorrow as uh, ourselves!?”“Sure! We can get pizza! My dad works there, so I’ll get us a discount!” she offered.“Awesome! I’ll text you the time.”Sunita’s eyebrows went up, “Oh, hold on! Hold still, real quick. You’ve got something there—” she reached over and ran her thumb up the side of his cheek, near his lip. She came back with a bit of blue frosting on her thumb. She licked it really quick and grinned. “Finders keepers!” she giggled.They got back to work, but Mikey kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye.Mikey felt butterflies in his stomach. He used to only feel that way before a mission, but when she just did that…he gulped. The butterflies felt kinda…nice. <> When class was over, so was the school day. Mikey left and found Eva in the parking lot. He hopped into the front seat and grinned.Eva leaned in, “Sooooo, how was your first day!?” she asked carefully, but excitedly as she saw his grin.“Um, nice. Real nice. There were a couple rough moments, but…I liked it.” he admitted, powering off his disguise for a moment.“Anything really good happen?” she focused on the positives.“Yeah!” He was full of nervous energy as he told her, shimmying his shoulders. “I got a date!”“WHAT?!” <> Up above them, a pair of yokai watched from the roof.“See, I told you it was one of them! Has to be!”“He does bear a striking resemblance to the littlest one. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s like, 40 times bigger now.”“Babies grow, Huginn! It’s been fifteen years, it checks out.” His friend rolled his beady eyes.Huginn and Muninn had been in Philly that morning stealing authentic cheese-steaks from unsuspecting customers and eating them on the roof when Muninn spotted Mikey hit his brooch before leaving with Eva.They decided to stay and check it out, watching him from the windows and from the vents in the school all day long just to make sure. The trick in the cafeteria nearly confirmed it!“Let’s get closer, so we can see where he’s going.” Muninn flew up and his bestie followed him and they swept down in a low arc to hide underneath the car, listening for clues. “WHAT do you mean you got a date!?” Eva asked, “You’re too young to date!”“I’m seventeen! Teens date all the time! And we’re just hanging out at Run of the Mill Pizza!”“I suppose, but are you ready-ready? Who is this person anyway?” Eva felt nervous for him. This was a little quick!“She’s a nice yokai girl! And…I guess, we…we just became friends, so maybe this is a friend date?! I don’t know!”Eva felt her blood pressure drop back to normal, “Oh, I see. So, it not necessarily romantic?”“I guess not.” His face fell a bit.She smiled kindly, “But… you want it to be?”He nodded.“Why’s that?”“I like her. She’s nice and pretty. And everyone else has a girlfriend or boyfriend and I don’t. I’m starting to feel left out!”It was true, Donnie and April had started dating in earnest over the last year. Secretly, Donnie already had a ring picked out, but he wanted to wait until he was sure she’d be comfortable with the idea of marrying him. They went out on crazy dates all the time, like river-rapid kayaking, spelunking, and bungee jumping. They were tooth-rottingly cute all the time.Raph and Cass had gotten together soon after as well. Apparently, Raph had a crazy dream where he realized how he felt about her and asked her to be his girlfriend. While Casey was uncomfortable with many expressions of love due to the love-bombing she endured in the Foot Cult, she agreed. They had certain rules to make sure they were both comfortable. But now they were thick as thieves, and did all kinds of mushy, couple stuff together. Heck, they were even going to brunch!Leo and Usagi were very comfortable together as well, but they kept PDA to minimum, preferring quiet nights in and cuddling at his place in the Hidden City. They both had so much intensity and action in their day jobs, they preferred it that way.But the three couples often went out together on triple dates. And they sometimes brought Mikey along, but he felt like a seventh wheel!Eva sighed, patting his shoulder; “Oh mijo, you don’t have to date just because everyone else is!”“But I want to! It seems really nice to have somebody to cuddle up with! To go places with! I still don’t have any friends! A girlfriend would be like a built-in friend!” he said sadly.“That’s not exactly how it works.” She chuckled, “Sometimes we have an urge to want closeness so badly that it feels romantic. Maybe just try to be her friend first, then we can sort out the romantic feelings from the platonic. Sound okay?” she asked.“I guess…” he was a bit downcast.“Its gonna be fine, you’ll see. So, wanna get some cheese-steaks while we’re here, before we head back to New York?” she cajoled.“Yeah, baby!” Mikey threw his arms up. Huginn and Muninn flew out from beneath the car as it took off.“We should tell the boss!”“Yeah! His greatest creations are alive!”“And we’ll know where to find them!”