Chapter Text
Mikey does not believe he will ever fall or can fall. Even propped up on one hand, limbs splayed in the illusion of carefree carelessness, he is poised in perfect balance on a rolling platform suspended a hundred feet in the air.
They let him on stage when he hit thirteen, but it feels like he’s been practicing forever. He’s fifteen now. The crowds love him and he loves the crowd. Tonight though is just practice. It doesn’t really matter, while Mikey loves the attention, at the core of it he performs for himself. The only one who’s watching him from the audience seats is just Big Mama. Even from way high up there he can feel her eyes boring into him, scrutinizing his every move.
Big Mama’s been on a bit–tetchy–ever since Princess Azula took away their star acrobat. It was a private showing, no one but Big Mama, her assistant, Ty Lee and Princess Azula knows what went on in there. Mikey hopes Ty Lee is doing alright. He misses his Lee-Lee. He knows Raph does too.
The princess can be mean and she cheats when she thinks she’s losing. It’s been a long time though since he’s actually interacted with the Fire Nation Princess. Feels like forever ago, before he ran away to the circus with Raph and Ty Lee followed not so long after.
Even if Big Mama hinted that this dry run was to see if he could replace Ty Lee as the main acrobatic star–he’d give up the spotlight if it meant they could soar together through the air again, flying across empty space knowing he would be caught in a pair of warm trusted hands. To have the same adrenaline exhilaration of flight reflected on her face.
Carefully Mikey switches from palm to palm going through the rest of his act with the same careful methodology he’s performed for all his acts. He’s done this several hundred times before, he will do this several hundred times after.
He’s just started lowering his body into a plank when he hears a soft woosh from down below, the net is set on fire. Big Mama has her fist outstretched and her eyes trained at him.
Mikey trusts his body, more than just his body, there’s the gift of the universe, his ultimate razzmatazz and it never lets him down. It’s why he’s so at home in the air. Even if his heart starts hammering as the heat starts rising. He can almost feel his eyes watering from the heat of the flames as much as there’s sweat pouring from his temples. His body knows this routine by heart, by sinew and bone it memorized his own weight and the well worn routes of his own momentum.
He will not fall. He literally cannot fall.
In the corner of his eyes, he sees Leo and Donnie looking up at him terrified from the side entrance into the ring. On the opposite side Raph has been knocked and half buried into the ground by Big Mama’s assistant. No doubt his biggest brother probably tried to ‘rescue’ him once he saw the net set on fire.
But Raph doesn’t need to worry. He doesn’t need a rescue, he can do this. He’s done this a hundred thousand times before and will do this a hundred thousand times after net on fire or not! Mikey’s thoroughly convinced himself of this fact, besides he only has three more poses to run through before his routine is over and then–well every show no matter how good has to end.
He’s almost there.
That’s when Big Mama releases the animals.
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Leo acts first when he sees that Raph physically can’t.
“Donnie the water barrels!”
He doesn’t wait for a reply before turning heel and running. His twin is right beside him just as fast as he is, bolting to the Animal Tent. It’s got the largest supply of water on short notice the Platypus bear needs to drink a lot after all.
Leo bends the water inside the water barrel to make it roll faster. He knows Donnie’s smoothened the path before them, even as he joins in on pushing the barrel forward. Big Mama has been weird beyond her usual brand of weirdness. Everyone felt how things had been off lately since the Fire Princess took Ty Lee with her. She was snappier, testier, less tolerant of everything that didn’t fit standards. Spirits knew what those would be for the day–hour–minute.
It was why the four of them decided to watch Mikey’s practice. Why they run for the water barrels now, not trusting Big Mama to put the fire out herself.
They stop right at the edge of the ring, Donnie raises his staff to break off the faucet when Leo holds up a hand to stop him. His eyes train on to Mikey who’s still up there, holding on. It didn’t take more than a minute to roll the barrel and the little acrobat is still going strong.
Fighter that he is, Leo can see his sweat soaked face twisted in grim determination, tongue sticking out. They both know his routine by heart, him and Donnie, from having watched it so often.
Donnie clutches his Bo staff so tightly his knuckles have turned white. Thumb poised over the button to release the hidden knife. It’s still posed. No doubt his twin’s got it all in his head just how hard to hit how to make the biggest spray of water enough that Leo’s water bending can hopefully go unnoticed. Maybe they won’t need the water.
