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In Mikey’s defence, when he set out he didn’t mean to be seen. What happened just happened and if he’d had the benefit of hindsight he wouldn’t have made that mistake.
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Over the last few years, Mikey’s managed to forge a positive relationship with the guy who usually delivers them pizzas. Like, a real good relationship, if he does say so himself. Mikey knows his name is Woody, and Woody calls him Mikester, which definitely has to be a sign of just how close they are.
Apparently Woody drew short straws the first time a pizza was requested to be delivered to a sewer, which Mikey isn’t really offended by. He knows that for humans the request was weird. But over time, Woody’s taken the job gladly, and even if their conversations only last a few minutes Mikey enjoys claiming his deliveries.
So imagine Mikey’s surprise when he leaves from the specified manhole cover, late, and Woody is nowhere to be seen.
Being the impatient turtle that he is, Mikey lasts about two minutes standing awkwardly in front of the manhole cover before he gets sick of standing in the alleyway like an idiot. He’s just asking for a cop to yell at him at this point. So, he hesitantly peaks around the corner, and grins when he spots a person on a bike rushing in his direction, an impressive amount of pizzas balanced in one hand.
Grinning, Mikey steps fully into the light of the street, waving the man he’s able to identify as his alternate delivery guy down. He was really worried for a second there, but Woody’s probably sick or something, it’s not like Mikey’s ever gotten the guy’s number so he could ask.
Maybe he should’ve been a bit more careful.
The pizza guy (gal? Friend? He doesn’t judge) is the first to react, screeching their bike to a halt while still impressively not dropping the pizzas. Their eyes are blown wall, mouth opened in shock as they stare at Mikey. “Wh… what are you…”
Someone behind Mikey screams.
Mikey darts his head around to spot who he assumes to be a girl, wrapped up in a fancy dress and with an expensive looking purse hanging over her shoulder, staring at his giant form, eyes blown wide in full-on fear. Getting a look at Mikey’s face only causes her reaction to become worse, and she turns around and begins running off, even in her annoying-looking heels.
And the reactions like that continue.
For all Mikey knows, the scene could be way blown out of proportion in his head, but all he can hear is screaming and honking and running and the pizza friend is taking pictures of him and they’re not even the only one with their phone out and please why Mikey didn’t even do anything—
With a clatter from the inside of the alleyway, Raph suddenly jumps into the scene, landing in front of Mikey, blocking him from the view of the pizza friend and a few other bystanders. “Back the fuck off!” He yells, hands balled into tight fists. Mikey doesn’t need to see Raph’s other side to picture the way the sai strapped on his belt are probably glinting in the streetlight, Raph’s always been good at using the area around him to make himself seem more threatening.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mikey sees a mother holding her child close, rushing the two of them away from the scene. The mother sends a glance behind her, and Mikey can read the fear in her eyes even from across the street.
Raph suddenly ducks behind Mikey, grabbing the orange-loving turtle’s wrist as he moves. Mikey only gets a small glance at the pizza boxes left discarded on the ground, the delivery person frantically rushing away on their bike. Raph tugs him away from the scene, picking up speed before Mikey can even process.
Mikey tries to get his brother to turn around, to at least let him grab tonight’s pizzas. Unfortunately, Raph is not in the mood for listening. He runs faster than Mikey’s seen him run in ages, and every time Mikey manages to match his pace Raph only speeds up further, leaving Mikey stuck staggering behind. Having to dodge startled pedestrians certainly doesn’t help, and whichever ones Mikey is able to apologise to scream over him.
When he finally gets far enough, or finds a dark enough alleyway, Raph makes a sudden sharp turn, still yanking Mikey with him. Mikey stumbles as Raph finally releases his hold while Raph bends over to lift up a manhole cover.
“Raph—”
“In,” Raph growls.
Because Mikey sort of values all of his non-broken bones, he does as instructed, hopping down the barely big enough manhole cover and foregoing the ladder in favour of dropping right to the bottom. Raph’s only a few seconds behind, dragging the lid back overtop the tunnel before dropping down himself.
The sewer is dark, what with there being no sunlight to stream in, and there’s only so much city light that can make it through grates in the street. The darkness only serves to make Raph seem more threatening as he approaches.
Mikey thinks his brother should try out the normal mask style for a change. The red covering his head makes him look quite different from the other turtles, and red is a lot scarier to Mikey than green is. Or maybe just, like, in general, red is a pretty scary colour, because of like, blood and stuff.
“You’re lucky I was up there,” Raph says sharply. He uses the few inches he has over Mikey to his advantage, seeming to tower over his brother. “What if one of those humans had tried to hurt you?”
Excuse him, Mikey’s a trained ninja! The best those civilians could do was try.
“The Captain said that it’d be okay if we were seen,” Mikey dismisses. “Plus, they just weren’t used to me! If you’d given me a couple more seconds, I’m sure everyone around there would have warmed up to me.” Okay– uh, distraction time, and quick. The last thing Mikey needs is for Raph to drag him back to the lair with this argument still in progress, Dad would be furious! “What were you doing topside, anyways—”
“We’re giant turtles, Mike!” Raph yells, which like, that’s obvious, bro, do you need your head checked? “Humans ain’t just gonna accept us, and you should know that. Whatever the police Captain told us, she didn’t know shit. You got that?”
No, he doesn’t.
“Yep.”
Maybe he just had… unlucky company. A rare few who aren’t chill with mutants. Woody’s chill with him! The guy never even screamed, not once!
Raph looks up towards the boring ceiling and lets out a long sigh. “I’m gonna call Casey and have him pick up some pizza for us instead, ‘kay?”
Mikey nods.
“And be glad I’m not telling Leo that you went out on street level, aight?”
Mikey nods again. He begins fidgeting with his necklaces, the familiar clattering helping to centre his mind. He’s still a bit upset at Raph, because he definitely could have handled that situation by himself, but he is, sort of, seeing the few flaws in his logic.
Casey doesn’t like the Captain. Maybe that’s because she’s a liar, or just dumb. Who knows.
“And it won’t happen again?”
Probably. His brothers are idiots if they think that they can stop Mikey from trying to make friends with humans. He refuses to believe that humans are all bad, that all of them will judge him just for his appearance, when all over social media are people who hate on a minority who does that exact same thing.
“Sure,” Mikey responds, like a liar.