There’s three poses left before he takes his bow–then Big Mama will have no choice but to let him down.
She’s been antsy, acting off more than usual, ever since the Princess Fire Bitch herself came down and strutted around like she owned the place before taking Ty Lee with her. But surely she’s not desperate enough to kill off her replacement star.
That’s before he sees the Animal Tamer, her Assistant bring the animals out. The Porcupine Badger comes charging into the ring. Elephantboar instinctively shies away from the flames but Big Mama cracks her whip and forces the big animals and a flock of ostrich horses to run laps around the flaming net. Around Mikey who’s grim determination has started to crumble at the edges.
There’s too many animals in the way, they might not be able to put out the fire like this. Not without Leo giving himself away as a waterbender. Leo can see Donnie shrink into himself against the cacophony of animal noises but he’s still standing strong, eyes darting between the controlled rampage of the animals and the water faucet still trying to gauge how best to utilize it.
Leo shifts his attention back to Mikey who’s pulled himself into his last handstand–the flourish of the show always ends with him leaping off the balancing platform in a flip to stroll across the tightrope back to the safety of the beams.
And he does, even amidst fire and rampaging animals he does–lading solid as ever the rope barely dipping under his weight. There’s only a few feet separating him from safety, from getting down.
An ostrich horse barrels too close to the side of the Elephantboar. It decides then and there, its more angry than it is afraid of Big Mama’s assistant, hurling the offending animal with its trunk across the flames into the Porcupinebadger.
The animal’s oiled feathered pelt catches fire, burning almost as fast as the net did. Leo can hear Raph scream barely under the enraged roar of the porcupinebadger as it slams into the balance beam trying to scrape the ostrich horse off. And Mikey–
Mikey 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴
“𝘋𝘖𝘕𝘕𝘐𝘌!”
The bo staff comes down hard on the faucet, Leo bends the initial burst of water right into the porcupinebadger knocking it away from the balance beams–away from Raph who’s filthy, looking like he clawed himself out of the earth, and propelled by streams of fire at his feet. The firebender collides hard into Mikey, catching him. Both of them come down crashing into and through the burning net. Raph curled protectively around the smaller younger boy taking the brunt of the flames and the fall.
Leo knows Raph may be almost fire proof, and built like a bisonturtle, but it won’t save him or Mikey from being trampled underfoot by a horde of panicking animals.
Donnie knocks his hand against Leo, in a small circular motion, like lightning, like reading each other’s minds. The waterbender knows what exactly his twin is trying to do, together they churn the earth, slippery and sticky causing the animals to slide, fall and stay down.
Through the carnage, the remnants of the net, the fire dying out, and the animals twitching, braying in muddy misery and upset. Raph pulled himself and Mikey out of the wreckage. Both of them are filthy and worse for wear, but not bleeding nor move as if they have broken bones as far as Leo can see. Mikey has his arms around Raph’s neck, face peeking out from where it's tucked against Raph’s shoulder. The acrobat is cradled in a one armed protective hold. Raph is sooty and singed around the edges where he isn’t covered by mud.
His eyes meet Leo’s and he mouths a single word.
𝘙𝘶𝘯.
His eyes flick towards the stands, Leo’s own gaze following to where Big Mama is staring right at him, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.
She knows. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴.
Leo pulls Donnie hard by the wrist, pulling both of them into a sprint.
They couldn’t 𝘯𝘰𝘵 help Mikey especially when it was very clear that Big Mama was going to 𝘭𝘦𝘵 him fall. Leo thinks he saw the Assistant get kicked by one of the panicking Ostrichhorses but he doesn’t care. She took down Raph. She let Mikey fall.
Though it hurts, it hurts something awful, tearing him up into shreds on the inside, that this is how they say goodbye. This is how they will never see each other again. Only bad things can happen to a waterbender in the midst of a Fire Nation colony.
No one knows where they carted off all the earthbenders. Everyone knows what happened to the airbenders.
The pair of them are almost, almost at the edge of the circus’ camp when Leo feels a sting in his leg and crumples to the ground.
Donnie’s momentum carries him a few steps forward before he realizes Leo isn’t in the lead anymore and turns around. The waterbender wants to yell at him to leave, to run, but his vision is already going blurry. The last thing he sees is Donnie’s panicked face, his twin reaching for him before he too is falling on his knees.
He thinks their fingers just barely brush against each other when it all goes dark.